Christian can I spare all these tedious troublesom employments these complements these applauses this sumptuous provision and retinue and all this stir that they make in the world How easily can I spare their Titles and Obeysances When I look up at them as on the pinacâ—e of a steeple I bless my self that I am below them on saâ—er ground I have more leisure to converse with God in my solitude then they have in a crowd Rejoyce that you neither need nor desire such a sâ—ate but find Christ enough for you in a lower condition and nothing without him enough in the highest That you are above these empty childish honours when those that possess them may be enslaved under them That you have the dignity of a Son of God a Member of Christ and an Heir of Heaven and have an heart that can contentedly let other men take the dignities of the earth It s more to have the world and the Kingdoms and glory of it under your feet by the Spiritual advancement of your souls then to be the Monarch of the world 2. Have you abundance of earthly Riches and provision for your flesh So that you want nothing but have the world at will Glory not in it as the least part of your felicity This will not keep your souls in your bodies nor take away their guilt nor open to you the gates of heaven You may want a drop of water in Hell for all your riches on earth If you scape that danger no thanks to your riches If ever you get to heaven you must be beholden to Christ to save you from your riches And when all 's done you will have a harder journey and a greater load to burden you then others and will be saved with very much ado Glory not then in these but rather glory that you have a taste of higher and sweeter things which take off your minds and make you look on these as chips To have an heart that cares not for wealth or honours but can rejoyce in poverty and daily reproaches is a thousand times greater mercy then to have all the wealth and honour of the world 3. Have you convenient habitations for buildings and rooms and walks and lands and neighbourhood Glory not in them as any of your felicity They are baits to tice your hearts from God But rather rejoyce that you have a building not made with hands eternall in the heavens and that you can be contented till you come thither with any thing in the way and make shift with inconveniences for a little while Heaven wants no furniture nor hath any encumbrances nor inconveniences If a winding sheet and Coffin be room enough when we are dead we can endure sure to be somewhat straitened while we are alive seeing we are dead to the world while we live in it O what is the most sumptuous Palace to the meanest room in our Fathers house The green and flourishing earth in Summer covered with the more glorious spangled Firmament is a goodly structure but far short of that which the poorest Saint shall have with God 4. Have you comelyness of body have you beauty or strength Glory not in it It is but warm well coloured earth The pox or other sickness can quickly turn your beauty to deformity If age do not wrinkle it death will dissolve it The comelyest and strongest body will shortly be as homely and loathsom a thing as the dirt in the streets and as the carry on in a ditch The stoutest youth and the neatest dâ—mes must come to this there 's no remedy And is such a body a thing to be Gloried in No but glory rather in your assurance of a Resurrection when your mortalâ— bodies shall put on immortality and your corruptible incorruption and and death shall be swallowed up in victory and when you shall shine as Stars in the Firmament of your Father and be subject to heat and cold hunger and thirst and weariness no more And that in the meanâ—time you can tame this flesh and use it as a servant and instead of caring for its inordinate provision can lay out your care for a more during substance 5. Have you comely apparel for the adorning of your bodies Glory not in it This is so childish that it s below a man and therefore so sinâ—ull as to be unbeseeming a Christian The emptyest person may have the best attire It is not your out-side that shews your worth The Philosopher asks the Question Why women are more addicted to look after neat attire then men and he answereth Because nature is conscious of their want of inward worth it seeks to make it up with somewhat that is borrowed It may make a man suspect that somewhat is amiss within when there needs all this ado without They are not alway the best horses that have the neatest trappings A fool may be as bravely drest as a wise man and few but fools and children do admire you or think you ever the better but many an one will envy you and many take you to be the worse A graceless soul will be but sorrily covered with neat attire And whatever you hang without we all know that there 's dung and filth within Pauls shop hath comlyer Ornaments then these 1 Tim. 2. 9. Let women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefastness and sobriety not with broidered hair or gold or pearls or costly array but which becometh women professing godliness with good works learning in silence with all subjection Glory in the whole rayment of the Saints even the righteousness of Christ lest when you go naked out of the world as you come naked in your souls should be found naked before an holy jealous God 6. Have you health of body and feel no sickness Glory not in it It will last you but a while Your oyl will be spent ere long and your candle will go out You must know what pains and death are as well as others A little cold or heat or a thousand accidents may quickly change the case with you Many that were young and lusty go to their graves when some that were more likely to have gone before them are left behind But first or last we must all away Rather glory in a healthfull frame of soul that Christ hath cured you of your worldliness and pride of your self-seeking and passion and fleshly lusts For this will be a more durable health then the other 7. Have you Nobility of birth are you descended of worshipfull or honourable Ancestors Glory not in it We are all made of one common earth There is as good blood in the veins of a beggar as of a Lord. This is but a remnant of your Ancestors honour Perhaps the favour of some great men might bestow it on them at first without desert Or it might be the Consequent of a little riches though ill got However the merit descendeth not to you and therefore its little honour that comes
14. 12. So is it said of our conquest In all these things we are supervictors or more then Conquerors through him that hath loved us Rom. 8. 37. 2. Another wound that the world hath received by the Cross of Christ by him suffered is this By it satisfaction is made to God for the sin that the world had enticed man to commit and so quoad pretium the victory which the world had formerly obtained over us is nulled and its Captives rescued and we are cured of the deadly wounds which it had given us For he healeth all our diseases Psal. 103. 3. and his stripes are the remedy by which we are healed Isa. 53 5. So that it is a vanquishing of the world when Christ doth thus nullisie its former victories For thus he began to lead captivity it self captive which at his Resurrection and Ascension he did more fully accomplish Psalm 68. 18. Eph. 4. 8. 3. Another most mortal wound which the world received by the Cross of Christ was this By his Cross did Christ purchase that Glorious Kingdom which being revealed and propounded to the sons of men doth abundantly disgrace the world as a Competitor If there had been no greater good revealed to us or the revelation had been obscure and insufficient or no Assurance of it given us then might the world have easily prevailed For he that hath no hopes of greater will take up with this And he that looketh not for another life will make as much of the present as he can When the will of a man is the fort that is contended for the assault must be made by Allurement and not by force The competition therefore is between Good and Good and that which appeareth the Greater Good to us will carry it and have admittance If God had not set a Greater Good against the world it would have been every mans wisdom and duty to have been worldlings But when he revealeth to us another world of infinite value yea when he offereth us the fruition of himself this turneth the scales with wise men in a moment and shameth all competitors whatsoever Now it is the Cross of Christ that opened the Kingdom of heaven to all true Believers which sin had before shut up against all mankind This marrs the markets of the world It s nothing worth to them that have tasted of the blessedness of this Kingdom Were it not for this the temptations of the world and flesh might prevail What should we say to them or how should we repulse them Reason would say It s better have a small and unsatisfactory Good then none But now we have enough to say against any such temptation One argument from the everlasting Kingdom is sufficient where grace causeth a right apprehension of it to confound all the temptations by which the enemies of our happiness can assault us What I Shall we prefer a mole-hill before a Kingdom a shadow before the substance an hour before eternity Nothing before all things Vanity and Vexation before Felicity The world is now silenced It hath nothing to say which may take with right Reason It must now creep in at the back door of sense and bribe our bruitish part to befriend it and to entertain it first and so to betray our reason and lead it into the inner rooms The Cross of Christ hath set up such a Sun as quite darkeneth the light of worldly glory Who will now play so low a game that hath an Immortal Crown propounded to him Though earth were Something if there were no better to be had yet it is Nothing when Heaven stands by This therefore is the deadly blow by which the world is Crucified by the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. 4. Another mortall wound that the Cross of Christ hath given it is this The Cross hath purchased for us that Spirit of Power and all those Ordinances and Helps of Grace by which we our selves in our own persons may Actually Conquer and Crucifie the world as Christ did before us His Cross is the meritorious cause of his following Grace And as he hath there procured our Justification so also our Sanctification by which the world is renounced by us and contemned There shall a vertue flow from the Cross of Christ that shall give strength to all his chosen ones to go on and conquer and tread the world and all its glory under their feet and by the leaves of this Tree which seemeth dead to a carnal eye the Nations shall be healed And thus by it the world is Crucified 5. Lastly by the Cross of Christ a Pattern is given us for our Imitation by which we may learn how to contemn and so Crucifie the world If when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently this is accceptable with God For even hereunto were ye called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously 1 Pet. 2. 20 21 22 23. Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Iesus that made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and humbled himself and became obedient to death even the death of the Cross Phil. 2. 5 6 7. Let us therefore lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us looking to Iesus 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 God Heb. 12. 2. This leads us to the next 2. HAving shewed you how the Cross as suffered by Christ doth crucifie the world we are next to shew you how that same Cross as Believed in and considered doth Crucisie it to us They that look only to the Merit of the Cross and over-look the Objective use of it to the soul do deceive themselves and deprive themselves of the full efficacy of it and deal like a foolish patient that thinketh to be cured by commending the Medicine or by believing that it hath vertue to cure his disease when in the mean time he lets it lie by him in the box and never taketh it or applyeth it to himself The Believing Meditation of the Cross of Christ doth give the world these deadly wounds 1. It bringeth us under the actual promise of the Spirit For though there be a work of the Spirit which causeth us to Believe before our actual faith in nature yet the further gift of the Spirit for Mortification is promised upon Condition of our faith And upon the performance of that Condition we have right to the thing promised It is by faith that we fetch strength from Christ for the conquest of this and all other
Sanctity and to true Christianity it self They confess they should be all contemners of the world but God forbid say they that none but such should be saved But I tell you God hath forbidden already by his Laws and God will forbid hereafter by his sentence and execution that any other but such should be saved Do you think in good sadness that any man can be saved that is not truly dead to the world and doth not despise it in comparison of God and the great things of Everlasting Life Let me satisfie you of the contrary here once for all and I pray you see that your flesh provoke you not to mutter forth such unreasonable self-delusions any more 1 Ioh. 2. 15. Love not the world neither the things that are in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him what can be spoken more plainly or to a worldly minded man more terribly 1 Ioh. 5. 4. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith Jam. 4. 4. Know ye not that the Friendship of the world is enmity with God Whoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God Will not all this serve to convince you of this truth Rom. 8. 5 6 7 13. For they that are after the flesh do minde the things of the flesh but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit For to be carnally minded is death but to be spirituall â—â—nded is life and peace Because the carnal minde is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Joh. 3. 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Gal. 5. 16 17. 6. 8. Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting Col. 3. 1 2 3. If ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God Set your affection on things above and not on things on the earth For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in glory Mortifie therefore your members which are upon the earth Matth. 6. 19 20 21 24. Lay not up for your selves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal but lay up for your selves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal for where your treasure is there will your heart be also No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the ore and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other Ye cannot serve God and Mammon Matth. 10. 38 39. He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me He that findeth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for my sake shall finde it Mat. 16. 24. If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me Luk. 14. 26 27. If any man come to me and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my disciple And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple Verse 33. Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath he cannot be my disciple Heb. 11. 13 14 15. and to the end But I will cite no more Here is enough to convince you or condemn you If any thing at all be plain in Scripture this is plain that every true Christian is dead to the world and looks on the world as a crucified thing and that God and the life of glory which he hath promised have the Ruling and chiefest interest in their souls Believe it Sirs this is not a work of supererrogation nor such as only tendeth to the perfecting of a Christian but such as is of the essence of Christianity and without which there is not the least hope of salvation SECT XIV Use 2. BY all that hath been said you may perceive what it is to be a Christian indeed and that true Christianity doth set men at a further distance from the world then carnal self-deceiving Professors do imagine You see that God and the world are enemies not God and the world as his Creature but as his Competitor for your hearts and as the seducer of your understandings and the opposer of his interest and the fuel and food of a fleshly minde and that which would pretend to a Being or Goodness separated from God or to be desirable for it self having laid by the relation of a means to God To be a Friend to the world in any of these respects is to be an enemy to God And God will not save his enemies while enemies An enmity to God is an enmity to our salvation for our salvation is in him alone If then you have but awakened consciences if the true love of your selves be stirring in you and if you have but the free use of common reason I dare say you do by this time perceive that it closely concerneth you presently to look about you and to try whether you are crucified to the world or not Seeing my present business is for the securing of your Everlasting Peace and the healing of your souls of that which would deprive you of it let me intreate you all in the fear of God to give me your assistance and to go along with me in the work for what can a Preacher do for you if you will do nothing for your selves How can we convert or heal or save you without you I do foresee your appearance before the Lord a jealous God that will not endure that any Creature should be sweeter and more amiable to you then himself I do foresee the condemnation that all such must undergo and the remediless certain misery that they are 〈◊〉 know there is no way that the wit of man or Angels can devise to prevent the damnation of such a soul but by Crucifying the flesh and world by the Cross of Christ and dethroning these Idols and submitting sincerely to God their Happiness This cannot be done while you are strangers to your selves and will not look into your own hearts and see what abominable work is there that you may
be for Earth or Heaven 〈◊〉 this and you may resolve the case A worldling may speak contemptuously of the world and speak most honourably of God and the Life to come But speculative knowledge and practical are frequently contradictory in the same man Still it is this world that hath his chief Intentions and is the End of his designs and life and the world to come is regarded but as a reserve because of their unavoidable separation from this world The main End of every upright Christian is to please and enjoy God and the main End of all the rest of the world is how to Please their carnal minds in the enjoyment of some earthly things If you could but discern which of these is your chiefest End you might discern whether it be Christ or the world that Liveth in you For Christ liveth in you when he is your End and the world Liveth in you when it is your End But because some are such strangers to themselves that they do not know their own Ends the rest of the signs shall be for the discovery of the former that you may discern whether the world or God be your ultimate End 1. That which is your Principal End is highlyest esteemed by your Practicall judgement Not only by the speculative but by that which moveth and disposeth of the man Is God or the world Heaven or earth thus highlyest esteemed by you Let your Practise shew it 2. It is your Principal End that hath the Principal Interest in you That can do most with you and prevail most in a contest Can God or the world do more with you Which of them doth prevail when an opposition doth arise I speak not of God in his efficiency for so I know he can do what his list and will do it whether you will or no and will not ask your consent to do it But its God as your End that I now speak of as he worketh Morally by your own consent and upon your wills Honours and Profits and Pleasures are before you and these would draw you to something that he forbids And God and Glory are propounded to you to take you off turn your hearts another way which of these can do more with you which is it that can nullifie the perswasions of the other 3. It is your Principal End that hath the principal ruling and disposal of your whole life â—…do purposely conâ—rive the maâ—… part of your life in order to it If you are indeed Christians and God be your End the main drift of your Life is a contrived Means for the obtaining of that End that is to Please God and to enjoy him in everlasting glory If you were such as you should be you should have no other End at all nor should you ever do one work or receive or use one creature or speak one word or behold one object but as a means to God intendâ—ng the pleasing and enjoying him in all As a traveller should not go one step of his journey but in order to his End But while we are Imperfect in our Love and other graces this will not be But yet the main bent and drift of our Lives must needs be for God and the Life to come and thus it is with every true Believer and you are none if it be not thus with you I say it again left you should slightly pass it over though you may through infirmity sometimes step out of the way yet if God be your End and Happiness that is if he be your God and you be Christians the main scope and bent and drift of your lives is for to please God and enjoy him in glory But if the main scope and drift of your life be for the flesh and the world and God and Religion comes in but upon the by you are then no better then unsanctified worldlings Though you may do much in Religion and be zealous about it and seem the devoutest and most resolved professors in all the Countrey where you live yet if all this be but in subordination to the flesh and the world or if co-ordinate it have the smaller Interest in your hearts and when you have done or suffered most for Christ you will do and suffer more for the flesh and world you are carnal wretches and no true Christians O that you would let conscience do its office and Judge you as we go along according to Evidence It is not by one or two Actions that you can judge of your estate but by the main scope and bent and drift of your life What is your very heart set upon What is your care and your chief contrivances Are they for Heaven or Earth Speak out and take the comfort of your sincerity if you are Christians and if you are not know it while there is remedy and do not wilfully deceive your selves Have you been so far illuminated by the Word and Spirit as to see the Amiableness of the Lord by faith and have you so firm a Belief of the Everlasting Glory where we shall see his face immediately or more nearly and praise him among his Angels for ever I say have you so firm a 〈◊〉 of this that you are unfeignedly resolved upon it as your Happiness that you take it for your Portion and there have laid up your Hopes Can you truly say that God hath more of your Heart then all the world and Heaven is dearer to your thoughts then earth Can you say that whatever you are tempted to on the by that the main care design and bent of your life is for God and the Glory to come and that this is your daily Work and Business If so you are Christians indeed you have Crucified the world by the Cross of Christ The world is dead and down where God raigneth and is exalted and no where else But if all this be clean contrary with you and if the flesh and the world have the prevalent Interest and these cut out your work and form your thoughts and choose your imployments if these choose the calling that you live upon and the manner of managing it and your very Religion or set limits to it if it be these that rule your tongue and hands and they can make a cause seem good or bad to youâ— and that seemeth best which most conduceth to your fleshly worldly interests and that seemeth worst which destroyeth it or is against it if God be loved and worshipped but as a Necessary Mâ—ans to your carnal Happiness or if he have but the second place in your hearts and the leavings of the flesh and world be they never so much and if your Religion and Endeavours for salvation for pleasing God and for the invisible Glory be but on the by and the flesh and the world hath the main scope and bent and drift of your life flatter not your selves then most certainly you are but carnal wretches and drudges of the world and slaves to him that
with that which should be your food you turn your daily blessings to your bane by dropping your Poyson into the cup of Mercies which bountiful providence putteth into your hands There is not a surer way in the world to undo you then by Turning to the creature and forsaking God You cry for more of the world and you are unsatisfied till you have it and when you have it you do but destroy your souls with it by giving it your hearts which must be given only unto God What a stir do men make for temptation and destruction What cost and pains are men at to purchase them an Idol and to make provision for the flesh to satisfie its desires when they confess it to be the greatest enemy of their souls Like a man that would give all that he hath for a coal of fire to put into the thatch even such is your desires after the world and the use you make of it 8. What abundance of precious time and labour do you lose which might and should be better spent Doth not this world take up the most of your care and strength and time You are about it early and late It is first and last and almost alwaies in your thoughts It findeth you so much to do that you have scarce any time so much as to mind the God that made you or to seek to escape the everlasting misery which is near at hand It hath taken up so much of your hearts that when God should have them in any holy duty or service for his Church you are heartless When you shall see your accounts cast up to your hands as shortly you shall see it though you will not now be perswaded to do it your selves and when you shall there see how many thoughts the world had in comparison of God and how many hours were laid out upon the world when Gods service was cast by for want of time and how near the creature was to your heart while God as a stranger stood at the door And in a word how the world was your daily business while the matters of God stept in but now and then upon the by you will then confess that you laboured in vain and that your life and labour should have been better employed Hath God given you but a short uncertain life and laid your everlasting life upon it and will you cast all away upon these transitory delights How short a time have you for so great a work and shall the world have all Oh that you did but know to how much greater advantage you might have spent this time and labour in seeking God and an endless Glory One thing is needful make sure of that and waste not the rest of your daies in vanity What wise man would spend so precious a thing as Time is upon that which he knows will leave him in Repentings that ever it was so spent The world doth rob poor sinners of their time but when they see it is gone and they would fain have a little of that time again to make preparation for their everlasting state it is not all the world then that can bring them back one hour of it again Certainly such a loss of time and labour is no small aggravation of a worldlings sin 9. You are also guilty of the high contempt of the Kingdom of Glory while you prefer these transitory things before it Your hearts and lives speak that which you are ashamed to speak with your tongues You are ashamed to say that Earth is better for you then Heaven or that your sin is better for you then the favour of God but your lives speak it out If you think not your present condition better for you then heaven why do you choose and prefer it and why do you more carefully and laboriously seek the things of earth then the Heavenly Glory If your child would sell his inheritance for a cup of Ale you would think he set light by it And if he would part with father and mother for the company of a beggar or a thief you would say he had no great love to you And if you will venture your part in heaven for the pleasures of sin and will part with God for the matters of this world would you have him think that you set much by his Kingdom or his love O the unreasonableness of sin the madness of worldly fleshly men Is it indeed more desirable to prosper in their shops their fields and their pleasures for a few daies or years then everlastingly to live in the presence of the Lord Shall Christ purchase a Kingdom at the price of his blood and offer it us freely and shall we prefer the life of a bruit before it Shall God offer to advance so mean a creature to an heavenly station among his Angels and shall we choose rather to wallow in the dung of our Transgressions Take heed lest as you are guilty of Esau's folly you also meet with Esau's misery and the time should come that you shall find no place for Repentance that is for Recovery by Repentance though you seek it with tears Contempt of kindness is a provoking thing For it is the height of ingratitude And especially when it is the greatest kindness that is contemned As it will be the everlasting imployment of the Saints to enjoy that felicity and to admire and praise that infinite Love which caused them to enjoy it So will it be the everlasting misery of the damned to be deprived of that felicity and to think of their solly in the unthankful contempt of it and of the excellency of that Kingdom which thus they did contemn God sets before you Earth and Heaven If you choose earth expect no more And hereafter Remember that you had your choice 10. To make short of the rest of the aggravation of your sin and sum it up in a word Your Love of the world is the sum of all iniquity It virtually or actually containeth in it the breach of every command in the Decalogue The first Commandment which is the foundation of the Law and especially of the first Table is broken by it while you make it your Idol and give it the Esteem and Love and Service that is due to God The second third and fourth Commandments it disposeth you to break While your hearts and ends are carnal and worldly the manner of your service will be so and you will suit your Religion to the will of men and your carnal Interest and not to the will and word of God The name and holy nature of God is habitually contemned by you while you more set by your worldly matters then by him His holy daies you ordinarily violate and his Ordinances you do hypocritically abuse while your hearts are upon your covetousness or sensual delights and are far from him while you draw near him with your lips Worldlinys will make you even break the bonds of natural obligations and be
and to proceed and persevere in an enmity to the world and a Believing Crucifixion of it if you will be saved from it and restore it to its proper use and captivate it that captivateth so many As some help hereunto I crave your Perusal of this Treatise And that it may do you good and the many Blessings promised to the charitable may rest upon you and on your Yoak-fellow that hath learned this Crucifying of the world and upon your posterity shall be the prayers of Feb. 20. 165â— â— Your fellow soldiour against the flesh and world Rich. Baxter The Preface To the Nobilty and Gentry and all that have the Riches of this world Honourable Worshipfull c. HAving written here of a subject that nearly concerneth you I have thought it my duty to give you a place and according to your Dignity the first place in the Application of it Of which I shall first tender you my Reasons and then set before you the matter of this address 1. You are among us the most eminent and honoured persons and therefore not to be neglected and past by you are first and therefore should first be served You hold your selves most worthy of any temporal honour that 's to be had and therefore I shall honour you so much more as to judge you fit to be first spoken to by the Ministers of Christ in a case that doth much more concern you As you have and would have the precedency in worldly matters here also you shall have the precedency Its pitty that you shall be first in Hell that are first in a Christian State on earth or that you should be least in the Kingdom of Heaven that are Greatest in that which is esteemed in the world 2. You are Pillars in the Common-wealth and the stakes that bear up the rest of the hedge Your influence is great in lower bodies You sin not to your selves only nor are you Gracious only to your selves The spots in the Moon are seen by more and its Ecclipses felt by more then the blemishes or changes of many of us inferiour wights You are our first figures that stand for more in matters of publick concernment then all that follow You are the Copies that the rest write after and they are more prone to Copy out your vices then your graces You are the first sheets in the Press you are the Stewards of God who are entrusted with his talents for the use of many You are the noble members of the Body Politick whose health or sickness is communicated to the rest If you be ungodly the whole body languisheth If you live and prosper it will go the better with us all For your Wisdom and Holiness and Iustice will be operative and your station alloweth them great advantage to work upon many and to emulate a kind of universal Causality Interest is the worlds byas and all Power hath respect to use You that have possession of the Treasure that is so commonly and highly esteemed may do much to lead the sensual world by it which way you please Be it better or be it worse they will follow him that bears the purse If money can do wonders you may do wonders As money can perswade the blind to part with God and life everlasting and to renounce Religion and Reason it self so no doubt but it might do something were it faithfully used though not directly to sanctifie the heart yet somewhat to incline it to the means by which it may be sanctified You that have Power to Help or Hurt to make it Summer or Winter to your subjects and to promote or cross the interest of the flesh are hereby become a kind of Gods in the eyes of them that mind this Interest as in higher respects you are unto Believers Especially seeing they want that eye of faith by which they should know the Soveraign Majesty who at his pleasure doth dispose both of you and them these purblind sinners can reach no further but are contented to be Ruled by you as terrestrial Deities They see you but they see not God they know you and perceive the effects of your favour and displeasure but being dead to God and savouring only fleshly things they scarce observe his smiles or frowns They see that which is visible to the eye which they have the use of but the Objects of faith are to them as Nothing because they have no eye to see them And seeing you have such publick interest and influence it is our duty first to look after your souls and to see that you receive the heavenly impress 3. To which I may add that no men have usually more need of advice and help then you For your temptations are the strongest The world killeth by its flatteries It is not the having it but the Loving it that undoes men And he is much liker to over-love it that hath what he would have and liveth in plentiful provisions for his flesh then he that hath nothing from it but trouble and vexation It is not poverty and prisons and sickness that are the flattering pandors of the world but prosperity and content to the flesh Though I know that many of the poor do most of all over-value the world because they never tryed so much of its vanity but standing at a distance from prosperity do think it a greater felicity then it is For those are most in Love with the world that least know it as those that least know him are least in Love with God and eternal glory But yet it is pleasing and not displeasing flattering rather then buffeting that is the means of deceiving filly souls and stealing their hearts from God to the world Your mountains lie open to stronger winds then our vallies do And your gulfs and greater streams are not so foordable as our more shallow waters He never studyed God and Heaven nor his own heart that knoweth not that it is a very difficult thing to have an heavenly mind in earthly prosperity and to live in the desires of another world while we feel all seem to go well with us in this How hard to be weaned from the world till we suffer in it yea till we are plunged into an utter despair of ever receiving here the satisfaction of our desires 4. And truly we have too much sad experience of the sensuality and ungodliness of most of the Rich to suffer us to think that you have least need of our admonitions Which leadeth me up to the Matter of my Address which is first to complain of you to your selves and then to Admonish you and lastly to Direct you 1. I know I speak to those for the most part that profess to believe a Life to come but O that you had the honesty to live as you do profess You durst not put it into your Creed that you believe that earth is more desirable then Heaven and that its better seek first after Carnal prosperity and delight then for
to give up your selves to pleasures and recreations and you think that you may do with your own as you list as if it had been given you to gratifie the flesh The words that converted Austin never suâ—k yet into your hearts Rom. 13. 13 14. Let us walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof You never felt the meaning of those words Rom. 8. 13. If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if by the Spirit ye mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live But to turn my Complaint into an Admonition I beseech you consider what you are and what you do 1. How unlike are you to Iesus Christ your pattern that denyed himself all the Honours and Riches and Carnal delights of the world Read over his Life and Read your own and judge whether any man on earth be more unlike to Christ then a voluptuous worldly Gentleman Especially if Malignity be added to his sensuality 2. How unlike are you to the holy Laws of Christ. Are his precepts of Mortification and Self-denyal imprinted in your hearts and predominant in your lives Is a beast any more unlike a man then your hearts and lives are unlike Christs Laws 3. How unlike are you to the Antient Christians that forsook all and followed Christ and lived in a Community of Charity And how unlike to every gracious soul that is dead to the world and hath mortified his members upon earth and hath his conversation in another world Are you not such as Paul wept over Phil. 3. 18. Whose God is their belly who glory in their shame and who mind earthly things and that are enemies to the Cross of Christ. though perhaps you are no enemies to his Name Believe it Gentlemen whatever your thoughts of your selves may be you will find that no Religion will save you that stoopeth to the world and is but an underling to your fleshly interest 4. How unlike are you to your Profession and your Covenant with God and to your Confessions and Prayers to him Did you not renounce the flesh the world and the Devil in your Baptism Do you not still Profess that heaven is best and God is to be preferred and yet will you not do it but let your own Professions condemn you Do you not ordinarily confess that the world is vain and yet will you shew your selves such Dissemblers as to love and seek it more then God As if there were no more Power in the Spirit of Christianity then in the Opinion of Zeno the Philosopher who having oft said that Poverty and Riches were neitheâ— good nor bad but things indifferent was yet dismaye when he heard that his farms were seized on by the enemies the Prince having sent one with the report to try him telling him when he had done that Now Riches and Poverty were not things indifferent How oft have you prayed to be saved from Temptation and yet will you still date upon your snares and fetters and shew your selves such hypocrites as to love the temptations which you pray against 5. You are guilty of a double injury to God in that you are obliged to him as his Created subjects and yet more obliged by your Riches and Honours which he hath given you for your Masters use To whom men give much from them will they expect the more Luke 12. 48. For a servant that hath double wages to abuse you for a friend that hath received double kindness to prove false to you for a Commander in the Army to betray his General is sure an aggravation of the crime Must God advance you highest and will you thrust him lowest in your heart Must he feed you with the best and cloath you with the best and will you put him off with the worst Have you ten times or an hundred times more wealth from him then many an honest heavenly Believer and yet will you Love and Serve him less 6. Is it not pitty and shame that you should thus turn Mercies themselves into sin and draw your bane from that which might have been a blessing Will you be the worse because God is so good to you Must he give you health and time for his service and give you such plentiful provision and assistance and will you be worse in health then others are in sickness and worse in Plenty then others are in want Is not this the way to dry up the streams of Mercy when the more you have the worse you are 7. You exceedingly wrong the Church and Common-wealth For it is for the publick good that you are advanced and you should be a blessing to the Land And will you cast away that time and wealth upon the flesh which you have received for such noble ends Rob not the Church and Common wealth of what you owe it by engrossing it to your selves or consuming it on your lusts 8. Great men have a great account to make You shall shortly hear Give account of thy Steward-ship for thou shalt be no longer Stewarâ— If God have entrusted you you with a thousand pound a year it is not the same reckoning that must serve your turn as would serve his turn that had but an hundred Your improvement must be somewhat answerable to your receivings Do you need to be told how sad a reckoning it will then be to say Lord I imployed most of it in maintaining the Pomp and Pleasure of my self and family even that Pomp of the world and those sinful lusts of the flesh which in my Baptism I forswore and the rest I left to my children to maintain them in the same pomp and pleasure except a few scraps of my Revenews which I gave to the Church or poor 9. Your wealth and greatness do afford you great opportunities to do good and to further the salvation of your selves and others and worldliness and sensuality will rob you of these opportunities O how many good works might you have done to the honour of your Lord and the benefit of others and your selves if you had made the best of your Interest and Estates The loss of the Reward will shortly appear to you a greater loss then that which you now account the loss of your estates 10. Your worldliness and sensuality is a sin against your own experience and the experience of all the world You have long tryed the world and what hath it done for you that you should so over-value it You know that it is the common vote of all that ever tryed it sooner or later that it is vanity and vexation And have you not the wit or grace to learn from so plain a teacher as Experience yea your own experience yea and all the worlds experience 11. You sin also against your very Reason it self and against your certain knowledge You
not yet gasping under the pangs of death nor laid in the dust as still as stones You see their beauty and glittering attire but you see not the pale and ghastly face that death will give them nor the skulls that are stript of all those ornaments you smell their perfumes but you smell not their putrefaction you see their lands and spacious houses and sumptuous furniture but you see not how narrow a room will serve them in the grave nor how little there they differ from the most contemptible of men Nay more you see them with Ahab going forth to battle and leaving the Prophets with the bread and water of affliction but you see them not yet returning with the mortal blow you see them in their honours and abundance but see them not on Christs left hand in judgement you see them cloathed richly and faâ—ing deliciously every day but you see them not in bell torments wishing in vain for a drop of water to abate their flames you hear them honoured and hear their words of pride and ostentation but you hear them not yet crying out of their folly and bewailing their loss of present time and lamenting in vain the unhappy choice that now they make Sirs believe it future things are as sure as present These things are no fables because they are not visible yet You see not God and yet he is the Principal Intelligible object you see not your own Intellectual souls and yet you know you have them by the Intellection of other things You see not your own eye-sight and yet you know that an eye-sight you have by the seeing of other things If there were not an Invisible God there would have been no visible creatures Visibles are more vile and are for I visibles that are more noble Our visible Bodies are for our Invisible Souls This visible life is the womb of everlasting life that is Invisible we are hatched by the Spirit in this shell till we are ready to pass forth into that glorious light that here we see not I beseech you Gentlemen awake and be not so lamentably deceived as to think that your honourable Pleasant Dreams are the only Realities O no! it is the last awaking hour that will shew you the now unconceivable Realities You are now but as in jest in your pomp and pleasure but you shall then be in good sadness in your pains and loss if Sanctifying Grace do not prevent it by putting you out of your feasting vein and making you in good sadness to be men of Real Faith and Holiness and lay about you for the Real Ioies Believe it Sirs the life of Christianity is not a bare Opinion It is a living by faith upon a life invisible and so serious resolving a Belief of the Truth of the everlasting blessedness as purchased and given bâ— Iesus Christ to persevering Saints as effectually turneth the affections and endeavours of the man to the Loving and seeking it above all this world It s one thing to take God and heaven for your portion as Believers do and another thing to be desirous of it as a reservè when you can keep the world no longer It s one thing to submit to Heaven as a Lesser evil then hell and another thing to desire it as a greater Good then earth It s one thing to lay up your Treasure and Hopes in heaven and to seek it first and another thing to be contented with it in your Necessity and to seek the world before it and give God that the flesh can spare Thus differeth the Religion of serious Christians and of Carnal worldly hypocrites But I shall break off my Admonition and end with some Advice Direct 1. Look upon this world and all things in it with the fore-seeing eye of Faith and Reason and vallue it but as it deserves And then you will neither be eager after it nor too much delighted in it nor puft up by it nor will it so prevalently entice you to venture or neglect eternal things Did you know and well consider but what an empty fading thing it is you could never be satisfied with so poor a portion nor quiet your souls till you had assurance or sound hopes of better things Nor would you take such pleasure in childish trifles nor debase your selves to be so inordinately imployed about such low and sordid matters while God and your eternal happiness are laid by You take not your selves for the basest of men much less for bruits or ideots O then do not make your selves the basest and do not unman your selves and brutifie your immortal souls A heathen could say Nemo alius est Deo dignus nisi qui opes contempsit If you would be Rich choose that which will make you Rich indeed make sure of his favour that is the absolute Lord of all and then you can want nothing whatever you may be without And if yet you thirst for worldly Riches or inordinately Love them and tenaciously keep them from your Masters use remember that this discovereth your disease and therefore should mind you rather to cure it then to feed it It is not money nor any thing in this world that will cure such an empty depraved soul. As Seneca saith If a sick man be carried about whether in a bed of gold or a bed of wood his disease is carried with him It is not a golden bed that will cure a diseased man Nor is it all the gold or honour in the world that will help such a deluded soul as thinks this world will make him happy Get but the cure of your Carnal minds and a little will serve you For it is your sinful fancy that would have much and not your nature that needs much Saith Seneca Si ad naturam vives nunquam eris pauper si ad opinionem nunquam eris dives Exiguum natura desiderat Opinio immensum He is not the poor man that hath but little but he that would have more Nor is he the Rich man that hath much but he that is content with what he hath If you pray but for your daily bread be not such hypocrites as by the bent of your desires to cross your prayers The nearest way to Riches saith the Moralist is the contempt of Riches and saith the Christian to be Rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which God hath promised all that Love him Jam. 2. 5. The greatest Riches are got proportionably on the easiest terms Loving the world will not procure it but Loving God will procure the everlasting fruition of his Love Millions love the world that miss of it but no man misseth of God that Loveth him above the world Buy not these gawds then at a dearer rate then you may have the Kingdom If you have not enough make sure of heaven and that will be enough for you and get a cure for your diseased minds which is easier and more profitable then to fulfill them No man saith Seneca
can have all the world but he may have a mind that can contemn all the world No man can have all that he will but he may be content to be without it The disease is within you and there must be the Cure Direct 2. Be sure to fix with a serious faith upon the Inivsible glory as your portion and then look at all things in this world as good or bad as they respect your end and judge of them as they help or hinder you in the main Nothing but a truly heavenly mind is the saving cure of an earthly mind No man will rightly let go earth till he have the powerful Light that hath shewed him the greater good and given him a taste of the world to come Had you not been strangers to God and heaven in heart whatever you were in tongue and fancy you could never have so fallen in love with earth None are so much disposed to travail into other Countries as they that are fallen out with their own Remember that you have not one penny or pennies worth in the world but what you had from God and must be accountable to God for and must employ with an eye upon his will and your salvation I do not call you to cast away your Riches but to see that you use all that ever you have as will be most comfortable to you in your last review I know as Seneca saith He is a wise man that can make use of earthen vessels as if they were all silver and he is wise too that can make use of silver vessels as if they were but earth Infirmi est animi pati non posse divitias but it s one thing to Bear Riches and Use them for God and another thing to Enjoy them with delight I neither take the Monasticks to be the only or the highest in perfection nor yet do I condemn necessitated retirements For I know it is hard to most to converse with God in tumults and to hear the still voice of his Spirit in the murmuring noise of a crowd I know that the commons are usually more barren and fruitless then inclosures and that the fruit-tree that groweth by the high-way side shall have many a stone and cudgel thrown at it which those that are in your Orchard scape But still look to your end and secure the main Dream not that you have any full Propriety Remember that you are Gods Stewards Set therefore your Masters name and not your own upon every penny-worth you possess Let Holiness to the Lord be written upon all Possess nothing but what is Devoted to him to be used as he would have you Put him not off with scraps and leavings that gave you all So much as you save from him you lose and worse then lose and so much as you lose for him and surrender to him and improve for him you save and more then save For Godliness with content is great gain And he that is faithful in a little shall be made ruler over much It s thus that all things are sanctified with the Saints Direct 3. Think not that your Riches are given you to fulfill the least inordinate desire of the flesh Or that you may take ever the more sensual ease or pleasure if you had all the world But remember that better wages obligeth you to more work And therefore rise as early and labour as hard in your own employment the more for the common good the better yea and deny your flesh a◠much as if you had but food and rayment If you have much give the more and use the more but enjoy never the more and let not your sensual desires find ever the more provision A rich man that is wise and a faithful Steward may live in as much self-denyal and labour as hard and humble his flesh as much as he hat hath but his daily bread God sent you not in provision for his enemy All that is made the food of sin or that doth not help you up to God is employed contrary to the end that you received it for Direct 4. Be sure that you deal with the world as a Deceiver Be very suspicious of all your Riches and Honours and Delights Feed not on these luscious summer-fruits too boldly or without fear Remember how many millions the world hath deceived before you None come to Hell but those that are cheated thither by the flesh and the world With what exceeding vigilancy then have you need to deal with such a dangerous deceiver when all your happiness and all your hopes is at the stake and if you be deceived you are undone Its force is nothing so perillous as its fraud Ubi vincere aperte Non datur insidias armaque recta parat They that have to do with such a cheater in a case of such everlasting consequence should be suspicious of every thing and trust the world as little as is possible when Qui cavet ne decipiatur vix cavet cum etiam cavet Et cum cavisse ratus est saepè is cautor captus est ut Plaut As Bucholcer was went to say when his friends extolled him terreri se etiam laudationibus illis ut fulminibus So should you possess your Honours and Riches in the world And as the same Bucholcer said to Hubner when he went to be a Courtier Fidem diabolorum tibi commendo credere contremiscere viz. promissionibus aulicis credere sed cautè sed timidè So should you be affected to the world Trust and tremble or rather Trust it not all Nay have you not been deceived by it already And will you be more foolish then the silly fish that will scarcely take the hook that he was once pricked by or then the silly fowls that will be afraid of the net that once they have escaped from and of the Kite that once hath had them in her claws Tranquillas etiam naufragus horret aquas Nay at the present if you take any heed of your souls you may easily perceive what a clog the world is We are commonly better when we have least of it or are leaving it then when we have it at our will A man may see the utmost visible part of the earth and the Horizon at once but if he look on the earth that is near him he cannot see the heavens at that time much less the Zenith Our Own Riches our Present Riches our Nearest and Dearest temporal good is the greatest averter of the mind from heaven We are commonly like Antigonus sick souldier that fought well because he lookt to die but grew a Coward as soon as he was cured So that most of us have need of the counsel which the Bishop of Colen gave the Emperour Sigismund that askt him What he should do to be happy Live saith he as you promised to do when you were last sick of the stone and gowt Even the most notorious sinners seem Saints when they see the world is
obstinately unreformed And is the case so altered think you now as that you are bound to make such children rich that parents then were bound to put to death 3. I am not bound to give unnecessary provisions to an enemy of God to mis-employ it and strengthen him to do mischief and be more able to oppress Gods servants or oppose his Truth or serve the Devil I for bear to mention the proportions of mens estates that I think they are ordinarily bound to alineate but shall leave you to Prudence and the General Rules lest I seem to you to go beyond my line But in general I must say that it is a selfish and an hainous errour to think that men should lay up all that they can gather for their posterity and all to leave them rich and honourable and put off God and all charitable uses with the crums that fall from their Tables or with some inconsiderable driblets If the Rich man in Luke 18. might have followed Christ on such terms as these he would hardly have gone sorrowfully from him 1. By this men shew that they prefer their children before God 2. And that they prefer them before the Church and Gospel and the Common-wealth When an herâ—ick Heathen would have confessed that his estate and children and his life were not too good to be sacrificed to his Countrey as the case of the Decii and many other Romans that gave their lives for their Countrey witnesseth 3. These men prefer the worldly riches of their children before the souls of men When they have so many Calls to employ their wealth to the furthering of mens salvation and put by all that their children may be rich 4. They prefer their childrens Riches before their own everlasting good Or else they would not deny themselves the Reward of an holy improvement of their talents and cast themselves upon the terrible sentence that is past upon unprofitable servants and all to leave their children wealthy 5. They prefer the bodily prosperity of their children before their spiritual Or else they would not be so eager to leave them that Riches which Christ hath told them is such a snare and hindrance to mens salvation 6. They would teach all the world the easie art of never doing good in life or death For if all must follow their principles then the Parents must keep almost all for their children and the children must do the like by their children and so it must run on to all generations that their posterity may be kept as rich as their predecessors 7. How unlike is this to the antient Saints and how unlike to the general precepts of self-denyal and doing good to all while we have time c. which Christ hath left us in the Gospel Enable your children to be serviceable in the Church and Common-wealth as far as you may but prefer them not before the Church or Common-wealth Wrong not God nor your own souls nor the souls or bodies of other men to procure your children to be rich It will not ease your pains in hell to think that you have left your children Rich on earth It s few of the great and noble that are Called They will have an easier way to heaven in a mean estate Their Nurses milk contented them when first they lived in the world and will nothing but Lands and Lordships and superlative matters now content them when they have a shorter time to use it Poor men can sing as merily as the Rich and sleep as quietly and live as comfortably and die as easily Cantabit vacuus They are free from abundance of your cares and fears The Philosopher that had received a great gift of Gold from a Prince sent it back to him the next morning and told him that he loved no such gifts as would not let him take his sleep for thinking what to do with it Direct 7. Lastly Study the Art of doing Good and making your selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that when you go hence you may be received into the everlasting habitations Remember how much of your Religion doth consist in the Devoting of your selves and all to God and improving his stock and being Rich in good works ready to distribute and communicate 1 Tim. 6. 18. And how much will be laid upon this at Iudgement Matth. 25. God doth not call upon you for your charity as if he would be beholden to you or needed any thing that you can give him but because he will thus difference his hearty followers from complementing hypocrites The poor you shall have alwayes with you and the Church shall alwayes want your help and Christ will be still distressed in his members to try the reality of mens professions whether they love him above all or else dissemble with him and wheeher they have any thing that they think too good for him It is a certain mark of an hypocrite to have any thing in this world so dear to you that you cannot spare it for Christ. Remember then that it is your own concernment If you would be ever the better for all your wealth nay if you would not be undone by it study how you may be most serviceable to God with it Cicero could say that to be Rich is not to possess much but to use much And Seneca could rebuke them that so study to encrease their wealth that they forget to use it If really you be Christians heaven is your portion and your end And if so you can love nothing else nor use any thing else rationally but as a means to attain that end See therefore in all your expences how you attain or promote your end Alas men are so busily building in their way that they shew us that they take not themselves for travellers They are so familiar with the world that they shew us they are not strangers but at home They make their garments so fine and lay such mountains on their backs that we see they mean not to be serious Runners in the Christian race The thorny cares that choak Christs seed do shew that they are barren and nigh to burning If you gather Riches for your selves Luke 12. 21. you are standing pits If you are Rich to God you will be running springs or cisterns There is a blessed Art of sending all your Riches to Heaven before you if you could learn it and were willing to be happy at those rates It is not for your Riches that God will either condemn or save you but for the Abasing or improving them Though Lazarus was a beggar yet Abraham had been rich whose bosom he was in Rich men must know saith Ambrose that the fault is not in Riches but in them that know not how to use them Nam divitiae ut impedimenta sunt improbis ita bonis sunt adjumenta virtutum O that you could but be sensible of the difference betwixt them that can say at last We have used our stock for the
might be effected And though the Mahometans are more cruel then the Heathens against any that openly speak against their superstition and deceit yet God would perswade some its like to think it worth the loss of their lives to make some prudent attempt in some of those vast Tartarian or Indian Countries where Christianity hath had least access and audience As difficult works as these are the Christian Princes and people are exceedingly too blame that they have done no more in attempting them and have not turned their private quarrels into a common agreement for the good of the poor uncalled world I have told you of divers waies in which you may secure your wealth from loss and make an everlasting advantage of it Those that have Power and not a Will shall lose the Reward and have the condemnation of unfaithful Stewaras Those that have Power and an envious evil Will that desireth not the Churches good shall moreover have the Punishment of Malignant enemies Those that have neither Power nor Will or are both Impotent and Malignant shall be judged according to what they would have done if they had been able Those that have an unfeigned Will but not Power shall be accounted as if they had done the works for God accepteth the will for the deed All these Good Works are yours poor Christians that never did them if certainly you would have done them notwithstanding the difficulty cost and suffering if you had been able But it is the godly Rich that are both Able and Willing and actually perform them that will profit both themselves and others that both their own and others souls may have the comfort of it I shall lay some of the words of God himself before your eyes and heartily pray for the sake of your own souls and the publick Good that you may excell Papists as far in Works of Charity as you do in the soundness of Doctrine Discipline and Worship Gentlemen excuse the necessary Freedom of speech and Accept the Seasonable Honourable Gainful Motion propounded to you from the Word of God by Feb. 20. 1657 8 Your faithful Monitor Rich. Baxter Sophronius Bishop of Ierusalem Prat. spir c. 195. referente Baronio ad an 411. delivereth this History following to posterity as a most certain thing THAT Leontius Apamiensis a most faithful Religious man that had lived many years at Cyrene assured them that Synesius who of a Philosopher became a Bishop found at Cyrene one Evagrius a Philosopher who had been his old acquaintance fellow-student and intimate friend but an obstinate Heathen and Synesius was earnest with him to become a Christian but all in vain Yet did he still follow him with those Arguments that might satisfie him of the Christian verity and at last the Philosopher told him that to him it seemed but a meer fable and deceit that the Christian Religion teacheth men that this world shall have an end and that all men shall rise again in these bodies and their flesh be made immortal and incorruptible and that they shall so live for ever and receive the Reward of all that they have done in the body and that he that hath pitty on the poor lendeth to the Lord and he that gives to the poor and needy shall have Treasures in heaven and shall receive an hundred-fold from Christ together with eternal life These things he derided Synesius by many arguments assured him that all these things were certainly true and at last the Philosopher and his children were Baptized A while after he comes to Synesius and brings him three hundred pound of Gold for the poor and bid him Take it but give him a Bill under his hand that Christ should repay it him in another world Synesius took the money for the poor and gave him under his hand such a Bill as he desired Not long after the Philosopher being near to death commanded his sons that when they buried him they should put Synesius Bill in his hand in the Grave which they did And the third day after the Philosopher seemed to appear to Synesius in the night and said to him Come to my Sepulchre where I lie and take thy Bill for I have received the Debt and am saified which for thy assurance I have subscribed with my own hand The Bishop knew not that the Bill was buried with him but sent to his sons who told him all and taking them and the chief men of the City he went to the Grave and found the Paper in the hands of the Corpse thus subscribed EGO EVAGRIUS PHILOSOPHUS TIBI SANCTISSIMO DOMINO SYNESIO EPISCOPO SALUTEM ACCEPI DEBITUM IN HIS LITERIS MANU TUA CONSCRIPTUM SATISFACTUMQUE MIHI EST ET NULLUM CONTRA TE HABEO JUS PROPTER AURUM QUOD DEDI TIBI ET PER TE CHRISTO DEO ET SALVATORI NOSTRO that is I Evagrius the Philosopher to thee most Holy Sir Bishop Synesius greeting I have received the Debt which in this Paper is written with thy hands and I am satisfied and I have no Law or Action against thee for the Gold which I gave to thee and by thee to Christ our God and Saviour They that see the thing admired and glorified God that gave such wonderful evidence of his promises to his servants And saith Leontius this Bill subscribed thus by the Philosopher is kept at Cyrene most carefully in the Church to this day to be seen of such as dâ— desire it Though we have a sure Word of Promise sufficient for us to build our Hopes on yet I thought it not wholely unprofitable to cite this one History from so credible Antiquity that the Works of God may be had in remembrance Though if any be causlesly incredulous there are surer Arguments that we have ready at hand to convince him by BLessed are the merciful for they shall obtain Mercy Mat. 5. 7. Read Mat. 6. 19. to the end of the Chapter Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven Matth. 7. 21. 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. Mat. 7. 24. Let your Light so shine before men that they may see your Good Works and Glorifie your Father which is in Heaven Mat. 5. 16. I have shewed you all things how that so Labouring ye ought to support the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus how he said it is more blessed to give then to receive Act. 20. 35. Give to him that asketh thee and of him that would borrow of thee tuâ—â— thou not away Mat. 5. 42. All these have â— kept from my youth up yet lackest thou one thing Sell all that thou hast and distribute to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come follow me And when he heard this he was very sorrowful for
no further care at all which intimateth fears anxiety or distrust though as care is largely taken for Regard You may care and pray for the blessing of God on it and for your daily bread 4. So far as you are Crucified to the world your worldly sorrows also will be Crucified If you miss of it you will not be grieved for that miss For the displeasure of God which an affliction may manifest you ought to be grieved but not for the meer loss of the creature for it self As God in the creature must be Loved and Delighted in and not the creature for it self so it is Gods displeasure manifested in the creature that must be our Grief If a mans flesh be dead you may cut it off and he never feeleth you you may cut it or prick it and he will not smart And if you be dead to the world you will not feel it as others do when worldly things are taken from you You will make no great matter of it Obj. But Grace doth not make men stocks or stupid and therefore how can we chuse but feel Answ. There is a feeling that is meerly natural and not subject to the command of Reason and Will and there is a feeling which is under Reason and is voluntary The later only is it that I speak of which Grace commandeth The most gracious man may feel heat and cold pain and weariness hunger and thirst as much as the worst But the Passions of his soul so far as they are under the command of Reason and Will do not feel them as evils to the soul so far as he is sanctified Still observe that I speak of worldly things as separated from God in whom only they are good and in respect to him only the absence of them is evil to the soul. And there is somewhat of the Passions that bodily sense can force perhaps in an innocent Adam But I speak only of that passion which Reason should command And so it is not enough that our Care and Grief for worldly things be less then that for the things of God Though that much may prove our sincerity of which more anon yet that is not all that is our duty But we should have no care or Rationall voluntary grief for any creature but only as it is a Means to God standeth in a due subordination to him and so we may have both 4. Having shewed you what Affections are Crucified to the world in the last place I add that Our inordinate labour for it must be Crucified Christ is as plain and peremptory in this as in the former not only commanding us to Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness Mat. 6. 33. but also Not to labour for the meat that perisheth but for the meat that endureth to everlasting life which the Son will give us John 6 27. which is not only to be understood that our Labour for earth should be less then our Labour for heaven and so comparatively none at all but further that as we must have no Love or Desire to the creature for it self but ultimately for God so we should not at all Seek or Labour for the creature for it self but ultimately for God and therefore Seek and Labour for it no further then the End requireth that is no further then it is necessary to the Pleasing of God or to our fruition of him This is the true and plain meaning of such Texts A man that is truly Dead to the world doth Labour for God and not for the world according to the measure of his mortification in all that he doth If he be plowing or sowing or reaping or threshing if he be working at his trade in his shop it is God that he is seeking and labouring for He doth not stop or take up in the creature He seeks it still but as a Means to God But an unsanctified man doth never truly seek God for himself at all no not in his worship much less in his trade and calling in the world For God is not his ultimate End and therefore he cannot Love him or Seek him for himself It is flesh-pleasing or carnal felicity that is his End and therefore he seeketh God for the fleshe When he prayeth to him when he Loveth him it is but as he is a Means to this his Carnal felicity and not as he is himself his chiefest Good Thus you may see what it is to be Crucified to the world and wherein true Mortification doth consist SECT VII A Few Objections are here to be answered that we may the more profitably proceed Obj. 1. A man may have hunger or thirst in his very sleep when he cannot refer the creature to God Answ. 1. We speak only of Humane that is Moral acts and such Desires as are under the command of the Will 2. A man may Habitually refer things to God when he doth not Actually Obj. 2. How can a man seek God in plowing or working in his shop when these actions are so heterogeus Answ. God made no creature nor appointed any imployment for man which may not fitly be a Means to himself As all came from God so all have something of God upon them and all tend to him from whom they came There are some Means that stand nearer the End and some are further from it and yet the most remote are truly Means A man that is but cutting down a tree or hewing stones out of the Quarry doth as much intend them for the building of his house as he that is erecting the frame or placing them in the building We cannot attain the End without the remotest Means as well as the nearest Obj. We are taught to Pray for our Daily bread therefore we may Desire it and Labour for it Answ. No doubt of it But we are taught to Pray for it but as a Means to the Hallowing of Gods Name the Coming of his Kingdom and the Doing of his Will and therefore only as a Means must we desire it and labour for it and that for these and no lower ultimate ends And therefore the words are such as express only things Necessary Our daily bread that we may perceive it is but as a Means to God that we desire it If our Being be not maintained we are not capable of Well-being nor of serving God And if the Means of our Being be not continued our Being will not be continued in Gods appointed ordinary way And therefore we pray for the Means of our sustentation that we may be kept in a capacity of the Ends of our Being Obj. But a man cannot be alway thinking on God and therefore not alway intending him as our End and therefore cannot do all for him Answ. 1. If sin disable us that is no excuse 2. A man may Habitually Intend an End which he doth not Actually think of Yea he may have an Actual Intention which yet he doth not observe because of other more sensible thoughts
worldling a fleshly minded man an unmortified man that is not dead to the world all these are terms that are proper to men in a state of damnation under the curse and wrath of God and are equipollent terms with a Childe of the Devil Oh how the Devil hath deluded multitudes by making them think that this mortification is some higher pitch of grace then ordinary but not essential to the life of grace it self and therefore that a man may be saved without it when they may as well think to be saved if they defie the God of heaven if they despise the Lord that bought them and if they renounce salvation it self for indeed so they do It must needs be that God must look first and chiefly to his own interest in all his works even in the collation of his â—reest grace And therefore he will be glorified in all his Saints and no man shall have salvation dividedly from his honour He doth not bring men to heaven to hate and contemn him but to love and praise him and he will fit them for that work before they come thither and make them love and praise him initially on earth before they come to do it in heaven And therefore he will make them contemn all those things that stand in competition with him and hate all that stands against him SECT XI I Have shewed the necessity of crucifying the world as from Gods interest which the world doth contradict I shall next shew it you from your own interest And in these conjunct considerations it will appear 1. The world is not your happiness 2. The world is occasionally through the corruption of our nature a great enemy to your happiness 3. God only is your happiness 4. God is not fully to be enjoyed in this world 5. It is by knowing loving and delighting in him as God that he is to be enjoyed to make us happy 6. As therefore it is impossible to have two ultimate ends two chief goods and to enjoy them both so is it impossible that God and the world should both have our chiefest estimation and affection All this set together doth demonstrate the necessity of being crucified to the world unless we will renounce our own felicity 1. For the first Proposition that the world is not your Happiness I think all your tongues will readily confess it I would your hearts would do so too Do you think that God doth envy you your happiness or that he would take the world from you because he esteemeth it too good for you No it is because he pittieth your self-deceit when he seeth you take that for your happiness that is not and because he hath far better things to bestow If the world were as good for you as you take it to be and had that in it to satisfie you as you imagine it to have you might keep it and much good might it do you for God would not be about to take it from you He that made you to be Happy doth not grudge you that which should procure it Doubtless if he did not see that it is vanity and that you have made a wrong choice and do mistake your mark he would never trouble you in a worldly course nor call you off But it is because he seeth your folly and deceit and wisheth you much better Wo to you that ever you were born if you have no better Happiness then the world can afford you Is it not Necessary then that you discern your errour and be brought into your right way and spend not your time and pains for nothing If God should let you alone to catch at this shadow and play your selves with worldly toyes till the time of grace were past and then let you see that you were befooled when it is too late you would then be leâ—t to a fruitless repentance and to the sense of that unhappiness which you chose to your selves 2. And that the world is an enemy to your Happiness may appear two waies First in that it deceitfully pretendeth to be your Happiness when it is not and so would turn away your hearts from that which is Secondly in that by allurements or discouragements it is alwaies hindring you in the way to life and is a snare to you continually in all that you do And is it not Necessary to your salvation that you be delivered from the enemies of your salvation and freed from such perilous snares Can you conquer while you are conquered And if the world be not Crucified to you it doth conquer you For its victory is upon your will and affections And if it conquer you it will condemn you To be servants to the world is to be servants to sin And the servants of sin are free from righteousness Rom. 6. 20. and free from Christ and free from salvation A miserable freedom 3. The following Propositions I shall speak of together That God only is our happiness and Chief Good I need not prove to any that indeed believeth him to be God That salvation consilleth in the â—ruition of this Happiness is past doubt And as sure is it that God is not fully enjoyed in this world much less in the creature when it is loved for it self and not esteemed as a Means to him All that believe a life after this do sure believe that there is our felicity And lastly that the soul doth enjoy its own felicity by Knowing and Loving and Delighting in its object is also past doubt So that you may see that a worldly state of mind is in it self inconsistent with a state of salvation To be saved is to have the blessed vision of God and to Love him and Delight in him perfectly to everlasting And can you do this when you love and delight in the world above him or in opposition to him Would you have God to save you and yet not to take off your affections from the world to himself That were to save you and not to save you to feed you by that which is not food to comfort you by that which cannot comfort If a worldling would be saved and not be mortified either he speaks he knows not what but plain non-sense or contradiction or else he meaneth one of these two things Either that he would have an Heaven of worldly Riches or Honours or fleshly Pleasures there is no such to be had Or else that he would have the world as long as he can and have heaven when he can keep the world no longer and so would have the world Crucified to him when there is no such world or when he is taken from it But as 1. No man can truly desire future Grace and Holiness that doth not desire it at the present this being rather an unwilling submission to it as a tolerable Evil then a true desire of it as a certain Good So 2. God hath determined that this life only shall be the Way and that the End Here only must we
use the means and there must we partake of the success of our Endeavours You may better expect that God should give you a Crop at harvest who refused to plow and â—ow your Land or that your children should be men before they are born then that he should be your Happiness in the life to come if you finally reject him in this life and choose to your selves a secular happiness Such as you now make choice of such and no other shall you have Heaven and Earth were set before you You knew that earthly happiness was short If yet you would choose it think not to have heaven too For if you do you will prove deceived at the last SECT XII The Uses BEloved Hearers I suppose you will give me leave to take it for granted that you are all the rational creatures of God made subject to him and capable of enjoying him and such as must be happy or miserable for ever as also that you are all unwilling to be miserable and willing to be happy and that this life is the time for the use of those means on which your everlasting life dependeth and that Judgement will turn the scales at last as Grace or Sin shall turn them now I hope also that I may suppose that you are agreed that Christianity is the only way to happiness and consequently that you are all professed Christians And one would think that where men are so far satisfied of the End and of the Way we might conceive great hopes of their sincerity and salvation But when we see that mens lives do nullifie their professions and that while they look towards God they row towards the world and while they Hope for Heaven their daily travel is towards Hell and while they plead for Christ they work against him our Hopes of them are turned to necessary lamentation But how comes this to pass that reasonable men yea men reputed wise and learned yea many that seem Religious to others and to themselves should be so shamefully over seen in a matter that so concerneth their everlasting state As far as I am able to discover the causes of this Calamity are these two 1. One part of the Professed Christians of the world understand not what Christianity is and so profess but the empty name when indeed the thing it self which is in their conception and which they mean in that profession is nothing like to true Christianity 2. The other part of miscarrying professors though they do conceive of the Christian Religion as it is yet not with an apprehension intensively answerable to the thing which they apprehend Though their conceptions of the Christian verities have a morall Truth in them it being not false but True which they conceive yet there is no â—irmness and solidity in the Act and so they do not effectually appâ—â—â—â—nded them Nothing more easie more common and more dangerous then to make a Religion either of Names and Words which he that useth doth not understand or of meer speculations and superficial conceits which never became practical habituate and predominant nor were the serious effectual apprehensions of the man A right Object and a sincere and serious Act do essentially constitute the Christians faith If either be wanting it is not that faith whatever it may pretend to be Nothing but the Gospel objects will suffice to a mans salvation were it never so firmly apprehended And nothing but a firm and serious Belief of those objects will make them effectuall or saving to the Believer Were we able to cure the two fore-mentioned defects and to help you all to these two requisites we should make no question but you would all be saved We cannot expect that men should let go their sensual delights till they hear of somewhat better to be had for them and till they firmly and heartily give credit to the report And because the matter before us in my Text is sitted to both these needfull works and containeth those very truths which must rectifie you in both these points I shall draw them forth and distinctly apply them hereunto Use 1. AND in the first place you are here informed that the Crosâ— of Christ is the Crucifier of the world Which containeth in it these two parts which make up the point 1. That this is the use of the Cross and one great end of the Doctrine of Christianity to Crucifie the world to us and us to the world 2. That where the Cross of Christ and his Doctrine are effectuall this work is alwaies actually done In all true Christians the world is thus crucified O that these truths were as plainly or truly transcribed upon your hearts as they are plainly and truly contained in my Textâ— 1. For the first that This is the End of Christ Crucified and of his Doctrine I shall briefly shew 1. The Necessity of this Information And 2. the certain â—â—â—â—h of it 1. Both the Commonne's and the Dangerousness of erring in this point do shew the Necessity of this Information It is not only the contemners of Religion but also too many that go among us for very godly men that know not where their happiness lyeth nor what the Christian Religion is Almost all the apprehensions which they have of Happiness are sensual as if it were but a freedom from sensible punishments and the possession of some delights of which they have meerly sensual concerts And so they think of Christ as one that came to free them from such punishments and help them to such an happiness as this And as for the true knowledge and fruition of God in Love and Heavenly delights they look upon these either as insignificant means or as certain appurtenances and fruits of Religion which we ought to have but may possibly be without though we be true Believers A confidence that Christ hath freed them from torments and made them righteous by imputation of his obedience unto them they take to be all that is essentiall to their Christianity And the rest they call by the name of Good works which if it be not with them a term of as low importance as the name of Works alone or Works of the Law is taken to be in Paulâ— Epistles yet at least they take it for that which doth not constitute their Religion So that true Sanctification is either not understood or taken to be of less Necessity then it is A man that makes a great deal of talk and stir about Religion and is zealous for his opinions and pious complements goes currant with many for a true Believer though the Interest of his flesh and of the world be as near and dear to him in this way of Religiousness as other mens is to them in a way of more open professed sensuality And is it possible for a man to be a Christian indeed that so far mistaketh the very Nature and Ends of Christianity it self It is not possible By what is said already and will be by and
according to his Laws Know therefore whom the Law condemneth or justifieth and you may know whom Christ will condemn or justifie And seeing all this is so doth it not concern us all to make a speedy tryal of our selves in preparation to this final tryal I shall for your own sakes therefore take the boldness as the Officer of Christ to summon you to appear before your selves and keep an Assize this day in your own souls and answer at the Barr of Conscience to what shall be charged upon you Fear not the tryal for it is not conclusive final nor a peremptory irreversible sentence that must now pass Yet slight it not for it is a necessary preparative to that which is final and irreversible Consequentially it may prove a justifying Accusation an Absolving Condemnation and if you proceed to Execution a saving quickning death which I am now perswading you to undergo The whole world is divided into two sorts of men One that Love God above all and live to him and the other that Love the flesh and world above all and live to them One that lay up a treasure in earth and have their heart there The other that lay up a treasure in heaven and have their heart there One that seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness another that seek first the things of this life One that mind and savour the things of the flesh and of man the other that mind and savour most the things of the Spirit and of God One that account all things dung and dross that they may win Christ another that make light of Christ in comparison of their business and riches and pleasures in the world One that live by sight and sense upon present things Another that live by faith upon things invisible One that have their conversation in Heaven and live as strangers upon earth Another that mind earthly things and are strangers to heaven One that have in resolution forsaken aâ— for Christ and the hopes of a treasure in heaven Another that resolve to keep somewhat here though they venture and forsake the heavenly reward and will go away sorrowful that they cannot have both One that being born of the flesh is but flesh The other that being born of the Spirit is Spirit One that live as without God in the world The other that live as without the seducing world in God and in and by the subservient world to God One that have Ordinances and Means of Grace as if they had none The other that have houses lands wives as if they had none One that believe as if they believed not and love God as if they loved him not and pray as if they prayed not as if the fruit of these were but a shadow The other that weep as if they wept not for worldly things and rejoyce as if they rejoyced not One that have Christ as not possessing him and use him and his name as but abusing them The other that buy as if they possessed not and use the world as not abusing it One that draw near to God with their lips when their hearts are far from him The other that Corporally converse with the world when their hearts are far from it One that serve God who is a Spirit with Carnall service and not in Spirit and Truth The other that use the world it self spiritually and not in a carnall worldly manner In a word One sort are children of this world and the other are the children of the world to come and heirs of the heavenly Kingdom One sort have their Portion in this life And the other have God for their Portion One sort have their Good things in this life time and their Reward here The other have their Evil things in this life and live in Hope of the Everlasting Reward I suppose you know that all this is from the word of God and therefore I need not cite the Texts which do contain it But lest any doubt I will lay them all together that you may peruse them at leisure Matth. 22. 37. 10. 37. 6. 19 20 21. 6. 33. Iohn 6. 27. Isa. 55. 1 2 3. Rom. 8. 5 6 7 13. Phil. 3. 9 10 11. Mat. 22. 5. 2 Cor. 4. 18. Heb. 11. 1. throughout Phil. 3. 19 20 21. Psalm 119 19. Heb. 11. 13. Luke 14. 33. 18. 22. Iohn 3. 6. Ephis 2. 12. 1 Cor. 10. 31. Psalm 16. 8. Ezek. 33. 31 32. 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. Iohn 2. 23 24. Psalm 78. 35 36 37. Iohn 15. 2. 1. 9 10 11. Mat. 15. 8. Psalm 73. 23 24 25. 1 Thes. 5. 17 18. Phil. 3. 21 Matth. 15. 9. Iohn 4. 22 23. 1 Gor. 10. 31. Luke 10. 8. 20. 34. Rom. 8. 16 17. Psalm 17. 14. 16. 5. 73. 26. Luke 16 25. Mat. 6. 5. 5. 12. Luke 18. 22. In these Texts is plainly contained all that I have here said to you Well then Beloved Hearers seeing you that sit here present are all of one of these two sorts let conscience speak which is it that you are of These are the two sorts that shall stand on the right and left hand of Christ in Judgement They that gave Christ his own with advantage and lived to him and studiously devoted their Riches and other Talents to his use as men that unfeignedly made God their End these are they that are set on the right hand and adjudged as Blessed to the Kingdom which they so esteemed And those that hid their talents by keeping or expending them to their private use denying them to Christ and living to themselves these are they that are set on the left hand and adjudged to the everlasting fire with the Devils whom they served It is a desperate mistake of self-deceiving men to think that a state of Holiness consisteth only in external worship or that a state of wickedness consisteth only in some gross sins I tell you from the word of God the difference is greater and lyeth deeper then so If you would know whether you are Christians indeed and shall be saved the first and great question is What is your End What take you for your portion And what is it that hath the prevalent stream of your desires and endeavours As it is not every step that we set out of the way to heaven that will prove us ungodly so is it not any Religiousness whatsoever that standeth in a subserviency to the world that will prove you godly Would you know then what you are And whether you are in the way to Heaven or Hell And what God will judge of you if you so continue Why then deal faithfully with your selves and answer this question without deceit What is it that hath your Hearts your very Hearts What is it that is the matter of your dearest Love And what the matter of your chiefest care What is it that is the very bent and scope of your life Is it for this world or
thy self from danger without him Canst thou relieve or shift for thy self at death without him Darest thou tell him so to his face and stand to it But if thou must have a God what God wouldst thou have Wouldst not thou have a God that can preserve and help and save thee The world cannot do it man I shall tell thee more of this anon that the world cannot do it If thou trust to it it will deceive thee But if thou say then the Lord shall be thy God Away then with all thy Idols God will have no partner much less a superiour that is exalted above himself in thy soul. As Ioshua said to the Israelites Iosh. 24. 14. so say I to you Now therefore fear the Lord and serve hâ—m in sincerity and in truth and put away the world which hath been your God and serve ye the Lord And if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord choose you this day whom ye will serve but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. And if you say as they God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve other Gods I answer you as he Away then with the world and all other Idols or else Ye cannot serve the Lord for he is an holy and a jealous God and will not forgive such transgressions and sins but if ye forsake the Lord and serve the world he will turn against you and consume you Vers. 19 20. God will not stoop to be an underling in your hearts He should have all anâ— will at last have all or none But in the mean time he will have the Best or none I do witness here to every soul of you in his name that if he have not the Soveraignty and be not nearer and dearer to your hearts then all the honours and riches and pleasures of the world he is not he will not be he cannot be your God And if he be not thy God thou wilt be Godless as thou art ungodly thou wilt be without his help as he was without thy heart Well this is the first Article of my charge against every one of you that hath not Crucified the world you are Idolators and Traytors against the God of Heaven And he that would have no God deserves to be no man and worse and shall either by Repentance wish with groans that he had never been a worldling and a neglecter of God or else in Hell with groans shall wish that he had never been a man As the first Commandment is the fundamental Law and informeth all the obligations of the particular precepts following so Idolatry which is against that Commandment is the fundamental crime and is the life of all the rest He that would overthrow the God-head would overthrow all the world 2. The next Article of my charge is this You are guilty of most perfidious Covenant-breaking with God Did you not in your Baptism solemnly by your parents Renounce the world the flesh and the Devil and promise to fight against them to the end of your life under the Banner of Christ And have you performed that vow No you have turned treacherously to the enemy that you renounced and fought for the world and the flesh against the Word and the Spirit of Christ. And if you renounce your Baptismal Covenant you renounce in effect the benefits of that Covenant And if God deal with you as with Perfidious Covenant-breakers thank your selves 3. Moreover you are guilty of debasing your humane nature and so of wronging God that made it and is the owner of it God made you not as bruits that are capable of no higher things then to eat and drink and play and die and there 's an end of them But he made you capable of an Everlasting life of Glory with himself And as he suiteth all his works to their uses and ends so did he suit the nature of man to his immortal state As we were made by God we were sitted and disposed to everlasting things And you â—â—ave turned your hearts to the vanities of this world and set your mind on them as your happiness as if you had no greater things to mind Objects do either ennoble or debase the faculties according as they are That is the vilest creature which is made for the vilest uses and ends or imployes himself in such And that is the most excellent creature which is exercised about the most excellent Objects God made you for no less then his everlasting praises before his face among his Angels and you have so far debased your own nature as to root like swine in earth and dung and to live like bruits that have not an immortal state to mind How will you answer this dishonour done to the workmanship of God That you should blot out his image and imploy your souls against his Laws and live as moles and worms in the earth He put you on earth but as travellers towards Heaven and you have taken up your home in the way and forgotten your End and Resting-place 4. The next part of your Guilt is that you have perverted the use of all the creatures and turned the Works and Mercies of God against himself He gave them all to you to lead you to himself and to furnish you for his service He made this world to be a Glass in which you might see the Maker and a Book in which you might read his Name and will And will you overlook him and forget the end and use of all What shame and pitty is it that men should live in the world and not know the use of it That they should see such a beauteous frame and not understand its principal signification That they should daily converse with so many creatures which all proclaim the name of God and with one accord declare his praise and yet that this language should be so little understood Like an illiterate man in a Library that seeth many thousand Books and knows not a word that is in any of them Or like an ignorant man in an Apothecaries shop that seeth the drugs but knoweth not what they are good for nor how to use any of them if he had the greatest need The poorest cottage and smallest pittance of these earthly things might be a greater Blessing to you if you could understand their use and meaning then all the world would be to him that understands it not Your possessions in themselves if you have not God in them are but the very corpse or carkaise of a blessing The Life of them is wanting And without the Life they will but trouble you For you have the burden without the use Your horse will carry you while he hath life and health but take away his life once and you must carry him if you will have him any further Verily it is no wiser a trick to make a stir in the world and seek the profits and pleasures of it without God or any otherwise then as
unthankful to your own Parents disobedient to your superiours unfaithful to your equals and unmerciful to your inferiours There is no trusting a worldling he will sell his friend for money He careth not to wrong you in your life your chastity estate and name for his lustful ambitious and covetous desires For he directly breaketh the tenth Commandment which is the sum of the second Table requiring us to regard the welfare of our neighbour and not to maintain a private selfish interest against it So true is that of Paul 1 Tim. 6. 10. The love of money is the root of all evil As adhering to God is the sum of all Duty and Spiritual Goodness so adhering to the creature instead of God is the sum of all wickedness and disobedience And seeing all this is so I require you here in the name of God to cast out this wickedness and cherish it no longer Bring forth that Traytor that hath dethroned God in your hearts and exalted it self and let it die the death It subverteth Common-wealths and all societies it causeth perjury perfidiousness and sedition it raiseth wars and sets the world together by the ears it overturneth all right order and strikes at the heart of Morality it self and would make every man a Woolf or Tyger to his brother It is a murderer of your own souls and the cause of cruelty both to the souls and bodies of others It is a lyar that promiseth what it cannot perform It is a cheater that would deceive you of your everlasting happiness and tice you into Hell by pretences of furthering your profitâ— and contents It causeth parents to neglect the souls of their children and children to wish the death of their parents or be weary of them or disregard them and causeth Law-suits and contentions between brother and brother and neighbour and neighbour and fills the heart with rancor and malice and turneth families and Kingdoms into confusion it maketh people hate their Teachers and too many Ministers to neglect their flocks It adulterously seeketh to vitiate the spouse of Christ and take up the heart which was reserved for himself It robbeth him of his honour of our affections and obedience and Sacrilegiously defaceth the Temple of the Holy Ghost It will not allow God one free thought nor full affection of your heart nor one hour entirely improved for his honour This is the World and thus is it used by sensual men Judge now whether it deserve not to die the death and to be cast out of your souls and wherher we have not reason to say Crucifie it Crucifie it Ask me no more What evil it hath done You see it is such an enemy to the God of heaven that if you cherish it and let it live in your hearts you are not friends to Christ or your salvation Away with it then without any more ado and use it as the world did use your Lord and as it nailed him on the Cross so go to his Cross for a nail to fasten it and for strength to Crucifie it that you may be victors and super-victors through him that loved you and overcame the world for you Choose not to be slaves when you may be free-men and triumphers Take warning by all that have gone before you serve not a Master that casteth off all his servants in distress and leaveth them all in fruitless complaints of its unprofitablness Think not to speed well where never man sped well before you nor to find content where none have found it If all the worlds followers complain of it at the parting take warning by them and foresee the end Find out one man that ever was made happy by the world in a true and durable happiness before you venture your own hopes and happiness in such hands Put not your selves and all that you have in such a leaking vessel that never yet brought man safe to shore Will neither the experience of your own lives nor the experience of all the world before you delivered in the history of so many thousand years be a sufficient warning to you to avoid the snare What will you take then for a sufficient warning Were not reason captivated one would think that a walk into the Church-yard might satisfie you The sight of a grave or of a dead body should kill and disgrace the world in your eyes Do you see where you must lie and what that flesh which you so regard must be turned to and what is the most that can be expected from the world and in how poor and despicable a case it will then leave you and yet will you doat upon it and neglect and lose the life everlasting for it Will you be wilfully seduced by the vain-glory and oftentation of blinded worldlings when you are certain before-hand that they will not be long of the mind themselves that now they are Name me one man if you can that rejoyceth in his worldly prosperity now and speaketh well of it who rejoyced in it and spoke well of it two hundred years ago It s a child indeed that would have an house builded by every fine flower that he seeth in his way and forgetteth his home his friends and his inheritance When its two to one but the flower will be withered before his house be finished and the pleasure will not answer the trouble and cost Indeed if the world were a better place then that which we are going to I could not then blame any to desire to keep it as long as they can And yet if it were so the certainty of our removall should make us less regard it and look more to the place where we must evermore remain Much more when our home doth exceed this world in worth as much as in continuance It s folly enough to set a mans heart upon the fairest Inn that is in his way but to prefer a swine-stye before a Pallace where his Father dwells and his inheritance doth lie is somewhat worse then meer folly and its meet that such be used according to their choice It s meet indeed that we be patient in our Wilderness and murmure not at God for the sufferings that it casteth us upon But to love it better then the promised Land and to think or speak hardly of our happiness it self and those that would lead us to it this is unreasonable The Israelites were never so foolish as to build Cities in the Wilderness as desiring to make it their fixed habitations but contented themselves with moveable tents What a curse were it if God should put you off with earth and give you no other treasure and felicity but what it can afford You might well then look on your Inheritance as Hiram did on his twenty Cities in Galilee 1 King 9. 11 12. and disliking it call it the Land of Cabul It is the description of miserable wicked men to have their portion in this life Psalm 17. 14. Suppose you had the most that you
can expect in the world would you be contented with this as your portion What is that you would have and which you make such a stir for Would you have larger possessions more delightful dwellings repute with men the satisfying of your lusts c. Dare you take all this for your portion if you had it Dare you quit your hopes of the life to come for such a portion You dare not say so nor do it expresly though you do it implyedly and in effect O do not that which is so horrid that your own hearts dare not own without trembling and astonishment I pray you tell me do you think that a sufficient Portion which the Devil himself would give you if he could or is willing you should have He is content that you enjoy your lusts and pleasures he is willing to let you have the honours and fulness of the world while you are on earth He knows that he can this way best deal with your consciences and please you in his service and quiet you awhile till he hath you where he would have have you He that told Christ of all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them would doubtless have given him them if it had been in his power to have obtained his desire Though you think it too dear to part with your wealth or pleasures for heaven and to be at the labour of an holy life to obtain it the Devil would not think it too dear to give you all England nor all the world if it were in his power that thereby he might keep you out of Heaven And he is willing night and day to go about such kind of work that may but attain his ends in devouring you If he were able he would make you all Kings so that he could but keep you thereby from the Heavenly Kingdom Alas he that tempteth you to set light by heaven and prefer this world before it doth better know himself to his sorrow the worth of that everlasting glory which he would deprive you of and the vanity of that which he thrusteth into your hands As our Merchants that trade with the silly Indians when they have perswaded them to take glass and pieces of broken Iron and brass and knives for Gold or Merchandize of great value they do but laugh at their folly when they have deceived them and say What silly fools be these to make such an exchange For the Merchants know the worth of things which the Indians do not And so is it between the Deceiver of souls and the souls that he deceiveth When he hath got you to exchange the love of God and the Crown of Glory for a little earthly dung and lust he knows that he hath made fools of you and undone you by it for ever Do you not think your selves that it is abominable madness in those Witches that make a Covenant with the Devil and sell their souls to him for ever on condition they may have their wills for a time I know you will say it is abominable folly And yet most of the world do in effect the very same God hath assured them that they must for sake him or the world and that they must not love the world if they will have his love nor look for a portion in this life if they will have any part in the inheritance of the Saints He offers them their choice to take the pleasures of Earth or Heaven And Satan prevaileth with them to make choice of Earth though they are told by God himself that they lose their salvation by it And here you may see what advantage Satan gets by playing his game in the dark and doing his work by other hands and keeping out of sight himself and deceiving men by plausible pretences Should he but appear himself in his own likeness and offer poor worldlings to make such a match with them how much would the most of you tremble at it and abhort it And yet now he doth the same thing in the dark you greedily embrace it If you should but see or hear him desiring you to put your hands to such a Covenant as this is I do consent to part with the love of God and all my hopes of salvation so I may have my pleasures and wealth and honour till I die Sure if you be not besides your selves you would not you durst not put your hands to it Why then will you now put both hand and heart to it when he plaies his game underboard and implicitly by his temptations doth draw you to the same consent What do the most of the world but prefer earth before heaven through the course of their lives They prefer it in their thoughts and words and deeds It hath their sweetest and freest thoughts and words and their greatest care and diligence and delight And what then do these men do but sell their salvation for the vanities of the world Believe it Sirs if you understood the Word of God and understood Satans temptations and understood your own doings you would see that you do no less then thus make sale of your precious souls And it is not your false Hopes that for all this you shall be saved when you can keep the world no longer that will undo the bargain If the Law of the Land do punish Murder and Theft with death he that ticeth you to commit the crime doth tice you to cast away your life and it will not save you to say I had hoped that I might have plaid the thief or murderer and yet be saved O Sirs if you knew but half as well what you sell and cast away as the Devil doth that tempts you to it sure you durst never make such a match nor pass away such an inheritance for a little earthly smoak and dust SECT XVIII Use of Exhortation MEN Fathers and Brethren hearken to the word of Exhortation which I have to deliver to you from the Lord. I know that this world is near you and the world to come is out of sight I know the flesh which imprisoneth those souls is so much inclined to these sensual things that it will be pleased with nothing else But yet I am to tell you from the word of the Lord that this world must be forsaken before it forsake you and that you must vilifie and set light by it and your heart and hopes must be turned quite another way and you must live as men of another world or you will undo your selves and be lost for ever If you have thought that you might serve God and Mammon and Heaven and Earth might both be your End and Portion and God and the world might both have your hearts I must acquaint you that you are dangerously mistaken Unless you have two hearts One for God and one for the world and two souls One to save and one to lose But I doubt when one soul is condemned you will not find another to be saved I
is trying what it will do for him as long as he hath any hope As the poor Infants in Ireland lay sucking at the breasts of the corpse of their mothers when the Irish Papists had slain them so will these poor worldlings still hang upon the world even when they find that it cannot help them and when it will scarce afford them a miserable life but with much labour and suffering they hardly get a little food and cloathing So that their affections are still alive to the world even when to their sorrow they look on the world as dead or almost dead to them But the Cross of Christ will teach you to Crucifie the world in another manner As Christ did voluntari'y contemn it and shew that he set so little by it that he could be content to be the most despicable Object upon earth in the eyes of men so will he teach you also voluntarily to contemn it and set up your selves as the Butt which all the arrows of malice and despight shall be shot at So that though you have naturally a desire of the preservation of your lives and from that may say Father if it be thy will let this cup pass from me Yet shall you have a far greater desire of Pleasing Enjoying and Glorifying God which shall cause you from a comparative Judgement to say Yet not as I will but as thou wilt Much more shall you be enabled to despise the unnecessary matters of the world and to mortifie your inordinate and distempered affections The Cross of Christ will shew you Reason though such as the worldly wise call foolishness even such Reason as none but a Teacher come from God could have revealed for the leading up your affections from the world and it will point you to the higher things that do deserve them This Cross is the truest Ladder by which you may ascend from earth to heaven When in this wilderness and as without the gate you are lifted up with Christ on the Cross of worldly desertion and reproach you are then in the highest road to Glory and if you faint not shall be lifted up with him into the throne For if you suffer with him ye shall also reign with him Rom. 8. 17. And to him that overcometh he will grant to sit with him in his throne even as he also overcame and is set down with his Father in his throne Rev. 3. 21. And as the Cross of Christ is Teaching so also is it Strengthning As the touch of his garment stayed the poor womans issue of blood so will a touch of the Cross by faith even dry up the stream of your inordinate affections that have run out after the world so long When a worldling mourneth over the Dead world as having lost his chiefest friend the Cross of Christ will cause you to rejoyce over it as a conquered enemy and to insult over the carkaise of its vain glory and delights For its one thing to have an angry God by providence to kill the world to them and another thing to have a gracious Father by his Spirit to Crucifie us to the world and the world to us by the changing of our â—â—â—imation and affections Set therefore a Crucified Christ continually before the eye of your souls See what he suffered for your adhering to the creature and what it cost him to loose you from it and bring up your souls again to God Can you still dote upon the world intangle your affections in its painted allurements when you consider that this is the very sin that killed your Saviour and which the blood of his heart was shed to cure Look up to that Cross and see the fruits of worldly love If you see a man that hath surfeited on unwholsom fruits lie groaning and gasping and trembling in pain and at last must die for it you will take heed of such a surfeit your selves It was we that took a surfeit of the creature and the Lord that saw there was no other remedy to save our lives did by a Miracle of mercy and wisdom derive upon himself the pain and trouble and groaned and sweat and bled and dyed for our Recovery And will you feed and surfeit again upon the creature Look up to that Cross of Christ and see the enmity of the world unto your Head And will you take it for your friend See how it used him and will you expect that it should deal contrarily with you Did it hang him up among Malefactors and will it set you on a throne or dandle you in its lap Did it pierce his side and will it heal your wounds Did it reach him Gall and Vinegar and will it reach you milk and honey If it do yet trust it not For the milk is but to prepare you for that sleep in which it may destroy you without resistance for you must next expect the hammer and the nail as Iael used Sisera Iudg. 4. 19 21. There is not so clear a glass in all the world in which you may see the world in its just complexion and proportion as the Cross of Christ. There you may see what its worth and how to be esteemed by the estimate of one that never was deceived by it but had a perfect knowledge of its use and value When you have so long beheld that Cross by faith as that you can be contented to be hanged between heaven and earth and become the most forlorn and despicable creature in the eyes of men and to be stript of all the comforts of life and life it self for the sake of Christ and for the Invisible Kingdom which by his Cross was purchased for you then are you throughly Crucified to the world and the world to you by the Cross of Christ. Direct 2. BE sure that you receive nâ—t a false picture of the world into your minds or if you have received such an one see that you blot it out and think of the creature truly as it is The most are deceived and undone by mis-apprehensions As if a man should dote on an ugly harlot because of a painted face or because he seeth a beautiful picture which is falsly pretended to be hers The world in it self is vanity and insufficiency As opposite to God it is poyson and enmity to us But most men conceive of it as if it were the very seat of their felicity and so are enamoured of they know not what If men did not entertain false apprehensions of God and his holy waies as being against them or hurtful to them or needless and uncomfortable they could not be so much against them as they are And so if they did not entertain false apprehensions of the creature and the waies of sin they could not be so much for them nor embrace them with so much delight For they draw in their fancies some odious picture of the blessed God and his waies and therefore they are averse to them And so they draw in
of sensual things and so must be drowned in unprofitable cares What he shall eat or drink and wherewith he shall be cloathed What matter is it to a wise man Whether his meat be sweet or bitter or whether his drink be strong or small or whether his cloaths be fine or homely or whether he be honoured or derided or past by save only as these things may have relation to greater things and as the body must be kept in a serviceable plight and we must value that capacity most in which we may best do our Masters work Keep under the flesh and you will easily overcome the world Otherwise you strive against the the stream While you have unmortified raging appetites and corrupted fancies and sensual minds you are byassed to the world and if the rub of a Sermon or sickness may turn you out of your way awhile the byass will prevail and you will quickly be on it again If you dam up the stream of these unmortified affections they will rage the more and if you stop them for a while by good company or some restraint yet will they shortly break over all and be more violent then before All your striving by waies of meer restraint are to little purpose till the flesh it self be subdued It is but as if you should strive with a greedy dog for his bone and with an hungry Lyon to bereave him of his prey be sure they will not easily part with it It s the case of many deluded people that have some knowledge of Scripture enough to convince them and tip their tongues and strive to restrain them from their sensual waies but not enough to mortifie the flesh and change their souls O what a combate is there in their lives The flesh will have its prey and pleased it must be Their conscience tells them It will cost thee dear Their flesh like an hungry dog is ready to seize upon that which it desires And conscience doth as it were stand over it with a staff and saith Meddle with it if thou dare And sometime the poor sinner is restrained and sometime again he ventureth upon the prey and he that had condemned himself for his sin doth turn to his former vomit and once more he must have his whore or his cups and then conscience takes him by the throat and terrifieth him and makes him forbear a little while again And thus the poor sinner is tost up and down and Satan leads him captive at his will And because he findeth a combate within him he thinks it is the combate between the flesh and the sanctifying Spirit when alas it s no more but the combate between the flesh and an inlightened conscience assisted with the motions of common grace which because they resist and trample underfoot their condemnation will be the greater Would you then have the boiling of your corruptions abated Put out the fire that causeth them to boil or else you trouble your selves in vain Mortifie the flesh once and get it under and scorn to be a slave to a sensual appetite but let it be all one to you to displease it as to please it and leave such trifles as pleasant meats and drinks and dwellings and fine cloathes to children and fools that have no greater things to mind and use the flesh as a servant to the soul supplying it with necessaries but correcting it if it do but crave superfluities Do this and you will easily Crucifie the world For the world is only for the flesh For saith Iohn 1 Iohn 2. 16. All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and pride of life which are not of the Father but of the world And the world passeth away and the lust thereof but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever Remember that he that saith in my text that he is Crucified to the world doth say also Gal. 5. 24. that They that are Christs have Crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts This is to kill the world at the Root for it is Rooted in the fleshly Interest When otherwise you will but lop off the branches and they will quickly grow again Direct 4. BE sure to keep your minds intent upon the Greater matters of Everlasting life and all your Affections imployed thereupon Diversion must be your cure Especially to so powerful and transcendent an object Be once acquainted with Heaven by a life of faith and it will so powerfully draw you to it self that you will be ready to forget earth and take it as a kind of Nothing Get up to God and fix the eye of your soul on him and his glory will darken all the world and rescue you from the mis-leadings of that false fire that did delude you Come near him daily and taste how good he is and the sweetness of his love will make you marvail at them that think the world so sweet and marvail at your selves that you were ever of such a mind You cannot think that the world will be cast out of your Love but by the appearance of somewhat better then it self You must go to Heaven therefore for a Writ of ejectment You must fetch a beauty a pleasure from above that shall abase it and silence it and shame its competition O what is earth and all things in it to him that hath had a believing lively thought of Heaven Nothing below this will serve the turn You may think long enough of the troubles of the world and long enough confess its vanity before you can Crucifie it if you see not where you may have something that is better The poorest life will seem better then none and a little in hand will be preferred before uncertain hopes Till faith have opened Heaven to you as being the Evidence of the things invisible and have shewed you that they are not shadows but substances which the promise revealeth and Believers do expect you will be still holding fast that little that you have and you will say in your hearts as some do with their tongues I know what I have in this world but I know not what I shall have in another But the knowledge of God will soon make you of another mind Let in God into the soul and he will fill it with himself and leave no room for earth and flesh Learn what it is to walk with him and to have a conversation in heaven and it will cure you of your earthly mindedness Phil. 3. 18 19. There is no consistence between Earth and Heaven All men are either Earthly or Heavenly minded None therefore but the truly Heavenly Believer hath Crucified the world But because I have said more of this elsewhere I now forbear Direct 5. VNderstand well the right use and end of all creatures and make it your business accordingly to improve them I have told you before that they are all for God and glasses wherein we may see his face and
censure them because they cannot prove them to be such Deceivers When yet the very bent and course of their lives proclaimeth them worldlings to almost all men but themselves who by the just but heavy judgement of God are given over to that blindness as not to see that damnable sin in themselves that the enemies of Religion see with scorn and their most impartial friends do see with lamentation but seeing it are not able to remedy for worldliness is the commonest badge of an Hypocrite and where there is a false heart at the bottom and but an hypocriticall faith and an hypocriticall love to God and the life to come there will be no effectual resistance of the world but all exhortations do come upon so great disadvantage with such souls that usually they are lost and leave them as they find them If any covetous scraping earth-worm whether he be Gentleman Tradesman or Husbandman do feel his conscience at the reading of this begin to stir I beseech him if there be any hope of such hypocrites to hearken to it in time and regard a little more the warnings of his friends and not to be so stiffly confident of his innocency nor yet to think himself free from hainous gross and scandalous sin as long as he is a covetous worldling If covetousness be idolatry and the sin of those with whom we may not so much as eat and if the covetous shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven and be such as the Holy Ghost doth joyn with thieves and the vilest sinners who then but an Infidel can think that it is not a scandalous sin and such as will be the damnation of all that be not throughly cured of it See Eph. 5. 5 6 7. 1 Cor. 5. 10 11. Psal. 10. 3. 2 Tim. 3. 2. 2 Pet. 2. 14. Luke 16. 14. Mark 7. 22. 2 Tim. 3. 2. Ier. 8. 10. 6. 13. David prayeth God to encline his heart to his testimonies and not to covetousness Psal. 119. 36. and now men think they may be enclined to both and that they have found out the terms of reconciling heaven with earth and hell I marvail these men will not see their own faces when the Prophets and Christ himself do hold them so clear a glass Ezek. 33. 31. They come unto thee as the people cometh and they sit before thee as my people and they hear thy words but they will not do them for with their mouth they shew much love but their heart goeth after their covetousness Mat. 13. 22. He that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choak the word and he becometh unfruitful I know the men that I am now speaking of have many excellent gifts and in other respects do seem the forwardest for godliness in the Countrey but the more is the pitty that men of such parts should be rotten-hearted hypocrites and damned for worldliness after so much pains in duties For an heathen may as soon be saved as a worldling When they have prayed and preached and cryed down prophanness let them hear what the Lord saith to them Luke 18. 22 23 24. and there see again their faces in that glass Yet lackest thou one thing even such an one as none can be saved without even a Love to God and Heaven above earth sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come follow me And when he heard this he was very sorrowful for he was very rich And when Iesus saw that he was sorrowful he said How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God Set not then so high a value on a full estate Let your conversation be without covetousness and be contint with such things as ye have and trust your selves on the security of his promise who hath said I will never fail thee nor forsake thee Heb. 13. 5. It is not for nothing that Christ himself hath given you so many and so terrible warnings to take heed of this sin As Luke 12. 15. Take heed and beware of covetousness for a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth As if he should say While you think you are securing your well-being you do not secure your Being it self When you have done all to provide for the delights of your life you are never the surer of life it self Read the following passages in the Text and let them warn you or condemn you If such admonitions as these will not take from the mouth of him whom you call your Lord and from whom you profess to expect your Judgement What have we then further to say to you or how should our warnings expect entertainment with you Yet I shall do that which is my duty and leave the success to God I do therefore again in the name of God advise and warn you to Take heed of having too pleasant thoughts on a prosperous state Long not after fulness and plenty in the world Be not too eager for accomodations to your flesh A Coffin of two yards long will shortly hold it and be room enough for it And will nothing but well built houses adorned rooms the neatest cloathing and plentiful possessions serve you now How sad a mark is this of a soul that never had a saving taste of the everlasting riches Away foolish children and stand not building houses with sticks and sand Home with you to God and remember where you must dwell for ever When you have feathered your nests and made them as you would have them you must leave them before you are well settled and warm in them And if it comfort you to think that you leave them to your children remember that you leave them the fruit of your sins and bequeath to them the snares that undid your souls that so they may become the heirs of your wickedness and be deceived and destroyed by the world as you have been This is your great care for them and this is your kindness to them I have told you once already from God that this your way is your folly though your posterity be like to approve your sayings because you do so much to make them of your mind Psalm 49. 13. For though your inward thoughts be that your houses shall continue and you hope to leave a name behind you yet man being in honour abideth not but is like the beasts that perish When he dyeth he shall carry nothing away his glory shall not descend after him though whiles he lived he blessed his soul and men praise them that thus do well to themselves yet shall they go to the generation of their fathers and shall never see Light Man that is in honour and understandeth not is like the beasts that perish Vers. 11 12 17 18 19 20. Though the ungodly prosper in the world and encrease in riches yet he
that goeth believingly into the Sanctuary may see their end Surely they are set in slippery places and cast down into destruction How are they brought to desolation as in a moment and consumed with terrours Psalm 73. 12 17 18 19. And in that very day do all his thoughts perish Psalm 146. 4. Then shall they eat the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices for the turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them Prov. 31. 32. See then that you be not eager for prosperity and if God cast it on you use it with fear And if ever you feel the creature begin to grow too sweet and delightful to you then spit it out as the poyson of the soul and presently take a mortifying antidote before you are past remedy As you feel the working of poyson by its burning or griping or other effects agreeable to its nature by which it seeketh the extingushing of life so you may feel when the world is poyson to your souls by its creeping into your affections and insinuating into your hearts with present delight or future hopes by seeming more Lovely and more Necessary then it is As soon as ever you feel it thus creep into your hearâ—s its time to rise up against it with holy fear and to cast it out if you love your souls And that which I would advise you to at present when the world hath got too deep into your hearts before you are aware is this Do something extraordinary in such a necessity for its crucifixion and your recovery Though a careful diet may serve to preserve health while you have it yet if you have lost it and sickness be upon you you must have recourse to Physick for your cure If honour or preferment or house or land or friends or gain or recreations begin to seem too sweet and dear to you and your hearts begin to hug them with delight or make out after them with keen desires you must now have recourse to extraordinary helps and in particular try these following 1. Withdraw your selves to some more frequent and serious meditation of the brevity and vanity of the world then you have been used to steep your thoughts longer in mortifying considerations till the bent of your hearts begin to change 2. Be ofter with God in secret and publick prayer and give up a larger portion of your time to holy things then ordinarily you have done that acquaintance with heaven may wean your mind from earth and the Love of God may drown your worldly Love When you have taken any extraordinary cold you will get nearer the fire then ordinary and be longer at it and drive it out by heating things And when the world hath insinuated into your affections and chilled and cooled them to God and heaven its time to draw nearer God then before and to be longer with him and to strive harder in every duty then you did till spiritual life do work more vigorously and expell that earthly distemper which had possessed you 3. And at such a season let prayer be furthered by fasting and extraordinary humiliation which may help down the flesh which causeth you so much to over-value the world Even an Aâ—ab found some ease by a common humiliation when he had taken a mortal surfeit of Naboths Vineyard and his Blood Much more may a true Christian find much help by special humiliation when he hath surfeited on any creature whatsoever 4. And I think it would be a very good course at such a time as that to be at some more cost for God then you were before When you feel your love to the world increase Give somewhat extraordinary then to the poor or to pious uses according to your ability Yea what if it were so far as might a little pinch your selves This were a real opposition to the world and you might turn a very temptation to a gain and get much good by occasion of a sin It might do much to dis-hearten and repell the tempter when he seeth that you over-shoot him in his own bow and make such use as this of his temptations as to do the more good and use your wealth the more for God and deny your selves more then you did before If you would but faithfully practise these few directions you would find it the surest way of recovery when you begin to be infected with this earthly disease Direct 10. THE last Direction that I shall give you for the Crucifying of the world is this Be sure to keep off the means of its livelihood and keep it still under the mortifying means Lay siege to it and stop up all the passages by which the worlds provision would come in and keep it still under the strokes of enmity and the influence of that which is contrary to it Some particulars I will but briefly mention 1. Keep a constant guard upon your senses for this way the world creeps in to your hearts It is by gazing on alluring objects or hearing or tasting or the like that the flames of concupiscence are kindled in the heart By gazing upon beauty or comliness of perâ—â—n the heart of the wanton is infected with lust and so incited to the damnable practises of uncleanness The sight of the cup doth set an edge on the desires of the drunkard and the sight of enticing meats doth awaken and enrage the appetite of the gluttonous and by the presence of the bait their disease is set awork as worms in the body are by some kind of food Clemens Alexandr saith of these men that their disease is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is A madness about the throat And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is A madness in the belly And saith of them that are given to fulness or fineness of diet for the pleasing of their bellies that they are ruled by a Belly-Devil which saith he is the worst and most pernicious of all Devils Lay siege then to this belly-Devil and starve him out It is by the sight of gawdy fashions and curious apparel that the minds of vain effeminate persons are provoked to desire the like And the sight of pomp and honours doth kindle the fire of ambition and the sight of buildings and money and lands doth help to provoke the desires of the Covetous See therefore that you alwaies keep a watch upon your eyes Let them not run up and down like a master-less dog nor roul as the eyes of the lascivious that are hunting after the prey of lust If you have cause to pray as David Psal. 119. 37. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity You must practise according to your prayers and endeavour your selves to turn them away Have not the best of us as much reason as Iob to make a Covenant with our eyes Iob 31. 1. What wonder if the Garrison surrender not where the besieged have free passage and continual supplies And what
be in Heaven from whence it is that he expecteth his Saviour to change his vile earthly body and make it like to his glorious body Phil. 3. 17 18 19 20 21. If indeed you have laid up your treasure in heaven where rust and moath corrupt not and where thieves do not break through and steal let it appear then by the effects For where your treasure is there will your heart be and where your heart is that way the Labours of your lives will tend I shall reduce my Exhortation to some particulars 1. IF you are Crucified to the world be sure that you seek it not nor any thing in it for its own sake but only as a means to higher things The sincerity of your hearts doth lie much in this and the life of your souls depends much upon it Labour in your lawful callings and spare not so you exclude not your spiritual work It is not your Labour that we find fault with But if the creature be the end of any Labour you may better â—it still and spare your pains or rather speedily change your intentions If you overtake the hastyest traveller in his journey and ask him why he takes all that pains he will not say it is For Love of the way that he travaileth in but for Love of the place to which he is going or the persons or things which â—e there expects So must it be with you if you are the heirs of heaven I blame you not to be glad of a fair way and to love it rather then a foul one but it is not for the love of the way that you must travail He that runs in a race doth not bestow all that pains for the Love of the path which he runs in but for Love of the Prize which he expecteth at the end And he that plougheth and soweth doth it more for Love of the crop which he hopeth for then for Love of his labour He that saileth through the dangerous Seas performeth not his voyage for Love of the Sea or of his Ship but for Love of the Merchandize and Gain which he seeketh The Carryer that goeth weekly to London with your wares doth not take all that pains for Love of the carriage or of the way but of the gain which he deserveth So must it be with you in all your worldly business When you seek for credit or pleasure or maintenance in the world it must not be finally for the Love of these but for the End which they are given for and which your hearts and lives and all must be devoted to Your hearts will as soon deceive you in this as in any thing if you do not watch them with jealousie and diligence How quickly will the heart begin to Love the creature for it self that seemed once to Love it but for God Look in what measure you love your wealth your houses your recreations your friends for themselves and because they accommodate the flesh so far you wrong God and abuse them to â—dolatry And if your Love do begin in greater purity if you be not watchful it will quickly degenerate to a carnal Love Many a Scholar that at first desired Learning to fit him for the service of God and his Church doth by suffering carnality to insinuate and prevail lose much of the purity of his first affections and in time grow more cold and regardless of his first ends and loveth common Learning meerly for it self and for the delight of knowing or which is worse to get him a name among men It s common with men that need recreation for their health when they set upon it as they think but to fit them for their duty to fall in love with it afterwards to the perverting of their hearts the wounding of their consciences the wasting of their time and the neglect of that work of God for which it should be used We should take our meat and drink and cloathes but to strengthen and â—it us for the service of our Master but how quickly do we turn them to the gratifying of our flesh and so the service of another Master It s too frequent for young persons of different sexes to Love each other at first as Christians only with a chast and necessary Love but when they have been tempted awhile to an imprudent familiarity their Love doth degenerate and that which was Spiritual becometh Carnal and the Serpent deceiveth them to the corrupting of their minds and it s well if it proceed not to actuall wickedness and the undoing of each other Many a poor man thinks with himself If I were but out of debt or could but live so as to serve the Lord without distractions and had such and such necessities supplyed I would not desire any more or care any further for the world But if their desires be granted them they find themselves entangled and their hearts deceived and they thirst more after fulness then before they did after necessaries And many a one thinks I care not for riches or honours but only to do good with and if I had them I would so use them But when they have their desires the case is altered the flesh then hath need of it and can spare for God as little as other men because it loves it better then before and pretendeth to have more use for it then formerly it had Watch therefore over your deceitful hearts and be sure to keep up the Love of God and actually intend him in all that you have or do and be not withdrawn to carnal affections 2. IF you are Crucified to the world be not too eager for it As God hath promised it you but as an appendix to your felicity and as an overplus to the great blessings of the Covenant so must you desire it but as such And as God hath promised it you but with certain limitations so far as he shall see it good for you and agreeable to his greater ends so you must desire it but with such limitations I observe many to have so much reason as to put up their prayers for outward blessings with those limitations and will not for shame express themselves in absolute peremptory language when yet there is apparent cause to fear that they limit not their desires as they do their words nor do they submit so freely to the disposal of God in their hearts as they seem to do in their expressions and so they make their words to be modest while their desires are inordinate their language to be chast while their hearts are committing adultery with the world their expressions are pious while their affections are idolatrous And so their prayers are made monstrous while the soul of them is so disagreable to the body Be ashamed and afraid to desire that which you are ashamed and afraid to ask You dare not say to God in your prayers Lord I must needs have a fuller estate I would fain be rich and be somebody in the
devour widows houses after all their preaching and praying there is none that are more cruel and close handed or ready to over-reach or deceive then they nor any that are more greedy for the things of the world In answer to this Objection I shall first say somewhat to the Professors of Religion and then shall speak to the objecters themselves First you that profess the fear of God take notice I beseech you of this accusation and though it may shew you cause to pitty malicious slanderers yet let it provoke you to search your hearts and lives and see that you give not cause for this reproach As for those worldly time-serving hypocrites which in all places creep in among the Saints and do but serve themselves of Christ let them know that God will one day require an account at their hands of all these scandals which they have caused in the Church and the ruine of poor ungodly souls that are dasht in pieces and cast themselves into hell by stumbling at this stone which their worldly practises have laid before them If you would needs be worldlings you were better have kept in the world among worldlings then to have crept into the Church of Christ and brought thither your scandalous worldly lives to the dishonour of that Religion which condemneth your practises and you Did not Christ warn you to count your costs and never to dream of being his Disciples unless you could forsake all and follow him under the Cross in expectation of a promised treasure in Heaven â—s there any thing that Christ did more peremptorily require of you then to Renounce the world and deny your selves if you would be his Disciples And yet will you come without this wedding garment and bring your base and earthly minds among his servants and cause his truth and his house and followers to bear the reproach of your worldly baseness I tell you it is like to cost you dear that you have cast this dishonour on the name of God and caused the damnation of the impious reproachers The wrong you have done to God and men you shall certainly pay for in everlasting misery unless a through repentance do prevent it And I fear it is but few of these worldly Hypocrites that ever truly do repent But woâ— to them by whom offence cometh It were good for that man that he had never been born 2. And as for you that truly fear God I beseech you let the slanders of wicked men awake you to an holy jealousie of your selves You see what their eye is upon Take heed then how you walk you hear what it is that offendeth them As far as is possible avoid all occasions of such offence Take heed in your bargaining buying or selling how you carry your selves toward them and what you say If all the actions of your lives were right save one they will reproach you for that one If you speak but one rash or unhandsom word they will forget all the rest and remember that one and traduce you as if all were like that one See therefore that you walk and speak by line and rule And remember that it is not an ordinary measure of charity and good works that is expected from you according to your abilities by God and man If you love those that love you what Reward have you do not even the Publicans the same And if ye saluâ—e your brethren only what do you more then others do not even the Publicans so But saith Christ I say unto you Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despightfully use you and persecute you That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven for he maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust Mat. 5. 44 45 46 47. Let your Light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven Mat. 6. 15. Your actions and words are observed and scanned more then any other mens For malice is quick-sighted and of a strong memory And you are the Light of the world A City that is set on an hill cannot be hid Mat. 5. 14. Take heed therefore that you be blameless and harmless the Sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse Nation among whom ye shine as lights in the world holding forth the word of life This will not only stop the mouthes of the enemies but it will also rejoyce your Teachers in the day of Christ that they have not run or laboured in vain Yea if they were offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith they would rejoyce with you all Phil. 2. 15 16 17. And for your selves also it is necessary that you excell others in good works For except your righteousness exceed the righteousness even of Scribes and Pharisees you shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven Mat. 5. 20. Remember that you live among the blind and if you stumble and fall you know not how many will fall upon you and if you break but your shins they that fall upon you may break their necks and if you rise again you are not sure that they will rise Dearly beloved I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims in this world abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul having your conversation honest among the Gentiles the unbelievers and prophane that whereas they speak against you as evil doers they may by your good works which they behold glorifie God in the day of visitation 1 Pet. 2. 11 12. For so is the will of God that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men 1 Pet. 2. 15. Finally brethren be ye all of one mind having compassion one of another love as brethren be pittiful be curteous not rendring evil for evil or railing for railing but contrariwise blessing knowing that ye are thereunto called that ye should inherit a blessing 1 Pet. 3. 8 9. And so walk that if any obey not the word they may yet be won by your exemplary conversation 1 Pet. 3. 1. As you hear more then others so do more then others that it may appear you build upon a rock Mat. 7. 24 25. And as the book of God is much in your hands and mouth so remember that whoso looketh into the perfect Law of liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetfull hearer but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed For Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep your selves unspotted from the world Iam. 1. 25 27. 2. Having said this much to the godly by way of caution I shall now make answer to the Objecters themselves You that say There are none so cruel and so covetous as these that
profess themselves so Religious if you have any moderation left will you soberly answer me these Questions following Quest. 1. Is it the Hearts or the Outward actions of these professors that you perceive this covetousness by If it be the Heart you are slanderers and self idolizers For the Heart is open to none but God and will you make your selves Gods and that when you are playing the part of the Devil This hath been the tricks of Satans instruments in all ages When they are not able to say of the godly that they are swearers or drunkards or adulterers or stealers or lyars or slanderers as they themselves are they presently go to their hearts which are out of sight and say They are covetous and proud and the like For there they know that none but God is able to justifie them But common reason might also have taught them that none but God is there able to accuse them For how know you mens hearts but by their professions or by their lives But if you say It is the Life you judge by I demand what is it in the lives of such men that proves their covetousness If it be oppressing deceiving injustice or unmercifulness I would demand of you in the second place Quest. 2. Is it all or some of them that you thus accuse If you know some few to be such what is that to the rest But this hath been alwaies the trick of the malignant If they see one professor fall or prove an hypocrite they cry out They are all alike If you could but see their hearts they are all such Chrysostom and other of the Fathers tell us that this was the use in their daies and no wonder if it be so still What if there be one Cain in Adams family It follows not that Abel or Seth were like him What if there were one Cham in Noahs Ark will it follow that they were all alike or that his family was no better then the rest of the world which was drowned What if there was an Absalon in Davids family What if there was one Iudas among the Disciples of Christ Will you say therefore that all the rest were such or that Christs Disciples were as bad as others or his family no better then the rest of the world But I would further ask you Quest. 3. Is it the course of their lives that you judge by or is it some one particular action He that is not blind may see that the course and drift of their lives is less earthly and more heavenly then other mens And God judgeth of a man by the scope of his life and not by one single action and so must we The very bent and drift of your lives is worldly If a man come into your family what shall he see but worldliness If one fall into your company what shall he hear from you but about this world If one observe what you do from year to year he may see that you lay out your selves for the world You cannot refrain upon the Lords own day but you are minding it and talking of it You savour not any other discourse The very talk and labour that is laid out about another world is troublesom to you and its this that makes you dislike the godly You cannot say so of the course of their lives If once any of them have fallen by temptation into a miscarriage will you judge of all their lives by that Do they not lament and bewail it as long as they live after and avoid it more carefully for the time to come What if Noah were once drunk in his life will you judge of his whole life by it or say that he is as bad as the rest of the world What if Lot be given over to a temptation What if Abraham did once tell a lye or equivocate and Isaac do the like in a fear What if Moses did once provoke God What if David did once commit an hainous sin Or Peter did deny his Master in his fear Will you either judge of all other godly people by them Or will you judge of the course of their lives by one action which they bewail and lament as long as they live And can you see no difference between a Worldly action and a Worldly life Quest. 4. I would further know of you Whether you have gone to them in love and admonished them of their sin when you judged them to be guilty and heard them speak for themselves If not either you are incomperent judges or else you draw the guilt upon your selves and make the sin your own as the express commands of God will tell you in Levit. 19. 17. and Mat. 18. 15. If you have admonished them and they repent not why do you not tell the Pastors of the Church that they may admonish them and seek their reformation This is Christs order But you will not you dare not do this lest for want of proof you be proved slanderers and the shame of your accusations fall upon your selves You think you may whisper behind mens backs or accuse them in general without naming any particular fact and not be proved lyars But this will not hold long Quest. 5. Moreover I would know of you when you accuse men for not being more bountiful in your eyes Do you know of all their works of charity Are you acquainted with their bestowings Sure you are not For God hath commanded them Matth. 6. 1 2 3 4. Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven therefore when thou doest thine alms do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do c. But when thou dost thine alms let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth that thy alms may be in secret and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly This command they make conscience of and how then can you be meet judges of their alms Quest. 6. Also I would know Are you certainly acquainted with their particular estates and do you know how able they are to give If you do not you are no competent Judges How oft have I known men reproached for unmercifulness and for not being more liberall when they have been so low in their estates that they were not able to maintain their families or to pay every man his own and yet they that knew not this did back-bite them as covetous Quest. 7. Furthermore I would know Are you sure it is not Satan within you that prompteth you to these accusations Hear my evidence and judge He is called in Scripture the Accuser of the Brethren Rev. 12. 10. and he is described to be a Lying malicious spirit If therefore it be a Lying malignant malicious spirit then certainly it is the spirit of Satan And 1. We have cause to believe that it is a Lying spirit by these evidences following 1. We find
perswade you to part with it to supply his wants At least you will never be perswaded to part with all and follow Christ till the Belief of a Treasure in Heaven do perswade you to it Luke 18. 21 22. Can you say from your hearts Let all go rather then the Love of God And in a case of tryal do you certainly find that There is nothing so dear to you which you cannot part with for God and the hopes of everlasting life This is a sign of an effectual Faith For neither nature nor common grace did ever bring a soul so high 3. It is also a certain evidence of unfeigned Love For wherein is Love so clearly manifested as in the highest adventures for the person whom we Love and in the costlyest expressions of our Love when we are called to it Then it will appear that you Love God indeed when there is nothing else that you prefer before him and nothing but what you lay down at his feet When the greatest professors that love the world do shew that the love of the Father is not in them 1 Iohn 2. 15. So far as it is loved 4. To be Crucified to the world and alive to God is the very Honesty and Chastity and Iustice of the soul. This is your Fidelity to God in keeping the holy Covenant that you have made with him in Christ. This is your keeping your selves unspotted from the world and undefiled by it When the friends of it live in its Adulterous embracements Iam. 4. 4. Thus do you give the Lord his own even both the creature and your hearts when worldlings do unjustly rob him of both This is the great command and request of God Prov. 23. 26. My Son give me thy heart Give him but this and he will take it as if you gave him all For indeed the rest will follow this But if you give the world your hearts God will take all the rest as Nothing Benefit 2. THE second Benefit is this If you are truly Crucified to the world Your minds will be free for God and his service When the minds of worldlings are like imprisoned hampered things What a toylsom thing is it for a man to travail in fetters or to run a race with a burden on his back But knock off his fetters and how easily will he go and take off his burden and how lightly will he run Do you not feel your selves that the world is the clog of your souls and that this is it that hindereth you from duty and hindereth you in duty and keepeth you from the attainment of an heavenly conversation When you should chearfully go to God in secret or in your families the world is ready to pull you back Either it calleth you away by putting some other business into your hands or else it dulleth and diverteth your Affections so that you have no heart to duty or no life in it or else it creepeth into your Thoughts in duty and taketh them off from the work in hand and makes you do that which you seem not to be doing And if you shake off these thoughts and drive them out of your way they are presently again before you and meet you at the next Turn But in that measure as you have Crucified the world you are freed from these disturbances The Apostle Peter describeth the miserable estate of Apostates 2 Pet. 2. 20. to be like a bird or beast that had escaped out of the snare that he was taken in and after is taken in the same again Having escaped the pollution of the world c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are again entangled therein as a beast in a snare that cannot escape or help himself So 2 Tim. 2. 4. its said no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. So that you see that the world is a snare that entangleth mens souls and holdeth them as in captivity The table of the wicked becometh a snare to them and so do all the bodily mercies which they possess But the mortified Christian may look back on all these dangers and say Blessed be the Lord that hath not given us as a prey to their teeth Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers the snare is broken and we are escaped Psal. 124. 6 7. Oh with what ease and freedom of mind may you converse with God in holy Ordinances when you are once disâ—entangled from this snare Now that which formerly drew off your hearts and clog'd your affections is Crucified and dead that enemy that kept your souls from God and was still casting baits or troubles in your way is dead As the Apostle saith of sin Rom. 6. 7. He that is dead is freed from sin So I may say of the world He that is dead to the world in that measure as he is dead to it is freed from the world Let us therefore lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us and then we may run with Patience the race that is set before us Heb. 12. 1. This makes a poor Christian sometimes to live in more content and comfort in the depth of adversity then he did before in the midst of his prosperity because though his flesh hath lost his soul hath gain'd though he want the fleshly accommodations which he had yet the world is now more Dead to him then before and so his mind is freer for God and consequently more with him How blessed a life is it to converse with God with little disturbances and interruptions A runner in a race is willing to be rid of his very cloathes that should cover him and keep him warm because they are a burden and hinderance to him in his race But the lookers on would be loath to be so stript Take away prosperity from an unmortified man and you take away the comfort of his life When if the same things be taken from the mortified believer he loseth but his burden How readily will that man obey that is dead to the world when he is commanded to do good to relieve the poor according to his power to suffer wrongs to let go his right to forgive and requite evil with good to forsake all and follow Christ. When to another man these duties are a kind of impossibilities and you may as well perswade a Lyon to become a Lamb or a beast to die willingly by the hand of the Butcher as perswade an unmortified worldling to these things They think when they hear them These are hard sayings who can bear them Or at least they are duties for a Peter or a Paul and not for such as we There is a very great part of Christian obedience that will be easie to you when you are Dead to the world which no man else is able to endure nor will be perswaded to submit to Benefit 3. ANother Benefit of this Crucifixion is this The
of heaven in it The stones and earth are useful for you to tread upon though they are unfit for you to feed on or too hard to rest upon So though the world be unfit to Rest or feed your souls it may be made a convenient way for you to travail in It is unmeet to be Loved but it is meet to be Used when you have learned so to use it as not abusing it When self is throughly down and denyed and God is exalted and your souls brought over so clearly to him that you are nothing but in him and would have nothing but in and with him and do nothing but for him then you shall be able to see that glory and amiableness in the creature that now you cannot see I or you shall see the Creator himself in the creature Benefit 10. WHEN once you are truly Crucified to the world You will have the honour and the comfort of an heavenly life Your thoughts will be daily steeped in the Coelestial delights when other mens are steept in Gall and Vinegar You will be above with God when your carnal neighbours converse only with the world Your thoughts will be higher then their thoughts and your waies then their waies as the heaven where you converse is higher then the earth When you take flight from earth in holy Devotions they may look at you and wonder at you but cannot follow you for whither you go they cannot come till they are such as you You leave them groveling here on earth and feeding on the dust and striving like children or rather like swine or dogs about their meat When you are above in the Spirit on the speedy wings of Faith and Love beholding that face that perfecteth all that perfectly behold it and tasting that Joy which fully reconcileth all that fully do enjoy it which we must here contend for but none do there contend about it What a noble employment have you in comparison of the highest servants of the world How sweet are your delights in comparison of the Epicures O happy souls that can see so much of your eternal happiness and reach so near it Were I but more in your condition I would not envy Princes their glory nor any sensualists and worldlings their contents nor desire to be their partner I could spare them their troublesom dignities and their burdensom Riches and the unwholsom pleasures which they so often surfet on and the wind of popular applause which so swelleth them Yea what could I not spare them if I might be more with you O happy poverty sickness or imprisonment or whatever is called misery by the world if it be nearer Heaven then a sensual life and if it will but advantage my soul for those contemplations which are the imployment of mortified heavenly men Yea if it do but remove the impediments of so sweet a life I know by some little too little experience I know that one hours time of that blessed life will easily pay for all the cost and one believing view of God will easily blast the beauty of the world and shame all those thoughts as the issues of my dotage that ever gave it a lovely name or turned mine eye upon it with desire or caused me once with complacency to behold it or ever brought it near my heart O Sirs what a noble life may you live and how much more excellent work might you be employed in if the world were but dead to you and the stream of your souls were turned upon God Had you but one draught of the Heavenly consolations you would thirst no more for the pleasures of the world Yea did you but taste of it as Ionathan of the honey from the end of his rod 1 Sam. 14. 27. your eyes would be enlightened and your hearts revived and your hands would be so strengthened in your spiritual warfare that your enemies would quickly perceive it in your more resolute prevailing opposition of their assaults And experience will tell you that you will no further reach this heavenly life then you are Crucified to earth and flesh God useth to shew himself to the Coelestial inhabitants and not to the Terrestrial And therefore you will see no more of God then you get above and converse in Heaven And if faith had not this elevating power and could not see further then sense can do we might talk long enough of God before we had any saving knowledge of him or relish of his Goodness And doubtless if we must get by faith into Heaven if we will have the reviving sight of God then we must needs away from earth For our hearts cannot at once converse in both Believe it Sirs God useth to give his heavenly Cordials upon an empty stomack and not to drown them in the mud and dirt of sensuality When you are emptyest of creature-delights and love you are most capable of God And fasting from the world doth best prepare you for this heavenly Feast Let Abstinence and Temperance be imposed upon your senses but command a totall Fast to your Affections And try then whether your souls be not fitter to ascend and whether God will not reveal himself more clearly then before It may seem a paradox that the vallies should be nearer Heaven then the Hills But doubtless Stephen saw more of it then the high Priests And Lazarus had a fairer prospect thither from among the dogs at the Rich mans gate then the Master of the house had at his plentiful table And who would not rather have Lazarus's sores with a fore-sight of Heaven then the Rich mans fulness without it yea with the fears of after misery A Heavenly life is proper to the mortified Benefit 11. MOreover those that are Crucified to the world are most fruitfull unto others and blessings to all within their reach They can part with any thing to do good with They are rich to God and their Brethren if they be rich and not to themselves If a mortified man have hundreds or thousands by the year he hath no more of it for himself then if he had a meaner estate He takes but necessary food and rayment he shunneth intemperance and excess Nay he often pincheth his body if needfull that he may tame it and bring it into subjection to the Spirit and the rest he layes out for the service of God so far as he is acquainted with his will Yea his necessary food and rayment which he receiveth himself is ultimately not for himself but for God Even that he may be sustained by his daily bread for his daily duty and fitted to please his Master that maintaineth him If they have much they give plenteously If they have but little they are faithfull in that little And if they have not silver and gold they will give such as they have where God requireth it But the unmortified worldling is like some spreading trees that by drawing all the nutriment to themselves and by dropping on the rest
will let no other prosper under them They draw as much as they can to themselves For themselves is their care and daily labour Psal. 49. 18. They all mind their own things but not the things of Christ or their Brethren Getting and Having and Keeping is their business and as swine are seldom profitable till they die Benefit 12. THE last Benefit that I shall mention is this If you are now Dead to the world and the world to you your natural Death will be the less grievous to you when it comes It will be little oâ— no trouble to you to leave your houses or lands or goods to leave your eating and drinking and recreations to leave your employments and company in the world for you were dead to all that is worldly before Surely so far as the Heart is upon God and taken off these transitory things it can be no grief to us to leave them and go to God It is only the remnants of the unmortified flesh together with the natural evil of death that maketh death to seem grievous to Believers but so far as they are Believers and dead to the world the case is otherwise Death is not neer so dreadful to them as it is to others except as the quality of some disease or some extraordinary dissertion may change the case Or as some desparate wicked ones may be insensible of their misery How bitter is the sight of approaching death to them that laid up their treasure on earth and placed their happiness in the prosperity of their flesh To such a fool as Christ describeth Luke 12. that saith to himself Soul take thy ease eat drink and be merry thou hast enough laid up for many years How sad must the tidings of death needs be to him that set his heart on earth and spent his daies in providing for the flesh and never laid up a treasure in heaven nor made him friends with the Mammon of unrighteousness nor gave not diligence in the time of his life to make his Calling and Election sure To a worldly man that sets not his heart and hopes above the face of death is unspeakably dreadful But if we could kill the world before us and be dead to it now and alive to God and with Paul die daily it would be a powerful means to abate the terrours and a certain way to take out the sting that death might be a sanctified passage into life So much of the Benefits of Mortification AND now what remains but that you that are Mortified Believers receive your Consolation and consider what the Lord hath done for your souls and give him the praise of so great a mercy Believe it it is a thousand fold better to be Crucified to the world then to be advanced to prosperity in it and to have a heart that is above the world then to be made the possessor of the world And for you that yet are strangers to this mercy O that the Lord would open your hearts to consider where you are and what you are doing and whether you are going and how the world will use you and how you are like to come off at last before you go any further that you may not make so mad a bargain as to gain the world and lose your souls O that you did but throughly believe that it is the only wise and gainful choice to deny your carnal selves and forsake all and follow Christ in hope of the heavenly treasure which he hath promised And let me tell you again as the way to this That though melancholly may make you weary of the world and stoicall precepts may restrain your lusts yet it is only the power of the Holy Ghost the Cross of Christ the belief of the promise the Love of God the Hopes of the everlasting invisible Glory that will effectually and savingly Crucifie you to the world and the world to you It is a Lesson that never was well taught by any other Master but Christ and you must Learn it from him by his Word Ministers and Spirit in his School or you will never Learn or Practise it aright The second PART Of the CHRISTIANS Glorying SECT XXIII HAving thus dispatched the first part of my subject concerning a Christians Crucifixion to the world by Christ and his Cross I come to the second Part concerning the Glorying of a Christian The Iudaizing Teachers did Glory carnally even in a carnall worship and carnall priviledges and in the carnall effects of their Doctrine on their Proselytes but Paul that had more to Glory in then they doth disclaim and renounce all such Glorying as theirs and owneth and professeth a contrary Glorying even in the Cross of Christ and his Mortification The Observation to be handled is that True Christians must with abhorrency renounce all Carnal Glorying and must Glory only in the Cross of Christ by whom the world is Crucified to them and they unto the world In handling this I shall briefly shew you 1. What is included or what we may Glory in 2. What is excluded or what we may not Glory in For the former here are two things expressed in the Text in which a Christian may and must Glory 1. The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2. Our Crucifixion to the world hereby So that the Positive part of the Doctrine containeth these two branches which I shall handle distinctly before I speak to the Negative part 1. True Christians that are Crucified to the world and the world to them by the Cross of Christ may and must Glory therein 2. Yet so as that their Glorying must be principally in Christ and their own Mortification must be Gloryed in but as the fruit of his Cross. For the first Part it must be understood with these necessary limitations 1. As Glorying signifieth a self-ascribing and Proud conceit of our own Mortification and is contrary to Christian self-denyal and humility and Glorying in God so we must take heed of it and abhor it 2. As Glorying signifieth any outward expression of this inward pride either by words or deeds we must also avoid it with abhorrence 3. So must we also do by all unseasonable offensive ostentation which may seem to others to savour of Pride though indeed it proceed from a better cause 4. But as Glorying signifieth the apprehension of the Good of the thing and our Benefit by it and the due Affections of Content and Joy and Exultation of mind that follow thereupon thus must a Christian Glory in his Mortification by the Cross of Christ. We commonly call this act a Blessing of our selves in the apprehension of our case As the carnal ungodly world do Bless themselves in their Possessing carnal things so may a Christian bless himself that he is Crucified to them that is he may rejoyce in it as a great blessing of God that tendeth to further blessedness 5. And when we are called to it we may express to others our Glorying herein But
you whether all must be referred and how little you are beholden for it to your selves Meet every thought of self-exalting with abhorrenceâ— and give it no other entertainment in your souls then you would give the Devil himself who is the Father of it For casting down Christ will prove the casting down of your selves and he that exalteth himself shall be abased SECT XXVII I Come now to the third and last branch of the Observatition viz. that To Glory in any thing save the Cross of Christ and our Crucifixion thereby is a thing that the soul of a Christian should abhor Here I shall shew you what it is that is not excluded from our glorying in these words And then what it is that is excluded and conclude with some Application 1. It is none of the Apostles meaning in these words that we may not Glory in God the Father For his love to the world was the cause of their Redemption And his pleasure and glory is the end of Redemption and was intended by Christ and must be intended by us As Iustine Martyr saith he would not have believed in Christ himself if he had led them to any but the true God So I may say Christ had not done the work of Christ if he had intended any End but God and had not brought up all to God 2. When it is said that we must Glory only in the Cross of Christ the meaning is not that we must not also Glory in his Incarnation and holy Life and Resurrection and Intercession and every part of his Mediatorship For the Cross is not here put as Contradistinct from these but all these are implyed in his Cross as having their share as well as it in the work of our salvation 3. Nor is it the meaning of the Apostle to forbid us to Glory in the promise that Christ hath made us and in the glad tidings of the Gospel For this brings the blessed news to our ears this is the joyful sound the voice of Love the Charter of our inheritance and therefore sweet to all the sons of Life 4. Nor is it any of the Apostles sense that we may not Glory in the Spirit of Christ as magnifying him for the work of illumination and Sanctification As it was an high sin in Ananias and Sapphira to lye to the Holy Ghost and as it is the unpardonable sin to blaspheme the Holy Ghost So it must be a great duty to honour and magnifie the Holy Ghost And therefore it should make us tremble to hear some prophane men abuse the Holy Ghost in deriding his works saying These are the Holy Brethren these are the Saints these have the Spirit 5. Nor yet are we forbidden to Glory in the effects of the Cross of Christ upon us for these you find are included in the Text even our Crucifixion to the world thereby And the other effects of it even our Justification Adoption and the rest may be Gloried in as well as this that is here named as the Apostle doth Rom. 8. 30 31 32 33. to the end yet still referring all to God in Christ. 6. Nor are we forbidden to Glory in the helps of our salvation the Ordinances of God and means of Grace so we give no more to them then their due and look at them but as the appointed means of God that can do nothing but by him 7. No nor is it unlawfull so far to Glory in our Teachers as God hath sent them and qualified them for our good and as they are the Messengers of God and instruments of the Spirit So did Cornelius glory in Peter Acts 10. and when the Apostles brought the Gospel to Samaria there was great joy in that City Acts 8. 8. And the Apostle commandeth the Churches to know them that are over them in the Lord and submit themselves and esteâ—â— them highly in love for their works sake 1 Thes. 5. 12. 8. Nay we may Glory even in honour and riches and other outward things as they are the effects of the Love of God and the blood of Christ and as they reveal God to us or furnish us for his service and the relief of his people and any way further the Ends of our holy Faith In a word we may glory in any thing that is good as it stands in its due subordination to Christ ascribing to it no more then belongs to it in the relation and not separating it in our thoughts or affections from Christ but carrying all the Glory ultimately to God and making the creature but the means thereto And thus we may not only praise the Physitian but the Medicine the Apothâ—caâ—y the handsom administration the glass that it is brought in the silver spoon in which we take it and all this without any wrong to the Physitian or danger of displeasing him if we respect every thing but as it stands in its own place So much to shew you what is not exexcluded 2. But what is it then that we may not Glory in As I told you in the beginning not in our selves or any creature as opposite to Christ or separate from him or any way pretending to be what it is not or do what it cannot But let us enter into some particulars 1. Have you dignities and honours and high places in the world Do others bow to you and have you power to crush them or exalt them at your pleasure Glory not in it as any part of your felicity A horse is stronger then a man The great Mogal and the Turkish Emperour and many another Infidel Prince is a thousand fold beyond the greatest of you in Power and earthly dignity and yet what are they but miserable wretches Your power will not conquer death nor keep off sickness nor keep the stoutest of your Carkasses from corruption When a man shall see you gasping for breath and yielding your selves prisoners to unresistible death and closing those eyes that look so haughtily then who can discern the Glory of your greatness Who then will fear you or honour or regard you further then your deserts or their interests lead them Your flatterers will then forsake you and seek them a new Master When they are winding your Carkass and laying it up for rottenness in the dust what signs of your power will then appear Will your corpse have any reverend aspect How many have been spurned when they were dead that were bowed to while they were alive There are many in Hell and there will be for ever that were greater men then you on earth The higher you clime the lower you have to fall If the breath of a thousand applaud you now perhaps a million may reproach you when you are dead However it is not the applause of men that will carry you to heaven or abate the least of your pain in Hell Glory not then in worldly honours or greatness But rather rejoyce that you have enough without all this in God How well thinks the
be moved to return with shame and sorrow for that which hath been formerly your glory and your joy O do not keep out the light of Conviction that you may keep up your Idols in the dark Your sin is never the less because you wilfully keep it out of sight and your danger is never the less for being unknown If you will sin in darkness you shall suffer in darkness As you have a fire of fleshly and worldly lusts within you which abhors the light of saving truth so God hath a fire of perpetual torment for you which is as far from the consolatory light of his countenance As the fire of concupiscence is dark so is the tormenting fire dark If you hate the converting light because your deeds are evil and will not by this light be made manifest to your selves Iohn 3. 19 20 21. this will be your condemnation and by this will you deprive your selves of the Glorifying light If you love Darkness who can you blame but your selves if you be cast into outer darkness And if you hate light you cannot reasonably expect to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in Light Col. 1. 13. What say you then Beloved Hearers are you willing to know your hearts or not Whether you are dead to the world and the world to you Me thinks you should be willing when you see the Question is as great as Whether you are Christians indeed or not and as great as Whether you are in a state of salvation or not Me thinks you that naturally love knowledge and would be at some pains to know all that 's about you in the world should not be unwilling to know your selves and specially so great a matter by your selves as Whether you are the heirs of salvation or damnation for in the issue it is no less Especially when your disease is such as must be cured by the Light if ever it be cured You cannot lament your worldliness and sensuality you cannot lament your disaffectedness to God and intolerable neglects of him till you find them out You cannot betake you to Christ for the pardon of this sin till you have discovered it A sin unseen will never humble you and break your hearts nor fit them for Christ to bind them up If you see not that the world is yet alive in you you will not apply the Cross for the crucifying of it nor have recourse to a Crucified Christ for that End Moreover it is the Nature of all sin and worldly vanities to seem best in the dark and basest in the Light As God and heavenly things seem best in the greatest Light and worst in the Darkness None do set light by God and Grace and Glory but those that know them not And none do set much by worldly fleshly things but those that know them not As illumination brings in God into the soul so doth it help to cast out Satan and the world When mens eyes are opened and they are turned from darkness to light they are presently turned from the power of Satan unto God Acts 26. 18. These infernall worldly spirits cannot endure the Light They walk not by day but haunt them whom they captivate in the night of ignorance and if we do but come in upon them with Light they are gone It is the same Devil that is called The Prince of this world and the Ruler of the darkness of this world Eph. 6. 12. and this power is a power of darkness Luke 22. 53. and therefore as light immediatly expelleth darkness so if you will admit the Light of Christ it will deliver you from the power of darkness Col. 1. 13. and cause you to cast off the works of darkness Rom. 13. 12. that is your worldly fleshly works For my part I have not access to your hearts unless grace perswade you to open me the door I cannot promise to Illuminate you and go with you into the inmost rooms but I shall stand at the door and hold you the Candle by which you may see your selves what is within if you will but consent and take the pains of a through enquiry I do therefore earnestly intreate you to set up a judicature in your selves and by the Word which you have heard to try your states and let Conscience be Judge and do it speedily faithfully and effectually By this means you may prevent a sharper tryal If you are afraid of Conscience how much more should you be afraid of God Will not his Judgement think you be more dreadful then your own What madness is it to leave all to that tetrible Judgement rather then to Judge your selves for the preventing of it Believe it you shall be condemned by your selves or â—y God Yea both by your selves and by God â—…s your self-condemnation be seconded by an effectual execution of the sin which you condemn Willing or unwilling you must to the Barr either of Conscience or of God or both Come on then beloved Hearers rouze up your sleepy souls and remember that your salvation is the thing in question and therefore put it not to a wilful hazard and leave not loose a matter of such consequence But if you are men of common reason if you do not hate your selves and have not a resolved plot to damn your selves take time while you may have it and aceept the light and help that is offered you and speedily and strictly examine your own hearts Whether they are Crucified and dead to the world or not Is it so or is it not Sirs Cannot you tell If you know but what this mortification is and know but your own hearts no doubt but you may tell And if you are ignorant of either of these it is because you are shamefully negligent and have not much regarded the things that you should know For those that are willing to be acquainted with their state I shall besides the foregoing discoveries here give you a few more signs by which you may discern whether you are crucified to the world And I beseech you do what you can in the tryal as we go and make up the rest at the next opportunity when you come home and follow it on till you come to a resolution SECT XV. IT is not a perfect work of Mortification that I shall now enquire after For that no man on earth hath obtained Nor is it any high degree which only the stronger and better sort of true Christians do attain For if I convince you that you want either of these you will not much be humbled by the conviction But it is the very least and lowest measure that iâ— consistent with sincerity and which is in all that are heirs of heaven this is it that I shall now discover to you 1. If you are sincerely Crucified to the world it is not carna self that is your End but your ultimate End is God and Glory Can you but tell me what is the main Design of your Life Whether it