perisheth in the using and flyeth from us when we have greatest need That is the good part which all men will say is good in the Conclusion which the wicked themselves that are now of another mind will confess at last to be the best and not that which is commended only in prosperity while the frensy or dream of sensuality doth beguile men â—â—â— which they will all cry out against at last If you would know which is the best part take counsel of God and see what he saith and ask men of wisdom and of greatest experience that have tried both and men that have staid the end and seen what fleshly pleasures and profits and honours can do for them For how can men make so true a judgement that do not either stay the end or else foresee the end by faith Do not take their judgements that are drunk with their sensual delights and that will confess they must repent themselves and therefore confess they must be of another mind Take not their judgements that neither have seen nor yet foresee the end the worst is yet to come with them Their states and minds are near a change The day is near when they will say that heaven was the better part and be convinced by punishment that would not be convinced by instruction Surely Sirs it is so easie a Question to reason it self where sin hath not blinded it whether God or the world be the better part that one would think there should be left no room for doubting Dare any of you speak out and say that earth is better then heaven or sin then grace or temporal pleasure then eternal happiness I think you dare not Shame will forbid you and Conscience will contradict you if you should say so And will you commend God by your words and discommend him by your lives Will you say heaven is best and yet seek the world before it and not let it have the best of your affections and endeavours Shall it be highest in your mouthes and lowest in your hearts and lives Shall it have the first place in your prayers and the last in your labours Why then you commend God but to his dishonour and your condemnation You extoll heaven and heavenly things but to the confusion of your own faces that your own confessions may be brought in hereafter as witnesses against you In the name of God therefore I charge you if you know which is the better part condemn not your selves by making choice against your knowledge 4. COnsider also that this good part is offered you and you have your choice whether God or the world whether heaven or earth shall be your portion It is not Purchasing or proper meriting but choosing the good part that you are called to It is not Mary hath purchased or merited the better part but hath chosen the better part Two things are here contained 1. That it is not matter of Impossibility that you are called to you are not excluded from the hopes of salvation by any exceptions that God hath put in against you in his promise but it is conditionally made as well to you as to others 2. And the condition is not any thing â—â—reasonable but your own consent Christ and salvation are offered to your choice If you will but prefer them before the trifles of the world you may have them The door of Grace is open to you as well as to others if you will but enter you may live you are not left in a remediless case nor given over to desperation you cannot say Repenting and Believing will do us no good we cannot have Christ though we were never so willing You cannot say We would fain have Christ and his Spirit to sâ—nctifie us but we cannot we are willing to be his Disciples but he is not willing to accept us and to be our Saviour you cannot say so and say truly you cannot say he is set to sale to you and that he expecteth such a price as you are unable to give for you are called to take him freely and though this be sometimes called buying yet it is a buying without money and without price Isa 55. 1 2 3 4. And though you must sell all you have for this unvaluable pearl Matth. 13. 46. yet that is but a Metaphorical selling a parting with your sin and fleshly pleasure as troubles and impediments that would keep you from salvation As a sick man sells his diseases for health or at least as he hath health by forbearing some hurtful things that please him Or as a prisoner purchaseth the liberty that is freely given him by consenting to come forth and cast off his fetters Your hands are full of dirt and God offers you gold and you cannot receive it till you throw away the dirt This is your Purchase You give God nothing as a valuable price for his mercy but you throw away the sin that is inconsistent with your happiness Still I shall tell you you may have Christ if you will pleasures and profits are flattering you to your destruction and God calls you from them and offereth you his son and everlasting life and intreateth you to accept them And here you have your choice The offer is whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely Rev. 22. 17. And if you will but chuse that happiness that is offered you and Christ the way to that happiness all the world cannot bereave you of your choice It is brought to your hand and urged on you You have now your choice whether you will have Christ or the flesh grace or sin heaven or hell As you chuse so you shall have And if you miss of life it will be because you did not chuse it Even because you would not come to Christ that you might have life John 5. 40. and would not have him to rule over you Luke 19. 27. and would not have the Lord indeed for your God Pâ—â—â—m 81. 11. and did not chuse the fear of the Lord Prov. 1. 29. yea when Christ would have gathered you you would not be gathered Matth. 23. 37. It is this turning away of the simple that doth slay them because they refuse when Christ calls them and regard not when he stretcheth forth his hand but set at naught his counsel and will have none of his reproof Prov. 1. 24 25 32. See therefore that you refuse not him that speaketh for if you turn away from him that speaks from heaven and neglect or make light of so great salvation how do you think it possible you should escape Heb. 12. 25. 2. 3. Mat. 22. 5. But perhaps some of you will think to excuse your selves for want of Free-will and say How is it in our choice when God must give us to will and to do and we can do nothing of our selves have we free-will or power to chuse the better part You must not set up the power or will of man too high Answ
clear in it self and much more clear how few do we prevail with Is not the Question Whether God or the Creature Holiness or Sin Earth or Heaven Short or Everlasting pleasures should be preferred as plain to a wise man as any of those that I mentioned before Is it not as plain a case to a man of judgement Whether Holiness with Everlasting joys be better then fleshly pleasures with damnation as whether a Kingdom be better then a Jayle or Gold then dirt or health then sickness Yet do your salvations lie upon this Question this easie Question I must again repeat it All your salvations lie upon the practical resolution of this easie Question Be but Resolved once that God is Best for you and Heaven is Best for you and accordingly make your Resolute Choice and faithfully Prosecute it and God will be Yours Heaven will be yours as sure as the Promise of God is true But if you will not Choose God and Glory as your Best but will Choose the world and simple pleasures as Better for you you shall have no better then you chose and shall suffer a double condemnation for neglecting and refusing so great salvation You hear now by mens talk and you see by their lives that the world is divided upon this Question What it is that is Best for a man and which is his Best and Wisest course One part and the greater think in their hearts that present prosperity is best because they think that the promised happiness of the life to come is a thing uncertain or iâ— there be such a thing they may have it after the pleasures of sin These are the Infidels Another part have a superficial dead Opinion that Heaven and Holiness are Best but the Love of the flesh and the world lyeth deeper at their hearts and beareth the greater sway in their lives and these are the Hypocrites that is Christians in Opinion and Profession and so much of their Practice as will stand with their fleshly interest but Infidels in their Practical estimation and at the Heart and in the reserves and secret bent of their lives Another part being illuminated and sanctified from above Believe the Certainty and Excellency of Glory and see the vanity and vexation of this life and taste the sweetness of the Love of God and perceive the Necessity and sweetness of that Holiness which others so abhor and hereupon give up themselves to God and set themselves to seek for the Immortal treasure and make it the principal care of their hearts and business of their lives to escape damnation and live with Christ in endless Glory All the world consisteth of these three sorts of men Infidels Hypocrites and true Believers Now the Question is Which of these three are in the right Both the other do condemn the Hypocrite that halteth between two opinions and One thinks that Baal is God that the World is Best and therefore he gives up himself to it and the other thinks that The Lord is God and Heaven is best and therefore he gives up himself to it And if it would do any thing with those that doubt towards the turning of the scales to tell you which side Christ is on it s told you here in my Text as plain as the tongue of man can speak One thing is Needful Mary hath chosen that Good part which shall not be taken away from her THe Doctrine which I am now to handle to you from the plain words of the Text is this Doct. That those that prefer the Learning of the word of Christ to guide them by Holiness to Everlasting Happiness before all the lower matters of this world are they that choose the Better part even that which shall never be taken from them If now the word of Christ alone would serve your turn I had done my work I needed not to go any further You would be now resolved that Heaven and Holiness is best and would set your hearts and lives to seek it and so it would be your own for ever But this Text hath long stood in the Gospel and men have heard and read it often and yet the most are not perswaded and therefore I must try to open it a little farther to you and plead it with you and work the Reason of it upon your minds Reader our business is but to enquire What it is that is Best for Man to set his heart on and seek after in his Life and Enjoy for ever I say it is the Everlasting Enjoyment of God in Heaven For Christ saith so If thou think otherwise let us debate the case If thou believe as I do Live as thou professest to believe If men did but deeply and soundly know what it is that is best for them it would set right their hearts and lives and make them happy But not knowing this is it that keepeth them from God and Holiness and everlastingly undoes them Though I have often opened this heretofore on other occasions yet my present subject now requireth 1. That I tell you What that is that here is called The Good part 2. What it is that is set against it and by fleshly minds preferred before it And having briefly opened these two things I shall come to the Comparison and shew you which is the better part 1. That which Christ calls here that good part is 1. Principally the end of man or our everlasting Happiness with God in Heaven 2. Subordinately the Means by which it is attained 3. That Happiness which is the end comprehendeth in it these particulars which if you distinctly apprehend you will much the better understand the nature and excellency of it 1. The true Believer hath the small beginnings and earnests and foretastes of the Everlasting Blessedness in this Life in his approaches to God and living upon him by Faith and Love and â—â— his believing apprehensions of the Favour of God the Grace â—â— Christ and the Happiness which in Heaven he shall enjoy for ever 2. At death the souls of true Believers do go to Christ and enter upon a state of Happiness 3. At the last day the body shall be raised and united to the soul and the Lord Jesus Christ will come in glory to judge the world where he will openly absolve and justifie the Righteous when he condemneth the ungodly and will be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that do believe and the Saints shall also judge the world and be themselves adjudged to everlasting Glory 4. Their everlasting habitation shall be in the Heavens even near unto God and in the presence of his Glory 5. Their company will be only Blessed Spirits even the holy Angels and glorified Saints with whom we shall be One Body and constitute the New Jerusalem and be perfectly one in God for ever 6. Their Bodies shall be perfected and made immortal spiritual incorruptible and glorious bodies shining as the Stars in the Celestial Firmament No more subject
No it s you that would set up your wills too high in making us believe that you are not wilfully ungodly and impenitent but omit all the good and do all the evil that you do because you cannot help it You cannot but know that he is the sinner to be blamed and punished that Can and Will not rather then he that would but cannot do good and forbear the contrary You know that it is wilfulness and not unwilling impotency that the venome of malice and naughtiness lyeth in and therefore you are excusing your wills and laying all upon your Impotency which is but to excuse your faults I would make you know the baseness of your wills and that it is long of your badness that you are like to be undone if grace prevent it not by your through Conversion I do not say that you have any power but what you have from God but I say you have the Natural and Legal Power and more then Power even a Grant and Offer of such a mercy from God You have humane faculties and leave and offers and entreaties and you may have Christ and life as he is offered if you will When I say It is in your choice I do not say that you have the wit or the heart to make a right choice No if you had but so much wit and grace I need not use all these words to you to perswade you to chuse the better part Your Wills are free from any force that God puts upon them to determine them to sin or from any force that Satan or any enemy you have can use to determine them to sin All they can do is morally to entice you God doâ—â—â—ot make you sin If you chuse â—â—ur death and forsake your own mercy it is not God that determineth your Wills to make this choice Yea he commandeth and perswadeth and urgeth you to make a better choice And though Satan tempt you he can do no more You have so much power that you may have Christ if you will you cannot say I am truly willing to have Christ and cannot Thus much free-will undoubtedly you have But I must confess that your Wills are not free from the misguidingâ— of a blinded mind nor from the seduction of a sensual inclination nor from a base and wicked disposition of your own This kind of free-will you shew us that you have not But is your wickedness your excuse and is your wilfulness your innocency What then can be culpable Sirs I would not have you abuse God and befool your selves with names and words saying You have not power and free-will as if you might thus excuse your sin I have opened the matter in plain terms to you that children may understand it though learned men have endeavoured to obscure it God giveth you your choice though your own wickedness do hinder you from chusing aright You have a price in your hands but fools have not a heart to their own good Prov. 17. 16. I know you want both wisdom and a sanctified will and I know that your minds and wills are contrarily disposed You need not tell me that you are wilful and wicked when there must be so many words spoken and so many Books written and so much mercy and patience of God and so many afflictions from his hand and all will not serve to make you chuse the better part But if you were willing if you were truly willing the principal part of the work were done For if you are willing Christ is willing and if Christ be willing and you be willing what can hinder your salvation Having laid this ground-work from the plain Word of God methinks I may with this advantage now plead the case even with common Reason One thing is needful the Good part is that one and this is tendred to you by the Lord What is it then that you do make choice of and what do you resolve May you have Christ and Pardon and Everlasting life and will you not have them Shall it be said of you another day that you had your choice whether you would have Christ and life or sin and death and you chose destruction and refused life I beseech theâ— Reader whosoever thou art that readest these lines that thoâ—…ouldst a little turn thine ears to God and withdraw thy self from the delusions of the flesh and world and use thy reason for thy everlasting peace and consider with thy self what a dreadful thing it will be if thou be everlastingly shut out of the presence of God upon thy own choice And if thou lose thy part in Christ and Pardon and everlasting Glory upon thy own choice And if thou must lie in Hell fire and Conscience must tell thee there for ever Thou hast but the fruit of thine own choice Heaven was set open to me as well as others I had life and time and teaching and perswasions as well as others but I chose the pleasure of sin for a season though I was told and assured that hell would follow and now I have that which I made choice of and taste but the fruit of my own wilfulness Will not such gripes of conscience be a hellish torment of themselves and an intolerable vexation if thou hadst no more Had you rather have sin then Christ and Holiness Alas I see by your lives you had But had you rather have Hell then God and Glory If not then chuse not the way to Hell Why do you give God such good words and prefer your sin when you have done before him Why do you speak so well of Christ and Heaven and yet refuse them Why do you speak so ill of sin and the world and yet chuse them to the loss of your salvation Surely if you were soundly perswaded that Christ is better then the world and holiness then sin you would chuse that which you say is the best For that which men think indeed to be the best and best for them they will chuse and seek after And therefore when you have said all that you can in commendation of Grace and a holy life no wise man will believe that you are heartily perswaded of the Truth of what you say as long as you run away from Christ and follow the flesh and take that course that is contrary to your profession For that which you like best you will certainly chuse and seek with the greatest care and diligence Now you have your choice if you would have the better part now choose it 5. I Have one other Motive yet from the text to perswade you to chuse the better pâ—… If you chuse it it shall never be taken from you You hear 〈…〉 Resolution of Christ himself concerning Marie's choâ—… that which is spoken of her will be as true of you if â—…he same choice If all the enemies you have in the world should endeavour to deprive you of Christ and your salvation they cannot do it against your choice If by Power
every word of thy mouth and every penny of thy wealth in the way that he requireth it is it any more then is his due Should not he have all that is Lord of all Quest 2. Is it not the first and great Commandment Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and might And do not heathens confess this by the light of nature And hath not thy tongue confest it many a time And doth not thy conscience yet bear witness that it is thy duty And is it possible thou shouldst thus Love him with all thy heart and soul and might and yet not seek and serve him with all thy heart and soul and might Or can the most sanctified person do any more if he were perfect Quest 3. Dost thou not confess that we are all sinners And that the best is still too bad And that he that loveth and serveth God most doth yet come exceeding short of his duty And yet wouldst thou have such men come shorter and darest thou perswade them to do less Must not the best confess their daily failings and beg pardon of them from the Lord and be beholden to the blood of Christ and lament their imperfections And yet wouldst thou have them be such odious hypocrites as to think they serve God too much already while they confess that they come so short Shall they confess their failings and reproach those that endeavour to avoid the like Shall the same tongue say Lord be merciful to me a sinner and Lord I am good enough already What need there so much ado to please and serve thee any better What would you think of such a man Quest 4. Is it not an unquestionable duty to grow in grace and to press towards perfection as men that have not yet attained it 2 Pet. 3. 18. Phil. 3. 12 13 14. And must Paul and Peter and the holyest on earth still seek to grow and labour to be more holy and shall such a one as thou say What need I be any more holy that art utterly unsanctified Quest 5. Is it not one of the two grand Principles of faith and all Religion without which no man can please God Heb. 11. 6. Whoever cometh to God must believe first that God is that there is a God most powerful wise and good secondly that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him yea this is one of natures principles It is the Diligent seekers of God that he will reward And yet dare a fleshly negligent sinner reproach the diligent seeking of God and take it for a needless thing and say What needs all this ado Are not these the Atheists seconds even next to them that deny that there is any God or that blasphemâ— him And indeed if he be not worthy of all the Love and service that thou canst give him he is not the true God! Consider therefore the tendency of thy words and tremble Quest 6. Doth not that wretch set up the flesh and the world aboâ—â— the Lord that thinks not most of his thoughts and cares and words and time and labour for the world to be too much ado and yet thinks less for God and heaven to be too much And dost thou think in thy conscience that the flesh is better worthy of thy Love and care and labour then the Lord or that earth will prove a better reward to thee then Heaven Who thinkest thou will have the better bargain in the end The fool that laid up riches for himself and was not rich to God and shall lose all at once that he so much valued and so carefully sought Luke 12. 20 21. or he that laid up his treasure in Heaven and there set his heart and sought for the never fading Crown Matth. 6. 20 21 33. and counted all as loss and dung for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ Phil. 3. 8. Do you think that there is any thing more worth your care and time and labour or can you more profitably lay it out Quest 7. Have you not immortal souls to save or lose And are not your bodies for their service and to be used and ruled by them And should not your souls then have more of your care and diligence then corruptible flesh that must turn to dirt Quest 8. Dare any one of you say that you are wiser then the All-knowing God Is not thy wisdom less to his then a glow-worms light is to the Sun And hath not God most plainly and frequently in his Word commanded thee a holy life Yea every part and parcell of it is nothing else but the obeying of that Word For if it be not prescribed by the Lord it is not Holiness nor that which I am pleading for And when the living God hath told the world his mind and will shall a sinful man stand up and say I am wiser then my Maker I know a better way then this What need there all this stir for Heaven What dost thou less then thus blaspheme and set up thy folly above the wisdom of the Lord when thou condemnest or reproachest the holiness which he commandeth Quest 9. Dare you say that God is not only so unwise but so unrighteous and tyranical as to give the world unnecessary Laws and set them upon a needless work What King so tyranical as would require his subjects on pain of death to go pick straws against the wind What Master or Parent so foolishly cruel as to command their servants or children to weary themselves with hunting butter-flies and following their own shadows And darest thou impute such foolish tyrannie to the God of heaven as if he had made a world and set them upon a needless work and commanded them to tire themselves in vain Quest 10. Can a man be too diligent about that work which he was made for and is daily preserved and maintained for and for which he hath all the mercies of his life Thou hadst never come into the world but on this business even to serve and please God and prepare for everlasting happiness And are you afraid of doing this too diligently Why is it thinkest thou that God sustaineth thee Why dyedst thou not many years ago but only that thou mightest have time to seek and serve him Was it only that thou mightest eat and drink and sleep and go up and down and fill up a room among the living Why beasts and fools and mad-men do all this as well as thou Why hast thou thy Reason and understanding but to know and serve the Lord Is it only to know how to shift a little for the commodities of the world Or is it not to know the way to life eternal Look round about thee on all the creatures and on all the mercies which thou dost possess every deliverance and priviledge and accommodation every bit of bread thou eatest and every hour of thy precious time are all given thee for this One thing needful And yet wilt thou
ashamed 2 John 10. If there come any to you and bring not this doctrine receive him not into your house neither bid him God speed for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds Jam. 5. 16. Confess your faults one to another Josh 7. 19. Give I pray thee glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession unto him and tell me now what thou hast done hide it not from me Prov. 28. 13. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Doth not all this justifie the exercise of Discipline and condemn the neglect of it 9. But saith the impious person why make they such a difference between themselves and other men extolling themselves as the only servants of the Lord and condemning others as ungodly and children of the Devil and terrifying mens consciences with the fears of hell Answ If any do so against such as are sanctified and renewed and have the Spirit of Christ and live to God they deal uncharitably and if you dislike their censoriousness so do I and so do all the sober considerate servants of the Lord. But if it be only against the carnal unsanctified world that they do thus it is God that maketh the difference and not they Do you not find the whole Scripture dividing all the world into two ranks the godly and the ungodly the regenerate and unregenerate the converted and unconverted the sanctified and unsanctified the carnal and the spiritual the earthly-minded and the heavenly-minded the pardoned and unpardoned the justified and unjustified the children of God and the enemies of God the servants of God and of the Devil the heirs of heaven and the heirs of hell To prove this would be to repeat the Bible Read Psalm 1. 37. 15. 10. Matth. 5. Rom. 8. Joh. 3. Matth. 13. 1 Joh 3. c. Do you not find Christ himself acquainting you before hand that one sort shall be set at his right hand in judgement and the other at his left and one part sent to life everlasting and the other to everlasting punishment Matth. 25. Do they speak any moâ—e of the everlasting torments the worm that dyeth not the fire that is unquenchable then Christ himself hath done Matth. 13. 2 Thes 1. c. Do you love to be flattered into Hell and deceived in a matter of everlasting consequence Is it not better for you to search your hearts and try whether you have the spirit of Christ or not and then search the Scripture and try whether any maâ— be his that hath not his spirit Rom. 8. 9. or can be saved that iâ— not converted and born again of the spirit Matth. 18. 3. John 3. 3 6. Examine your selves whether you be in the faith Prâ—â— your own selves Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except you be reprobates 2 Cor. 12. 5. 10. But you will say that the Reason of your distaste against these that are so forward in Religion is that they are inwardly â—â— bad as others and as proud and worldly and why do they not excell others in good works as much as they do in their deâ—â—tions Answ 1. So they do according to their ability Twenty years tryal and more I have had of them since I was a Minister of Christ and I can truly say that ordinarily I have known of many a shilling if not pounds that have come from the purses of these that you call Puritanes and precise for one groat or penny that I have known come from most others about me of their rank to any pious and charitable use But all that are godly aâ—â— not rich and though Christ extolleth the widows two mites the standers by regarded them not Matth. 12. 42. 43. 2 Cor. 8. 12. If there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not And he that hath said Take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven Matth. 6. 1. hath hereby kept his servants from making the world acquainted with much of their deeds of charity And for the sins of the heart that you charge them with they 〈◊〉 known to none but God unless they be discovered in their lives But malice in all ages hath been used to such unproved slanders of the servants of the Lord. 2. But suppose them as bad as malice doth imagine Is that any reason why both they and you should not be better It is Holiness and not sin that I am pleading for Is their godliness and care of their salvation necessary or not If it be why do you not imitate them in that and if you know any fault in them take warning and avoid it But be not so mad as to run into Hell because some fall in the way to Heaven or some miss the way that seemed to go thither Imitate not the Judas in Christs family but the rest of his Disciples and that not in their falls but in their faith and piety All that shall be saved have both Holiness towards God and Justice and Charity to men The wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits Jam. 3. 17. If you want the first you are ungodly if the later you are hypocrites And if the hypocrite and the ungodly will stand snarling here at one another they shall perish together in that misery that will convince them that neither of them were the heirs of life when Saints indeed and none but they shall live with Christ Object But it is but a few that are of so strict a mind and life and shall none be saved but these few Answ Christ hath told you whom he will save He will not falsifie his word nor take the unsanctified into heaven for want of company He hath told you that the gate is strait and the way narrow that leads to life and few there be that find it Matth. 7. 13 14. and that it is a little flock to whom the Father will give the Kingdom Luke 12. 32. You shall not want company in heaven nor find comfort in your company in hell But if you would have the number of the godly to be greater why do you not increase it by your joyning with them Why do not all the Town and Parish agree together and bind themselves in a Covenant to serve and seek the Lord as the Israelites Josh 24. 2 Chron. 15. 12 13. O happy people that will thus accord and heartily perform it And now Beloved Hearers I have finished this first Part of my task and proved to you the Necessity of a Holy life That One thing is needful while you pittifully cumber your selves about many things is the message that from Christ I have been hitherto delivering to you What say you
hearts they set most by the pleasures of this world Why else is their Heart most towards them Why else do they choose them and refuse to Live a Holy life Why have they no delight in God and why have we so much ado with them to bring them to a heavenly mind and life and all in vain What! will not men be perswaded to choose that which they know is best for them Object Temptations are strong and men are weak and so men go against their knowledge Answ 1. What do Temptations prevail with you to do Is it not to think well of sinful pleasures and to think more hardly of the wayes of God Is it not to like a worldly fleshly life better then a Holy life If not how can you follow those temptations And if it be so then they draw you for that time to think that fleshly pleasures are the better part 2. But if indeed it be as you say you are the most unexcuseable miscreants in the world What! do you know that God is best for you and yet will you fly from him Do you know that heaven is the only happiness and yet will you seek this world before it Do you know what is Best for you and will not hâ—â—â— it and what is worst and yet will keep it Will you go to 〈…〉 and know whither you are going And will you run from â—…ven and damn your selves and know that you do so Yea 〈◊〉 that while we day by day entreate you to the contrary If this be the case of any one of you the God of Justice shall teach you to know what you are doing by his everlasting vengeance Heaven and earth shall be witness against you your own Consciences and such Confessions of your own shall bear witness against you that you justly perish and are damned because you would be damned and are shut out of Heaven because you would not be perswaded to come thither Object But we hope we may have Both Pleasure here and Heaven hereafter and that we may be saved by the mercy of God and the blood of Christ without the sanctification of the spirit and though we do not live a Holy life Answ And who gave you these hopes Is it God on whom you pretend to trust or the Devil that doth deceive you Certainly not God For he hath told you over and over that he will save none but the sanctified Acts 26. 18. and that except a man be born again even of the Spirit as well as of water he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God John 3. 3 5. and that without holiness none shall see the Lord Heb. 12. 14. And is it God that perswadeth you that his Word is false Doubtless it is the Devil When God had told Adam and Eve That in the day that they did eat the forbidden fruit they should die the death was it not the Serpent that gave them hopes of living and told them that they should not die If you be at that pass that you will take on you to trust in God and yet will not believe him but your trust is but trusting that God is a lyar you are as sottish in your presumption as Heathens are in their Infidelity For who is worse he that believeth that there is no God as Atheists do or he that believeth that God is a Lyar which is to be no God and worse If therefore you do believe indeed that Heaven is Best you must needs believe that Holiness is Necessary yea and Best too when Heaven consisteth so much in perfected holiness And therefore you must choose and seek with greatest diligence that Happiness which you confess is Best or never hope that it will be yours O did you at the heart believe it to be Best and that for you you would love it and seek it and be a holy people without delay You cannot so turn away from that which you heartily judge to to be Best for you indeed But the most that I have to deal with are they that cannot be perswaded at the heart but that feasting and drinking and lust and wealth and worldly honour are Better for them then a Holy life with such promises of Heaven as God hath left us For all or most ungodly men have this perswasion next their hearts whether they observe it and know of it or not Now with such deluded unbelieving souls I am next to plead this weighty cause If thou that Readest this be one of them that takest a worldly felicity with Gods threatnings to be Better and rather to be chosen then Holiness with his Promise of future happiness I will now debate the case with thee and undertake by the light of Christ to open the horrible folly of thy mistake And if I do not give thee such sound and weighty undenyable evidence that no man of Reason should resist to prove the choice of Holy persons to be the wisest and their part the best I will give thee leave to call me a Lyar and a deceiver for ever CHAP. II. What in Reason he must do that would be certainly resolved which is the best part and way And who shall be Judge BUt before we come to the debate I have two Questions to pâ—â— to thee that in Reason must be first resolved The first is Whether thou art willing to know the Truth and resolved to choose the best part when thou knowest it It is in vain for me or any man to Reason with thee if thou wouldst not kâ—â—â— and to shew thee the Truth if thou hate it and wilt not acknowledge it when thou seest it and to bring thee in the clearest light if thou be before hand resolved to shut thy eyes And if thou wilt not choose that which thy conscience shall be convinced thou shouldst choose as being absolutely best to what purpose then should it be revealed to thee Wouldst thou be a happy man or noâ— Wouldst thou have Joy or Sorrow Good or Evil stop here and before thou goest any further make me this Promisâ—… before the Lord That thou wilt not wilfully resist the lighâ—… that thou wilt choose and presently and resolvedly choose that 〈…〉 that thy conscience shall tell thee upon certain evidence is the 〈…〉 Promise but this which no man of Reason 〈…〉 and then we may make something of our debate My second Question is Who it is that shall be Judge between us in this debate or whose witness it is that you will take for currant I am willing to stand to the Judgement of any that understand the case and are impartial I hope you will consent that we shall take the most competent witnesses and Judge And if so 1. You know that the Devil is no competent Judge It is he that perswadeth you that present delights are the better part and rather to be chosen then a Holy life But he is Gods enemy and therefore no wonder if he speak against him He is your deadly enemy
secureth every Society and interesteth them in the most impregnable defence even in the Love and favour of the Lord and in his many sure and precious promises He hath engaged his Almightiness and Fidelity for such and rendreth them as the apple of his eye and hath promised that he will be their defence Zech. 2. 8. Psalm 5. 11. 7. 10. 59. 9 16 17. 62. 2. whereas the ungodly are under his curse Psalm 1. 6. 37. And which of these Societies is liker to be happy 18. Godliness is the surest way to furnish every Society with all the blessings that are truly good for them For they have the favour and promise of him that is the giver of them all Rom. 8. 28. Psalm 34. 10. 84. 11. 23. Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4. 8. 6. 6. Mat. 6. 33. But wickedness is the certain way to ruine Even one sinner destroyeth much good Eccl. 9. 18. and one godly man hindreth much evil as the case of Joseph Moses Daniel and many others tells you 19 Moreover it is Godliness that is the honour of all Societies Without this their wisdom is meer folly and their Riches are but the â—etters of their slavery and canker to gnaw them and testifie against them and their greatest victories may be but murders which shall damn them and their splendour in the world is but the sign of their misery in the eyes of all fore-seeing men Prov. 14. 34 Righteousness exalteth a Nation but sin is a reproach to any people What Glory can be equal to the Glory of our interest in God and of our being his people and doing his work and having his presence 20. Lastly How can that be worst on earth that is so good in Heaven The perfection of Holiness hereafter with the Holy Love and Praises and Enjoyments of the Saints will be their Glory If you think this worst in your Societies on earth what do you but renounce it If Heaven be worst for you come not thither If the participation of that which is the felicity of the glorified be not the felicity of all Societies I desire none of their felicity What if Saints from Heaven would come down and dwell among you here on earth I beseech you as men of reason answer me these two Questions 1. Whether you do not know or verily believe that they would be more Holy and Pure and Exact and strict and more averse to all sin then any of those are that now you dislike as too precise 2. Whether you would therefore call them Puritanes and hate them and cast them out or imprison them or take them for the troublers of your Countries or rather for the honour and blessing of your Countries What you would do by them that do by those that come nearest to them among you CHAP. V. Times of Holiness are the Best Times AND now I have given you all this Evidence I dare leave it to the judgement of any man that is fit to judge Whether it be the godly or ungodly that are the Better Magistrates or Better Pastors of the Churches or Better Members of the Common-wealth or of any Society Judge now whether the Places and Times are not Best that are most Godly And whether it be the Godly or the Ungodly that are the Troublers of the world And yet it hath ever been the practice of ungodly men to charge it upon them that Fear the Lord that all the troubles of the world are long of them We were all quiet say they before this Religion and preciseness troubled us and this is it that since it came among us hath set us all together by the ears But if these men be yet reasonable I desire them to consider 1. That this hath alwayes been the old complaint of the most wicked men which God himself hath testified against When Lot did but gently admonish the abominable Sodomites to forbear a villany not to be named Gen. 19. 7 8 9. I pray you Brethren do not so wickedly What said they to him and how did they take it Why they said stand back and they said again This One fellow came in to sojourn and he will needs be a Judge Now will we deal worse with thee then with them Is not this the case between us now How are we unpeaceable Because we are against sin If we would hinder men from wronging God and from condemning their own souls and others then forsooth we are their troublers and we judge them and we disturb their Peace Just like the Sodomites These precise fellows say they will neede be our Judges and we must be ruled by them before they came among us we had none of this ado But did not God think you decide the controversie aright He first took Lot and his family away that the Sodomites might be troubled with that precise and busie fellow no more and then he sent fire from Heaven on Sodom and consumed them all making them an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. Or as it is fully set forth by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 2. 6 7 8 9. Turning the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes he condemned them with an overthrow making them an example to those that after should live ungodly Mark this And delivered just Lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked For that righteous man dwelling among them in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust to the day of Judgement to be punished And now who is it that was troublesom and the cause of evil Was it Lot or was it Sodom Take heed lest God take the Lots that trouble you from among you and when you are rejoycing that you are rid of them he serve you worse then he served Sodom In the daies of Noah no question but that Preacher of Righteousness seemed to the world a singular and a self-conceited fellow But did not God decide the controversie whether it were Noah or they that were the troublers of the world Saith Peter 2 Pet. 2 5. God spared not the old world but saved Noah the eighth person a Preacher of righteousness bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly When Israel â—ell before the men of Ai it was a doubt who it was that was the cause of that calamity but God proved it to be Achan who is stoned upon this sentence of Joshua Josh 7. 25. Why hast thou troubled us the Lord shall trouble thee this day 2. And consider I pray you What a Quietness it is that you have before you are troubled by the Godly It is a Quietness in the high way to Hell You had the priviledge of damning your souls without disturbance from these precise controllers Hath not
certain experience of all true Christians in the world They all have tasted and found that excellencie in the holy ways and Ordinances of the Lord that they value them above all the world With David they esteem them above Gold and Silver Psal 119. 72. With Solomon they say that all the things that we can desire are not to be compared to them Prov. 3. 15. 8. 11. And with Job they value the word of God above their necessary food Job 23. 12. And with Paul they count all things Loss aud dung in comparison of the excellent knowledge of Christ Phil. 3. 7 8. They know that it is a thousand times better with them since God converted them to a holy life then it was before as well as you know that you are better in your health then you were in sickness Try whether you can make men that ever were among those where plague and war and famine raigned to believe that it was never a good world since this plague and war and famine ceased You may as soon make wise men believe this as make experienced godly men to believe that it is worse with them for their turning to the Lord and living holy heavenly lives You can never by all your doating and self-conceited prating make those believe whom God hath sanctified that they were in a better case before when they were the slaves of Satan and served sin were under the wrath and curse of God They feel that within them that will never suffer them to believe you The health of their recovered souls their experience of the Goodness of the ways of God the comforts they have had in the pardon of sin and the hopes of Glory do make them know that you talke distractedly when you tell them that they were better before or that the world is the worse for the grace of God 6. And we cannot believe you when you speak evil of a holy course because your words are against all Religion and common reason and much more destructive of the Christian faith If God be not to be Loved with all our hearts and served with our greatest care then he is not God or then there is no such thing as Religion to be regarded A God that is worse then the Creature is no God If we must not seek first the Kingdom of God and the Righteousness thereof Matth. 6. 33. as Christ hath commanded then it is in vain to seek it at all If there be no Heaven or Hell let us lay by all Religion But if there be that man that thinks it not worth his greatest care and diligence to be saved doth forseit the reputation of his reason with his soul Will you believe that man that saith he believeth that there is an Everlasting Glory to be sought and made sure of in this life of our pilgrimage and warfare and yet thinks it not worth our seeking for above all and worthy all our cost and labour He speaks a gross and blockish contradiction A Heaven no better then Earth is no Heaven A Heaven that is not worthy the labour of a holy life is no Heaven And a God that is not worthy of all that we can do is no God Either plainly say that you are Pagans and worse and believe not any life but this Or else live as Christians if you will be called Christians say not that you believe there is a Hell if you think a Holy life too dear to scape it 7. Yea this is not all but your words do tend to Brutishness it self Pagans did believe for the most part a life after this And Julian that Apostate Infidel himself doth prescribe to all his Idols Priests a very strict and Religious life according to the Religion which he owned and professeth that all care and temperance and piety should be used to please God and obtain the happiness to come And shall men called Christians take the very Infidels for Puritanes and be worse then Heathens If we have not another life to look after then what are we but beasts that perish If you think that you die like beasts call your selves beasts and never more own the name of men If you are not beasts but men that have you souls to save or lose to be happy or miserable for ever And is it not worth all our care labour to look after them 8. Another reason why I will never believe you that the world was better when there was less preaching and Religion is because you speak against the very end and nature of preaching and Religion For the word of God is written and preached to this very end to make men better And is that the way to undoe the world to perswade them to amend O Impudent malignant tongues What doth the word of God speak against but sin Doth it anywhere speak against any thing that is Good or doth it anywhere command you any thing that is bad Let the bitterest enemy of God upon earth say so and prove it if he can I here in defiance of the Devil and all his instruments and servants challenge them in their bitterest malice to say the worst they can of the Gospel or of true Religion and prove that ever it encouraged men to sin or that ever any was a loser by it O wonderful Must the God of heaven indite such Laws against all evil condemning it and threatning damnation for it and yet will these wretches have the faces to say that it is long of the Scripture or of Religion that the world is Evil What! Will preaching against your wickedness make you wicked If it do be it known to the faces of you that it is you and not preaching that shall be one day found to be the cause and be condemned for it Must Princes and Parliaments make Laws to hang thieves and murderers and when they have done will you say it is long of them and their Laws that men are robbed and murdered Why this is not yet so impudently unjust as you deal with God For they threaten but hanging and he threatneth everlasting damnation against sin and executeth it on all the unconverted as sure as he threatneth it And would you have him yet do more to testifie his dislike of sin Tell me thou that blasphemest the holy commands of thy Creator Wouldst thou have him do more then everlastingly to damn unconverted sinners to prove that he is no friend or cause of sin what should he do more Is there a greater plague then Hell to threaten Or wouldst thou have him do more to shew how much he loveth Goodness then to command it and perswade men daily to it and to promise Everlasting Glory for their Reward Is there any greater Reward to be promised I tell thee blasphemer to the Justifying of my Lord that all the world hath never done the thousandth part against mens faults as God hath done Never were there stricter Laws against them then his Laws And never
you speak falsly because you make the most barbarous Heathens to be most happy and the worst of men to be the best If it be best where there is least Religion and least Teaching or meddling with holy things then are the naked Indians the best and the Cannibals that live on the flesh of men These be they that are least troubled with Preaching and Religion And if you think that these miserable souls are best and happyest I pray you go to them and be happy with them And by my consent the Magistrate shall promote your happiness and send you thither 17. And would you have us believe you when you contradict your selves Out of your own mouthes will we silence or condemn you It is Christ that teacheth us to be Holy And do you not pretend your selves to believe in Christ That which you dislike as a troublesom or needless thing is nothing but serious Christianity it self And do you not say your selves that you are Christians Do not you profess the Articles of the Christian Belief And what do we but practice that which you profess We do but obey that God whom you say you believe in as the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth and all things We do but love the Lord our Saviour whom you say you believe in as your Saviour We do but obey the Holy-Ghost that sanctifieth all that God will save whom you also profess to believe in your selves We practise that Communion of Saints which you deride and yet profess that you believe We seek after the remission of sin and that life everlasting which you take on you to believe your selves And will you profess to Believe these things and yet say they are naught or that it was never a good world since they were regarded and practised And do you not profess to take the ten Commandments for the Law of God which all men should obey And what do we but endeavour to obey them All that which you hate as too much preciseness is nothing but the obeying of these ten Commandments And O that we could do it better And do you not use in the saying of the Lords Prayer to pray that the Name of God may be Hallowed and his Kingdom come and his Will be done yea even as it is done in Heaven And yet 〈◊〉 you say with the same mouth that it was never a good world since Gods name was Hallowed and since his Kingdom was â—â—vanced and his Laws so much regarded and his Will obeyed O hypocrites Is this your praying and do you look such prayers should be accepted which you hate and speak against your selves You pray that you may not be led into Temptation but delivered from evil and yet you run into temptation and take that Evil to be Good How oft have I heard men when the Commandments have been repeated which require us to take the Lord only for our God and not to take his Name in vain and to Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day to joyn to it as their prayer Lord have mercy upon us and encline our hearts to keep this Law and when they come home revile those people that are willing to keep it and that will not take Gods Name in vain and forbear the keeping holy of his day as they do themselves Either give over professing the Christian Belief and using the Lords Prayer and praying that you may keep the Commandments of God or else give over reviling those that do it Either say plainly that you are Heathens and no Christians or else never say that a Christian Life is hurtful to the world nor make it the matter of your reproach 18. And I must needs say that I am the more assured that your words against Religion are false because I know that they please the Devil who is the Father of lyes and are just such as he would have you speak and would speak himself if he had but liberty and his appearance would not marr hâ—â— cause When thou art railing at Godliness and saying that this Religion is the trouble of the world and that the servants of Christ are but a company of busie hypocrites just so would the Devil have thee speak I can prove it fully from the Scriptures and from his Nature and designs You could not speak more agreeably to his mind If he had hired you and written down every word which he would have you speak you could not more punctually obey him Do you plead against Holiness and for a careless and ungodly life Do you despise the righteous and justifie the wicked Just so would the Devil have you do If he stood by you and prompted you as indeed he doth though you do not know it those are the very words that he would have you say Indeed when he is compelled the Devil himself speaketh better then you as in Acts 16. 17. he saith These men are the servants of the most high God which shew unto us the way of salvation These are better words then yours But when he is left to himself and speaketh of his own he speaketh just as you do and shall we believe you when the Devil sets you on and you speak the words of the lying spirit 19. And I the less believe you when you say that the world is the worse for Preaching and Religiousness because I know from whence this comes You take that to be the best that is the worst and that to be the worst that is indeed the best You judge after the flesh and take those for the best times when you have most prosperity and may sin with least contradiction and molestation and be least troubled in your sensual course These are your good daies which wise men know to be your slavery and misery It is never a good world with you when your consciences are troubled and your sores are lanced and Satan cannot keep his garrison in peace and when you cannot be permitted to drink and swear and game and revell without controll And if this be your good world I had rather have a prison or a pair of stocks with Christ and the Gospel which you despise and with the means and hopes of the world to come then to have your good world which is but thee quietest passage to damnation You are not yet to be believed stay till you see the end and what comes of it and then tell us which was the good world 20. Lastly if all this will not serve I will silence you and shame you if you have any shame left If Religion and so much serving of God do make the world worse and those be the worst times where there is most of these then Heaven would be worse then Earth or Hell even the worst place in all the world For no place hath so much Holiness as Heaven Nowhere is there so much ado about the Praise and Service of God as there is in Heaven There they do nothing else but that which
and Honesty 1 Tim. 2. 2 3. Indeed the Greek word here is that which signifieth gravity and seemliness of behaviour but that which is frequently translated good is it which signisieth the truly Honest And you know none of the ungodly are ever called Good in Scripture but clean contrary Prov. 11. 6. The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them but transgressâ—rs shall be taken in their own naughtiness So vers 18. 19 20. The wicked worketh a deceitful work but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward As righteousness tendeth to life so he that pursueth evil doth it to his own death They that are of a froward heart are an abomination to the Lord but such as are upright in their way are his delight Everywhere you see how God abhorreth the ungodly and extolleth those that love and fear him Christ calleth the ungodly Evil men that â—â—t of the evil treasure of their hearts do bring forth evil things Matth. 12. 35. All is evil the life evil the heart evil and the man evil Prov. 12. 26. The Righteous is more excellent then his neighbour but the way of the wicked seduceth them And Psalm 16. David calleth the godly The excellent in whom is all his delight It is an excellent spirit that is in them Dan. 3. 12. 14 and 63. and an excellent way in which they go 1 Cor. 12. 31. and an excellent knowledge which the spirits illumination causeth them to attain Phil. 3. 18. Ephes 3. 18 19. You have Gods judgement of the case if that will satisfie you who it is that is the Best and Honestest man the Holy or the unholy 2. Do you think that man is an Honest man that will deny you your due and rob you of all that is your own Or rather is not the Just man the Honest man that will give every man his own I know you will give your voices for the latter O then take heed lest you condemn your selves If you be not Holy your own testimony doth condemn you For it is only the Godly that give God his own when the ungodly rob him of it Hast thou not thy Life and Time and Maintenance from God Hast thou not thy Reason and thy Affections and all thy faculties from him And should not all thou hast be employed for him Thou art a dishonest man that grudgest yea denyest him one day in seven when thou owest him all Thou art a dishonest man that givest away thy Makers due unto his vilest enemies That wastest thy means or strength on sin that spendest thy precious time on vanity that abusest his creatures to the satisfying of thy lusts and that livest to thy flesh when thou shouldst live to God Thou robbest him of all which thou givest to his enemies and of all which thou dost not use for his service It is less dishonesty to rob thy Master that trusteth thee with his goods then to rob the Lord that trusteth thee with thy time and parts and all things O blind unworthy sinners What makes you think him an honest man that robbeth his Maker or denyeth him his own when you call him a dishonest man that robbeth but such silly worms as you that in respect of God have nothing of your own Art thou better then God that it should be called dishonesty to wrong thee and no dishonesty to wrong him or deny him that which is his own God hath an absolute Title to you and that on more accounts then one You are his own as you are his creatures All souls are mine saith the Lord Ezek. 18. 4. And he hath Title to thee by Redemption as well as by Creation For to this end Christ dyed and rose and revived that he might be Lord of the deâ—d and of the living Rom. 14. 9. We are not our own we are bought with a price and therefore should glorifie God in our bodies and our spirits which are his 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. For if one dyed for all then were all dead that they which live should not henceforth live to themselves but to him that dyed for them and rose again 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. And as you your selves are Gods own as he is your Creator and Redeemer so all that you have is his own as the bestower or as your Master that trusteth it in your hands Exod. 19. 5. Now therefore if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my Covenant then ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people for all the earth is mine And saith God to Job Job 41. 11. What soever is under the whole heaven is mine Psalm 50. 10 11 12. Every beast of the Forrest is mine the wild beasts of the field are mine the world is mine and the fulness thereof 1 Cor. 4. 7. What hast thou which thou didst not receive Thou hast not a minute of time which thou owest not to God nor a thought nor a word nor a farthing of thy estate And is it not the basest injustice and dishonesty to give these to thy flesh and deny them to him and think his service an unnecessary thing If thou wilt give the world and thy lusts any thing let it be that which thou canst truly call thine own As God saith to the Idolators Ezek. 16. 18 19. Thou hast set mine oyl and mine incense before them my meat also which I gave thee c. so may he say â—o thee It is his Time which thou hast consumed in idleness and in sinful delights and his Provision by which thou hast â—ed thy lusts But the sanctified man is devoted to God His study is to give him his own All the business of his life which you account his over-much strictness and preciseness is nothing but his Honesty to God in giving him his own You look your horse should travail for you and your Oxe should labour for you and your servant work for you because they are your own And shall not we give up all that we have to God that are much more his own Will you hang them that take your Own from you and count them Honest that deal worse with God Say not If Christ were here we would give it him For he hath told you how you should use all his talents in his Laws and if you deny them to the poor or any holy use that he requireth them you deny them unto him Read Mat. 25. 10. 40 41 42. 3. Do you think that an unnatural man is an Honest man One that will abuse his Father or Mother and scorn the bowels from which he sprung All the world is agreed on it that such are dishonest Honour thy Father and Mother is called the first Commandment with promise Exod. 21 17. He that curseth his Father or Mother shall surely be put to death See Prov. 20. 20. 30. 17. The eye that mocketh at his Father and despiseth to obey his Mother the Ravens of the valley shall pick it out and the young
them whom God doth delight to Honour He will Deliver them and Honour them Psal 91. 15. 4. And as the sanctified have the most Honorable dispositions so have they the highest and most Honorable Designs The End of their lives is incomparably above other mens The rest of the world though they may talk of Heaven and wish for it rather then Hell when they can live no longer do indeed drive on no greater trade then providing for the flesh and feathering them a nest which will quickly be pulled down and like the spider spinning themselves a web which death will shortly sweep away But the Design and daily business of the Godly is for everlasting Glory Heb. 11. 10. They look for a City that hath foundations whose builder and maker is God vers 13 14 15 16. They confess themselves strangers and pilgrims on earth thereby declaring that they seek a Countrey And truly if they were mindful of that deceitful world which they came out of and have forsaken they may have opportunities and too many invitations to return to it But now they desire a better Countrey that is an Heavenly Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called Their God for he hath prepared for them a City This Noble End ennobleth both the persons and conversations of believers To Rule a Kingdom is a Nobler design then to play with children for pins or points But to seek the Everlasting Kingdom is far above all the highest designs that are terminated upon earth If Everlasting Glory with God in Heaven be a nobler state then a worldly life then must the seeking it be a nobler design Paul sheweth you the difference very pathetically Phil. 3. 18 19 20. For many walk of whom I told you often and now tell you weeping that they are the enemies of the Cross of Christ Whose end is destruction whose God is their belly and whose glory is in their shame who mind earthly things But our Conversation is in Heaven that is we live as Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem and not as those that are here at home It is Heaven that sanctified persons mind that they study and care for and labour and live for in the world And therefore though in their Natural capacity they are but as other men yet in their Moral and Relative capacity I think I may say without Hyperbole that they are much more advanced above the dignity of the great unsanctified Princes upon earth then Reason and learning and manly designs advance a man above a beast It is the Nobleness and baseness of the end that doth honour or abase the agent and therefore none are truly Honourable but those that seek the spiritual the high eternal Honour 5. The Employment as well as the Designs of the Godly do prove them to be the most Honourable Both the End and Matter do shew the excellency of their Work As the End Honoureth the person so doth it Honour all the works that are Means thereto The first thoughts of a Godly man when he awaketh and the last when he lyeth down if he observe his Rule are usually for Heaven When you are conversing with worldly men about these common worldly things they are in prayer or holy meditation conversing with God about the matters of his service and their salvation Their hearts are toward him their thoughts are on him They are devoted to him Their daily business is to serve him When I awake saith David Psal 139. 28. I am still with thee Psal 16. 7. 8. I will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel my reins also instruct me in the night seasons I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved The life of the Godly is called in Scripture a walking with God such was the course of Henock Noah and Abraham Gen. 5. 22 24. 6. 9. 17. 1. 24. 40. They walked before God Gen. 48. 15. and in his ways Deut. 28. 9. They love the Lord their God with all their heart and soul as to the sincerity of it and walk after him and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice and serve him and cleave unto him Deut. 13. 3 4. And can an inhabitant of this world have a more honourable imployment then to serve the Lord and a more honourable state then to walk with God should we not have thought such words intolerable to be used of the best on earth if God had not been himself the author of them and put them into our mouths Hear more of his own expressions concerning the conversations of his servants 1 Cor. 1. 9. God is faithful by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ 1 Joh. 1. 3. And truly our Fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ By fellowship is not meant here a society of equals God forbid we should think so blasphemously But it is a Communion of the beloved sanctified Creature with his blessed Creator agreeable to his distance In their secret addresses his servants have communion with him Their Prayer is nothing else but a humble speaking to the living God for the supply of all their wants In their Praises and Thanksgivings it is God that they deal with and the words of their mouths and the meditation of their hearts are acceptable is the sight of their Redeemer Psal 19. 14. They poure out their souls before him and he openeth his ears and his bosome unto them Psal 62. 8. 10. 17. He will feed kis flock like a shepherd he will gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those that are with young Isa 40. 11. And in the publick Worship of God in the holy Assemblies his servants also have communion with him It is him that they hear whoever be the messenger It is him that they adore and praise and magnifie Come say they and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob and he will teach us of his wayes and we will walk in his paths Come and let us walk in the light of the Lord Isaiah 2. 3 5. We have thought of thy loving kindness O God in the midst of thy Temple Psalm 48. 9. In his Temple doth every man speak of his glory Psalm 29. 9. Yea the common employments of the Godly are sanctified and thereby advanced above the highest actions of the wicked For it is God and Glory that is in all their ultimate End Whether they eat or drink or what ever they do they do it to his glory 1 Cor. 10. 31. That is They intend his Glory as their end and they do it in reverent obedience to his Will and in a holy manner behaving themselves as may honour him whose work they do And he that hath the face to say that Prayer Praise Thanksgiving Meditation holy conference and other works of Holiness and
this man will I look saith the Lord even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my Word Isa 66. 2. This is the Honourable entertainment of the Saints 7. And they are members of the most Honourable Society in the world The Church is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ Luke 1. 33. Col. 1. 13. The Kingdom of God Luke 17. 21. 18. 17. The Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 3. 2. 13. 31 33 44. It is the School of Christ or his University in which Believers are his Schollars learning to know him and serve him and praise him for ever and trained up for everlasting life Acts 11. 26. Luke 6. 13. Mat. 5. 1 2 c. It is the family or houshold of God Eph. 2. 19. 1 Tim. 3. 15. Heb. 10. 21. 1 Pet. 4. 17. It is the Spouse yea the Body of Christ Eph. 5. 25. So loved by him that he gave himself for it becoming the price of our Redemption and thought not his life too dear a Ransom nor his blood too precious to cleanse and save us Eph. 5. 25 26. Tit. 2. 14. The Church which every godly man is a living member of is a Society chosen out of the world to be nearest unto God and dearest to him as the beloved of his soul to receive the choicest of his mercies and be adorned with the righteousness of Christ and to be employed in his special service 1 Pet. 2. 4 5 9. John 15. 19. Eph. 1. 4. Psalm 132. 13. 135. 4. Eph. 5. 1. The Lord that Redeemed them is their King and Head and dwelleth in the midst of them and walketh among them as the people of his special presence and delight Psalm 2. 6. 89. 18. 149. 2. 46. 5. Isa 12. 6. Jer. 14. 9. Zeph. 3. 5 15 17. Rev. 1. 13. 2. 1. Psalm 95. 2. The Church is a Heavenly Society though the militant part yet live on earth For the God of Heaven is the Soveraign and the Father of it The glorified Redeemer is their Head The Spirit of Christ doth guide and animate them His Laws revealed and confirmed from Heaven direct and govern them Heaven is their end and heavenly are their dispositions employments and conversations There is their portion and treasure Matth. 6. 20 21. and there is their very heart and hope They are risen with Christ and therefore seek the things that are above For their life is hid with Christ in God Col. 3. 2 3 4. Their Root is there and the noblest part of the Society is there For the glorified Saints and in some sort the Angels are of the same Society with us though they are in heaven and we on earth The whole family in Heaven and earth is named from one and the same Head Eph. 3. 15. Heb. 12. 22 23. 24. We are come unto Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the General Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling c. This is the Honourable Society of Saints the eye the pearl of the whole Creation 8. Moreover the Godly have the most Horourable Attendance The creatures are all theirs though not in point of Civil propriety yet as means appointed and managed by God their Father for their best advantage The Angels of God are ministring spirits for them not as our servants but as Gods servants for our good As Ministers in the Church are not the servants of men but the servants of God for men And so whether Paul or Apollo or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or to come all are ours 1 Cor. 3. 22. The Shepherds servant is not the servant of the sheep but for the sheep And so the Angels disdain not to serve God in the guarding of the weakest Saints As I formerly shewed from Heb. 1. 14. Psalm 91. 11 12. 34. 7. The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them For he giveth his Angels charge over us to keep us in all our wayes they shall bear us up in their hands left we dash our foot against a stone Sun and Moon and all the creatures are daily employed in our attendance O how wonderful is the Love of God to his unworthy servants in their advancement Remember it when thou art scorning at the servants of the Lord or speaking against them that those poor those weak despised Christians that thou art vilifying have their Angels beholding the face of God their Father in the Heavens Take heed therefore that you despise not the least of these It is the warning of Christ Matth. 18. 10. The same blessed spirits that attend the Lord and see his face in blissful Glory do attend and guard the meanest of the godly here on earth As the same servants use to wait upon the Father and the children in the same family or the bigger children to help the less 9. And it is the Honour of the Godly that they that are themselves most Honourable do Honour them To be magnified by a fool or wicked flatterer is small Honour but to be magnified by the best and wisest men this is true Honour We say that Honour is in him that giveth it and not in him that receiveth But it is God himself that Honoureth his Saints It is he that speaketh all these great and wonderous things of them which I have hitherto recited Search the Texts which I have alledged and try whether it be not he And surely to have the God of Heaven to applaud a man and put Honour upon him and so great Honour is more then if all the world had done it Yet we may add if any thing could be considerable that is added unto the approbation of God that all his servants the wisest and the best even his holy Angels are of the same mind and honour the godly in conformity to their Lord. And here Christian I require thee from the Lord to consider the greatness of thy sin and folly when thou art too desirous of the applause of men especially of the blind ungodly world and when thou makest a great matter of their contempt or scorn or of their slanderous censures What! is the approbation of the eternal God so small a matter in thy eyes that the scorn of a fool can weigh it down or move the ballance with thee If a feather were put into the scales against a mountain or the whole earth it should weigh as much as the esteem or dis-esteem of men their honouring thee or dishonouring thee should weigh against the esteem of God and the honour or dishonour that he puts upon thee as to any regard of the thing it self though as it reflecteth on God thou
own words Do we devise these sayings Or do we not shew them you in the Scripture And dare you charge God with errour or encouraging Pride Do you think he knew not what he said when he spake such Honourable things of his servants Did he need you to have taught him to have endited his word and to have warned him that he make not his servants proud As if he hated not pride as much as you 6. Yea God will do more then this for his servants he will advance them to Salvation and yet he will not make them proud There is no Pride in Heaven though there be the greatest Glory The Angels are most glorious and yet least proud If you would not wish God to keep men out of Heaven lest it make them proud you should not grudge at his Honouring them on earth with the mention of their Heavenly titles upon that account 7. The Exaltation of the Saints is a spiritual exaltation which is not so apt to make men Proud as carnal exaltation is Charity puffeth not up as â—ery knowledge doth It is selfishness that is the Life of Pride which consisteth in excessive self-esteem and desire of an excessive esteem with others and to be magnified by them And nothing but Grace can subdue this selfishness and therefore nothing else candestroy Pride 8. Moreover the Honour of the Saints is the less like to make them Proud because Humility is part of the Grace that â—â— bestowed on them To be Proud and Holy is to be sick and Holy to be Light and Dark they are plain contraries No man is proud but for want of Holiness and therefore that Holiness should efficiently make men proud is impossible any more thâ—n Health can make men sick or Darkness can be caused by Light And if objectively any be Proud of his Holiness 〈…〉 but in such a measure as he is noholy Holiness doth ever 〈…〉 Pride and contain Humility and self-denyal as an essential part All Christs Disciples learn of him in their measure to be meek and lowly 9. Let experience tell you whether it be not some worldly Honour or parts and gifts that are the much commoner object of Pride then Holiness I have oft heard talk of mens being proud of their Humility and Holiness but the Temptations of my own soul have comparatively layn but little that way nor have I observed it the common case of others in any proportion with other kinds of Pride Riches and Honours and Beauty and Dignity I see people ordinarily proud of And I see many Proud of Counterfeit Graces that have none that is sincere as far as may be perceived by others to be proud of And I see many Proud of their Learning and Knowledge and nimble tâ—ngnes a hundred fold more then ever I found true Christians Proud of the Love of God and a Heavenly mind Alas we have much a doe for the most part to discern that we have any of this at all and to find so much of it in our selves as is necessary to our support and thankfulness 10. Lastly consider what abundance of Means the Lord hath adjoyned as Antidotes with his servants Honours to keep them from being puffed up with Pride and then tell me whether you dare charge God with errour or want of wisdom in this thing 1. The nature and life of Holiness consisteth in the souls retiring home to God and adhering to him and walking as before him And there is not a more powerful means in the world to keep Humble the soul then the Knowledge of God O when a poor sinner hath but any lively apprehensions of the Greatness and Glory of the Lord it amazeth him and levelleth him with the dust and abaseth him in his own esteem and maketh him say with Job 40. 4 5. Behold I am vile what shall I answer thee I will lay my hand upon my mouth 4 5 6. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth thee wherefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes One glympse of God were enough to humble any soul that truly knoweth him A Godly man hath still to do with that Majesty that continually aweth him His 〈…〉 is with him His thoughts are on him his work is with him 〈…〉 his word that he readeth and heareth and discourseth of and therefore aâ— his word with reverence and Godly fear as knowing that our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12. 28 29. It is God that he prayeth to that he meditateth on and he praiseth and hath still to do with And therefore no wonder if he walk hambly with so holy and great a God 2. The sin and misery that once they were in while they knew not God will do much to keep humble a gracious soul as long as they live Though God so forget our sins as to forgive them yet we can scarce forgive our selves or at least can never forget them Though he see no fin in his servants as he seeth it in the world nor so as to hate and condemn them for it yet they see that once they were as bad as the world and were children of wrath as well as others They condemn themselves when God doth justifie them and set their sins before their faces which God doth cast behind his back O those dark those ungrateful and those perilous dayes will never be forgotten by the renewed soul The thoughts of them shall ever keep us humble When we look on the wicked miserable world to think that such were many of us though mercy have washed and sanctified and justified us 3. Moreover God hath so contrived the way of their salvation that they shall have all by a Redeemer and by freest Grace and none shall be justified by the works of the Law nor by any merit of his own but Boasting is excluded by the Law of faith Rom. 3. 19 27 28. and we shall have nothing but what we receive besides and contrary to our desert 4. And alas too much corruption still remaineth in us We have flesh that fighteth against the spirit Rom. 7. 24. Gal. 5. 17. We know but in part and Love God but in part and serve him with such constant weakness that these things are usually such humbling matters to a gracious soul that were it not for the Comforter they would be unable to look up O to feel how dark we are how far from God! how strange to heaven how little we believe and know and love these are humbling thought indeed to a soul that is acquainted withit self 〈…〉 â—â—verty beggery or the reproach in the world would be so humbling to them To find such remnants of that odious sin that cost them dear and had cost them dearer if it had not cost their Lord so dear this is constant matter of humiliation 5. And too often do their corruptions get advantage of them and produce some actual sin of thought word or 〈…〉 and this also must
and live to God what do they but make a pudder in the world about a little dirt or smoak and find themselves somewhat to do that is next to nothing instead of that for which they were created and busie themselves about nothing till their time is gone and the night is come when none can work If you would judge of a mans Designs fore-see his Attainments If you can tell what End it is that they come to you may know how to judge of their intentions and their course Their corpses you know have no greater a Happiness after a few foolish merry hours then to lie in the earth as filth or dust You can see no Honour attained there It is a child indeed that thinks a guilded Monument over a rotten carkase is any great matter of Honour or Benefit to it And if you look after the soul by the prospective of the Word of God alas it goeth to far greater dishonour And is this it that worldlings make such a stir for 3. The work also that they are employed in is like the Design Sin which is the Basest thing in the world is their employment The work of a Scullion or the basest honest trade you can imagine is a thousand times less dishonourable then sin Yet flattered Gallants believe not this when they can please their flesh without losing the teputation of worthy Gentlemen Nor will our common ungodly people be perswaded of it that are more ashamed to be found praying then sinning and to be called a Puritane then a Good-fellow or a Swearer and that think they are as good men as others when up to the ears in the drudgery of the Devil As if the filth of sin were no dishonour to them which nothing but the Spirit and blood of Christ is able to wash out These are the men that Paul mentioneth with weeping Phil. 3. 18. that mind earthly things whose God is their belly and who glory in their shame 4. Moreover it is a Base disposition that ungodly men are possessed with Though their Natures are essentially noble as being the work of God and capable of most glorious things yet have they made them Dispositively Vile They are fleshly-minded earthly-minded ignorant of Heavenly things not savouring the things of the Spirit but like the Serpent crawling on earth and feeding on the dust Grass is sweeter to a horse then junkets and a little money or vain-glory is sweeter to a fleshly mind then God and Glory and all the treasures of Saints and Angels A swine never thinks of God or Heaven but of his draffe and stie Ease and good chear and money and the flattery of men are the God and the Heaven of sensual men And are not these men of Base dishonourable spirits Unworthy men might you have an Everlasting life and will you preferre a few dayes fleshly pleasure As surely as you may know the Basenss of a swine or dog by what they feed upon so surely may you know the baseness of a carnal mind by the baseness of its desires and delights 5. It is also a Base Society that ungodly men are members of They are in the Kingdom of darkness Col. 1. 13. Acts 26. 18. and are dead in sin in which they walk according to the course of the world according to the Prince of the power of the air the spirit that now walketh in the children of disobedience among whom they have their conversations Eph. 2. 1 2 3. Devils are their invisible companions and wicked men their visible but they have none of the presence and favour of the Lord nor any communion with him in the spirit 6. The greatest Dishonour of the ungodly is that the God of Heaven refuseth to Honour them yea he despiseth them yea he dishonoureth them with most contemptuous titles And certainly God knoweth what he saith of them and it is impossible that he should do them wrong Yet doth he call them the seed of the Serpent that stand at enmity with his flock Gen. 3. 15. he calls them his enemies and accordingly will use them Luke 19. 27. He calls them Dogs and Swine and the Children of the Devil John 8. 44. Matth. 7. 6. They dishonoured and despised him and he will dishonour and despise them and hath resolved that their very names shall rot Prov. 10. 7. 7. But it is the Everlasting shame that will tell us what was the Honour of the ungodly When Christ shall be ashamed of them before his Father and the Heavenly Angels Matth. 8. 38. and shall tell them that he never knew them Matth. 7. 23. When all their former pomp and splendour will be turned into perpetual shame and sorrows then where is the Honour of the ungodly world Where then are their flatterers Who boweth to them and calleth them Right Honourable and Right Worshipfull any more Where now are their sumptuous houses and attendance Now they have other kind of servitours and other language and other usage then they had on earth And the poor wretches that stormed at a faithful Minister for foretelling these woeful changes to them and speaking so dishonourably of them as to tell them of their sin are at last saying an hundred fold worse of themselves then ever we did say against them Then they shall need none to call them fools and vile and wretches but their own Consciences that will speak it out and speak it again ten thousand times and never be bribed to forbear O how base a despicable Generation will the ungodly then be that now speak so stoutly and look so high when God shall everlastingly frown them into contempt and misery and the glorified Saints shall look down upon them without compassion even prasing the Justice that for ever doth torment them Then let the Kings and Nobles of the earth maintain their antient Honours if they can Or let them take comfort in the remembrance of their former dreams and try whether this will be to them instead of a drop of water Well Sirs I have faithfully told you from the Word of God of the Honour of the Godly and the Baseness of the ungodly that you may be resolved which is the Better part If yet you will not see you shall see and be ashamed Isa 26. 11. When you have heard your last and dreadful doom and seen the Lord make up his Jewels then shall you discern between the Righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not Mal. 3. 17 18. CHAP. X. Holiness the most Pleasant Way I Have proved beyond all reasonable contradiction that Holiness is the Safe the Honest the Profitable and the Honourable state and course But my hardest task is yet to be done and that is to prove it the most Pleasant way And the difficulty of this is not at all from the matter but from the persons with whom I have to do For nothing is Pleasant unto men but what is sutable to their natures and apprehended by
eyes He discerneth not the Lords body He only quieteth and deludeth his conscience with the outward form He hath not faith to feed on Christ But to a lively faith what sweetâ— ness doth such a Feast afford We have here Communion with the blessed Trinity in thâ—… three parts of this Eucharistical Sacrament As the Father 〈…〉 both our Creator and the offended Majesty and yet he hath 〈…〉 his Son to be our Redeemer so in the first part which 〈…〉 the CONSECRATION we present to our Creator the creatures of Bread and Wine acknowledging that from him we receive them and all and we desire that upon our Dedication by his Acceptance they may be made Sacramentally and Representatively the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ In the second part of the Eucharist which is the COMMEMORATION of the sacrifice offered on the Cross we break the bread and pour forth the wine to Represent the breaking of Christs Body and shedding of his Blood for the sin of man and we beseech the Father to be Reconciled to us on his Sons account and to accept us in his Beloved and to accept all our sacrifices through him So that as Christ now in Heaven is Representing his sacrifice to the Father which he once offered on the Cross for sin so must the Minister of Christ Represent and plead to the Father the same sacrifice by way of Commemoration and such Intercession as belongeth to his Office The third part of the Eucharist is the OFFER and PARTICIPATION in which the Minister Representing Christ doth by Commission deliver his Bedy and Blood to the penitent hungry believing soul and with Christ is delivered a sealed â—â—â—don of all sin and a sealed gift of life Eternal All which are received by the true Believer An unbeliever knoweth not what transactions there are between the Lord and a holy soul in this Ordinance where the appearances are so small A bit of bread and a sup of wine are indeed small matters But so is not this Communion with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost What a comfort is it that the offended Majesty will accept a sacrifice at our hands and enter a treaty of Peace with the offendours Yea that he will provide the sacrifice himself and the preciousest in the whole world that he will signifie this his acceptance of the sacrifice and how he is pleased in his well-beloved Son and that he accepteth his Sons Intercession in the Heavens and his Ministers intercession and his Churches prayers on earth through Christ Seeing Christ 〈…〉 be glorified with his Father and not continue visible among 〈…〉 what could we desire more from him then the three fold Reâ—â—â—sentative which he hath left behind him to supply the room â—â— his Bodily presence Even the Representation of himself by 〈…〉 by his Ministers and by the Holy Ghost which is 〈…〉 substitute within for the efficacy of all O what unspeakable mysteries and treasures of mercy are here-presented to us in a Sacrament Here we have Communion with a Reconciled God and are brought into his presence by the great Reconciler Here we have Communion with our blessed Redeemer as Crucified and Glorified and offered to us as our quickning preserving strengthening Head Here we have Communion with the Holy Ghost applying to our souls the benefits of Redemption drawing us to the Son and communicating light and life and strength from him unto us increasing and actuating his graces in us Here we have Communion with the Body of Christ his sanctified people the heris of life When the Minister of Christ by his Commission Representeth a Crucified Christ to our eyes by the Bread and Wine appointed to this use we see Christ Crucified as it were before us and our Faith layeth hold on him and we perceive the Truth of the Remedy and build our souls upon this Rock When the same Minister by Christs Commission doth offer us his Body and Blood and Benefits it is as firm and valid to us as if the mouth of Christ himself had offered them And when our souls Receive him by that Faith which the Holy Ghost exciteth in us the participation is as true as that of our bodies receiving the Bread and Wine which represent him O do but ask a drooping soul that mourns under the fears of Gods displeasure how he would value a voice from Heaven to tell him that all his sins are pardoned and that he is dear to God and judge by his answer what is contained and offered in a Sacrament Ask him how he would take it if Christ should speak those words himself to him which he hath given his Minister Commission in his name to speak Take eat this is my Body which is broken for you It is the same Christ the same pardon and salvation that is offered us by the Messengers of Christ and which he personally offered himself to his Disciples When you must all appear at the Barr of God O what would you not give for a sealed pardon which in a Sacrament is given freely now to the believing soul Judge now by this whether it be a Joyous Ordinance When the poorest Christian this day receiveth that which the greatest Prince that is ungodly would then give all the world for it he had it For want of that pardon Christian which thou must now receive many thousands will tremble at the barâ— of God and be overwhelmed with his wrath for ever Ask a soul that groaneth under the languishings of his grace and the burden of any strong corruption how he would value the mortifying and quickning grace of the Holy Ghost that would break his bonds and give him light and life and strength and by his answer judge of the value of a Sacrament We have here the greatest mercies in the world brought down to us in sensible Representations that they might be very neer us and the means might be suited to the frailty and infirmity of our present state If the sealed message of Gods Reconciliation with us and a sealed pardon of all our sins and a sealed grant of Everlasting life be not more pleasant and desirable to your thoughts then all that earth and flesh can yield you it is because your are alive to sin and dead to God and want that spiritual sence and appetite by which you might be competent judges If God if Christ if grace if the foretasts of glory can afford no pleasure to the soul then Heaven it self would not be pleasant But if these are sweet the Sacrament is sweet that doth convey them Well poor stubborn carnal sinners you have been invited to this feast as well as others we are sent to call you and even compel you to come in though upon the terms and in the way of Christ but you have no great list but somewhat else doth please you better And will it prove better indeed to you at the end Well take your own choice If an Alehouse be better then the Table of the
Lord if your merry companions do please you better then the Communion of the Saints or if you cannot submit to the order and discipline of the family of Christ that you may partake of his provision you may follow your own corrupt desires and see whither they will lead you But here it is that I shall choose my pleasures till I reach the everlasting pleasures And though in this low communion of imperfect Saints we see but in a glass and have but some small imperfect Sasts of the glorious things which Hope expecteth yet this is more then all that earth and flesh can yield and it is most perfect Pleasure that by these is revealed sealed and Represented Sacraments can assure us of perfect joys though they give us but little joy in hand Obj. But if Sacraments be so pleasant why then saith a disconsolate soul have I found no more pleasure or comfort in them Answ Even in the soul that 's made alive by Grace diseases may much corrupt the appetite and make the sweetest thing seem bitter Are not Sacraments sweet to you and do you not delight in the communion of God and of his Saints I will not say much to you lest it seem degrestive but briefly ask you these few Questions 1. Are the thoughts of God of Christ of Heaven sweet to you If they be me thinks the Ordinances should be sweet If they be not it s no wonder that you sét light by Sacraments if you can set light by Christ and heaven it self Quest 2. Is not sin grown sweet to you If it be the ordinances will not be sweet no nor unless your sins grow bitter Quest 3. Doth not the world grow sweet to you and your condition or expectations and your thriving state more plesant to you then heretofore If so no wonder if Sacraments and all spiritual things do lose their sweetness Quest 4. Have you been faithful in your preparation by free confession true humiliation strong resolution hungring and thristing after Christ and all this furthered by diligent self-examination An unprepared soul must blame it self if it find not the sweetness of the Ordinance The holy appetite and relish that is necessary to your Delight must be stirred up much in your Preparations Quest 5. Are you careful and conscionable humble and holy in your lives If you neglect God in your ordinary conversations and walk not with him on other daies you are unlike to meet him comfortably here And if you are slight and careless in your ordinary duties you will find here that God took notice of it Quest 6. Do you faithfully endeavour to exercise Faith Repentance Love and all Sacramental Graces in the use of the ordinances You come not to a meer receiving but to a Work Have your souls been adorned with the wedding garment and do you come hither for a meeting with the Lord Jesus Christ Do you see him by faith and take all that is here Represented to you as if you had seen the things themselves Do you remember that your Lord is coming and do you lift up your heads in the expectation of your Redemption and do this in remembrance of him till he come An idle loytering in Gods work is not the way to find the sweetness of it Clemens Alexandrinus Strom. l. 1. init gives it as a Reason why every one took his own part of the Bread of the Sacrament in those times because man being a free agent must be the chooser or refuser of his own happiness The Papists on the contrary do but gape and the Priest doth pop the bread into their mouths having first perswaded them that it is not bread Do you not expect to receive the spiritual benefits just as the Papists do receive the Bread as if you had nothing to do but gape As if your presence here were as much as is to be expected from you for your edification How can you tast the sweetness that is offered when you do not exercise your spiritual senses Quest 7. Do you exercise faith as well as feeling in judging of the benefit of Sacraments Pardon and Justification and Title to Salvation are benefits which in themselves you cannot feel It is by Believing the promise that you must know them If God have promised a blessing on his Ordinance it is sure to the faithful soul as if we felt it though perhaps we may seem long without it Heaven it self which is the principal end of Ordinances will not be attained in this life and yet the Ordinace is not in vain Quest 8. Have you the true understanding of the use of Sacraments of the abundant Love that is here set forth and the freeness and fulness of the Promise here sealed If not no wonder if you taste not the sweetness when you know not how to break the shell that you may feed on the kernel of the Ordinances Quest 9. Have you not troubled your own souls and muddyed your comforts by causeless doubts and ignorant scruples about the gestures or manner or persons that you joyned with or some such circumstances as these If so no marvel if you lose the comfort Quest 10. Or at least have you not been negligent in the review and after improving of the Ordinances and have you not thought that all was done when you had received Any one of these miscarriages may make this pleasant duty bitter or at least deprive you of the most of the delight But if your hearts be suted to the work and you deprive not your selves of the offered consolation you shall find that God deals bountifully with you and will feast you even with Angels food 5. The publike worship being all thus sweet how sweet are the Lords days these holy seasons that are wholly consecrated to this work How light is the Christian that hath this day cast off his worldly cares and business and cogitations and hath set himself apart for God as if there were to world to mind On the week days he doth walk with Goa But so that his necessary worldly business doth frequently divert and distract his mind But what a sweet and happy day is this when he may strip himself of these distractions as he doth of his work-day courser cloaths and may wholly apply himself to God As the Bee goes from flower to flower labouring at all but with a Pleasant labour to gather Honey and prepare for winter so doth the Christian especially on the Lords day employ himself in labour and delight and the more he laboureth the more is his delight From Prayer he goeth to Reading and to the instructing his family if he be a superiour or learning if he be an inferiour and have helps From private worship to publike and from publike to private again and gathering Honey food and sweetness to his soul from all Tell me you childish brutish wantons Do you think in your heart that you have as much solid joy and pleasure in a play day or in
and thy Will It proclaimeth thy pernicious Folly and Impiety If thou hadst no more wit then to be Pleased more with stones then gold with dung then meat with shameful nakedness then cloathing thou wouldst not be judged wise enough to be left to thy own dispose and government But the folly which thou dost manifest is unspeakably greater Darkness is not so much worse then Light and Death is not so much worse then Life as sin is worse than Holiness and the world than God And is the Worst more Pleasant to thee then the Best It is a fool indeed to whom it is a sport to do mischief Prov. 10. 23. and so great a mischief as sin is and yet hath no delight in understanding Prov. 18. 2. Delight is not seemly for such fools Prov. 19. 10. And how wicked is that Heart as well as Blind that is so averse to God and Holiness Doth not this shew thee 1. The absence of Gods holy image 2. And the presence of Satans image upon thy soul Nothing doth more certainly prove what a man is then the complacency and displacency of his Heart If you know what it is in your selves or others that pleaseth and displeaseth most you may certainly know whether you have the spirit and grace of Christ or not This is the durable infallible Evidence which Satan shall never be able to invalidate and which the weakest Christians can scarce tell how to deny in themselves Could they be more Holy it would please them better then to be more rich Could they believe more and Love God more and trust him more and obey him better it would please them more then if you gave them all the honours of the world They are never so well pleased with their own hearts as when they find them nearest Heaven and have most of the Knowledge of God and impress of his attributes and sense of his presence They are never so well pleased with their lives as when they are most holy and fruitful and may fullyest be called A walking with God They are never so much displeased with themselves as when they find least of God upon their hearts and are most dark and dull and undisposed to holy Communion with him They are never so much weary of themselves as when their lives are least fruitful holy and exact And this is a certain Evidence of their sincerty For it shews what they Love and what it is that hath their Hearts or Wills And it is the Heart or Will that is the man in Gods account God takes a man to be what he sincerely would be As he is so he Loveth and Willeth and as he Loveth and Willeth such he is His complacency or displacency are the immediate sure discoveries of his bent or inclination This certain Evidence poor doubting souls should have oft recourse to and improve And on the contrary it is as sure an Evidence of your misery when you savour not the things of the Spirit Rom. 8. 5 6 7. and when it pleaseth you more to be great then to be good to be rich then to be religious and righteous to serve your lusts then to serve the Lord When you set more by the applause of men then by the approbations of God and had rather be far from God then near him and be excused from a holy life then used to it and constant in it When you take the world and sin for your recreation or delight and a godly life for a melancholy wearisom and unpleasant course This certainly shews that you have yet the old corrupted nature and Serpentine enmity against the Spirit and Life of Christ and are yet in the flesh and therefore can no more please the Lord then his holy wayes are pleasing unto you Rom. 8. 6 7 8. and it proveth that you are yet in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of your iniquity and that your hearts are not right in the sight of God and that you are the slaves of Satan whose nature you partake of by which you are thus alienated from the Lord. Didst thou know God as Faith doth know him his Loving kindness would be better to thee then life it self Psalm 63. 3. If thou didst Love him as it is like thou wilt pretend thou dost it would be meat and drink to thee to enjoy his Love and do his Will And if thou know him not by Faith nor cleavest to him by unfeigned Love how canst thou pretend to have his Image How would you judge of that mans heart that were no better affected to his friend to his parents or children or other relations then you manifest your selves to be to God If he can take no pleasure in the company of his wife or children but is glad when he is far from them in the company of strangers or harlots or prodigals would you not say this man had a base unmanly disposition Express but such an inclination in plain words and try how honest sober men will judge of them Much more would it be odious to Christian ears if you should tell God plainly We can find no pleasure in thee or in thy holy wayes thy Word and Service are unsavoury and wearisom unto us We had rather be talking or busied about the matters of the world We have far more pleasure in recreations and sensual accommodations then in remembring thee and thy Kingdom and then we find in the life that is called holy Would not such words as these be called impious by every Christian that should hear them And is not that an impious heart then which speaketh thus or is thus affected and that an impious life that manifesteth it though dissembling lips are ashamed to profess it If God be not most to be loved and delighted in then any thing or all things else he is not God If Heaven and Holiness be not sweeter then all the pleasures of earth and sin let them have no more such honourable names Let sin and earth then be called Heaven but wo to them that have no better 2. What monstrous ingratitude is that man guilty of that when God hath provided and Christ hath purchased such high delights and freely tendred them to unworthy sinners will say I find no pleasure in them and take them for no delights at all When the Lord beheld thee wallowing in thy filth and laughing in thy misery and making a sport of thine own perdition he pittied thee and provided and offered to thee the most noble and excellent delights that thy nature is capable of enjoying And wilt thou cast them back unthankfully in his face and say They are unpleasant tedious things If your child did so by his meat or cloathes yea or a beggar at your door did so by his alms you would think it proved his great unworthyness If he throw away the best you can give him and say It is naught there is no sweetness in it would you not think it fit that want should help to
so much in doubt of it If thou truly Love it thou hast it for it is only grace that causeth an unfeigned Love of grace And if thou love it not why canst not thou more quietly be without it Why dost thou make so much ado for it But if thou have it in the least degree and so art born again of the spirit thou hast with it an unspeakable treasure of delights The God of Life and Love is thine The Lord Jesus Christ is thine The Spirit is thine The promises are thine and Heaven it self is thine in title and shall be thine in full perpetual possession The God that made and ruleth all things is Reconciled to thee and is thy Father having by grace in Christ adopted thee to be his Son Rom. 5. 1 2 10 11. 8. 1 16 17. Gal. 4. 6. 2 Cor. 6. 18. The Son of God is become thy Head and thou art become a member of his body as flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone which no man ever yet hath hated Ephes 5. 23 27 29 30. Thou art become the Temple and residence of the Holy Ghost Thy title to Heaven is incomparably more sure then any mans humane title to his possessions or inheritance on earth And what rejoycing can be too great for a man in thy condition O what a Life should that man live with what sweet delight should he be transported that hath the Spirit of Christ now living in him to prepare him and seal him up for an endless life with Christ He that shall be shortly so full of joy should not be empty now when he remembreth what he must shortly be Doth it beseem him now to dwell in grief and refuse consolation that must in a few dayes be swallowed up with Joy If thou that fittest here in heaviness wert assured that shortly thou shouldst be with Christ and made a blessed companion of Angels and possessed of thy Masters joy a joy that hath no bounds or end would not thy Conscience then tell thee that thou greatly wrongest such abundant mercy in that thou art no more affected with it and that thy want of joy doth express thy too much want of thankfulness Dost thou sit there like a child of God and like an heir of Heaven and a co-heire with Christ Rom. 8. 16 17. Doth that sorrowful heart and that dejected countenance become one that must live with Christ for ever in such resplendent glory as thou must do and that hath but a few more dayes to live till thou take possession of these endless joyes The Lord pardon and heal our unbelief Did Faith more effectually play its part as it is the evidence of things not seen and withdraw the veil and shew us though but in a glass the glory which we must see with open face it would be wine to our hearts and oyl to our countenances and make our poverty sickness and death more comfortable then the wealth and health and life of the ungodly I know you will say still that you could rejoyce if you were sure all this were yours but when you rather think you have no part in it it can be but small comfort to you Answ 1. But who is it long of that you have still such fears Have you not in your souls that Love to Holiness that desire after it that hatred and weariness of sin that Love to the searching discovering use of the Word of God that Love to the Brethren which are the evidences of your title and to which God hath plainly promised salvation If then you have your Title in the Promise and your Evidences in your hearts and yet will be still questioning whether you have them or no and whether the Kingdom shall be yours your weakness and inconsiderateness causeth your own sorrows And when you have sinfully bred your doubts will you insist on them to excuse your following sins 2. Are you not sure that Christ and his benefits are yours I am sure they are yours or may be if you will and nothing but your continued refusal can deprive you of them For this is the very tenor of the promise And if you will not have Christ and his offered benefits why do you so dissemble as to take on you to mourn because you have them not But if you are willing they are yours Object But you will say if we had nothing but cause of comfort we could rejoyce but we have cause of sorrow also How can we live comfortably under so much sin and suffering Answ By this account you will never rejoyce till you come to Heaven for you will never be free from sin and suffering till then Nay it seems you would have no man else rejoyce and so would banish all comfort from the world For there is no man without sin and suffering But what can there be of any weight to prohibit a sincere Believer from seasonable spiritual rejoycing Have you sin It is not gross and reigning sin And sinful infirmities the best of the Saints on earth have had As your sin must be your moderate sorrow so the pardon of it and the degree of mortification which you have attained and the promise you have of full deliverance should be the matter of your greater joy Are your Graces weak Be humbled in the sense of that your weakness but rejoyce more that they are sincere and will be perfect Are your afflictions great Be humbled under them But rejoyce more that they are but Fatherly chastisements proceeding from Love and tending to your greater good and that you are saved from the consuming fire and shall live in everlasting rest where affliction shall be known no more Is it possible for that man that hath the love of God and shall have heaven for ever to have any sufferings that should weigh down these and be matter to him of greater sorrow then this of joy Can you imagine that there is more evil in your infirmities and sufferings then there is good in God and happiness in Heaven Is it reason and equity that you should look at sin only and not at grace and at what you want only and not at what you have received Seeing you have more cause of joy then sorrow should you not distribute your affections proportionably as there is cause I disswade you not from seasonable moderate sorrows But should not your joy be much greater as long as the cause of it is much greater 4. And here I would intreate you to consider well of the tenour of Gods commands concerning this matter in the Gospel and of the examples of the Saints there left on record And then tell me which course it is that God is best pleased with Your chearful or your dejected course of life I find that though I pitty the sad and miserable yet I had rather my self have a chearful then a drooping grieving troubled companion and friend Because I desire one suitable to my self in the state I would
most notorious sect and grand dividers of the Church and condemners of the justified shall know one day that Ambition was not true Religion and that the name of unity and universality and Antiquity were unmeet instruments to be used to the destruction of Unity and contradiction of Universality and Antiquity and that God hath set apart himself the man that is Godly though the Accuser of the Brethren would cast such out Psal 4. 3. And who shall condemn when it is Christ that justifieth Rom. 8. 33. You may see now that Godliness is not any meer external act or worship External worship there must be and that with all decencie and reverent behaviour but it is hypocrisie if there be nothing but the Corps without the Internal Godliness which is the life and soul Bodily exercise is here by the Apostle distinct from Godliness 4. You may now see that Godliness is not the meer forbearance of the outward acts or practice of any sin For else a sleep or a prison might make a man Godly by restraining him from the acts of sin He is ungodly that had rather live in the sin which through some restraint he doth forbear If you would do it you have done it in Gods account 5. You may see also that whatsoever Religiousness Obedience or Endeavours subject Christ to the flesh and world and make him give place to them and come behind do not deserve the name of Godliness You are not Godly how far soever else you goe if God and your Salvation take not place before all the honours profits and pleasures of the world As he is not God that hath any Greater Wiser or Better then himself so that is not Godliness which giveth the precedency practically to any thing but God that pretendeth never so highly to Honour him and yet more esteemeth their own Honour with the world or that professeth Love and Obedience to him and yet Loveth and obeyeth a Lust before him and sets more by Love and Obedience to themselves then by their own or other mens Love or Obedience to God All these are the cheating counterfeits of Godliness 6. And if none of these be Godliness much less doth it consist in any sin in superstition Idolatry or in cruelty blood and persecution through a carnal zeal in a bringing all others by violence to our proud impious wills in murmuring sedition rebellion or resisting lawful Powers under pretence of propagating religion Godliness consisteth not in Jesuitical contrivances and undermining others and equivocations and pious frands in disturbing Kingdoms killing Kings blowing up Parliaments absolving subjects from allegiance and giving away the Dominions of Temporal Lords if they will not obey the Pope in exterminating their Hereticks as is Decreed to be done in the Approved General Council at the Laterane under Innocent 3. Can. 3. nor doth it consist in murdering thirty thousand or fourty thousand treacherously in a few weeks as in France or much above twice as many in Ireland nor in butchering Christians by hundreds or thousands as they did long agoe by the Waldenses and Albigenses and Bohemians Nor in racking and tormenting them by Inquisition nor in frying them in the flames of fagots as in Queen Marics days and frequently elsewhere This is the Religion of the father of malice that thirsts for blood and not of the Merciful Prince of Peace Godliness is not the running to arms and pulling down Governments to set up the proud self-conceited actors under pretence of setting up Christ and preparing for his Kingdom snatching in their dream at Crowns and Kingdoms and finding when they awake that they have catcht agallows When the Fryers had spawned the turbulent people among us in England that thought they must do any thing and overturn the Governments of the world to make Christ the fifth Monarch and bring him from heaven to Reign visibly on earth before he is willing to come I must confess lâ—oft thought that their cunning was much more wonderful to keep these people from being undeceived then at first to deceive them To keep them in despight of all our discoveries and warnings in such furious blindness as to goe on and do their fathers work and rage against these that told them their original and whither they were going The poor seduced people never read such Books as Fryar Campanella's de Regno Dei sacerdotio Christi c. wherein he brings up all the Prophetical Texts in Isaiah Daniel c. which these men use and laboureth to shew what a golden Age is coming in which divisions shall cease and unity become the strength and beauty of the world and this by the Universal reign of Christ and what a happy people the Saints will be and how they shall then judge and rule the world and O the comfort the time is near and just such words he useth for his fifth most glorious universal Monarchy as others now do But when all comes to all the mysterie unveiled is but this that Christ must reign by the Pope his Deputy and that all Princes and Nations must submit and stoop and their Kingdoms must all become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ to be governed by his Deputy the Pope and the power falsly called spiritual being first well-settled the other Key or Sword also the temporal must for unity sake be put into the same hand The Heavens therefore should rejoyce and the earth be glad for the Lord thus cometh to judge the world The fifth Monarchy is at hand The Universal holy reign of Christ not by prophane Princes but by his Holiness the Pope and by the Saints the Fryars Jesuites Monks and Clergy that shall judge the world to whom ere long all knees shall bow But you will say We are so far from joyning with these Fryars that we hate the Pope much more then you do I answer You have received their frame of doctrine of the Universal fifth Monarchy that is at hand there is but one thing to do and you are theirs which is to convince you that Christ is not to come and reign here personally but by his Great Vicegerent And they that could bring you to believe things more improbable may more easily easily bring you to them from your unreasonable conceit Pardon this Digression I thought meet to tell you that Godliness lyeth not in breaking the Law of God nor in obeying Pride nor being the enemies of Government and order in the world nor in an impatient striving by right or wrong to break away from the yoak of suffering that God for our sin or for his cause shall lay upon us And now I have fully and distinctly told you What Godliness is and What it is not And now go thy way malicious soul and say if thou dare as the Devils informers frequently do that it is sedition or faction or schism or disobedience that we draw the people to under the name of Godliness Hold on if thou wilt a
pretend to believe the Gospel it would help to the recovery of the understandings of the Ambitious and make the proud ashamed of their glory and settle the drunken aspiring minds of those that think it worth more than their salvation to sit upon the highest pearch It would call off the covetous worldling from his immoderate seeking provisions for the flesh and save them that are drowned in the cares of this life by shewing them the true and necessary treasure It would spare them many a vexatious thought and a great deal of unnecessary labour and prevent the shame and horrour that must befall them when in the end they find their labour lost and all their expectations frustrate It would quickly stop the mouthes which prejudice ignorance malignant enmity and deliration have opened against a life of faith and serious Godliness and cause them that scorn it as a Needless thing to make it their daily business and delight It would tell the sluggish sensless sinner that he hath work of everlasting confequence upon his hand and that it is no time to dream or loyter And it would tell the brutish sensualist that there are more sweet and durable delights and the time-wasting fool that time is precious and he hath none to spare and cast away having so great a work to do It would set men on seeking with greatest diligence the Kingdom which before they did but dream of and would turn the very stream of their hearts and lives on that which before they minded but as on the by In a word it would make the earthly to become heavenly and the fleshly spiritual and the sloathful to be diligent and rotten-hearted sinners to become renewed SAINTS as all must do that ever will be saved And if these words of Christ be not thus received by you and work not such wonders on mens hearts it is not because there is any want of fitness in the Text but because mens hearts are hardned into a wilful contempt of the most precious truths which in themselves are apt to change and save them Of all waies of Teaching History is accounted One of the most effectual because it hath the greatest advantage on our apprehensions as setting our lesson before our eyes in the great character of Example and not only in the smaller letter of a naked precept And of all History What can be more powerful then I Where one of the actors is the eternal son of God and that not above our reach in Heaven but here in our flesh on the stage of this sublunary world 2. And the other actors are such as most â—itly represent the different actions of all the world at least that live within the sound of the Gospel and lay open the great question about which the world is so much divided 3. And when the matter it self is of the greatest consequence that can be imagined even concerning the present choice and resolution of our hearts and that expending of our Time and that business and employment of our lives on which our Endless life dependeth All this you have here set out even to the life before your eyes in the glass of this example in my Text And the Lord of Life doth call you all to see your faces in it and here plainly sheweth you what will be expected from you and what you must be and do and trust â—o and this not in any long and â—edioâ—â— discourse that might overcharge your memories or weary your attentions but in very brief though full expressions As Jesus entred into Bethany Martha who it seems was the Owner of the house received and entertained him No doubt but a great company followed Jesus or his Disciples that ordinarily accompanyed him at the least Martha thinks that having entertained such a guest it were a great neglect if she should not provide for him and for his followers and therefore she is busie in doing what she can but the number is so great that she is oppressed with the care and trouble and findeth that she hath more to do then she is able Her sister that she thought should have helped her in such a case is sitting with the Disciples at the feet of Christ to hear his Word Martha seeing this is offended at her sister and seems to think that Christ himself is too neglective of her or partial for her sister and therefore thus â—â—eâ—â—s her cause with Christ Lord dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone bid her therefore that she help me As if she had said Is it a fit thing that both thy self and all this company should be unprovided for and have neither meat noâ— drink Oâ— is it fit that all should be laid on me even more then I can do while she sits hearing with the Disciples Deal equally and mercifully and bid her help me And indeed most people would think that this was but a reasonable motion and that when Christ was made the Judge between them he should have decided the case on Martha's side But he did not so But 1. instead of commending Martha for her care and diligence he sheweth her errour by a gentle but yet a close reproof Martha Martha thou art careful and troubled about many things 2. Instead of reproving Mary for negligence of her duty in the house he highly commendeth her for the seasonable doing of a greater work Mary hath chosen the good part 3. He groundeth the Reason of his Judgement on the different Nature and Use of their employments One thing is Needful in comparison of which the rest were all unnecessary things and such as then might have been neglected 4. And so he passeth sentence on Marie's side that the good part which she hath chosen shall not be taken away from her In which â—e not only answereth Martha with an express denyal as if he should say I will not take off Mary from the work which she hath chosen but also on that occasion doth point out the durable nature of the Good which she had chosen and promise the continuance of it Concerning Martha some expositors run into two extreams â—…e think that she was an unregenerate worldling and savourâ—… only fleshly things and that these words of Christ describe 〈…〉 state as one that had not yet made choice of the one thing â—…edful and the better part But it is only her present action that Christ doth reprehend and censure and not her state Her entertainment of Christ and speeches to him and other passages â—…we us great probability that she was a true disciple as after it is â—aid that Jesus loved her John 11. 5. On the other side One Learned Annotator thus Paraphraseth â—…e words of Christ to Martha Thou takest a great deal of unnecessary though not culpable pains as if Christs words were â—o reprehension of her nor her course blame-worthy But the plain truth lieth between these two extreams Martha though most probably a true Disciple was
children fools or mad men use as long as you mind not and seek not after the One thing necessary What ever they may be to others they are no wiser or better to your selves This is my judgement yea this is the judgement of the Spirit of God Phil. 3. 8. If Paul was not mistaken your gain it self is to be accounted Loss and all but dung in comparison of the knowing and winning of Christ that you might be found in him and have his righteousness Think not the name of dung too base when God himself hath written it here upon your highest endowments and honours by his Spirit And indeed what will they all do more then dung to procure you the favour of God or the pardon of your sins If you offer him gold will it do any more then if you offered him so much dirt Is not the prayer of a beggar heard as soon as of a Lord or Gentleman If they would do any thing to buy you peace of Conscience or everlasting life or if they would but keep you alive on earth I should not marvail at your course But when they will do none of this but make your way to Heaven more difficult yea your salvation a thing impossible while you thus live after the flesh Rom. 8. 13. how then can any easier sentence be past upon your choice Be you the Greatest or the Wisest in your own esteem or in the esteem of others of your mind I believe yea I am sure that you are all this while but laboriously idle and honourably debasing your selves and delightfully tormenting your selves and wisely befooling your selves and thriftily undoing your selves for ever I have reason to say that your rising and honourable and voluptuous imployments are not only like childrens playing in the sand and making them houses with sticks and stones but so much more pitifull as the reason which you abuse exceedeth theirs And could you all attain to be Lords and Ladies I should look upon you but as a King or Queen upon a Chess-board as to any felicity that it bringeth to your selves whatsoever use the over-ruling providence of God may make of you for his Churches The wise Merchant is he that seeking pearls doth find this One of greatest price and selleth all that he hath and buyeth it even all the worldly treasures which you so highly value Mat. 13 45 46. There is more true Riches in this One pearl then in a thousand loads of sand or dirt If you will load your selves with mire and clay conceiting it to be your treasure your backs will be broken before you will have enough to make you rich O Sirs with what eyes with what hearts do you use to read such passages of Christ that speak so plainly to you as if he named you and so piercingly as one would think should make you feel Luke 12. 19 20 21. Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and be merry But God said to him Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee and then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided so is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God Would you have Christ speak plainer to to you or closelyer apply it that you may perceive he speaks to you You have lost all the Labour of your lives but that 's not all 3. But furthermore consider that if the One thing needfull have been neglected whatever else you have been doing or whatever you have got unless as preparatory to this you have not only lost your labour but you have all this while been busily undoing your selves and labouring for your own perdition If it were but the loss of your Time and Labour you would then die but as brutes and be as if you had never been and to those that have brutified themselves this will seem more tolerable then to live in holiness to God But alas you have done much worse then this You have not only been digging your own graves but barring up against your selves the doors of heaven and kindling the unquenchable fire to torment you Mar. 9. 44. I beseech you give me a considerate hearing you ambitious Gentlemen you covetous worldlings and you that serve your lusts and pleasures Do you think you had been doing the the work of wisemen if you had all this while been burning your own fingers or cutting your own flesh or setting your own or your neighbours houses on fire What would you have us call that man that would live in such imployments as these and yet would be accounted wise or honourable Do I need to tell thee as Nathan did David that Thou art the man Do I need in so plain a case to tell you that you have been doing worse I speak not rashly a thousand times worse against your souls then this would have been which is supposed to be only against your bodies Alas self-destroyers what do you mean Did God send you hither on no better an errand than to kindle and blow the fire of his wrath and fall into it when you have kindled it Have you no better work in the world to do then to prepare your selves a place in hell and with a great deal of care and cost and stir to labour for damnation as if you were afraid of losing it I know you will say God forbid we hope better we intend no such thing But alas the question is not What you intend but what you are doing Not whether it be your desire that everlasting death should be the wages of sin but whether it be the Law and unchangeable will of God Rom. 6. 23. If you seek not first Gods Kingdom and his righteousness and look not after the One thing needful with your chiefest Estimation Resolution and Endeavours as sure as Christ is true this will prove your case at last though now you wink and wilfully go on and will not believe it As sure as the Gospel is true this is true There are but two Ends Heaven and Hell and if you miss the former you fall into the latter If you live after the flesh you shall die whatever you imagine and you must mortifie the deeds of the flesh by the spirit if you will live Rom. 8. 13. If you see a man cutting his own threat and you ask him What are you doing man will you kill your self and he answereth you No God forbid I have no such meaning I will hope better Would you think that this would save his life or that his hopes and meanings would prove him ever the wiser man I tell you from the Word of God it is one of the plainest truths that is there contained that if you value not choose not and seek not the One thing Needful above all other things whatsoever you are all this while but sowing the seeds of endless misery whose fruit you must reap in outer darkness where will be weeping and
the thoughts of their own infirmities and that consider not that the chief part of Religion doth consist in Love and Joy in the Holy Ghost and in Thanksgiving and delightful praising our Creator So that it is not long of Religion if men will leave out the chief parts of Religion and make themselves a Religion of so much only as may breed their trouble 3. And I must further tell you that as I have had opportunity of knowing the state of as many troubled distempered minds as any one of you whoever he be so I must needs bear witness that I have met with many that have been distracted by worldly cares or sorrows or discontents for one that ever I knew distracted with the cares about the matter of their salvation And yet though it be worldly care and sorrow that most commonly bringeth death and madness you will not therefore give over your Callings and resolve that you will meddle no more with meat or drink or cloathes or houses or lands or friends or children Nay it were well if you would be brought to moderation and taken off your inordinate desires 4. And yet in the conclusion I must tell you that though I know that the loss of a mans understanding is a very grievous affliction and such as I hope God will never lay upon me yet I had a thousand times rather go distracted to Bedlam with the excessive care about my salvation then be one of you that cast away the care of your salvation for fear of being distracted and will go among the infernal Bedlams into hell for fear of being mad The height of your carnal wisdom is more deplorable then their distraction For God will condemn no man because he is distracted nor so much as blame him for it unless as it is the fruit of sin no more then he will condemn or blame an Ideot or a beast because they have no use of reason If David had been as he seigned himself to be 1 Sam. 21. 13 14. it would not have cast him out of Gods favour so far as one sin did much less so far as the ungodly are A man may go to Heaven from such a madness But you that have Reason for the world but none for God that are wise to do evil that have wit to destroy your selves and serve the flesh but none to look after your recovery and salvation it s you that shall have the stripes the many the great the endless stripes You that have so much wit as that you glory in it and think your selves wiser then the rest of the world and yet have not wit to know and love and serve your maker nor to value and seek first the One thing necessary it is you that will prove the miserable fools If you had not had a natural capacity of understanding you had had no sin But now you have no cloak for your sin when you have the worldly wisdom which is foolishness with God and have a sinning self-destroying wit and are wilfully void of the wisdom that should save you 1 Cor. 1. 25. 3. 19. Jer. 8. 9. when you have not a necessitated but a voluntary distraction and this is your condemnation that Light is come into the world and you have loved darkness rather then Light because your deeds were evil John 3. 19. If you think this wilfull and sensless neglect of the One thing needfull is not a sufficient evidence to prove that miserable distraction which I charge upon you will you but believe your Maker and let the word of God be Judge between us and mark what language it giveth to such as I now describe 2 Thess 3. 2. Jer. 4. 22. Eccles 7. 25. 2 Pet. 2. 12. Psalm 92. 6. 94. 8. Jer. 10. 8. 14. Deut. 32. 6. Psalm 73. 3. 22. 2 Sam. 14. 10. In these places your course hath no better titles than unreasonable foolish brutish sottish c. even from the God of Wisdom himself who is the fittest to give you the character that you deserve When you have truly considered of your way if indeed you find that you have dealt like wise men hold on and say so at the last when you have eaten the fruit of your doing and have seen the End 5. Furthermore Consider that what ever else you have been doing in the world if the one thing necessary be yet undone you have lost and abused all the mercies that God hath bestowed on you Many a thousand pretious mercies have been given you And to what use but to help you to everlasting mercy and to prevent your everlasting misery This is the End and this is the Life and excellency of all your mercies For all present mercies have the Nature of a Means to a further End And the Goodness and nature of the Means consisteth in its fitness to promote the End And therefore you have lost all the Mercies that you have received if you are never the nearer your End for them and if they have not promoted the Love of God and your salvation You have had health and strength and time and peace and liberty and some of you also wealth and honour in the world But you have lost them all if your salvation be not furthered by them Many a preservation you have had when others have been cut off before your faces and many a deliverance from dangers known or unknown and much of the fruit of that Patience of God which hath till now attended you in your sin Many a Sermon you have heard and many a warning you have had and you have been planted in God Vineyard and daily watered with the Ordinances of grace But all these are lost if the One thing necessary hath been neglected Nothing in this world doth you good indeed any further then it promoteth your Everlasting good And do you think that you have dealt kindly or justly with God to deal so contemptuously with all his mercies as to cast them away and tread them under foot When you want but food or rayment or liberty or health you value them and pray for them and when you have them what do you with them but throw them as in the channel and sacrifice them to your lusts and enemies When Death looketh you in the face you begin to know the worth of Time and then O what would you not give for a little more and that God would try you a few years longer And when you have Time what do you with it but serve the Devil and cast it away for nothing and spend it in preparing for everlasting sorrows How can you for shame cry to God for Mercy in your next distress when you have contemptuously thrown away the Mercies of twenty or thirty or forty years already If your own children should ask you for meat or drink and when they have it should throw it to the dogs or ask you for money and cast it into the dirt and do thus an hundred
and an hundred times over would you go on to give it them because they cry for it O Sirs that you could but use your Reason in the matters for which it was given you by your Maker Either time and mercy is worth something or nothing If it be worth nothing never beg for it and never be sad when it is taken from you Why make you such a stir for that which is nothing worth I mean your corporal mercies for spiritual mercies you can be too well content to be without But if they be worth any thing why do you cast them away and make no better use of them What good do you with them or what good do they do you Believe it sinners God doth not despise his mercies as you do He will not alway give you meat and drink and health and strength and life to play with and do nothing with He will teach you better to value them before he hath done with you Not that he thinks them too good for you but he would have them be better to you then you will let them be He would have every bit you eat to be used to strengthen you in your walk to heaven and every hour of your time to help you towards eternal happiness and every present mercy to further your everlasting mercy that so by the improvement their value may be advanced and they may be mercies indeed to you Be ruled by God and you shall receive more in one mercy then you do now in a thousand But if you will do nothing with them blame him not if he take them from you and leave you destitute of what you knew not how to use Nay your sin is greater then meerly to cast away your mercies You do not only lose them but turn them all into a curse and undo your souls with that which is given for the sustentation of your bodies While you know no better use of mercies then to please your senses and accommodate the flesh and forget the One thing needful which is the End of all you turn them all into sin and fight against God by them and strengthen his enemy and your own and block up your way to Heaven by them and treasure up wrath for the dreadful day when your wealth shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire Jam. 5. 1 2 3. Rom. 2. 5. You contemptuously cast that bread to dogs which he giveth you to supply your own necessities You treacherously carry over his provision to the enemy Consider this you that say you hope to be saved because God is merciful You have found indeed that God is merciful by large experience But if you do not learn and quickly learn to make a better use of his mercies abused mercy will prove your everlasting misery O what a reckoning will you have What a load to press you down to Hell Unless you would have used them better it had been easier for you if these temporal mercies had been denyed you Can that man look to be saved by mercy that would not be intreated to consent that mercy should save him in the day of salvation in the accepted time but served the Devil with those very mercies that would have saved him God sendeth you his mercies to kill your sins and sanctifie you and engage you to himself and if you will feed your sins with them and make them your idols and forsake God for them and be false to him to your Covenant and your duty and neglect that One thing for which he gave them to you you do not only lose them but turn them to a curse And alas poor sinners what will you have to fly to to trust in or to comfort you when mercy abused hath not only forsaken you but falls upon you as a mountain and feedeth your aggravated endless misery 6. Moreover whilest you neglect the One thing necessary you neglect Christ himself and reject the saving benefit of his bloodshed and refuse the healing work of his Spirit and the precious benefits which he hath offered you in the Gospel And how can you escape if you neglect so great salvation Heb. 2. 3. How will you be saved when you refuse the only Saviour There is indeed enough in Christ to heal and save the humbled soul that thirsteth for his righteousness and salvation and valueth and seeketh him as a Saviour and if you would thus come to him you might have life John 5. 40. But whiles you give your selves to please the flesh and follow the world and look so little after Christ or after the ends and benefits of his sufferings and grace Christ is as no Christ to you and Grace is as no Grace to you and the Gospel is as no Gospel to you and you will be never the more saved then if there had no Saviour ever come into the world or there had never Grace been given to the world or there had never been promise made or Gospel preached to the world For Christ will not save them that continue to neglect him and set light by all the mercy that he offereth and the salvation which he hath purchased and do not esteem and use him as a Saviour and cannot find enough in God and Glory to take off their hearts from the pleasures and idols of the flesh If Christ would have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and you would not Matth. 23. 37. you will be as far from being saved by him as if you had never heard of his name And yet that is not all If you prevent it not by true Conversion you will wish a thousand and a thousand times that this were all But there is worse then this For Christ will not leave a man of you as he finds you If you are so far in love with worldly wealth and fleshly pleasure that you can taste no sweetness in his Grace and see no desirable glory in his Kingdom he will make you taste the bitterness of his wrath and feel the weight of his severest justice The most compassionate Saviour is the most dreadful Judge to those that will not be saved by his grace It will be easier for Sodome and Gomorrah in the day of Judgement then for those that were the obstinate refusers of his Gospel Matth. 6. 11 12. He that despised Moses Law dyed without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sure punishment shall he be thought worthy that hath trodden under foot the son of God Heb. 10. 28 29. See therefore that ye refuse not him that speaketh For if they escaped not that refused him that spake on earth how much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven Heb. 12. 23. 7. As long as you neglect the One thing Needful whatever good conceits of your selves you have entertained and whatever hopes or peace or comfort you have built upon those conceits they are all
Let him take all there is no living quietly by 〈…〉 A dog at his carrion or a swine in his trough is not more greedy then many of these sensualists that labour of the Caninus appâ—titus to their trash But to Holiness they have no appetite and are worse then indifferent to the things that are inâ—…sirable They have no covetousuess for the things which 〈…〉 commanded earnestly to covet 1 Cor. 12 31. They have â—…tle hunger and thirst after righteousness that a very little or none will satisfie them Here they are pleading alwayes for â—â—deration and against too much and too earnest and too long And all is too much with them that is above stark naught or dead hypocrisie and all is too earnest and too long that would make Religion seem a business or would engage them to seem serious in their own profession or put them past jeast in the worship of God and the matters of their salvation Let but their servants or children neglect their worldly business which I confess they should not do and they shall hear of it with both ears But if they sin against God or neglect his Word or Worship they shall meet with more patience then Eli's sons did A cold reproof is usually the best and it is well if they be not encouraged in their sin and if a child or servant that begins to be serious for salvation be not rebuked derided and hindred by them If on their dayes of labour they over-sleep themselves they shall be sure to be called up to work and good reason but when do they call them up to prayer When do they urge them to read or consider or conferr of the things that concern their everlasting life The Lords own day which is appointed to be set apart for matters of this nature is wasted in idleness or worldly talk Come at any time into their company and you may have talk enough and too much of news or of other mens matters of their worldly business sports and pleasures But about God and their salvation they have so little to say and that so heartlesly and on the by as if they were things that belonged not to their care and duty and no whit concerned them Talk with them about the renovation of the soul and the nature of holiness and the life to come and you shall find them almost as dumb as a fish or as dry as a chip or as erroneous or insensible as those that speak but words by rote to shew you how little they savour or mind the things of the Spirit The most understand not matters of this nature nor much desire or care to understand them If one would teach 〈…〉 personally they are too old to be catechized or to learn though not too old to be ignorant of the matters which they were made for and are preserved for in the world They are too wise to learn to be wise and too good to be taught how to be good â—…ough not too wise to follow the seducements of the Devil â—…he world nor too good to be the slaves of Satan and the deâ—…rs and enemies of goodness If they do any thing which theâ—… a serving of God it is some cold and heartless use of wordâ—…ake themselves believe that for all their sins they shall be saved so that God will call that a serving of their sins and abomination which they call a serving of God Some of them will confess that Holiness is good but they hope God will be merciful to them without it And some do so hate it that it is a displeasing irksom thing to them to hear any serious discourse of holiness and they detest and deride those as fanatick troublesome Precisians that diligently seek the One thing necessary So that if the Belief of the most may be judged by their practices we may confidently say that they do not practically believe that ever they shall be brought to Judgement or that there is any Heaven or Hell to be expected and that their confession of the truth of the holy Scriptures and their profession of the Articles of the Christian Faith are no proofs that they heartily take them to be true Who can be such a stranger to the world as not to see that this as the case of the greatest part of men And which is worst of all they go on in this course against all that can be said to them and will give no impartial considerate hearing to the truth which would recover them to their wits but live as if it would be a felicity to them in Hell to think that they came thither by wilful resolution and in despight of the remedy And is it not a sad prospect to a man that believeth the Word of God and the life to come to look upon such a distracted world O Sirs if Jesus Christ be wise that condemneth their course and them then certainly all these men are fools And if Christ knew what he said we must needs think that they know not what they do O what is the matter that reasonable men should have no more use of their reason in things of such importance then thus to neglect their everlasting state for a thing of naught Did God make them unreasonable or give them understandings uncapable of things of such high concernment Or rather have 〈…〉 not drowned their reason in sensuality and wilfully poisoâ—…th malicious aversness to God and Holiness What is â—…ter that the One thing needful is no more regarded Hath God made them believe that they shall dwell here for ever and never die No surely this is so gross a lye that the Devil himself cannot make them believe it They know that they musâ—… sure as they are alive And yet they prepare not but wâ—…eir dayes in scraping in this dunghill world as if they werâ—…o no further Did God never warn them by a Sermon or 〈…〉 to prepare for the life which they must live for ever Yes â—…y a time but they would take no warning Did God never â—â—ll them that after this life there is another where they must live in endless joy or torment Yes and they professed that they did believe it They heard it an hundred times over till they were weary of hearing it Did God make them believe that they shall die like beasts that have no further to go nor any other life to live No if they do believe this it is the Devil and not God that maketh them believe it What then is the matter that the One thing needful is no more regarded Hath God shut up their souls in desperation so that it is in vain to seek or trouble themselves for that of which there is no hope Oh no! his compassion hath provided them a full remedy by the death of his Son Redemption is procured and he hath made them a deed of gift of Christ and pardon and eternal life and tendred it to them that upon theâ—â— acceptance it may be
in the love and service of this God and in the practice of holiness and in the hopes of Heaven How meet are they for Hell that will venture upon it deliberately and upon choice to scape the trouble of living in the holy Love delight and service of the ever blessed God that is to scape the trouble of Heaven Is it so great a sin to shut up the bowels of compassion against our brother in his need 1 John 3. 17. And is it not more unnatural to deny compassion to your selves in your own necessity and in the greatest necessity O poor sinners remember your Necessities Your own your great your absolute Necessities When you hear men that gather alms cry Remember the poor doth it make thee think What a poor necessitous soul have I to remember As Paul saith of Preaching to others I may say much mote to you of minding and practising this great work of your salvation Necessity is laid upon you and woe to you if you do it not 1 Cor. 9. 16. Woe to you that ever you were born and that ever you were reasonable creatures or rather that ever you so abused your Reason if you neglect and miss of the One thing necessary I know you have other wants to be supplyed and other matters to look after in the world But alas how small are they God will supply all your other wants if you will first and saithfully look after this Phil. 4. 19. Matth. 6. 33. 1 Pet. 5. 7. Or if life and all go you will find all in heaven But if you miss of this One thing nothing in the world can make supply or do you good And though now your feeling tell you not these things alas how quickly will God make you feel and teach you by that sensible way that you would needs be taught by Awake then you sluggish careless souls Your house over your heads is on a flame The hand of God is lifted up If you love your selves prevent the stroke Vengeance is at your backs The wrath of God pursueth your sin and woe to you if he find it upon you when he overtaketh you Away with it speedily Up and be gone return to God make Christ and mercy your friend in time if you love your lives The Judge is coming for all that you have heard of it so long till you believe it not You shall shortly see the Majesty of his appearance and the dreadful glory or his â—aâ—â— and yet do you not begin to look about you and to maâ—e ready for such a day Yea before that day your separated souls shall begin to reap as you have sowed here Though now the partition that stands between you and the world to come do keep unbelievers strange to the things that most concern them yet Death will quickly find a Portal to let you in and then sinners you will find such doings there as you little thought of or at least did sensibly regard on earth Before your Corpse can be wrapt up in your Winding-sheets you will see and feel that which will tell you to the quick that One thing was necessary If you do die without this One thing Necessary before your friends can have finished your funerals your souls will have taken up their places among the Devils in endless torment and despair and all the wealth and honour and pleasure that the world afforded you will not ease you This is sad but it is true Sirs for God hath spoken it Up therefore and bestir you for the life of your souls Necessity will awake the sluggard Necessity we say will break stone walls The proudest will stoop when they perceive Necessity The most sloathful will bestir them when they feel Necessity The most careless will look about them and be industrious in Necessity Necessity is called the Tyrant of the world that can make men do any thing that is possible to be done And yet cannot Necessity make you cast away your sins and take up a Holy and Heavenly life Necessity will make men fare hard and work hard and travel hard and go bare and suffer much yea it will even cut off a leg or an arm to save their lives And yet can it not prevail with reasonable creatures to cast away the poison of a fruitless filthy deceitful sin and to be up and doing for their salvation O poor souls Is there think you a greater Necessity of your sin then of your salvation and of pleasing your flesh for a little time then of pleasing the Lord and scaping everlasting misery I beseech you consider your own Necessities 2. COnsider also that It is but One thing which God hath made Necessary for you And I shewed you before how that the means themselves though they are many have a certain unity in their harmony and connexion and as they center in the ultimate end which is One. If God had sent you upon such a multitude of errands as the flesh and the world doth and set you on such disagreeing contrary works then you had been excusable if you had neglected some of them But he hath sent you but upon One errand even to seek and make sure of everlasting life and therefore if you neglect this One you are unexcuseable If the world be divided into a thousand opinions or go a thousand several wayes they may thank themselves who are the Authors of this confusion but God is no cause of it or friend to it He hath made them but One work and set them but One way to heaven and given them One Master Jesus Christ to teach that way and written but One Law even his holy Scripture to be their sure and constant guide And if men would stick to this One Master and not make flesh and blood their master or the multitude their master or the Rulers of the world or the custum of their fore fathers the master of their fatih and if they would stick to this One Word of God and not run after the Traditions of men they would not be in such a maze nor of so many minds as now they are But they do in their doctrines as they do in their practice God hath marked them out but One way in the holy Scripture which is the good and the sure way the way that Peter and Paul and the rest of the Apostles went to heaven in and this way will not serve mens turns but they will run an hundred waies instead of this One and they must make new wayes which the Apostles of Christ were never acquainted with If God had loaded your memories with many things you might possibly have said we cannot remember them all but he hath set you finally but one thing to remember even to lay hold on everlasting life and press on to the Crown that is set before you and he hath an ill memory that cannot remember One thing and such a thing as this is too It may be you are Ignorant and cannot learn
and all right reason required of thee For surely he that made thee hath in wisdom proportioned thy time to thy work and hath not given thee an hour too much A long life is short enough to prepare for everlasting And shall a loytering Rebell that hath wasted so much of his little time cry out What needs so much ado Quest 25. Is it not the graceless miserable sort of men that cry out What needs all this ado Certainly it is For Scripture and Reason and Experience tell us that all that are godly are of another mind The more grace they have the more they would have The more they love God the more they would love him The more good they do the more they would do Do you not see how they labour after more grace and hear how they complain that they are no better O how it would glad them to be more Holy and more Heavenly It is therefore the strangers and despisers of grace that never knew by experience the nature and power and sweetness of it than say It is more ado then needs And is it not a most unreasonable thing for a man that hath no saving grace and holiness at all to cry out against excess of holiness And for a man that is in the captivity of the Devil and ready suddenly to drop into Hell if death do but strike the fatal blow before he be regenerate to talk against doing too much for heaven And for a man that never did God one hours pleasing service Heb. 11. 6. to prate against serving God too much O poor wretch were thy eyes but opened thou wouldst see that of any man in the Town or Countrey this language ill beseemeth thee When God hath been so long offended and thy soul is almost lost already and death and hell is hard at hand and may swallow thee up in endless desperation for ought thou knowest before thou hast read this Book to the end or before thou see another year or moneth or day is it time for such a one as thee to say What needs so much ado One would think if there be any life in thee thou shouldst stir as for thy life and if thou have a voice to cry thou shouldst cry out to God hoth day and night in the fervour of thy soul even now while mercy may be had lest time should over-slip thee and thou be shut up in the place of torment If Hell-fire will not make thee stir What will Should a weak Christian that is cast behind hand by his negligence but once speak against a diligent life he were exceedingly too blame But for thee that art yet in the gall of bitterness and the misery of an unregenerate state to speak against holy diligence for salvation when thou art in such great and deep distress and like a man that is drowning or a house on fire that must presently have help or perish this is a madness that hath no name sufficient to express it by which its a wonder that a rational soul should be guilty of Quest 26. Art thou not afraid of some sudden vengeance from the Lord for thus making thy self his open enemy and contradicting him to his face Mark his language and then mark thine Christ saith Enter in at the strait gate For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go iâ— thereat because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it Matth. 7. 13 14. Strive to enter in at the strait gate for many I say unto you will seek to enter in and shall not be able Luke 13. 24. See then that ye walk circumspectly or exactly not as fools but as wise redeeming the time Ephes 5. 15 16. For I say unto you thâ—â— except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribâ—s and Pharises ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of heaven Matth. 5. 20. Wherefore brethren give all diligence to make your Calling and Election sure 2 Pet. 1. 10. Workout your salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2. 12. Seeing then all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting to the coming of the day of God 2 Pet. 3. 11 12. And if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear 1 Pet. 4. 18. Lay not up for your selves a treasure on earth c. but lay up for your selves a treasure in heaven c. For where your treasure it there will your hearts be also Matth. 6. 19 20 21. Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness Matth. 6. 33. Labour not for the meat that perisheth but for that which endureth to everlasting life John 6. 27. The Kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force Matth. 11. 12. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all but one receiveth the prize So run that ye may obtain And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things Now they do it to obtain a corruptible Crown but we an incorruptible I therefore so run not as uncertainly so fight I not as one that beateth the air but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest that by any means when I have preached to others I my self should be a cast-away 1 Cor. 9. 24 25 26 27. Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which satisfieth not Hearken diligently unto me eat ye that which is good and let your soul delight it self in fatness encline your ear and come unto me hear and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you Isa 55. 1 2 3. Be servent in spirit serving the Lord. Rom. 12. 11. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and sanctifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 2. 11 12 13 14. Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully Jer. 48. 10. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do do it with thy might For there is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave whether thougoest Eccles 9. 10. These and such like are the sayings of God by which thou mayst easily understand his mind concerning the necessity of a serious diligent holy life And shall a blind and wretched worm come after and dare to contradict him and unsay all this and say What needs so much ado What! darest thou thus openly resist God to his face What art thou and
is there yet remaining then that you quarrel with as too much preciseness Is it the strictness of mens lives in forbearing sin and not doing as their neighbours do in rioting and vain recreations and delights For this I need not stand to justifie them with any impartial sober man If sin be evil and displease God and deserve damnation he that most fully and carefully avoideth it is the honestest and the wisest man You will not blame your child or servant for being loth to offend and disobey you even in the smallest matter You like not him that offereth you the least abuse so well as him that offereth you none You had rather be well then have the least disease You will not take a little poyson nor would you feel a little of hell Why then should we not avoid the least sin so far as we are able If sinning be good then Devils are the best creatures and Angels and Christ in his manhood the worst But if sin be the greatest evil What will you call those men that do not only wilfully commit it but plead for it and reproach those that would fain avoid it Or what if some of those that you reproach are mistaken in some point and 〈◊〉 that to be a sin that is none Or what if you think it to be no sin which they scruple Will you blame a man that loves God to be afraid of that which he suspecteth may offend him Or will you blame him that cares for his salvation to make as sure of it as he can and to keep as far from the brink of hell as he able How is it that you observe not that your very reproaches do confute themselves What is it that you are offended at in the servants of the Lord Is it Good or Evil Surely it is some fault or other of theirs that you will pretend to be the cause For scarce any but the Devil himself will openly and professedly oppose Goodness under the name of Goodness And if it be a real or supposed fault that you speak against them for doth it not intimate that they should avoid all faults as far as they are able And yet will you at the same time reproach them for being too strict and fearful to offend as if it were their fault that they are unwilling to be faulty But let us hear what God saith of this Prov. 14. 9. Fools make a mock at sin vers 34. Righteousness exalteth a Nation but sin is a reproach to any people And yet you would make the avoiding it a reproach Gen. 4. 7. If thou do well shalt thou not be accepted and if thou dost not well sin lyeth at the door Numb 32. 23. Be sure your sin will find you out Jam. 1. 15. Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death 1 Thes 5. 22. Abstain from all appearance of evil Matth. 12. 36 37. But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement For by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned Matth. 5. 19. Whosoever shall break one of the least of these Commandements and shall teach men so shall be called least in the Kingdom of heaven but whosoever shall do and â—eâ—â—h them the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of heaven vers 22. But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgement but whosoever shall say Thou fool shall be in danger of hell fire vers 28. I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already with her in his heart Vers 34 35 36 37. I say unto you swear not at all Neither by heaven for it is Gods throne nor by the earth for it is his footstool But let your communication be Yea Yea Nay Nay for whatsoever is more then these cometh of evil Jam. 4. 12. But above all things my Brethren swear not neither by heaven neither by the earth nor by any other oath but let your Yea be Yea and your Nay Nay lest you faell into condemnation Epes 5. 3 4. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness let it not once be named amongst you as becometh Saints Neither filthyness nor foolish talking nor jeasting which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks An hundred such passages of Scripture I might recite that might quickly satisfie you what God expecteth and whether it be too much preciseness to fear the smallest sin 8. But perhaps it is the rigor of their Church discipline that maketh you offended with those that you count too pure and precise because they will not let other men alone but are reproving them and bringing them to open penitence and confession of their open sins and casting those out of the Communion of the Church which do refuse it Answ But do they do this of themselves or doth God command it them Do you think that the Communion of Saints is to be turned into a rabble of impiety and the Church into a swine-stye Do you not know that the Canons of the antient Churches for many hundred years after Christ are stricter in this Discipline by far then those that now offend you by their strictness And hear what he Holy-Ghost â—aith Lev. 19. 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy 〈…〉 thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour and 〈…〉 Matth. 18. 15. 16 17. If thy brothâ—◠〈…〉 tâ—ll him his fault between thee and 〈…〉 gained thy brother But if 〈…〉 thee one or two more that 〈…〉 every word may be established And if 〈…〉 unto the Church but if he neglect 〈…〉 the Church let 〈…〉 be unto thee as an Heathen mar or a 〈…〉 â— Cor. 5. For I verily at absent in body but present in â—â—irit have judged already as though I were present concerning him that hath done this deed that in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump Purge out therefore the old leaven Now I have written to you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner with such a one no â—ot to eat therefore put away from among your selves the wicked person 2 Thes 3. 6 14. Now we command you Brethren in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye withdraw your selves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which he received of us And if any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may be
Are you yet resolved to seek this One thing with the chiefest of your desires and care and labour or are you not Dare any one of you say that you have not heard that which should resolve a sober considerate man I think you dare not But if you dare I am sure you shall never be able to make it good and justifie your words to God or to your Consciences at last or to any wise impartial person Now take your choice whether you will now be SAINTS and for ever like ANGELS or now be like BRUTES and for ever like DEVILS For one of these must be your case as sure as you have heard these words FINIS A SAINT OR A BRUTE The Second Part. Clearly Proving by Reason as well as Scripture 1. In general that Holiness is Best and Necessary to our felicity 2. Particularly that it is Best 1. For Societies 2. For individual persons And more distinctly 1. That it is the only way of Safety 2. Of Honesty 3. The most Gainful way 4. The most Honourable 5. The most Pleasant And therefore to be chosen by all that will obey true Reason and be Happy LONDON Printed Anne Dom. 1662. A Saint or a Brute The Second Part. CHAP. 1. Holiness and its fruits are the Best part Wherein the Happiness of Saints confisteth Luke 10. 42. But One thing is Needful and Mary hath chosen the good part which shall not be taken away from her THough I have before taken up this latter part of the Text by way of Motive in the Conclusion of the former Part of this Treatise I am very loth that a subject of so great importance should be so lightly passed over And therefore by Gods assistance I shall attempt a fuller handling of it The Necessity of Holiness I have spoken of already It is the Goodness of it that I am next to speak of And before I enter upon it let me intreat thee Reader whoever thou art that openest this Book to remember that I am writing and thou art reading of the greatest and highest matters in the world and therefore come not to it with common affections and read not this as thou wouldst do a History or a Rheroricall Oration to find delight for a curious mind but confessing thy self a Scholar to Christ with reverence take thy Lâ—… from him as that which thou camest into the world to Lâ—… which all thy comforts thy hopes thy safety and thy evâ—… happiness depend upon And here in the entrance I will freely tell you what more me to fall upon this subject and be so earnest with you in thâ—â— point One thing is the observation of the carelesness and wilfulness of the most that live in the neglect of Holiness and Everlasting Life for all that can be said to perswade them to a wiser course While they all profess themselves to be Christians and to take the Scripture for the Word of God and confess this Word in particular to be true that it is Heaven and Holiness that are the most Necessary and most to be desired and sought after yet will they not be moved to Live according to this Profession nor to Love that Most which they confess to be the Best nor to seek that first which they confess to be most Needful They have the case here decided by the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ himself and as plainly and fully and peremptorily decided â—â— they could wish If they were Infidels and understood but the Law of Nature even Reason might tell them that there is no doubt of it but that Eternal Life is more to be sought after then transitory things And yet they live as if the case had never been decided by Christ or by reason or as if they had never heard of any Life but this Look into most Towns and see whether there be not more at Martha's work and worse then at Mary's Look into most families and see whether they be not 〈…〉 Martha troubling themselves with many things when the 〈…〉 part is almost cast aside Even in the Families of Lords Kâ—… and Gentlemen that are doubly obliged to God and prâ—… be wiser then the ignorant Vulgar the matters of their 〈…〉 are turned out of doors or thrust into a corner and the 〈◊〉 of their bodies do take up the day How many Martha's â—â— one Mary shall we find among both Rich and Poor Yea that is not the worst but they that are so blind and wicked as to choose the worser part themselves would have all about them do so too And as Martha grudged at Mary's practice and conplaineth to Christ against her so these repine at the choice of the Godly and think them but melancholy crack-brâ—ind people that make more ado for their salvation then they need And thâ—â— are not content to keep such ungodly thoughts in their breaâ—… to their Own damnation but they must be the Devils mouth to spit reproach in the face of Holiness and consequently in the face of Christ as if they bid defiance to the Lord and would make it their employment to jeere and scorn mens souls from Heaven If one in a family do with Mary choose the better part though without any neglect of their calling in the world the rest make a wonder of them and some deride them and some hate and vilifie and threaten them and few will imitate them and who more forward to distaste and despise them then the Masters of the Families that are bound to teach and lead them in that way so that a poor soul even in a Land and Age that countenanceth Holiness more then almost any other in the world can scarcely sit at the feet of Christ and Learn his word and seek his Kingdom and Righteousness first but they are gazed at and censured and derided as if they did some very foolish needless yea or wicked thing As if it were the only folly for a man to follow Jesus Christ and obey his God and save his soul and do that work with greatest diligence for which he is a man for which he hath his Life and Time and Mercies and which if he neglect he is lost for ever The Lord have Mercy upon the poor deluded world whence comes this general dampe and dottage upon the understandings and the hearts of men of Great men of Learned men of men that are accounted wise in the world It is Good and Evil that constituteth all that wonderful difference that is between the Reasonable creatures both here and hereafter The Good of Holiness and the evil of sin do make the difference between the Godly and the wicked the Good of Everlasting Happiness and the Evil of Everlasting Misery doth make the difference between the Glorified and the Damned Goodness in General is so naturally the object of mans will that Evil as Evil cannot be desired and Good as Good cannot be hated What then is the matter that few attain the greatest good and few will scape the
to hunger and thirst or cold or weariness or shame or pain nor any of the frailties that now adhere unto them but be made like the glorified body of Christ 7. The Souls of the Saints united to these Bodies shall also be Perfected having far larger capacity to know God and enjoy him then now we have being freed from all ignorance errour unbelief pride hard-heartedness and whatsoever sin doth now accompany us and perfected in every part of the Image of God upon us 8. The eyes of the Glorified Body shall in Heaven have a Glory to behold that is suitable to their Bodily capacity Heaven being not a place where the Essence of God is confined but where a prepared glory will be manifested to make Happy the Angels and Saints with Christ And whatever other senses the Glorified Bodies shall then have whether formally or eminently we cannot now conceive what they will be they will all be satisfied with suitable Delights from God 9. The Blessed person of our Redeemer in our Nature Glorified will there be the Everlasting object of our delightful iâ—â—uition and fruition An object suitable to the eye of the Glorified Body it self We shall for ever live in the sight of his face and in the sense of his unspeakable Love 10. The Glorified Soul whether mediately or immediately shall behold the Infinite most Blessed God and by knowing him be perfected in knowledge As we shall see the person of Jesus Christ and the glory of God with open face and not as in a glass as now we do so we shall know so much of the Essence of the Deity as we are capable of to our felicity 11. With the Knowledge of God and the Beatifical Vision will be joyned a perfect Love unto him and closure with his blessed will So that to Love him will be the everlasting employment of the soul 12. This Love will be drawn forth into everlasting praise and it will be our work before the Throne of his Glory to magnifie the Lord for ever 13. In all this Love and Praise and Glory and in the full fruition of the Eternal God we shall Rejoyce with full and perfect Joy and we shall have full content delight and rest 14. In all this Blessedness and Glory of the Saints the Glory of God himself will shine and Angels shall admire it and the condemned spirits with anguish shall discern it that God may be Glorified in our Glory 15. In all this Happiness of Believers and his own Glory the Lord will be well pleased and that Blessed Will which is the Beginning and the End of all will be accomplished and will have an Eternal complacency as the Saints shall have an endless complacency in God This is the Glory promised to the Saints This is that Good part which they choose I cite not the Texts of Scripture that prove all this because the things are all so plainly and frequently expressed in the premises And I shall have occasion to do somewhat of this anon And so in brief I have told you what the Good part is 2. We are next to enquire What it is that is put by worldly carnal men into the other end of the scales and is set up in comparison with all this Everlasting Glory Yea what it is that is preferred by ungodly men before it What is it that fin and the world will do for men What do they find that lose the Lord What do they get that miss of Heaven What do they choose tâ—â—â— refuse the Needful Better part And here I am even amazed at that which I must give you an account of O wonderful astonishing thing that ever such base unworthy trifles should by Reasonable men be put into any comparison with God! Wonderful that so much madness and wickedness can enter into the mind and heart of man as to let go all this Glory for a toy And yet more wonderful that this should be the case of the greatest part of men on earth And yet more wonderful that so mâ—â—y make so mad a choice even when the case is opened to them and plainly opened and frequently opened and when they are earnestly entreated to be wiser and importuned to make a better choice In a word All that is set against the Lord and All that is preferred before this Everlasting Life and All the Portion of ungodly men is no more then this The Pleasure of sin for a season The satisfying of the flesh A little ease and pelf and fair words from men as miserable as themselves and all this but for a little a very little time when Temperance is as sweet at least a little that is excessive or forbidden in wealth or meat or drink or cloathes or lust or other fleshly pleasures is the Joy and the Heaven and the God of the ungodly The fleshly pleasures which are common to the beasts and a little vain-glory among men and this for a short uncertain time and then to paâ—â— to everlasting punishment this is the chosen portion of the wicked This is All for which they refuse the Lord and for which â—â—â—y refuse a Holy life This is All 〈◊〉 which they part with 〈◊〉 and part with their Everlasting Peace This is All that they have for Heaven and their salvation and All for which they seâ—â— their souls To the everlasting shame of sin and sinners it shall be known that this was All To the abasing of our own soulâ— that sometime were guilty of this madness I shall tell you again that this is All To the humbling of the best to the conâ—ounding of the wicked and the amazement of us all I must say â—â—â—â— this is All This dirt this dream this cheat i◠〈…〉 wicked have for God and Glory This Nothing â—◠〈…〉 obstinately preferr and choose before him that 〈…〉 O wonderful madness stupidity and deceitâ— so 〈…〉 wilful and so uncureable till tender 〈…〉 cure it in them that shall be saved Well the ballance is now set before yoâ—… in the One end and in the other You see the 〈…〉 choose and the part that is chosen by the rest of the world And are you not yet resolved which is Best and which to choose TWo sorts I look to meet with here to whom I shall apply my self distinctly before I come to the comparative work First some will tell me that all these are needless words and that there is no man so senseless as to think that Temporal things are better then Eternal or the world then God or sin then Holiness Answ O that this were true how happy then were all the world I grant that many are superficially convinced that are not converted and that many have a slight opinion that Heaven and Holiness is best that yet have no Love to it and will not seek it above All. But their practical judgement doth not go along with their Opinions Thy relish the world as sweetest unto them In the prevailing deepest thoughts of their
Consciences and the tormenting displeasure of Almighty God are satisfied by this time whether the Godly or ungodly were the Wiser men and whether sanctity or sensuality were the Better course They that are rejoycing with Christ in Glory are satiâ—fied perfectly of this question and are far from repenting of their choice Luk. 16. Christ tells you enough in the case of the Rich man and Lazarus how men judge in the life to come 12. But if all these witnesses will not serve you what shall we say to you Whom will you choose to be your Cousellor There is none left that I remember unless you will go the Devil for advice But against this I have told you enough before Will he speak for Holiness that is a spirit of uncleanness and will he shew thee Heaven that laboureth purposely to hide it from thee till thou have lost it Or will he let thee see the odiousness and danger of thy sin when it is the snare and bait by which he hopeth to undo thee But yet for all this let me tell thee that thou mayst learn even from the Tempting Enemy himself the Truth of that which I am now asserting For as the Devil himself believeth it when he perswadeth thee not to believe it so the very nature and manner of his Temptations may help thee to perceive that Heaven is attainable and Holiness is the only way Would he make so much ado about it to keep thee from the believing it and seeking it if there were not a Heaven for thee to find why is he so eager to draw thee unto sin if sin be not hurtful to thee Dost thou not feel the importunity of his Temptations It s easie to observe them Why is he so much much against a Holy doctrine and a Holy life and a Holy people if it were not that he knows the Necessity and worth of Holiness for thy good The actions of a Knowing Enemy may do very much to acquaint us with the truth Besides this he hath oft appeared in bodily shapes as I am able to prove by undenyable evidence sometime to entice men to sin and sometime to be Gods executioner to afflict them for it and sometime to make a Covenant with witches and Conjurers for their souls as many a hundred of them have confessed at their death And why should he be so desirous of thy soul if thou hadst none to lose or so desirous to deceive thee and deprive thee of salvation if there were none for thee to lose and if this were not the chief concernment of thy soul why should thy chief enemy so much regard it Thou seest that he is not so careful to deprive thee of thy fleshly pleasure He careth not how much thou hast of this The more the glutton is pleased with his chear and the more the drunkard delighteth in his cups and the more the fornicator is pleased in his filthiness and every voluptuous person in his voluptuousness the Devil is pleased so much the more He cares not if thou have all the Kingdoms of the world if he can deprive thee of the Everlasting Kingdom Nor will he grudge thee the glory and honour of the world if he can but keep thee from the heavenly Glory He will allow thee the Hypocrites Reward which is the applause of men if he can but keep thee from the Saints Reward which is the savour of God He cares not how much of thy Good things thou hast here if he can deprive thee of the Everlasting Good It is his desire that thou have thy Portion in this life that thou mayst miss of the Believers Portion in the next Certainly the Devil himself by his Temptations Apparitions and Contracts doth plainly tell us of a life to come and what it is that conduceth most to our Good or Hurt our Joy or Torment and consequently teacheth us what to choose by tempting us so palpably and eagerly to refuse it You see now what a Jury of Witnesses I have brought in to testifie which is the Better part The Devil and the wicked are added to the rest because you will hear no better witnesses If you will here are enow whose testimonies are unquestionable But when all is done it is the Lord that is and will be Judge All these are but witnesses to dispose thee to receive his sentence Thou art no Believer till the Authority of the Word of God will serve to satisfie and resolve thee CHAP. III. Full proof in twentie Queries from Reason it self that there is a Life to come and Holiness is the way to it and the Better Part And that the Gospel is the certain Word of God in fifteen Queries more with Answers to the Infidels Objections ANd by this time I come somewhat nearer to the Infidel and am ready to answer his fore-going Question Where shall I find the Judgement or Testimony of the Lord O saith the Unbeliever if I were but sure that there were a life hereafter where the godly and the wicked shall be differently Rewarded as the Scripture speaks then I must confess he were no better then a â—â—â— man that would prefer this world or wilfully live in sin and Would not seek Heaven with all his might and be as earnest iâ— Holiâ—… the strictest Saint But I am not sure that this is true and that there is any such difference after death to be expected Answ Alas poor wretch Art thou at that pass Hast thou so far lost the Knowledge of God and of thy self and of thy end and business here and of the word and works of God as to turn worse then Jew or Turk or Heathen even to think thy self a beast that hath no life nor happiness but this If this be thy case I cannot now stand to deal with thee according to thy necessity I am now dealing with them that confess a Life hereafter And because we cannot in all our writings repeat over the same things I desire thee to peruse what I have already written for such as thee in the Second Part of The Saints Rest and in a Treatise called The unreasonableness of Infidelity and at present take only some brief advertisments for thy conviction 1. And first whereas you say you are not sure of a Life hereafter I demand of you Whether you are sure that there is no such life I am sure you are not If you think you are which none but a debauched man can think that hath put out the eye of Natural Light let us hear your Proof and you shall soon be told the vanity of it But if you are not sure that there is no such life then I would know of you Whether a Possibility of such Everlasting things deserve not greater care and diligence then is used by the Holyest Saint on earth You say You are not sure that there is a Heaven for Saints But what if it prove true as nothing more true will you sit still and lose it for you know
not what or for want of a little care in seeking it You say You know not whether there be a Hell for ungodly men or no But what if it prove true as certainly it will where are you then Will you venture your selves upon the Possibility of such an Endless Loss and Torment which now you might on reasonable terms escape You will confess that a Possibility of a Kingdom should be more regarded then a Certainty of a pin or a feather And a Possibility of some Tormenting disease but for twenty years should more carefully be avoided then the Certain stinging of a Nettle Quer. 2. You say You are not sure that there is a life to come But are you sure to continue the life you have Or is it any great matter that you are called to lose for the obtaining of 〈…〉 that you are not sure of You know the contrary or easily may do You are sure that you have not long to be here Nothing more sure then that you will shortly die And your are not sure but it may be to morrow And while you are here it is nothing worth the naming but what hath reference to another life that you do possess What have you to your flesh but meat and drink and sleep and lust and such kind of beastial delights Which it is better be without then have if we could also be without the need of them Can you call these by the name of Happiness without renouncing your Reason and Experience You say You know not what God will do for you hereafter But you know what sin and the world will do for you here Even Nothing but hold you in a transitory dream and then dismiss you into rottenness and dust If you were not certain of another life as long as you are most certain of the vanity of this doth not Reason tell you that a Possible Everlasting Glory should be preferred before a Certain vanity If you were not sure to get any thing by God and a Holy Life yet as long as you are sure even as sure as you live that you can lose nothing by it that is worth the talking of is not the case then resolved which way is the Better If you say you shall lose your fleshly pleasures I answer They are not worth the having The pleasure doth not countervail the trouble no more then the delight of scratching as I said before doth countervail the trouble of the itch Moderation and temperance is sweeter then excess If too much be better then enough and that which hurteth nature better then that which helpeth it then self-destroying and fighting against your bodily welfare would be best Is not a temperate meal more pleasant then a gluttonous surfet that is worse to the feeling of the glutton the next day Is not common food that costeth not much and kindleth no troublesom itch in a mans appetite more pleasant then enticing costly dainties Is not so much drink as nature requireth much better then that which makes the stomack sick the brain witless if not the purse pennyless and breedeth many noysom diseases to the flesh and hasteneth death that hasteth of it self By that time the gawdy apparel the dainty fare and drink is paid for and by that time the flesh hath suffered all that pain and sickness that are the ordinary followers of excess me thinks you should say that if there were no Hell your sin were a punishment it self and that in this life it brings more pain then pleasure and that such kind of pleasure is noâ— worth the keeping to the hazard of the least Possibility of 〈◊〉 Everlasting life Wouldst thou under thy hand and seal give away thy hopes and possibility of everlasting life and run the hazzard of an everlasting Torment for the Pleasures of sin or to avoid the trouble of a Holy life Why then thou maist as well even sell it all for pins or points or childrens rackets Then thou art as foolish as the worst of Witches that sell their souls to a lying spirit that whatever he doth promise them doth pay them with nothing but calamity and deceit When thou comest to know better what it is that the world can do for thee thou wilt then confess there was nothing in it that should not have been sleighted for the smalest hopes of an Everlasting life Doâ—t thou think the world will be much better to thee for the time to come than hitherto it hath proved Deceive not thy self it will prove the same yea and worst at last Look back now upon all the pleasures of thy life from thy infancy to this day and tell me what the better thou art for them If this were the hour of thy death would all the profits or pleasures of thy life be any comfort to thee or make thy death a whit the easier Have the dust or bones of the Carkasses of Voluptuous sinners any comfort or benefit now by all the pleasure of their former sin Surely I need not all these words to a man of common understanding to convinee him that if Heaven were as uncertain as the Infidel doth imagine a man of Reason should venture all that he hath upon the meer Possibility because his All indeed is Nothing and he is sure he can be no loser by the bargain it being not so much as the venture of a pin for the Possibility of a Crown Quer. 3. But that 's not all What if I shall prove to thee past all denyal that even in this life Holiness is far the most delightful gainful honourable life and that the ungodly live in a continual misery Will not this serve turn to convince thee that a Holy life should be undertaken for a meer Possibility of Heaven if we had no more Read but the Proofs of this anon and if I make it not good to thee call me a deceiver But if I prove that Holiness is the sweetest life on Earth and Heaven the sure Reward hereafter and that sin is a misery it self to the sinner and Hell the certain punishment hereafter then see that thou confess that God is a good Master and the Devil a bad one for at last thou shalt be forced to confess it Quer. 4. Well You say You are not sure that there is another life for man But have you used the Means to make it sâ—â— to you and to be well-resolved If you have then you have impartially searched and prayed and meditated on the Word of God and heard what can be said by Wiser men for that which you say you are not sure of but if you have trusted to your own understanding and neglected Meditation Prayer Enquiry and other needful means what wonder then if you be uncertain Even whether there be a Heaven or Hell It s no disgrace to Physick or Astronomy or Musick or Languages or Navigation but to you if you say that you are uncertain of all their conclusions when you never studied them or at least
never studied them with that diligence and patience as those must do that will attain a certain satisfying knowledge Quer. 5. Moreover if you are so uncertain of a Life to come I would ask you Whether in all your search and study you have behaved your selves as Learners or rather as proud self-conceited men that think themselves wise enough before they learn to try and judge their Books and Teachers If this be your case no wonder if you be Infidels If you come with such a disposition to read a Book of Astronomy or Physick you will never learn If you go to any Schoolmaster or to learn any language or science and think your selves able before you have learnt them to try and judge your Teacher and all the Books you read and so will reject all that you do not understand or agreeth not with you former conceits you will sooner prove doting fools then Schollars and sooner be the derision of Rational men then come to the knowledge â—â—â—ch you pretend to seek Come to Christs School as little children in meekness and humility and a willingness to be taught and patiently continue in the use of means till Learning can be attained before you think your selves fit to censure the Truth of God which you are learning and then tell me whether God doth not resolve you Quer. 6. Moreover I would know of you that doubt so of the life to come Whether you have been true to so much Light as you received and have lived in obedience to the Truth which God revealed to you Or rather whether you have not wilfully and knowingly lived in some secret or open sin and striven against the Light and Spirit of Christ and abused the truth which you have known and used violence with your own conscieâ—â—â—â— If so which it s ten to one is your case it is no wonder 〈◊〉 are Infidels forsaken of God whom you first forsook and given up to Pride and Self-deceit Quer. 7. If Man have no Life to live but this and no further End of his Actions then a Beast nor any further account to give then he is indeed but one of the higher sort of Beasts differing but gradually from a Dog as a Dog doth from a Swine And if this be indeed thy judgement of thy self I demand Whether or no thou be content to be used as a Beast Wilt thou not take it ill to be called or judged a Beast by another Or wouldst thou have others judge better of thee then thy self Wouldst thou have no man regard thy Propriety or Life any more then a Beast is to be regarded A Beast hath no Propriety no not of that which Nature hath given him You accuse not your selves of doing him any wrong when you deprive the sheep of his fleece nor when you make a constant drudge of your Horse or Ox. And do you think it lawful before God for any one that can but master you to do the like by you to strip you naked and to make pack-horses of you and use you as their slaves We take it to be no sin to take away the lives of Beasts if it be but for our own commodity We kill Oxen and calves and sheep and swine and fowle and fishes for our daily food And is it lawful before God for others to do so by you Should nothing restrain them but want of Power to overcome you If you say that you are Beasts as Beasts you should be used Quer. 8. Moreover I would know of you Whether you think that there is any other world which spiritual inhabitants do possess If you say No you go against all Reason and experience Against Experience because that many a hundred Witches and many Apparitions and haunted houses have put the matter out of question for all that many reports of such things have been false And against all Reason because we see that this inferiour world is everywhere replenished with inhabitants The earth hath men and beasts the aire hath birds the water hath fishes And can a man of common Reason then think that the superiour Regions which we see and which we see not which for greatness and for spendor and excellency are a thousand fold above this earth should all be uninhabited and destitute and that there are not creatures also there for excellency and Number incomparbly beyond the inhabitants of this lesser lower world Certainly nothing is made in vain nor are the works of God so monstrously disproportioned and discomposed as for the Nobler parts to be only for the baser The Heavens that are over us and all the vast and most excellent parts of the Creation have a use that is answerable to their excellency God makes not cottages to be inhabited and Pallaces and Cities to lie wast and desert to no use But if you grant there is another world proportionaby thus replenished with creatures you may easily see from thence a Probability that man shall be translated thither Why not the soul of man as well as those spirits that in assumed shapes have made their appearances unto man As all things ripen to their perfection why should it seem any more improbable that the soul shall pass hence into the world of spirits then that the chicken shall come out of the shell and the infant out of the wombe into so wide and light a world as this when before they were shut up in a narrow darkness and never heard nor knew any thing of that world which they enter into Quer. 9. Do you know why it is that God hath given man that knowledge and free-will and capacity to seek another life which beasts have not if he be intended for no other life then beasts If God be no most Wise he is not God If he be then he maketh not so excellent faculties as these in vain but fitteth all his Creatures to their uses Every workman will do so by his work Why is a knife made keen but to cut with And what are the wheels of your watch or clock made for but to shew you the hour of the day Look now into the whole frame of the soul of man and judge by its aptitude what it is made for 1. Man is capable of Knowing that there is a God and knowing his Attributes which Beasts are not because they be not made to enjoy him 2. Man is capable of knowing his Relation to this God that he is our Creator and we his Creatures he our Lord and we his Own he our Ruler and we he Subjects he our Benefactor and we his Benificiaries And we are capable of Knowing our Duty in these several Relations And certainly all this is not in Vain 3. Man is capable of Knowing that the Everlasting Love of God is that alone that can make him Happy And why would God shew him this if he were not capable of enjoying it Reason tells men that nothing here can make us Happy and that 〈…〉 do it 4. Man is capable of
wit to scape the Gallows and you are Schollars fit for such bestial Masters 11. Yea let me add this one more mischief Hereby they would destroy all Charity and Good works except the very bestial Love of those that please mens lusts For no Laws of men compell men to the Love of God or man Nor much to Good works Who would do any thing comparatively that believed not a Reward and Punishment hereafter If we give all that we have to the poor we can here have no Reward but the breath of â—â—â—â—â— mouth which at death we understand not Take down the everlasting Ends and Motives and all good works and inward virtues too that should produce them are taken down And by this time you may see what a litter of bears what a pack of ravening dogs what Cannibals the world should be turned into by the doctrine of the Brutists that deny the life to come Well! but perhaps you will by this time have so much sense as to confess that Threatnings and Punishments Hopes and Fears of the State of another Life are necessary to the well governing of this world And if so I desire no more to satisfie any man that believes that there is a God and that is any man that hath not drowned his wits in sin For 1. This will then shew that the Nature of man is formed for another life and God did not make him such in vain 2. And certainly if everlasting Motives must be put into the Laws that govern us and into our Hopes and Fears then it is not possible but such things there are to be expected For any man to imagine that God would make a world which he cannot Govern but by falsehood and deceit this is to say that God is no God For all lying and falshood comes either from a want of Power or Wisdom or Goodness when men either cannot make good their words or otherwise attain their ends or when they have not wit to know what is or was or will be or when they are so bad as to be disposed to deceive But he that ascribeth any of these to God doth worse then to say that there is no God If I hate deceit and Lying my self the God that gave me all that little Good which I have must hate it more Dream not of any but a worm or fool or impious tyrant that needs or loves deceit and falshood to attain their ends Judge by the frame of Heaven and Earth and by that little Good that is in Good men whether the living God be one that needs such Hellish Engines to Rule the world If therefore in order to the Government of mankind we must needs Believe a â—â—fe to come it is certainly True And why do not you believe that which Government requireth you to believe Quer. 13. Moreover I demand of you Whether you take God indeed to be the Governour of this world or not By Governour I mean properly One that Ruleth the Rational Creature as such by Moral Means even Laws and Executions I exclude not his Potential Efficacious operations but conclude a Necessity of Moral Government I know a self-conceited Popish Infidel hath endeavoured to perswade the world that Gods Soveraignty and Moral Government are Metaphorical expressions arising from the misconceivings of weak men and that Wiser men like himself do conceive of Gods Government only as of an Artificers disposal of his works that Physically accomplisheth all his Will As if Gods Natural Causations and his Moral were inconsistent Or as if God were not Wise and Good as well as Almighty or did not in his Government of man demonstrate his sapience in his Laws and his Goodness in Attractive Benefits as well as his Power in meer Natural Motion Or as if man were not a Rational Creature and a free-agent and were not to be governed according to his Nature by Objects suited to his Intellect and Will but must be used and ruled like a stone or beast Or as if God could not infallibly attain his Ends by a Sapiential Government and by preserving the liberty of the Will as well as by a meer Necessitating causation This man was so enamoured upon his supposed skill in Physicks and Metaphysicks that he not only lost his Morality but grew to be such an Enemy to it as to blot out all true Morality Civility Policy Oeconomy at a dash and stands with the rest of the Proud fraternity as a Monument of Gods justice against the Proud so deplorately forsaken even in the Reason that he glorieth of that children may perceive his folly He that is all for Operations of Power as excluding Sapiential Government by Laws and their just executions doth think sure that a horse hath more of the Image of God then a man For he is much stronger Bruitish force would be more excellent then the Attraction of Goodness and the Conduct of Wisdom if the Government which is no Government that these men dream of were the most excellent As he will allow his Artificer to shew as much at least of his wit by making a Watch or Clock that shall though by a necessity move without the finger of the workman continually moving it so methinks he should allow the Infinitely Wise and Gracious God to be nevertheless Wise or Gracious if he Rule the Rational-free-agent without a forcible Physical Necessitation by a Gracious Attraction and Sapiential Conduct agreeable to the Reason and Liberty of the Creature as long as we exclude not the Co-working of Omnipotency nor deny the infallibility of Divine Predefinition which may be secured with the security of the Creatures Liberty In a word to deny God to be the Soveraign Governour of the world in proper sense 1. Is a denying him to be God it being a term of Relation comprizing Government and not of meer Nature When it is commanded us that we have no other Gods and when we are required in the holy Covenant to take the Lord for our God and give up our selves to him as his people it most plainly expresseth that his Governing Authority or his Soveraignty is comprehended in the term God And indeed having made a Rational-free-creature whose Nature requireth Moral Government it followed by necessary resultancy that he that had sole Authority and sufficiency must be his Soveraign 2. These Proud Blasphemers that deny Gods proper Government do contradict the very drift of Scripture that calleth him our King and Governour and requireth our subjection and obedience 3. They deny the being of Gods Laws both the Law of Nature and the Written Laws and so blot out the Word of God and the sense and use of all his works Though they allow them a certain Physical operation on us yet as Laws they do obliterate them that is as they are Norma officii judicii our Rule of duty and expectation and Gods resolved way of Judging 4. They hereby overthrow all Duty as such and make Good actions to be but as
which the Gospel worketh as well as small 3. That good which they had was wrought only by some â—eraps or parcels of the same holy Truth that is contained in the Scriptures And therefore even so much Truth among the Heathens as proficed them to any Reformation was the word of God and owned by him Quer. 6. Do you believe that Jesus Christ did rise again from the dead or not and that he and his Disciples did work those many uncontrolled Miracles or not If you do believe it then what need you further testimony to prove the doctrine to be of God or to prove that there is a Life to come Shall the Captain of our Salvation himself Rise from the dead and conquer death and ascend up into Heaven to shew us that there is a Life to come and yet will you not believe it Or would God lend to any man his Power to confirm a false doctrine to the world If so then 1. It would be God himself that should mislead us For it is he that worketh the Miracles or granteth special Power to the instrument to do it 2. Man should be unavoidably misled For if a man rise from the Dead and raise others and give to thousands the guifts of Languages healing and the like and all this have no greater contrary evidence from God of some contradiction or controllment I am unavoidably deceived and neither my greatest innocency or diligence or any other help from men could possibly relieve me And he that can believe that the Infinitely Powerful Wise and Good is either necessitated or disposed to deceive the world and Rule them by deceit and falshood and to lend his power to confirm a doctrine that he hateth and is against himself this man indeed believeth not that there is any God 3. Even the Brutists themselves and all the Infidels with whom we talk will confess that if they should see Christ Rise or see such Miracles they would believe and therefore they do confess that they are cogent Evidence to those that know of them Obj. Did not the sorcerrers in Egypt work Miracles Ans 1. Wonders they did but not Miracles 2. They were controlled and shamed and disowned by God by Moses his contradictory conqueting Miracles Obj. But some might have dyed between the Magicians wonders and Moses controlment and so have been unavoidably lost Answ 1. The time was neer and that not likely of those that knew of them 2. At the first wonder of the Magicians Aarons Rod swallowed up their Rods Exod. 7. 12. and therefore the conquest obliged them to suspend belief of the other 3. The Miracles of Moses were not to reveal a new doctrine of salvation that could not otherwise be known but partly to convince Pharaoh that the Lord was God and partly to cause him to let go the Israelites The peoples salvation lay not on the later and the former they had abundant means to know by the works and light of Nature it self And the Magicians wonders were not to reveal a New false doctrine any further then to contend againg Moses Miracles and if they had yet being against the doctrine of the whole Creation that revealeth the Creator no man could be excusable for believing them because God hath given so full a testimony before against them so that this objection is plainly but an impertinent cavil But I doubt not but you will say that you are not sure that Christ rose again and that ever such Miracles were done I Ask therefore Quer. 7. Whether it be possible that so many and so wise and godly men as their writings prove them should give up their lives and all that they had and could have hoped for in this world to perswade the world that they saw Christ Risen if it were false and to draw them to believe a falshood that tended to the worldly ruine of them all Quer. 8. And is it possible that if they had been so bad and mad that so many thousands would have believed them when their own frequent Miracles Language c. were the witness of their fidelity to which they openly appealed and this in the very age and place where all these things might easily be confuted if untrue If I should pretend to convince the world by Languages not learned and by other Miracles and guifts which I never had would countreys or any sober persons believe me or should I not be the common scorn Would the Churches of the world have been planted by pretended Miracles that never were would they all have given up estates and lives upon an evident lye It was easie for them all to see and hear whether these things were done or not And therefore he that seeth those Churches which were the proper effects of Miracles may know the Cause A real effect had a real cause Quer. 9. Was it possible that so many hundred or thousand persons dispersed about the world on a sudden could without coming neer each other agree both upon one and the same false doctrine throughout and on the same practices to deceive the world Quer. 10. Is it possible that among so many thousands that torments or death or common ingennity would not have forced some to have repented and opened the deceits of all the rest Quer. 11. Is it possible that so many Hereticks that did fall from them and set against the true Aposles would none of them have disclosed the deceit if really the Miracles had not been done Quer. 12. Is it possible that none of the Jews their bitter Enemies nor any of the Learned Romans of that age would have discovered the fraud and by writing confuted the matters of fact being publik and if false so easily confuted Where are the Books that ever any one of them wrote to disprove any of these Miracles If you say The Christians burnt them give us the least proof of it if you can When did any Jew complain of such a thing Nay how could the dispersed persecuted Christians destroy the writings of their reigning enemies The writings of Jews and Romans then written remain to this day and had fuller humane advantages of preservation then any that are against them No Jews or Romans complained or to do this day complain of such a thing nor tell us of any such writings of theirs that ever were in the world Quer. 13. Nay the Jews confessed the Miracles themselves and had no shift left for their unbelief but by Blaspheming the Holy Ghost and saying that they were done by the Power of the devil Quer. 14. All the dispersed Churches and Christians of the world have universally concurred in delivering us down these matters of fact and the Writings that contain them and this as a thing that they grounded all their hope of Salvation on and for which they contemned this present world And the Enemies that gainsaid their doctrine did not gainsay these matters of fact Could this be feigned Quer. 15. Have I not fully manifested in my
Book against Infidelity to which I must again dismiss you that there is a full and infallible Evidence that this Scripture was written by the Apostles and Evangelists and these Miracles done as there is that any of the Statutes of this Land are the currant Statutes of those Parliaments that are said to make them And your Lands and Lives are held by the credit of these Statutes A word or two to the objections of a Masked Infidel of this Countrey Clem. Writer Saith he Men be not commanded to believe these Statutes on pain of damnation Therefore the case is not like Answ But men are commanded to obey them upon pain of death and believing is prerequisite to obeying therefore the case is like Death is the utmost penalty that man can inflict or if there be greater it all runs on the same foundation And sure that evidence that proves men culpable for breaking mans Laws must prove him culpable for breaking Gods You have no other eyes to read the Laws of God then those by which you read mans Laws And doth it follow that God must not condemn you for breaking his Laws when men do but hang you for breaking theirs Sure Gods Laws and mans may be printed in the same Character and read with the same eyes and both have the same Natural means of delivery and yet the sin and punishment differ as the Authority doth Objection But saith he Can the Miracles confirm the Scripture when it is the Scripture that reports the Miracles Answ 1. Cannot a Statute tell you what Parliament made it and what matters of fact were the occasion and also what shal be your duty upon pain of death so that the Makers and facts shall give force unto the Law and yet the Law reveal the makers and facts Do not Church Constitutions do the same The Scripture hath two parts the History and the Doctrine May not the History confirm the doctrine and that doctrine oblige us to our duty 2. But you suppose that the Miracles and facts can only be known by a Divine belief of the History But that is false The common Evidence that all Statutes Histories and Actions in the world have to make them certain to posterity as Cicero's or Virgils Writings or Caesars Reign c. the same have the Books and Miracles of Scripture to us And by these we can know them de facto to be such before we believe them by a Divine faith And as the Scripture is a History that hath the same Evidence as the best of Histories have so it may concur with abundance of other Evidence which I have recited in my my Determination against Infidelity and in my Key for Catholicks to prove the Facts and then those Facts will fully prove the Truth of all the Doctrines which they attest and consequently we shall add to our humane Faith and Knowledge a Divine faith concerning the History it self Object 3. But saith Writer If God had means that the Scripture should be a Law to all he would not have writ it in a language which they understand not Answ Any thing will serve to make an Infidel when the mind is corrupted and deplorate Were they no Laws which the Romans wrote in Latin for the Government of all the Nations of the Roman World It was enough that the Rulers of the Previnces caused them to be so far understood by the People as was necessary to a righteous Government I mean those Laws that were added to the proper Laws of that people 2. Was there any one Language then that all the world understood And was it not enough that God appointed the Ministerial Office purposely to preserve and publish this Gospel to the world from generation to generation And is not Translating whether by Voice or Writing a part of that preaching or explication Did not the Ministers of Christ preach the same doctrine to the world then in the several languages of the Nations where they came And were not the Scriptures presently translated according to the use of the Churches Upon how silly a pretence then would your silly Imperial Majesty impose it on the God of Heaven to write his word in as many Languages as are in the world if he would be believed I 'le trouble you with no more such wretched Cavils These three are the main strength of three Pamphlets written against the Holy Scriptures and me by this Apostate Their sum is Man is man therefore we are not sure that Scripture is true or that God is God I mean Men cannot understand the minds of others but by signs All signs whether words or deeds have some ambiguity or lyableness to misunderstanding therefore nothing can be known concerning God or man by signs These are not his words but the true scope and life of all the Writings of him and all the Infidel Seekers If you chide me for troubling the Christian Reader here with so much against the Infidels and Brutists I answer 1. I did it because that sort increase and threaten the Land 2. Because the strengthening of the Belief of the best Christians is the removing the Cause of all their weakness and complaints 3. And Principally because when once the certain Truth of another Life is manifested he must be a Bedlam or worse that will not be Godly or that will open his mouth any more against a Holy Life What! is it possible for a sober man to Believe that he is so near an Everlasting Joy or Misery and yet to neglect it and oppose them that make it their chiefest care and labour to prepare for it The Brutist hath drowned his Reason and the careless Professor laid it to sleep the Malicious ungodly Professor of Christianity sights against it and only the serious Holy Christian doth use it for his Everlasting good CHAP. IV. Holiness is Best for all Societies REader if thou be but a man that hast the free use of thy reason I have already removed the greatest impediment out of thy way and said enough by confuting thy Infidelity to prove that godliness is the Better part Thou hast nothing left now to say against it but what fighteth against Reason in the open light and therefore I shall find an easier task with thy understanding in all that follows though with thy corrupted Will and Concupiscence the conflict yet may be as strong Well! if yet thou art not resolved that Diligent Serious Godliness is that Good part that all should choose and better then all thy worldly pleasures I shall now discover it to thee in these particulars 1. I shall shew you that Godliness is Best for all Societies 2. That it is Best for every Person And that 1. It is the safest way 2. It is the Honestest way 3. That it is the most gainful way 4. That it is the most Honourable way and 5. That it is the Pleasant and Delightful way Yea that there is no other true Safety Honesty Profit Honour or Delight
final ruine of the persons is from their enmity and rebellion against the Lord and because they will not be his Kingdoms but hate and quarrel with his wayes and persecute his servants And Godliness preserveth Princes and Magistrates from this sin and ruine 4. Holiness will cause the Rulers to hate sin in themselves and others and to remove the abominable thing from before the eyes of Gods jealousie and to drive away the froward and not to know the wicked and the proud and to cut off the slanderer and the wicked doers and to set no wicked thing before their eyes Psalm 101. In their eyes a vile person will be contemned but they will honour them that fear the Lord. By this means their Kingdoms may be Holy and God will delight in them and dwell among them and it shall be said of them as Jer. 31. 23. The Lord bless thee Oâ—habitation of Justice and mountain of Holiness And when Israel is Holiness to the Lord all that devoure him shall offend evil shall come upon them saith the Lord. Jer. 2. 3. The holy examples and holy Government of Godly Kings and Magistrates will draw the hearts of the people to Holiness and cause it to flourish in the Lands Whereas the wicked examples and government of the ungodly tendeth to make all about them wicked For as Solomon saith Prov. 29. 12. If a Ruler hearken to liâ—s all his servants are wicked And then they are fuell for the wrath of God both as offenders and as enemies For they will be still rebelling and opposing him and carnal interest and enmity will pervert them to use the reprovers as Asa and Amaziah and Jeroboam and Jezebel and Joash did and to think with Saul that Doeg was the best subject that would kill the Priests at his command and those the worst that would not betray them or destroy them and to say to false accusers as he did to the Ziphites 1 Sam. 23. 21. Blessed be yee of the Lord for yee have compassion on me And saith the Lord Isa 27. 4. Who would set the briers and thorns against me in battel I would go through them I would burn them together 5. Holiness will save Princes and Rulers from the great and dangerous temptations of their Riches and Honours and Power and Pleasures and will teach them to mortifie the flesh and live after the spirit Rom. 8. 1 6 13. and will keep them hereby from those sins that would subject them to the consuming wrath of the impartial God and will bring them to Heaven notwithstanding all the impediments of the world even as a Camel through a needles eye by the power to which all things are possible And doubtless that which maketh men most acceptable to God and tendeth to the everlasting happiness of the persons must needs be better for all societies then that which prepareth them for damnation and keepeth them here under the indignation of the Lord. See 2 Sam. 23 3. Lev. 25. 46 53 43. Isa 32. 1. Rom. 3. 4 5 6. 12. 8. 11. And as Holiness thus maketh the most excellent Princes and happy Governours so it maketh the most Loyal and obedient Subjects and is the most powerful preserver of peace in all Societies If any shall say that the people that are accounted Holy have caused as great contentions and rebellions in the world as any other witness the wars in France Savoy Bohemia Scotland England c. I shall first prove undenyably from the nature of the thing that true Godliness must needs make the best Subjects and tend to the happiness of Common-wealths and then I shall more nearly answer the Objection 1. Holiness effectually teacheth subjects to know themselves To know their weakness and meaness and unworthiness and to know their places and their proper work It kills that pride that makes men think that none are so fit to Rule as they and it makes them so humble as to think themselves unworthy of protection in the meanest station And also it so takes them up with a higher ambition and sets their heart on the greater things that they are dead to the Ambition of the world and can easily leave these things to others Their Kingdom is not of this world They are taught to expect affliction and persecution and not to aspire after crowns No man can deny that this is the lesson set them by their Lord and the Covenant which they make with him when they become his Servants Whereas the ungodly having their portion in this life and relishing and minding most the things of the world will snatch and scramble and turn every stone and do any thing within their reach for worldly honours 2. Holiness teacheth subjects to see God in their Rulers and honour and obey them as his officers even with an honour and obedience participatively Divine And no men can give them a higher honour then they that thus honour them on Gods account and no men can give them so full and firm and constant obedience as they that obey God in their Governours No man can give them higher titles then they that take them to be the Officers of God Carnal men obey their Governours meerly as men that are able to do them good or hurt If they were sure to receive no dammage by contemning them they cared not to trample them in the dirt Though that people sinned in desiring a King yet when they had chosen that kind of Government and Saul was set over them those that went with him were such whose hearts God had touched but the Children of Belial said How shall this man save us and they despised him and brought him no presents 1 Sam. 10. 27. 3. Holiness causeth subjects to obey and submit for conscience sake They do it because God himself hath commanded them to do it They pay tribute and give honour and obedience because it is part of their Obedience to God required of them in the fifth Commandment which is the first with promise Outward prosperity is especially promised to them that honour their Parents and superiours And the commands and promises of God with the bonds of Conscience do tie men faster to their duty and restraine more effectually from disobedience then the words of men alone can do Conscience holdeth strongly and constantly and it holdeth as well in secret as in publike so that if a man were sure to do a mischief and never be discovered he would never the less abhor it as being not unknown to God and conscience A man that feareth not God â—nd conscience will never stick to do a mischief if he may escape the eye and revenging hand of man Faux will set fire to the train to blow up King and Parliament if he see but a probability of escape But he that feeleth the bonds of God upon him dare not rebel 4. Holiness destroyeth Self-love which is the Spring of all discontents and disobedience and teacheth a man to own no Ends or interests but
then if they had never heard the Gospel It is you and such as you that despise the mercies of the Lord that make it a bad world and then you impudently complain of it and charge it on them that will not be as bad as your selves and take away the candle and shut the windows that the light may not trouble you 2. Well! but say you the world was better when there was less preaching and less ado about the serving of God and our salvation I do not believe you and I will tell you why yea Why I am certain that your words are false 1. Because you contradict the Lord. God saith those times are best when there is most of the Light of the Gospel and most helps for our salvation and when the people are most Holy The increase of Light and Holiness is a principal part of the Glory of the Kingdom of Christ and of the Promises to the Gospel Church as you may see Isa 9. 2. 36. 26. 42. 6. 60. 3. Mat. 4. 16. Luk. 2. 32. Joh. 3. 19 20. The word of God is the greatest blessing under heaven together with a heart to obey and practise it Luk. 11. 28. Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it Psal 106. 3. 119. 1 2. 1. 1 2. God himself pronounceth them blessed that meditate day and night in his Law and that make it their whole delight and because of the increase of Light and Holiness extolleth the times of the Gospel far above those of the Law affirming the least in this Kingdom of God to be greater as to the honour and priviledge of his station then the Prophets or John Baptist Matth. 11. 11 12. And would you wish me to believe such ignorant men as you before the God of Heaven that contradicteth you 2. I will not believe you because your objection is nothing but a Blasphemous accusation of the Living God If it were true that Preaching is bad it is Christ then that is bad that doth command it But I am sure that Christ is not bad and that such as Blaspheme him do it to their cost It is he that hath laid a Necessity on us and woe be unto us if we preach not the Gospel 1 Cor. 9. 16. and that chargeth us to feed the flock of God 1 Pet. 5. 2. Yea the spirit chargeth us before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom that we preach the word and be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long suffering and doctrine If any one be to be blamed for all this preaching and stir for heaven it is Christ that chargeth it so strictly upon us And if thou dare lay the blame upon the Lord speak out and stand to it at judgement 3. I know it is false that you say that the world is the worse for all this preachig and Godliness because it is against the very office of Christ and of the Holy Ghost Christ was a diligent preacher himself and dare you accuse him for it He came into the world to bring us the Light of heavenly Truth and dare you say that it were better be without it It is the work of the Holy Ghost to illuminate and sanctifie men and do you think that he doth us hurt Christ dyed to wash and purifie by the word and Spirit the Church which is his Body that he might present it spotless to the Father Eph. 5. 26. 27. And darest thou say that Christ came to do us harm By this thy despising of his benefits thou shewest that thou hast yet no part in him or in his saving benefits but art in the gall of bitterness and bond of thy iniquities and thy heart is not right in the sight of God 4. Moreover you are not to be belived because you speak against the experience of all the Prophets and Apostles of Christ David had rather be a door keeper in the house of God then dwell in the tents of wickedness and judged a day in his Courts to be better then a thousand Psal 84. 10. and accounted them the blessed men that might even dwell in the house of God and be daily taken up in holy praise and worship Psal 65. 4. 92. 13. 23. 6. When he was forced from the house and publick worship of God it was his daily lamentation and he fainteth and panteth and longeth after the house and worship of God again Psal 42. 84. 2 3 4 5. How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord of hosts My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord My bea rt aad my flesh cryeth out for the living God Blessed are they that dwell in thy house they will be still praising thee Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee in whose heart are the ways of them The Prophet Isaiah saith In the way of thy judgements O Lord have we waited for thee the desire of our soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of thee with my soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my spirit within me will I seek thee early This was the mind of all the Prophets and Apostles and God hath told us that it is the practice of all blessed men to Meditate in Gods word day night Psal 1. 2. And yet will you say that it was a better world when there was less of this O self-condemning Hypocrites Why do you so much profess to honour the Prophets Apostles and Martyrs of Christ if you think that they were the troublers of the world and that their doctrine and practice makes us worse Why do you honour them with the name of Saints and yet despise both their doctrine and practice in those that do but endeavour seriously to imitate them Why keep you Holy days in remembrance of the dead Saints and say that the world in the worse for the living Saints O horrible hypocrisie to honour their names and hate their doctrine and course of life and say that the world was never good since it was troubled with such as they Do we trouble you with our Preaching and praying and our stir for heaven How would Christ and his Apostles have troubled you that went so far beyond us in all these and made a greater stir then we and turned the world as their enemies charged them up side down Act. 17. 6. so busie wâ—s Christ in preaching and doing the work of God that he neglected to eat his meat for it Joh. 4. 34. and his fleshly kindred would have laid hands on him as if he had been beside himself Mark 3. 21. It seems if you had then lived you would have been among the wicked enemies of Christ and of his Disciples and have said It was never a good world since these busie fellows made so much a doe with their Religion 5. Moreover you speak against the inward feeling and
see that they are sober when some of you are drunken and that they are seeking heaven when you are seeking the world and that they are providing for their souls and pleasing God and imployed in the most sweet and heavenly works while you are pampering the flesh or making provision to satisfie its lusts Do we not hear their speeches are of God and their salvation and things that edifie while you curse or swear or talk filthily or idly and unprofitably like dreaming or distracted men And yet would you make us believe that you are as good as they and that Religion makes men worse But you say that for all this they are secretly as bad as others Foolish malice If it be secret how do you know it If you know it how is it secret and its marvail that you do not make it known Is it not easie to say so by a Job or a Samuel or by Christ himself if saying so may serve turn and a wicked tongue may pass for proof You may say that in secret I commit all the sins imaginable and how can I disprove you when I have no witness but only by desiring you to prove it if you can But O happy are the servants of the Lord that are even in secret alwayes in the presence of their Judge who will bear witness for them and justifie them against malignant tongues But you say that they are as covetous as other men though they are more Religious But this is as shameful a falshood as the former Do we not see the contrary in the open fruits Covetous men are the forwardest to call others Covetous because they would have no body hinder or cross them in their Covetous desires or designs And then they are saying O such a professor used me thus and such a one did thus and usually they partially relate the case as their own Covetous hearts encline them passionately to judge it And perhaps they may meet with a worldly hypocrite that seemeth Religious which is no more to the disgrace of Religion then Cham was in the Family of Noah or Absolom in the house of David or Judas in the Family of Christ Do not you call your selves Christians your selves And yet Christianity is never the worse because you are wicked that profess it But sure I am that the servants of Christ are not comparable to you in Coveteousness For as I find God describing them in his Word to be a people dead to the world whose conversation is in heaven so I see that they can spare time from worldly business while they and their housholds serve the Lord and so cannot you They are seeking Heaven when you are seeking earth And we may know what a man loveth if we know what he seeketh And again I must bear witness from my own experience that in this place where I live I have reason to believe that where other men of their ability give a penny to the poor for charitable uses those that you call precise and think too Religious do give six if not twice six and some of them much more then I will express There are few weeks but we have occasion to try it by voluntary collections for some needy persons or charitable uses and therefore we have much opportunity to know besides contributions at Sacraments and other publick occasions But you say that in former times there was more Love among neighbours then is now Then there was more familiarity and kindness and less hatred and malice and contention then now I answer Am I not sure by constant experience that there is far more love among the godly then among you Do I not see how dear they are to one another and how sweetly and familiarly they converse together and joyn in prayer and holy exercises and conferr about their everlasting state Do I not see that they are ten times more liberal to relieve each other in distress then you are Many and many a time I have seen them give ten or twenty shillings in collections to relieve godly people in distress when those of you that are richer give but two pence or a groat to your companions in the like Collections And what makes them be so much together if there be not Love among them I profess to you I never yet saw any thing that is worthy the name of Love and Peace among any other sort of men But perhaps you will say that there are contentions and differences among them about Religion which the world was never troubled with before To which I answer 1. What differences or contentions do you see among them in this Town or Parish Among five hundred people that you count Precise what one is there among us that is either Anabaptist or Separatist or Antinomian or Arminian or of any other sect What one that separateth from any Ordinance of publick Worship What differences do you know among us Is there here any more Churches then one Do you hear any contendings Do you see any thing like a difference among us all For my part I know of none Nor but of one in the Parish that is turned from us which is a simple ignorant harmless man that turned Anabaptist For as for the Apostate Infidels that joyn with you that are ungodly we have nothing to do with them but lament their misery 14. Another thing that hindreth our Belief of you is that we see that it is only ignorant or wicked men that are of this opinion and say that the world is the worse for Godliness or the Preaching of the Gospel Not a man saith so that knoweth what he saith and that ever felt the power and sweetness of the Gospel upon his soul But only those that are blinded by the world and serve the flesh and are drowned in lust and know not what they speak against And shall we regard the judgement of such men 15. And moreover when you say that the world was better when there was less Godliness and Teaching you contradict all history and therefore are not to be believed You know not well what is before you much less do you know what hath been in your fore-fathers dayes Be it known to you we have as full advantage to know that as you have Many and many a large Volume have I read concerning the state of the world before us which tell us of far greater wickedness in our fore-fathers daies then are in these If you will not believe me I will shew it to any of you that can read and understand at any time when you will come to me I will shew you the words of the Chroniclers and Historians of those ages that make more lamentable complaints of the vices of those times and tell us of far more evil then and of a far greater scarcity of good then can be truly spoken concerning us And are you that never saw those daies to be believed before them that saw them 16. And I am sure also that
you revile and that in highest fervour and perfection They Rest not day or night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come Rev. 4. 8. Dost thou know the man on earth that is most precise and holy and diligent for God Why the lowest of the Saints in Heaven go quite beyond him And in good sadness dost thou take Heaven to be the worst place and think that so much Holiness will make it troublesom Bear witness then against thy self Out of thy own mouth art thou condemned How canst thou expect to be admitted into Heaven that takest it for so bad a place Thou teachest God to thrust thee back and say to thee Be gone here is nothing but Holiness which you could not alive You shall go to a place where Religion and Holiness shall not trouble you Well Sirs Consider now as men of Reason of all these twenty Reasons which I have given you and then tell me whether that be not the better world and the better soul where there is most Faith and Holiness CHAP. VI. Holiness is the only way of Safety I Have proved to you that Holiness is best for Common wealths and given you many General undenyable evidences to prove that it is Best for all men in particular I shall now come to the particular evidences and shew you wherein it is that it is Best for all men There are three sorts of Good that men have to look after The first is the security of their Life and Being the second is their moral well-being and the third is their Natural well-being This last also is divided into three branches and consisteth in our Profit our Honour and our Pleasure So that here are five several sorts of Goodness to be considered of and you will find that Holiness is Best beyond all comparison in each respect 1. In respect of Safety 2. In point of Honesty 3. In point of Gain 4. In point of Honour And 5. In point of Pleasure or Delight If I prove not every one of these then tell me I promised more then I could perform But if I do prove them I look that you that Read it should promise presently to come in to God and a Holy life and faithfully perform it 1. And that HOLINESS IS THE SAFEST WAY I prove thus 1. That man is in a safer state that is delivered from the power of Satan then he that is in his bondage and taken captive by him at his will But all the unsanctified are in this captivity and all the sanctified are delivered out of it as the Scripture most expresly tells us Ephes 2. 1 2. 3 And you hath be quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world according to the Prince of the Power of the air the Spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience among whom we also bad our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind c. So 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God eradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil who are taken captive by him at his will And Acts 26. 17 18. I send thee to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God And Col. 1. 13. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son Satan is the Ruler and the Jaylor of the ungodly that leadeth them to sin and so to destruction and keepeth them for torments at the day of wrath And is he safe that is in the Devils power If he should appear to thee and lay hold of thee thou wouldst not think that thou were safe But his possession of thy soul is far more dangerous Thou dost not believe that thou art in his power But thy blindness sheweth it and thy enmity to the way of Holiness sheweth it and thy ungodly life doth fully shew it and the Scripture affirmeth it of all such and what need there any further proof But the sanctified are all dilivered from this slavery and though the Devil may rage against them he shall not prevail 2. Moreover those that are United to Jesus Christ and are become the living Members of his Body are certainly safer then those that are yet strangers to him and have no special interest in him But all that are sanctified are thus united to Christ and made his members and all the unsanctified have no part in him He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life 1 John 5. 12. John 15. 6 7 9 10. If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned If ye abide in me and my words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you As the Father hath loved me so have I loved you continue in my love If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love Yee are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you v. 14. Eph. 5. 25 26 27 29 30. Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and â—â—â—aâ—â—â— it with the washing of water by the word that be might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish No man ever hated his own flesh but nourisheth and cheri â—ath it even as the Lord the Church For we are Members of his Body of his flesh and of his bones Judge by these passages whether the sanctified are not safe If the Love of Christ and his Merits and his Power cannot keep them safe then nothing can If the Saviour cannot save them none can Is not the very flesh of Christ safe are not the members of his Body safe are not his friends his spouse and beloved safe If Christ can save us we are safe For who can conquer him Or who can take us out of his hands John 10. 28. If he be for us who shall be against us and if he justifie us who shall condemn us Rom. 8. 33 34 35. But is it so with the ungodly No they have no part nor lâ—t in this matter but are in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity because their heart is not right in the sight of God Act. 8. 21 23. 3. Moreover he that hath escaped the Curse of the Law and hath his sins forgiven him and is justified from all things that could by the Law be charged on him is safer then he that is under the Curse and hath all his sins yet lying on his soul But the first of
this they have learnt of God and therefore they are no deceivers 9. Moreover do you think that he is an Honest man that is an enemy to the publike Good or rather he that is a common benefactor The best of the Heathens thought it one of the highest parts of virtue to be serviceable to many and devote our selves to the common good But wicked men are the very plagues of a land For their sakes it is that judgements come upon us It is they that would let in the plague of sin which would undoe us He that sets fire to the thatch doth do no worse against your towns then wicked men that would kindle the fire of the wrath of God by their crying sins Read the Scriptures and see who it was that caused Israel to perish in the wilderness but unbelieving sinners Who troubled Israel and made them fly before their enemies but one Achan Josh 7. And what but sin was the cause of their captivity and present desolation was it Lot or the Sodomites that brought down from heaven the fire of vengeance Was it Noah or the world of the ungodly that brought down the flood Are these Honest men that provoke God to forsake the Land and are the vermine and destroyers of our peace and happiness But you know that God hath promised his blessing to the Godly and to the places where they live ofttimes for their sakes as Josephs case and others tell us 10. That man can be no Honest man that wanteth the very principle of Honesty and that intendeth not the End that 's necessary to make any action truly Honest But such are all ungodly men 1. The Principle of true Honesty is the high esteem of God and everlasting life in our undestandings and the belief of Gods revelations necessary to the attaining of that life and the prevailing Love of God in the heart and the Love of man for his sake Without these Principles of Honesty no man can be Honest How can he be an Honest man that Believeth not his maker He that taketh God for a lyer hath no reason to be taken for any better himself For would he be thought better then he takes God himself to be nor can he in reason be expected to believe any man else For none can be better then God And is that an honest man that professeth himself a Lyer and taketh all men to be so too And how can that be an Honest man that Loveth not Goâ—… well as his fleshly lusts and pleasures And this is the case of all the wicked If they did not Love their Riches and honour and sensual pleasures more then God they would not keep them against his command nor lose his favour rather then lose them nor seek them more carefully then they seek him and his Kingdom and think of them and speak of them with more delight And certainly he that Loveth his Riches or Honours or filthy sins better then God and Heaven it self must needs be thought to preferr them before his neerest Friends or the common good And is that an Honest man that would rather cast off Father or Mother then cast off his filthy sins and that would rather forsake his chiefest friend then forsake his vices and would sell his friend or the Commonwealth for a little gain or pleasure even for a whore or for drunkenness or such like things I think you would none of you say that this were an Honest man that would not leave so small a matter for the life of his friend or for the preservation of the Common wealth And can you expect that he should prefer any friend before God and his Salvation If he will sin against God and sell his salvation for his sin can you think he should more regard any man how dear soever There is no true Honesty in that man where the Love of God doth not command 2. Moreover if the Honouring and Pleasing of our Lord and the saving of our souls be not the End and principal motive of our actions there can be no true Honesty It is essential to Honesty that God be our End If you would know what a man is first know what he Intendeth and maketh the End and marke of his life And so you must do if you would judge of his actions The End is the principal ingredient that makes them Good or Bad. If a Thief Love God because he prospereth him in stealing or because he giveth him strength and opportunity this is a wicked Love of God If a drunkard Love God for giving him his drink and a Whoremonger Love God for strenthening him in his lust will you call this Honesty Every wicked man doth make his sensual present pleasure his principal End through all his life If he love his neighbour it is but carnally as a dog loveth him that seedeth and stroaketh him If he seem to be a good Commonwealths man it is but for vain-glory or carnal accommodatiâ—… and he fighteth for his King or Countrey but as a dog doth â—â—â— his bone If he give to the poor it is but that which he can spare from his Belly and it is either in a common pitty or for vain applause or he thinks by it to stop the mouth of Justice that God may let him alone in his sins or save him after all his wickedness This is no more an Honest man then he that makes a trade of stealing and will pay Tythes of all that he steals or give some part to the Church or Poor that God may pardon him and save him when he hath done All the Religion and all the charity of wicked men is but for themselves and that which hath no higher End then Carnal self is truly no Religiâ—… Charity It is only the sanctified man that is Honest for it 〈…〉 he that is devoted to God and doth the works of his life to 〈…〉 and glorifie his maker There is more Honesty in the very 〈…〉 ing and drinking of the sanctified then in the prayer and sacrifices and alms deed of the ungodly Or else God would never have said as he hath done that Unto the Pure all things are pure but to them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure but even their mind and Conscience is defiled Tit. 1. 15. And that every creature is sanctified by the word of God and by Prayer 1 Tim. 4. 4 5. And that the prayer and the sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to the Lord and he abhoreth and loatheth them when the prayer of the upright is his delight Prov. 15. 8. 21. 27. Isa 1. 13. Prov. 28. 9. 8. 7. 11. 20. For the sanctified in their very eating and drinking do make it their end to Glorifie God and to be fitted for his service 1 Cor. 10. 31. But the ungodly do all even in their duties that seem most Holy but for a selfish carnal End So that it is plain that he that wanteth the necessary Principles and
honoured all rejoyce 1 Cor. 12. 25 26. As weak as Christians are and as worthless in your eyes one of their hearty spiritual prayers and one word of their holy savoury conference doth profit us more then all your Treasures will ever profit you While the Divine nature is in them somewhat Divine will proceed from their mouthes and be seen in their lives which is worth more then all the Riches of the world And O how fruitful are the holy Ordinances which we partake of both in the Churches Communion and alone in our retirements A poor Christian can get more in a Sermon which you sleep under or deride then you will get by your trades or livings while you live He findeth greater Treasures in one Chapter of the Bible or in one good Book then you can get out of all your lands or labours The best of your livings will not yield you so much commodity in seven years nor in seven thousand years if you could so long keep them as a believing soul can get from God in one hours prayer even in secret where he is not by man observed You do not believe this that are ungodly I know you do not heartily believe it for else you would try it and not continue in your ungodliness But they that try it know it to be true Or else what makes them continue in it and live upon their holy Communion with God and his servants more resolvedly then you do on your lands and labours Somewhat you may conjecture they find in holy duty that makes them so instant in it as they are 7. Another part of our commodity by Holiness is the Promise and Assurance of the Love of God and of our salvation and the Peace of Conscience that followeth hereupon All true Believers have objective certainty that is the thing is certain in itself whether they perceive it or not And they may have subjective or Actual certainty in themselves if they do their parts And is not a certain Title to a Lordship or a Kingdom a greater Treasure then the possession of a straw Much more is Gods Promise of Everlasting Glory a greater Treasure then all your wealth As Heaven is infinitely better then earth so the Promise of God is the best security Though we be not with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and do not yet see the face of God yet have we a Promise that speedily we shall be there and shall see that which they see and enjoy all that which they enjoy The poorest Christian hath all that in Promise under the hand of God himself which Angels and Glorified Saints have in possession They can shew you a better Title to Heaven though they are unworthy in themselves then any of you can shew to your lands or houses in your Deeds or Leases As poor and simple as that Godly man is whom you despise he is an Heir of Heaven and a fellow-Heir with Christ Rom. 8. 17. Gal. 3. 29. Heb. 1. 14. 11. 9. When we had the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy-Ghost and were justified by grace we were made the Heirs of eternal life according to the hope that is given us by the Gospel Tit. 3. 5 7. And God that hath given them those Better things that accompany salvation is not unrighteous to forget their work and labour of love if they do but shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end and be not sloathful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the Promises Heb. 6. 9 10 11 12. For this cause was Christ the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the Transgressions under the first Testament they which are called may receive the Promise of the eternal inheritance Heb. 9. 15. And we know that he is faithful that hath promised And if your Bills and Bonds and Deeds and Leases be part of your Riches we shall much more take the Promise of God for our everlasting happiness in Heaven to be far greater Riches 8. And yet we may put this among our Riches or at least as the Over-plus given us by God that we have better advantage even for the matters of this world then the ungodly have For we have a Promise that we shall lack nothing that is good for us Psal 34. 10. and so have not they We have warrant to east all our care on God who by promise is engaged to care for us 1 Pet. 5. 7. We are commanded to be anxiously careful for nothing but in all things to make known our requests to God as little children that care not for themselves but go to their father for what they want Phil. 4. 6. It is enough for us whatever we want that our heavenly Father knoweth that we want it Matth. 6. 32. who hath charged us to disburden our minds of these vexatious cares and to seek first his Kingdom and the Righteousness thereof and promised us that other things shall be added to us Mat. 6. 33. We have also a promise that all things shall work together for our good Rom. 8. 28. And therefore we shall have more from the things of this life then the ungodly have Yea more by the want of them then they by the possession For if they do us good in our graces and communion with God and in the matter of our salvation they help us to that which is of far higher value then themselves Poverty to a true Believer is better then Riches to the ungodly that destroyeth himself by them when the Believer is helped by his poverty Imprisonment to Paul and Silas was better then liberty to their persecutors And thus in the fruits and saving benefits all things are ours 1 Cor. 3. 22. We have the Love of God with what we possess be it more or less when the wicked have his wrath with it And who would have their Riches on such terms 9. Another part of the Gain of Godliness is that it puts us into a Readiness to die and a fitness to appear before the Lord. Though all the Godly have not so great a readiness as to desire to be presently dissolved yet all of them are in a safe condition and are so far ready that death shall pass them into a blessed state For we know that if our earthly house of this Tabernaâ—le were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hâ—… eternal in the heavens And in this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven And God that hath given 〈…〉 the earnest of his Spirit hath wrought in us to be alwayes confident or at least given us cause knowing that whilest we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord For we walk by faith and not by sight we are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 1
dwell for ever O Labour not for the meat that perisheth in comparison of that which endureth to everlasting life which Christ will give you if you will follow him Job 6. 27. Make you friends of this wealth that the world abuseth to unrighteousness that when all fails below you may be received into the everlasting habitations Luk. 16. 9. Make not your selves a Treasure of corruptible riches and set not your heart on Gold and Silver lest the rust of it be a witness against you and eate your flesh as it were fire and lest yee heap up another kind of treasure then you dream of against the last days How many of you have cause to weep and howl for your approaching miseries even then when you are glorying in your prosperity Jam. 5. 1 2 3 4 5. Are you for Commodity Refuse not then the best Commodity Be not enemies to them or to those holy motions that make for your everlasting Profit Take but the Gainfullest 〈…〉 selves and we are pleased If you know 〈…〉 then God and Glory and any riches that will endure any longer then Eternity why do you not shew it us that we may joyn with you But if you do not why will you not hearken to the servants of the Lord and joyâ— with them Wherefore saith the Lord do you spend money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which satisfieth not Hearken diligently unto me and eate ye that which is good and let your soul delight it self in fatness Encline your care come unto me hear and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you Isa 55. 2 3. If there be not more to be Gotten by Christ and by prayer and by the promises and a holy life then there is by sin or then there is by all your friends or lands or trades or care or labour here then take your course and turn your back on God and spare not But if you are ashamed to say so be ashamed to think so or to live so Verily sirs if the Gospel be true you must be every man of you Saints or Miserable Holiness is the only thriving way Yea the only Saving way If you forsake this way you are 〈…〉 while you are Gaining and Losing by your Gains You 〈…〉 making Achans bargain that by his Gold did purchase a â—corm of stones that dasht out his brains Josh 7. You are running after Gehezie's gains that thought he had got Riches and it proved a Leprosie You are trading with the Devil though you see him not and will not believe it even as certainly as the miserable witches that sell him their souls for a few fair promises and when they have done have the miserablest life of any You are laying up but Judas's treasures which quickly grew too hot to hold and too heavy for his conscience to bear and he would fain rid his hands of it if he knew how and because he cannot he hangs himself and rids himself out of the ashes into the flames O covet not such undoing gains which you all know as sure as you breath that you must let go Believe but your Redeemer and you shall know that there are greater and better things before you Gather not stones when you may be gathering pearls Hear me poor sinner If God and Heaven if Grace and Glory seem not better Riches then 〈…〉 world thou judgest thy self to have no part in them CHAP. IX Holiness is the most Honourable Way WE are resolved if Scripture and Reason can resolve us that Godliness is the Safest the Honestest and the Gainfullest course I shall next shew you that it is the Most Honourable course I know the world thinks otherwise of it In most places it is a matter of reproach to be but serious and diligent in Gods service And though in this place and at this time through the great mercy of God it is not so with us unless it be with here and there a sottish drunkard yet there are too few places that are so much freed from this plague And it is not yet I fear forgotten of God since the very practice of a Godly life was a matter of greater scorn and derision then to have been the prophanest swearer or drunkard If a man would not have gone to the Ale house with them nor sworn or spoke prophanely as 〈…〉 did and if he made any serious mention of the Scripture â—â—â—â— life to come if he reproved any gross offendor if he prayed and instructed his family and spent the Lords Day in holy exercises this was enough to brand him with the name of Puritan or Precisian and make him the common by-word of the town and let him be never so conformable to Bishops and Ceremonies if once he went under the name of a Puritan he was looks upon as Lot in Sodom by the open enemies of Piety who insulted over them and lived securely in open wickedness This is the chiefest sin that God hath been scourging this nation for if I am able to understand his judgements I know men are apt to interpret providences according to their own interests and conceits But I take the help of the Scripture and the experience of former ages for my interpretation and I am verily perswaded not excluding other sins that the great sin for which God hath plagued England by a sharp and bloody war was the common scorn that was cast upon his service it being made the derision of too many in the land I never came into any place where meâ—er serious diligence for salvation was not branded with the name of Puritanism and too much Preciseness and those that abstained from iniquity were as Owles among their neighbours even the very wonder and the reproach of those about them When this is made a Principle that all must hold that ever hope to be accepted with the Lord in Heb. 11 6. that he is a Rewarder of them that Diligently seek him This is the next point in our faith to the Believing that there is a God And yet among us that called our selves Christians the Diligent seeking of the Lord was so far from being thus esteemed of that it was the surest way to make a man contemptible and odious unto many The jealous God did long endure this horrible indignity but would not still endure it from us Must he make a Holy Law for the Government of the world and shall the obeying of it be derided Is he our Soveraign Lord having by Creation and Redemption the right of Ruling us and shall we scorn them that will be Ruled by him Those that will not have Christ rule over them will surely be destroyed Luk. 19. 27. and shall those escape that scorn his service Holiness is the Image of God and unholiness the Devils image And when the Image of God is made a scorn and the Devils image had in honour and that by them that call themselves Christians was it not time
Judgements of the Lord God hath begun to take away the reproach of Holiness and through his great mercy to us it is more Honourable in England then formerly it hath been Is it Honoured by you Or are you hardened to perdition Fearfull is the case of him whoever he be that after all the gentle and terrible warnings of the Lord dare think or speak reproachfully of a Holy life Yet hear the calls of the Eternal Wisdom Prov. 1. 20 21 22 c. How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity and the scorners delight in scorning and fools hate knowledge Turn you at my reproof But mercies and judgements are lost on the hard-hearted Isa 26. 10 11. Let favour be shewn to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly and will not behold the Majesty of the Lord. When the hand of the Lord is lifted up they will not see but they shall see and be ashamed for their envy at his people and the enemies own fire shall devour them And then as they set at nought his counsell and would none of his reproof but mocked them that feared God so will he also laugh at their calamity and mock when their fear cometh For that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord Prov. 1. 25 26 27 29. I will add but this one word of terror To scorn at Holiness is to scorn at the Holy Ghost whose office or work it is to sanctifie us As the Father hath commanded us to be Holy as he is Holy 1 Pet. 1. 16. and made it his Image on us and as the Son hath come to destroy unholiness 1 John 3. 8. and give us an example of perfect holiness and sanctifie to himself a peculiar people Titus 2. 14. so is it the undertaken work of the Holy Ghost as sent therefore from the Father and the Son to make Holy all that God will save And though I say not that it is the unpardonable Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to scorn his very work and office yet I say it is a Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost so near that which is unpardonable that the thoughts of it should humble all that have been guilty and make men fear so horrible a sin But Bessed is he that walketh not in the Counsel of the Ungodly â—or standeth in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful but his delight is in the Law of the Lord and in his Law doth he meditate day and night The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked but he blesseth the habitation of the just Surely he scorneth the scorners but he giveth grace unto the lowly Prov. 3. 33 34. These are the true sayings of the Lord. I thought not meet to pass by this necessary reproof of the contempt of Holiness which this Land hath been so guilty of and which hath undone so many souls and made such desolations in the Land And now you shall see that I am able to make good the grounds of this reproof and that Holiness is no Dishonourable thing 1. The Holy servants of the Lord have the most Honourable Master in all the world This only is sufficient to weigh down all the Honours of the world if it were ten thousand worlds When the builders of the Temple were asked their names by the Officers of King Darius Ezra 5. 10 11. their answer was We are the servants of the God of Heaven and Earth No King on Earth no Angel in Heaven hath a more honourable Master To be the highest Officer of the greatest Prince is a Title as much more base then this as man is baser then the Infinite God If God can not put sufficient Honour on those that are Related to him tell us who can When Moses went to Pharaoh for the Israelites deliverance he was to speak in the name of the Lord and when Pharaoh spake contemptuously of the Lord as one that he knew not and would not obey how wonderously doth God vindicate his honour his people Let other men be called Knights and Lords and Kings and Emperours may I but be truly called the servant of the God of Heaven I shall not envy them their honours Our relation to so glorious a Majesty doth put an unexpressible Honour upon the poorest person and the lowest works A servant of the Lord is more Honourable in ragâ— in a smoaky cottage or the meanest state then the Emperour of Constantinople or Tartary is in all their Wealth and Worldly Glory And if you think not so your selves why do you so much honour them when they are dead What was Peter and Paul and the rest of the Apostles but poor despised men in the world that travailed about to preach the Gospel and what was their honour but to be the Holy Servants of the Lords Yet now they are dead you are desirous to keep Holy dayes in an honourable memorial of them and Kings and Princes reverence their names What were the Martyrs whose memories are now so Honourable with us but a company of hated persecuted men that were used by others as Butchers do their beasts and worse But because they were the servants of the Lord and suffered for his truth and cause their names are honourable and the names of their greatest persecutors do even stink It s said of Constantine the Great who himself was Greater by his Holiness then his Victories that he was wont to reverence the Bishops that had been sufferers for Christ and kissed the place where the eye abode that one of them had lost for the Gospels sake The Christian Princes that ruled the world were wont to Honour the poorest mortified retired servants of Christ that had cast off the world as perceiving that he is more Honourable that contemneth it then he that enjoyeth it The nearest to God undoubtedly are the most Honourable 2. Consider that as it is God that the Saints are thus Related to so their Relation is so near and their Titles so exceeding high which God himself hath put upon them that it advanceth them to the greatest height of Honour that men on earth can reasonably expect Yea with holy admiration we must say it so wonderful is the Honour which the Glorious God hath put upon his poor unworthy servants thar they durst not have owned it nor thought such Titles meet for men if God himself had not been the Author of them Nor could they have believed that God would so advance them if he had not both revealed it and given them faith to believe his revelation As if it were not enough for us to be his servants he calleth us his friends Joh. 15. 13 14 15. Greater Love hath no man then this that a man lay down his life for his friends Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you Henceforth I call you not servants For the servant knoweth not what his Lord
1 Pet. 1. 15 16. And how high a command and strait a Rule is that given us by Christ Matth 5. 48. Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect Well may it be called an exceeding Righteousness surpassing the Scribes and Pharisees which all have that enter into the Heavenly Kingdom Matth. 5. 20. There is nothing under Heaven that is known to man so like to God as a Holy soul Remember this the next time you reproach such All you that are the Serpents â—eed remember when you spit your venome against Holiness that it is the Image of God that your enmity is exercised against O what a strange conjunction of malignity and hypocrisie appeareth in the enemies of God among us A picture of Christ that is drawn by a Painter or a forbidden Image of God that is carved by an Image-maker in stone that hath nothing but the name of an Image of God these they will reverence and honour though God hath forbidden them to make such Images of him The Papists will 〈◊〉 before them and the prophane among us are zealous for them when in the mean time they hate the noblest Images of God on earth Forbidden Images of God have been defended by seeking the blood of his truest Images Do you indeed Love and Honour the Image of God Why then do you hate them and seek to destroy them And why do you make them the scorn of your continual malice Can you blow hot and cold Can you both Love and Hate both Honour and Scorn the Image of God Search the Scripture and see whether it be not the sanctified heavenly diligent servants of the Lord that are the Honourable Image which he owneth and magnifieth and gloryeth in before the world If this be not true then go on in your hatred of them and spare not These are not Images of stone but of Spirit not Images made by a Carver or a Painter but by the Holy-Ghost himself Not hanged upon a wall for men to look on but living Images actuated from Heaven by spiritual influence from Christ their head and shining forth in exemplary lives to the honour of their Father whom they resemble Matth. 5. 16. It is not in an outward shape but in spiritual wisdom and Love and Holiness of heart and life that they resemble their Creatour Whether you will believe it now or not be sure of it you malignant enemies of Holiness that God would shortly make you know it that you chose out the most excellent Image of your maker under Heaven to pour out your hatred and contempt against And in as much as you did it to his noblest Image you did it unto him 7. If all this be not enough to shew you the Honourable Nature of Holiness I will speak the highest word that can be spoken of any created nature under heaven and yet no more then God hath spoken even in 2 Pet. 1. 4. where it is expresly said that the Godly are partakers of the Divine Nature I know that it is not the Essence of God that is here called the Divine Nature that we partake of we abhor the thoughts of such blasphemous arrogancy as if that grace did make men Gods But it s called the Divine nature in that it is caused by the Spirit of God and floweth from him as the Light or sunshine floweth from the sun You use to say the sun is in the house when it shineth in the house though the sun it self be in the firmament so the Scripture saith that God dwelleth in us and Christ and the spirit dwelleth in us when the Heavenly Light and Love and Life which streameth from him dwelleth in us and this is called the Divine Nature Think of this and tell me whether higher and more Honourable things can easily be spoken of the sons of men 1 Joh. 4. 16. God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him O wonderful advancement high expressions of a creatures dignity Blessed be that Eternal Love that is thus communicative and hath so enobled our unworthy souls with what alacrity and delight should we exalt his name by daily praises that thus exalteth us by his unspeakable mercie Psal 75. 10. 89. 16 17. Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound they shall walk O Lord in the light of thy countenance In thy name shall they rejoyce all the day and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted For thou art the glory of our strength and in thy favour our horn shall be exalted For the Lord is our defence and the holy one of Israel is our King Psal 148. 13 14. Let them praise the name of the Lord for his Name alone is excellent his Glory is above the Earth and Heavens He also exalteth the horn of his people the Praise of all his Saints He hath first exalted our blessed Head even highly exalted him by his own right hand and given him a name above every name Act. 2. 33. 5. 31. Phil. 2. 9. and with him he hath wonderfully exalted all his sanctified ones Heb. 2. 10. 11. For it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons to Glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of One for which cause he is not ashamed to call them Brethren 1 Cor. 12. 12. For as the Body is One and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ What greater honour can man on earth be advanced to And the Honour of the just is communicative to the societies of which they are members The Churches are called Holy for their sakes Prov. 11. 11. By the blessing of the upright the City is exalted but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked Prov. 14. 34. Righteousness exalteth a nation but sin is a reproach to any people Let therefore both the persons and Congregations of the Saints continually exalt the name of God O Bless the Lord for ever and ever and blessed be his glorious name which is exalted above all blessing and praise Neh. 9. 5. The Lord liveth and blessed be our Rock and exalted be the God of our Rock of our salvation 2 Sam. 22. 47. Psal 30. 1. I will extoll thee O Lord for thou hast lifted me up Psal 27. 6. And now shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy I will sing yea I will sing praises unto the Lrrd. Psal 28. 8 9. The Lord is their strength the saving strength of his annointed He will save his people and bless his inheritance and feed them also and lift them up for ever Psal 147. 6. The Lord lifteth up the meek and casteth the wicked down to the ground Thus shall it be done to
maist regard it He is the wise man that God calls wise and he is the fool that God calls fool and that is every one that layeth up riches for himself and is not rich towards God Luke 12. 20 21. He is the Happy man that God calls Happy and he is a miserable man that God counts miserable and who those are you may see in Psalm 1. and many Scriptures before-cited Hear the words and you that are Believers lay up the blessed promise of Christ himself John 12. 26. If any man serve me him will my Father Honour And who cares then for the dishonours of all the wicked of the world Our tryed faith as preciouser then Gold will be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. 7. See 2 Tim. 2. 21. We must learn therefore to imitate our Lord John 5. 41. and not to receive our Honour from men and not to imitate the wicked vers 44. that receive Honour one of another and seek not the Honour that cometh from God There is enough for us in Gods approbation And yet all his servants do imitate their Lord and his Judgement is their Judgement and whom he honoureth them do they honour Angels and Saints and all that enter into the Tabernacle of the Lord do contemn the vile and honour them that fear the Lord Psalm 15. 4. And though no mans Judgement or Praise be valuable in comparison of the Lords yet the Honour and Praise that is given by the wise and Godly is more then a thousand times as much from ignorant ungodly men If the Athenian Orator regarded the censure of Socrates more then of all the rest of his auditors we have cause to judge he Elogies of experienced holy men a greater honour then of thousands of the wicked greater then all their contempt or scorn is able to weigh down The applause of the wicked is oft-times a dishonour in wise mens eyes Was it not Balaams chiefest honour to hear from Balak I thought to promote thee to great Honours but the Lord hath kept thee back from Honour Numb 24. 11. The Honour that God keepeth a man from is no Honour but it is an Honour to be kept from such Honour by the Lord innocent poverty is incomparably more Honourable then Riches by iniquity which is the greatest shame 10. Lastly it is unspeakable everlasting Honour that holiness doth tend unto and which holy men shall enjoy with God The very Relation of a Godly man to his everlasting Glory is an Honour ten thousand times surpassing the Honour of all the Kingdoms of the world If you did but know that one of your poor neighbours should certainly be a King would you not presently honour him even in his rags You may know that the Saints shall raign with Christ as sure as if an Angel from heaven had told you so and more and therefore how should a Saint be honoured If God had but legibly marked out some among you for salvation and written in their fore-heads This man shall be saved would not all the Parish reverence that man Why a Heavenly mind and the Love of God and self-denyal and holy obedience are Heaven-marks infallible as true as the Gospel and written by the same hand as the Gospel was I mean by the Spirit of God himself If a voice from Heaven should speak now of any person in the Congregation and say This man shall raign in Heaven for ever would it not be an Honour above all your worldly Honours Why Holiness is Gods Image and the Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance and beareth witness with our spirits that we are the sons of God and we have the promise and seals and oath of God for our confirmed certainty yea and the Knowledge of God in Christ is the beginning of eternal life John 17. 3. and what would we have more The presence of Christ in a little of his Glory upon the Mount transported the three Disciples And the glympse of the Glory of God which Moses saw did make his face shine that the Israelites could not behold it The approaches of the Saints to God in holy Worship here on earth are exceeding Honourable because they participate of heaven and it is upward that they look 1 Chron. 16. 27. Glory and Honour are in his presence strength and gladness are in his place The soul that is beholding God by faith and conversing with the Heavenly inhabitants is quite above all earthly things and as Angels are more honourable then men and Heaven then Earth so are Believers that converse in Heaven with Angels yea with Christ himself by faith more honourable then terrestrial carnal men But the great Honour is behind yet near at hand when the promised Crown is set upon their heads O mark the Honour that is promised them by the Lord of truth The soul it self before the Resurrection of the body shall be with Christ Phil. 1. 23. Even present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 1. 8. John 12. 26. If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be And at the Resurrection Christ that hath loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it will present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish Eph. 5. 25 26. Will they not be Honourable even in the eyes of the ungodly world when they hear the sentence of their Lord Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Mat. 25. 34. and vers 23. Enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord When Christ shall come to be Glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe 2 Thes 1. 10. Mark here that it is one end of the coming of Christ to be Glorified and admired in his Saints Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints to execute judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him Jud. 14. 15. Our hearts shall be established unblameable in holiness before God even our father at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all his Saints 1 Thes 3. 12 13. we shall then praise him that hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and made us Kings and Priests to God Rev. 1. 5 6. He that overcometh shall be cloathed with white rayment and confessed by Christ before the Father and the Angels of heaven Rev. 3. 5. Yea he shall be a Pillar in the Temple of God and go out no more and Christ will write on him the Name of God and the name of the City of God New Hierusalem which cometh down out of Heaven from God and his own name vers
them to be for their good or in it self more excellent then their good That is Pleasant to one man that is loathsom to another As the food and converse is delightful to a beast that is loathsom and as â—ad as death to man So one mans Pleasure is anothers Pain Even about the common matters of this life variety of complexions educations customs dispositions doth cause a variety of affections the difference between the sanctified and unsanctified the spiritual and the carnal mind doth cause a greater contrariety If therefore the errour of wicked minds or the distemper of your souls do make the Best things seem the worst and the sweetest things to seem most Bitter this is no confutation of my Argument that proves the way of Godliness most Pleasant If I would prove that wine is pleasanter then Vinegar or Bread then dirt or ashes I mean not to appeal to the appetites of the sick It is the sound and healthful that must be judges If a man will suffer his mind to be possessed with prejudice and base thoughts of God himself no wonder if he cannot love him nor take any delight in him And if men have a malignant enmity to Godliness no reason will perswade them that it is most pleasant but what perswades them from that enmity No Reason will perswade a sloathful person that Labour is better then sleep and idleness no Reason will perswade a drunkard glutton or voluptuous wretch that abstinence and continence are the sweetest life Could we change their Hearts we should change their Pleasures Such as men are such are their delights But the thing that I undertake is to manifest to any competent discerner that Holiness is the most Pleasant course and that all the Pleasures of the Earth are Nothing to the Pleasures which the Godly find in God and in a Holy life and if any be not of this mind it is because his souls diseases have made him an incompetent judge And that Godliness is the Pleasant State of life will appear to you 1. From the Nature of the thing it self 2. From the encouragements and helps with which it is attended 3. From the effects and fruits I. The Nature of Holiness is to be found 1. In the Understanding 2. In the will and affections and 3. In the Practice of mens lives And in all these I shall shew you that it is the most Delightful course 1. Knowledge in it self is a pleasant thing to humane nature Ignorance is the blindness of the soul It is not so pleasant for the eye to behold the sun as for the mind of man to discern the truth To Know Good and Evil had never been the matter of so strong a Temptation to Adam if Knowledge had not been very desirable to innocent nature How hard do many even ungodly persons study to know the mysteries of Nature And nothing hath more strongly tempted some wretches to witchcraft or contracts with the Devil then a desire of knowing unrevealed things which by his means they have hoped to attain A studious man hath far more natural valuable Delight in his reading and succesful studies then a voluptuous Epicure hath in his sensual Delights But it is a special kind of Knowledge that Holiness doth initially consist in which transcendeth in true Pleasure all the common wisdom of the worid For 1. How Pleasant a thing must it needs be to know things of so high a Nature To know the Almighty Living God to behold his wisdom goodness and power in his glorious works to be led to him by all the Creatures and hear of him by every Providence and find his Holy Blessed Name in every leaf of his sacred word how sweet and pleasant a thing is this To know the Divine Nature Persons Attributes and Will to know the mystery of the Incarnation of the person natures undertaking performance of the blessed Mediator Jesus Christ to know his birth his life temptations conquests his righteousness his holy doctrine and example the Law and promise the Law of Nature and the Covenant of Grace the sufferings Resurrection ascension glorification and intercession of our Lord to know his Kingdom Laws and Government and his Judgement with his Rewards and punishments to know the sanctifying works of the Holy Ghost by which we are prepared for everlasting life and to know that life though but by faith for which we are here prepared how high and pleasant a thing is this If it be pleasant to know the course of nature in those higher parts that are above the vulgar reach what is it to know the God of Nature and the true use and End of Nature What high things doth the poorest Christian know He knoweth the things that are invisible Think not that faith is so void of Evidence as not to deserve the name of Knowledge We Know the things which we do believe Nicodemus could say from the Evidence of Miracles Joh. 3. 2. We know that thou arâ— a Teacher come from God for no man could do these miracles that thou dost except God be with him Joh. 9. 29. We know that God spake to Moses say the Jews We know that the Scripture testimony is true Joh. 21. 24. 2 Cor. 5. 1. We know even by believing that if this earthly house of our tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens 1 Joh. 3. 2. We know that when we shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is Joh. 14. 20. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you We know that no whoremonger 〈…〉 such like shall inherit eternal life Eph. 5. 5. We know that â—â—â— Labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15. 58. Many such passages of Scripture tell us that Faith is a certain Knowledge and that Invisible things revealed by God are certainly known We know what Saints and Angels are now doing in the highest heavens for God hath told us We know the most high and glorious things revealed by God which we never saw And is not the Pleasure of such knowledge greater then the Pleasure of all the wealth the honour and sensual enjoyments in this world I durst almost refer the case to one of you that are most befooled by your own sensuality If you could go tomorrow and meet with a soul from Heaven or with an Angel that could tell you what becomes of souls and what is done in another world Would you not rather goe to such a conference then go as far to a drinking or a bowling or some such recreation I think you would if it were but to satisfie your curiosity and desire of Knowing Why then should not the servants of Christ more Delight in the reading and hearing the words of Christ that came from the bosome of the Father that hath seen God and is with God and is God himself that telleth them
more certainly of the Invisible things then any Saints or Angels can tell them Why should not this I say be sweeter to them then all the fleshly pleasures in the world O that I could know more of God and more of the mystery of Redemption even of an obedient crucified glorified Christ and more of the invisible world and of the blessed state of souls on condition I left all the Pleasures of this world to sensual men O that I had more clear and firm apprehensions of these transcendent glorious things How easily could I spare the Pleasures of the flesh and leave those husks to swine to feed on O could my Soul get nearer God and be more irradiated with his heavenly beams my mind would need no other recreation and I should as little relish carnal Pleasures as carnal minds do relish the heavenly delights As earthly things are poor and low so is the knowledge of them As things spiritual and heavenly are High and Glorious mysterious and profound the knowledge of them is accordingly Delighful And without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness God was manifest in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world received up into glory 1 Tim. 3. 16. Faith is the Evidence of things not seen Heb. 11. 1. It is far pleasanter by faith to see the Lord thâ—… to see any Creature by the eye of flesh and sweeter â—y faith to see Heaven opened and there behold our Glorified Lord then to see a horse-race or stage-play or any of the folleries of the world 2. The knowledge of things to Come is specially desired and Godliness containeth that Faith which knoweth things to come How glad would men be to be told what shall besall them to the last hour of their lives The woman of Samaria Joh. 4. called out her neighbours with admiration to see Christ as one that had told her all that shee had done But if he had told her all that ever she would do for the time to come and all that ever should befall her it might have astonished her much more Believers know what hath been even before the world was made and how it was made and what hath been since then and they know what will be to all eternity A true Believer knows from Scripture whither mens Souls go after death and how their Bodies shall be raised again and how Christ will come to Judge the world and who shall then be justified and who shall be condemned and what shall be the case of the godly and the ungodly to all eternity And is it not more pleasant to know these things then to possess all the vain delights of the earth Can the flesh afford you any thing so delightful 3. Especially it is desireable and Pleasant to Know those things that most concern us Needless speculations and curiosities we can spare There is a Knowledge that brings more pain then pleasure Yea there is a Knowledge that will torment But to know our own affairs our greatest and most necessary affairs to know our threatened misery to prevent it and to know our offered Happiness to obtain it to know our Portion our Honour our God what can be more Pleasant to the mind of man Other mens matters we can pass by But to Know such things concerning our own souls as what we must be and do for ever and what course we must take to be everlastingly happy must needs be a feast to the mind of a wise man Ask but a soul that is haunted with temptations to unbelif whether any thing would be more welcome to him then the clear and satisfying apprehensions of a lively faith Ask one that lyeth in tears or groans through the feeling of their sin and the fears of the wrath of God and doubtings of his love whether the satisfying Knowledge of pardon and reconciliation and divine acceptance would not be more pleasant to them then any of your merriments can be to you Ask that poor soul that hath lost the apprehension of his Evidences of grace and walks in darkness and hath no light that seeks and cryes and perceives no hearing whether the discovery of his Evidences the assurance that his Prayers are accepted and the light of Gods countenance shining on him would not be Better to him then any Recreation or any Pleasure the earth affords Ask any man at the hour of death that is not a block Whether now the Knowledge of his salvation would not be Better and more Pleasnt to him then all the lust or sport or honours of the world 4. The Knowledge of the Best and Joyfullest matters must be the Best and Pleasantest Knowledge And nothing can be Better then God and Glory Nothing can be sweeter then salvation and therefore this must be the sweetest Knowledge I had rather have the pleasure of one hours clear and lively Knowledge of my salvation and of the special Love of God then to be exalted above the greatest Prince and to have all the Pleasures that my senses can desire The Delights of the flesh are base and brutish and nothing to the spiritual Heavenly Delights of the renewed mind 5. The manner of our Holy Knowledge maketh it more Delightful 1 It is a Certain and Infallible Knowledge It is not a may be or bare possibility It is not It is possible there may be a Heaven and Happiness hereafter But it is as true as the Word of God is true We have his own hand and seal and earnest for it Even his precious promises and oath confirmed by miracles and fulfilled-prophecy and bearing his own image and superscription and shining to us by its own light We have in our hearts the spirit which is Gods earnest by which we are sealed up to the day of our final full redemption And if the soul yet stagger at the promise of God through the remnants of unbelief that shall not make the promise of God of none effect but his foundation shall still stand sure His word shall not pass till all be fulfilled though heaven and earth shall pass away A message by one that were sent to us from the dead were not more credible then the Word of God And this Certainty of Holy Faith and Knowledge is a very great contentment to the soul When the Glory of the Saints is a thing as sure as if we saw it with our eyes and as sure as these things which we daily see it is a great pleasure to the soul when it can but apprehend this joyful Certainty 2. And that there is a certain easiness and plainness in the great and necessary points of faith as to the manner of Revelation doth add much to Faith's Satisfaction and Delight The points that life and death lie on are not left so obscure as might perplex us lest we did not know the meaning of them But they are so plain that he that runs may read them and the simple
for ever and when the force of Love doth open our lips that our mouthes may shew forth his praise it is pleasant both to God and us The Lord himself doth put on joy as delighting in his peoples praise and when they joyn obedience with holy worship they are pleasant in his eyes Jer. 9. 24. Isa 62. 4. 42. 1. Zeph. 3. 17. He meeteth him that Rejoyceth and worketh righteousness and that remembers him in his wayes Isa 64. 5. Would you taste of the sweetest life on earth Learn then to Delight your selves in God Do you want recreation Be acquainted with his Praise Is there not a better cure for Melancholy here among the servants of the Lord then in an Ale-house or in the company of transgressors Their carnal pleasures are unwholsom for you like luscious fruits that will make you sick But the delights of Faith are safe and healthful Fleshly pleasure is windy and deceitful and weakeneth and befools the soul But the Joy of the Lord is our strength Neb. 8. 10. A little may be too much of fleshly pleasures and it is of very hard digestion and leaves that behind that spoils the sport But the further you go in the Delights of Faith the better they are and the sweeter you will find them You may quickly catch a dangerous surfet of your fleshly pleasures but of spiritual Delights the more the better For they are curing reviving and much confirm and exalt the soul Our spiritual pleasures are so heavenly and have so much of God and Glory in them that they must needs prepare the soul for heaven and be excellent helps to our salvation O therefore if you would live a Pleasant life draw near to God and by Faith behold him and by Love adhere to him and take a view of his infinite Goodness and all his perfections and behold him in his wonderous works and then break forth into his chearful praises and you shall taste such pleasures as the earth affordeth not Lanch forth into the boundless Ocean of Eternity and let your hearts and tongues expatiate in the Praise of the Heavenly Majesty and use this work and ply it close and be not too seldom or customary or careless in it and you shall find the difference between the Pleasures of Faith and of the flesh of a Holy and of a sensual life Psalm 135. 2 3. Ye that stand in the House of the Lord in the Courts of the House of our God Praise the Lord for the Lord is Good sing praises to his Name for it is pleasant Psal 71. 8. Let my mouth be filled with thy Praise and with thy honour all the day Psal 96. 2. 6. Sing unto the Lord bless his name shew forth his salvation from day to day Honour and Majesty are before him strength and beauty are in his Sanctuary O that the Lord will but shine upon my soul with the Light of his countenance and open my heart to the entertainment of his Love and hold a gracious Communion with my soul by his holy Spirit and keep open these doors to me and continue this liberty of his House and Ordinances which we enjoy this day that I may joyn with a faithful humble people in holy Communion and in his Praise and Worship and that with a heart that is suitable to these works I shall then say with David Psal 16. 6. The lines â—â—faln to me in pleasant places I have a goodly heritage I will â—â— for no greater pleasures or honours or advancement in this world Let who will surfet on the pleasures of the flesh Here doth my soul delight to dwell Psalm 27. 4 5 6. One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the daies of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his holy Temple For in the time of trouble he will hide me in his pavilion in the secret of his Tabernacle shall he hide me he shall set me up upon a Rock And then shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me therefore will I offer in his Tabernatle sacrifices of Joy I will sing yea I will sing Praises to the Lord. Till I come to the promised Everâ—… Pleasures I shall ask of God no greater Pleasures These would be as much as my soul in the prison of flesh can bear Till 〈…〉 to the Land of Promise may I but have these clusters of 〈…〉 in my present Wilderness I shall not repine My heart 〈…〉 shall be glad and my glory shall rejoyce and at death my flesh 〈…〉 in hope For as the Lord now sheweth me the path of 〈…〉 so in his presence is 〈…〉 of Joy and at his right hand are 〈…〉 for 〈…〉 Pâ—… 4. Another Pleasant Holy Duty is Our holy Communion with Christ and his Church in the Lords Supper This is a holy Feast that is purposely provided by the King of Saints for the entertainment of his family for the refreshing of the weary and the making glad the mournful soul The night before his bitter Death he instituted this Sacramental Feast He caused his Disciples to sit down with him and when they had partaked of the Passover the Sacrament of Promise and had their taste of the old wine he giveth them the New even the Sacrament of the better Covenant and of the fuller Gospel-Grace He teacheth them that his Death is Life to them and that which is his bitterest suffering is their Feast and his Sorrows are their Joyes as our sinful pleasures were his sorrows The slain Lamb of God our Passover that was sacrificed for us that taketh away the sins of the world was the pleasant food which Sacramentally he himself then delivered to them and substantially the next day offered for them The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world John 6. 33. He is the Living Bread which came down from Heaven If any man eat of this Bread he shall live for ever and the bread that he giveth is his flesh which he hath given for the life of the world ver 50 51. Except we eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood we have no life in us Whoso eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood hath Eternal life and he will raise him up at the last day For his flesh is meat indeed and his blood is drink indeed He that eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood dwelleth in Christ and Christ in him As the Living Father hath sent the Son and he liveth by the Father so he that eateth him shall live by him This is that bread that came down from Heaven not as the Fathers did eat Maâ—â—â— and are dead he that eateth this bread shall live for ever I know that to an unbelieving carnal wretch the Sacrament is but a common thing For Christ himself and his Gospel is â—o better in his
your idle games or in spending the Lords day in idleness or sports as we have in the holy works of God Do you think our Delight is not more then yours To our shame but to the praise of God we must say that we have tryed both ways We know what it is to play away much of the Lords day and what it is to imploy it in waiting on the Lord. But since we knew the later we wish we had never known the former That 's our recreation which is your toile and that would be our prison and stocks and toile which is your sport and recreation 6. Another Delightful portion of our work is Holy Conference with the experienced servant of the Lord. There are many things considerable in holy conference that maketh it delightful 1. It is the conference of dearest friends the special Love that all the Godly have to one another doth exceedingly sweeten their communion The very presence of those that we most dearly love is a pleasure to us Much more their sweetest edifying discourse 2. Their conference proceedeth from the spirit of grace and therefore is gracious savouring of that spirit and all the breathings and manifestations of that blessed spirit are very acceptable to those that have the spirit themselves and so can savour spiritual things 3 Their conference is about the highest the most necessary the most excellent things About the most Blessed God and his several Attributes his will and works of Creation and disposing-Providence of nature and Grace about the wonderful mysteries of Redemption the person life and sufferings of the Redeemer his Offices and the performance of them on earth and in Heaven in his Humiliation and his Exaltation and of the sweet Relations that we and all his Church do stand in to Christ our Head our Saviour and Redeemer as also about the gracious workings of the Holy Ghost in first begetting and increase of holiness To open to each other the powerful workings of that Grace that hath raised them above all the creatures and brought them to a contempt of earthly glory and set their hearts on the invisible God and on eternal things that hath renewed them in the inner man and made them hate the things they loved and mortified their oldest strongest sins and quickned them in the exercise of every grace all this is edifying sweet discourse to gracious souls 4. And the rather because it is about the most pertinent affairs They are things that do so neerly concern us that we are glad to speak with those that understand them It is our own case which we hear our brethren open They speak our very hearts as if they had seen them because it is the same work of the same spirit that they describe Yea when they complain of their Infirmities it is with our complaints and they tell us of that which we are troubled with our selves and we perceive that we are not singular in our troubles but that our case is the case of other servants of the Lord. 5. And it is the more pleasant to converse with the Godly because they speak not by hearsay only but by experience They tell us of the discoveries that illuminating grace hath made to their own souls and of the many evils they have been saved from and the communion they have had with God and the prayers which he hath heard and the many and great deliverances he hath granted them They relate their conflicts with temptations and their conquests their strivings against their ancient lusts and how they have overcome them and the sweet refreshings which their souls have had in the exercise of Love and faith and hope They can dive into the Ocean of mercy and speak of the abundant kindness of the Lord and earnestly awaken and invite each other to praise him for his Goodness and to declare his wonderous works for the children of men They can direct each other in their difficulties and encourage each other in holy ways and strengthen one another in holy resolutions and comfort one another with the same comforts that they themselves have been comforted with by the Lord And may not our hearts rejoyce and burn within us while we discourse of such important things as these in such a serious experimental edifying manner They can discourse together of their meeting before the throne of Christ and of the blessed converse which they shall have in Heaven with the Lord himself and with the holy Angels and where they shall be and what they shall do to all eternity in the presence of God where is fulness of joy and before him where are the eternal pleasures O Christians did not your graces languish by your own neglects and your souls grow out of relish with these spiritual and most excellent things your speeches of them would be more savoury you would be more frequent lively and cheerful in your discourse of holy things and then your converse would be more edifying and delightful to each other We shew so little of Grace in our conference that makes it to be but little different from other mens And which is the commonest case and very doleful we most of us remain so ignorant and imprudent that we marr holy conference by our mixtures of unwise expressions and disgrace it to others by our injudicious weakness This is the bane of Christian discourse even the want of holy skill and wisdom and of understanding to speak of the things of God according to their transcendent worth and weight as much and more then the want of zeal But if we could discourse of these holy matters aright with wisdom and with seriousness how sweet how fruitful would the company of holy persons be We should be still among them as in the family of God and should hear that which our souls do most defire to hear and we should preach to one another the riches of grace in our familiar discourse and souls might be converted by the conference of Believers and not all left to the publike ministry Every man would be a helper to his neighbour For the tongue of the just is as choice silver though the heart of the wicked is little worth the lips of the righteous feed many but fools die for want of wisdom Prov. 10. 20 21. The lips of the wise disperse knowledge Prov. 15. 7. Righteous lips are the delight of Kings Prov. 16. 13. and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning v. 21. The lips of Knowledge are a precious Jewel Prov. 20. 15. A mans belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled Prov. 18. 20. The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and his tongue talketh of judgement the Law of his God is in his heart Psal 37. 30 31. Tell me I beseech you you that can be so merry in an Ale-house or in any vain and idle company why should you think that it is not to us a
far sweeter thing to talk of holy edifying matters then it is to you to talk of vanity Is the subject of your discourse more fit to delight a man of wisdom Do you talk of better things then God or of higher things then Heaven or of things that nearlyer concern you then the matters of everlasting consequence When I have heard such people talking and laughing as if they had been the merryest people in the world I have sometimes hearkened to their discourse to hear what talk it was that made them so merry and it hath been nothing but impertinency and folly like a mans talking in his sleep enough to make a mans head ake to hear them I should be quickly tired with their delights The blowing of the wind or the falling of the rain or as Solomon saith the crackling of thorns in the fire hath as much in it to please my ear and much less to displease it then such mens discourse Go to a company of merry fellows as you take them and to a company of serious godly prudent people and secretly write down all the words that you hear from both companies and read them over together when you come home and tell me which is the pleasanter discourse What a hodg-podge of non-sense impertinency levity immodesty worldliness pride and folly shall you find in one and what savoury necessary edifying encouraging and comforting speeches will you find you have gathered from the other It is far pleasanter to be among the singing birds the bleating sheep yea the chattering daws then these idle prating foolish companions For with the former you shall have some natural good without any mixture of sinful evil But in foolsh prating company what shall you perceive but how Nature is depraved how sinners are beside themselves how Satan doth befool them and how God is forgotten while he is present with them and they are laughing in the Devils chains and at the very brink of death and hell And can a man be merry to hear such mirth as this It is a sad spectacle to see men laugh in Bedlam but much more to see them merry in the fetters of their sin and under the threatnings and wrath of God Were you but men of right composed minds I durst referre it to your selves whether holy company and discourse be not like to be be much pleasanter then yours Do you think that the discourse of Learned men about Arts and Sciences History and the like is not more pleasant then your idle talk Much more is the holy discourse of Saints about the things of their salvation Whether do you think the company and discourse of Christ and his Prophets and Apostles or of your merry companions should be the more delightful Can you foâ— shame say that the later were the best Why you know that Christ and his Prophets and Apostles had no such idle talk as yours It was holy things that they discoursed of Can you for shame say that you Love God above all and yet have more pleasure in prating over a pot of Ale then in speaking reverently of God Or would you be believed when you say that your hearts are set on Heaven when you have more delight in talking of any earthly trifle Well! I shall leave it to your consciences and to the judgement of any that will speak with Reason whether the holy converse and conference of the godly be not in it self a more Delightful thing then all the merriments the dotages and fooleries of the ungodly If you think not so it is because your relish and appetite is depraved the Devil hath deluded you and sin bereaved you of your wits 2. I have told you of the Pleasantness of the Duties of Holiness which are to be performed more directly toward God Let us now consider of the rest of a Christian life Which consisteth in our duties to be performed towards men And these are all comprehended in the works of Charity and of Justice 1. And certainly the works of Charity are Delightful There is not a pleasanter work in the world then to do good Even proud men find a great delight in the Reputation or Name of doing good that they may be accounted the great Benefactors of the world that is to be as earthly gods among their neighbours and as the Sun is to the lower world that all may be below them and live by their influence This is the top of that prosperiity that sinful ambition doth aspire to And if the Name of Well-doing be so pleasant to the Proud the Conscience of the thing it self should be more pleasant to the upright Open bounty is the hypocrites glory But to do good in secret is the believers pleasure for their Father which seeth in secret shall reward them openly Yea the very delight of doing good and especially a great or publike good a spiritual and everlasting good is a reward unto it self It is the speech of Christ recited by Paul Acts 20. 35. that it is more blessed to give then to receive There are many things concurring that make it very Pleasant to do good It proceeds from the power of Love and the exercise of Love is pleasant And Love makes our Brethren to be to us as our selves and consequently their welfare is as our own and rejoyceth us as if our selves received all that they receive And what abundant pleasure then hath a Believer When so many thousand of his brethren do receive so many thousand benefits daily from God himself and all these are to the Christian through the union and power of Love as if he had received them all himself But especially when he himself is the instrument of conveyance The poor have comfort in receiving of relief but nothing in comparison of his that gives it if it be done for the sake of Christ in uprightness of heart A poor man receiveth from the giver perhaps but an outward small commodity But the upright giver receiveth from God the sense of his acceptance and peace of conscience with the promise of an everlasting recompence A mite or a cup of cold water given to a Prophet in the name of a Prophet or to a Disciple in the name of a Disciple shall certainly be rewarded Matth. 10. 40 41 42. A true Believer is Covetous to do good as others are to receive it and studyeth for opportunities of laying out his gifts and wealth for God as others study to gather it for themselves As a worldling studyeth for a good bargain that he may grow rich a true Believer studyeth for opportunities to lay out that he hath for God and to improve his Masters stock to the best advantage The Covetous doth not more long to get more then Believers do to be rid of that they have in the way and on the terms as may do most good and be best accepted And they are even afraid lest opportunities of doing good should over-slip them and the seed-time should pass by A
Believer knows that as his life and soul so his worldly riches are nowhere sure but in the hand of God And therefore if they can procure his security and get him to receive it and return it them in Heaven with the promised advantage they have then secured it indeed All is lost that God hath not in one way or other and all is secured that he hath and for which we have his promise This is laying it up in heaven Matth. 6. 21. While we keep it we cannot secure it from thieves When we have disposed of it according to the Will of God upon the warrant of his promise it is then in his Custody and then it is safe Neither rust or moath can then corrupt it nor the strongest thieves break through and steal To be Good and do Good is to be likest unto God and therefore must needs be the sweetest life 2. Works of Justice also have their pleasure For they demonstrate the Justice of God himself from whom they do proceed That which is most Pleasant to God should be most Pleasant unto us And as he hath bid us not forget to do good and to communicate because with such sacrifice he is well pleased Heb. 13. 16. so he hath told us that he delighteth in the exercise of loving-kindness judgement and righteousness in the earth Jer. 9. 24. He hath shewed us what is good and what doth he require of us but to do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with our God Mich. 6. 8. And therefore he commandeth Israel Hos 12. 6. Turn thou to thy God Keep Mercy and Judgement and wait on thy God continually Private justice between man and man and family-justice between parents and children masters and servants and Political justice between the Magistrates and the people do all maintain the order of the world and procure both publike and private peace It is selfishness and injustice tyrannie oppression disobedience and rebellion that procure the miseries of the world But Righteousness is safe and sweet 2. You have heard of the Pleasure of Holy Actions both Internal and External The truth is evident also from the Objects of these Acts and the matter from which a believer may derive his Pleasures And O what an Ocean of delight is here before us Were our powers capacities and acts but answerable to the Objects we should presently have the Joyes of heaven 1. A Believer hath the ever blessed God himself to derive his comforts from He hath his Nature and Attributes to be his comfort He hath his near Relations to afford him comfort and this is more then to have all the world It is a God of Infinite Power and Wosdom and Goodness that we believe in that we Love and Worship and Obey It is also a Father Reconciled to us that hath taken us in Covenant to him as his people through Jesus Christ And where shall we find comfort if not in God It is in vain to look for that from any creature that is not to be found in him Poor worldlings you have nothing that is worth the having but the crumms that fall from the childrens table God is our Portion and the world is yours and yet you have less even in this world then we You have the shadow and we have the substance You have the shell and we the kernell You have the straw and chaff and true believers have the corn Your comforts are shaken with every storm and tost up and down by the Justice of God or the Pride of man But God that is our Portion is unchangeable Yesterday to day and the same for ever We have a Kingdom that cannot be moved Heb. 12. 28. Persecutors cannot take our God from us nor can any thing separate us from his Love Rom. 8. 36. They may separate us from our houses from our Countries from our friends from our riches our liberties our lives from our Books our company and Ordinances but not from God who is our great Delight In poverty in persecution in sickness and at death we have still our interest in God A Christian is never in so low a state but he hath a God to whom he may go for comfort who is more to him then your sweetest pleasures Is it not a pleasure to have such a God as can cure all diseases supply all wants overcome all enemies deliver in all dangers and hath promised that he will do it so far as is for our good If he want water that hath the Sea or he want land that hath all the earth or he want light that hath the Sun yet doth he not need to want delight that hath the Lord to be his God if â—e do but keep in the pathes of grace And are you yet unresolved whether Godliness be the most Pleasant Life Take all your pleasures and make your best of them may I but have the Lord to be my God and I hope I shall never desire to change with you 2. A Holy life is therefore Pleasant because we have a full sufficient Saviour from whom we may daily fetch delight The Eâ—ernal Son of God is become the Healer of our wounds our Peace-maker with the Father the Conquerour of our enemies the Ransom for our sins the Captain of our salvation the Head of his Church and the Treasure of all our Hopes and Joyes Sin and misery are the works of Satan which Christ came into the world to destroy If Hypocrites can steal a little Peace to their Consciences from a false conceit that they have a part in Christ what comfort may it be to the true Believer that hath a sure and real interest in him That is the sad and miserable life when you are out of Christ and strangers to his Covenant and cannot say his benefits are yours but you are yet in your sins without his righteousness But when we have a special interest in him the foundation of our everlasting joy is laid and the heart of sin and misery is broken What fear or sorrow can you name that I may not fetch a sufficient remedy against from Christ What can the Prince of darkness say to our discomfort which we may not answer by Arguments from Christ By this judge of the Comfort of a Holy life If the Godly over-look the Grounds of Joy that are laid in Christ and live in a mistaken sorrow that is not for want of Reasons and warrant to rejoyce but for want of a right discerning of those Reasons But what have you that are ungodly to answer against all the terrours of the Law or to answer against all the accusations of your consciences or to comfort you against the remembrance of your approaching misery While you have no part in Christ you have no right to comfort One thought of Christ to a believing soul may afford more Delight then ever you will find in a sinful life 3. Moreover we have the Holy spirit of Christ that is purposely given us to be
our Comforter And if that be not a pleasant life that is managed by such a Guide and that be not likest to be a joyful soul that is possest by the Spirit of joy it self there is no joy then on earth to be expected Hath God promised his Spirit to comfort you that are wicked in your sin No it is the malicious deceiving spirit that is your Comforter that by his comforts he might keep you from solid spiritual everlasting comforts But the Repenting Believing soul that is united unto Christ and hath already had the spirit for his conversion it is he that hath the promise of the spirit for his consolation And if that be not the most comfortable life where the God of Heaven becomes the comforter we cannot then know the effect by the cause If Life it self will quicken if light it self will illuminate the comforting spirit will certainly comfort in the degree and season as God seeth meet and the soul is fitted to receive it 4. Moreover we have the whole treasurie of the Gospel to go to for our Delight And little doth the sensual unbelieving soul know what sweetness what supporting pleasures may be from thence derived I had rather have the holy word of God to go to for contents then the treasures of the rich or the pleasures of the sensual or the flatteries and vain glory of the ambitious man All that the world doth make such a pudder about which they ride and run for which they so much glory in will never afford them so much Content as one Scripture promise will do to a truly faithful soul I must profess before Angels and men that I had rather have one Promise of the Love of God and the life to come which is contained in the holy Scriptures then to have all the riches pleasures and honours of this world My God this was my Covenant with thee and to this I stand O blessed be the Lord that hath provided us such a Magazine of Delight as is this heavenly sacred Book The Precepts appoint us a pleasant work The strictest prohibitions do but restrain us from our own calamities and keep out of our hands the knife by which we would cut our fingers The severest threatnings do but deterre us from running into the consuming fire and hedge about the devouring gulf lest we should foolishly cast our selves therein And these are the bitterest parts of that holy word But when we read the promises of a Saviour and the wonderful history of his Incarnation and of his holy self-denying life his conquests miracles death resurrection ascension intercession and his promise to return when we read of the foundation which he hath laid and the building which he intends to finish of his rich abundant promises to his chosen what provision do we find for our abundant joys No strait can be so great no pressure so grievous no enemies so strong but we have full consolation offered us in the promises against them all We have promises of the pardon of all our sins and promises of heaven it self and what can we have more we have promises suited to every state both prosperity and adversity What do we need which we have not a promise of And the word of God is no deceit What but a promise can comfort them that are short of the possession May I not have more joy in sickness with a promise then the ungodly without a promise in their health A promise in prison sets a man as at liberty A promise in Poverty is more then riches A promise at death is better then life What I have a promise of I may be sure of but what you possess without a promise you may lose and your souls and hopes with it this night There is no condition on earth so hard to a man that hath interest in the promises in which he may not have plentiful relief We live by faith and not by sense And we reckon more on that as ours which we hope for then which we do possess We are sure that there is no true felicity on earth It then we have a promise of Heaven when Infidels lie down in the dust with desperation have we not a more comfortable life then they 5. Moreover we have Heaven it self to fetch our comfort from Not Heaven in sight or in Possession but Heaven in Promise and seen by faith And if Heaven will not afford us pleasure whence shall we expect it Even sensual men can rejoyce as well in what they see not if they are assured it is theirs as in what they see And why then may not Believers do so much more A worldling when he seeth not his money in his chest or at use or his lands and cattel that are far from him can yet rejoyce in them as if he saw them And should not we rejoyce in the certain Hopes of Heaven though yet we see it not when I am pained in sickness and role in restless weariness of my flesh if then I can say I shall be in Heaven may it not be the inward rejoycing of my soul You know where you are but you know not where you shall be The Believer knoweth where he shall be as truly as he knoweth where he is unless it be one that by his frailty hath not reacht unto assurance who yet hath reached unto Hope What great matter is it if I lay in greatest pain if I can say I shall have everlasting ease in Heaven Or if I lay in prison or in sordid poverty and can say I shall shortly be with Christ Or if I had lost the love of all men and could say that I shall everlastingly enjoy the Love of God Most of your comforts do come in by the way of your thoughts And what Thoughts should so rejoyce the soul as the thoughts of our abode with Christ for ever If a day in the Courts of God be so delightful what is ten thousand millions of ages in the Court of Glory and all then as fresh as at the first day There it is that our sin will be put off Our carnal enmity laid by our temptations will be over our enemies will all have done our fears and sorrows will be at an end Our desires will be accomplished Our differences be reconciled Our charity perfected and our expectations fully satisfied and Hope turned into full fruition O may I but be able with stronger faith and fuller confidence to say that Heaven is mine and when this tabernacle is dissolved I shall be with Christ my life and my death will be delightful and I need not complain for want of pleasure Let who will take the pleasures of the flesh may I but have this In prayer in meditation in holy conference in every duty it is the expectation of approaching blessedness that drops in sweetness into all No wonder if it can sweeten a course of duty when it can make light the greatest sufferings and turn pain into pleasure
the God of the whole earth For a small moment may he forsake us but with great mercy will he gather us In a little wrath he may hide his face from us for a moment but with everlasting kindness will he have mercy on us saith the Lord our Redeemer As he swore that the waters of Noah should no more goe over the earth so hath he sworn that he will not be wroth with his people nor rebuke them For the mountains shall depart and the hills shall be removed but his kindness shall not depart from us nor the covenant of his peace be removed saith the Lord that hath mercy on us Isa 54. 5 to 19. For his anger endureth but for a moment in his favour is life weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning Psal 30. 5. Storms may arise that may affright us but how quickly will they all be over Come my people saith the Lord Isa 26. 20. enter into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment untill the indignation be overpast And as the momentany sorrow of the Godly is forgotten in everlasting Joy so the Joy of the wicked is but for a moment and is drowned in everlasting sorrows Job 20. 4 5 6 7 8 9. Knowest thou not this of old since man was placed upon earth That the triumphing of the wicked is short and the Joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment Though his excellency mount up to the heavens and his head reach unto the clouds yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung They which have seen him shall say Where is he He shall flie away as a dream and shall not be found Yea he shall be chased away as a vision of the night the eye also which saw him shall see him no more neither shall his place any more behold him Job 21. 12 13. They take the Timbrell and Harp and rejoyce at the sound of the Organs they spend their daies in wealth and in a moment go down to the grave It would grieve a considerate believer to look on a worldly sensual gallant in the midst of his vain-glory or any unsanctified man in his mirth and pleasure and to think where that man will shortly be and how the case will be altered with him and where his sport and mirth will leave him As it would sadden our hearts to see one of them struck dead in the place or to see the Devil fetch them away and spoil the game so should it grieve us to fore-see the stroak of death and the condemnation of their souls to everlasting misery And can that man much value the pleasure of ungodly men that doth fore-see this end Would you not laugh at him that were a Prince but for a day and must be the scorn of the world to morrow or that would choose one day of mirth and pleasure though he knew it would fill the rest of his life with pain and misery If folly and stupidity were any wonder it were a wonder that ungodly men can be merry when their consciences tell them that they are not sure to stay one hour out of Hell nor to hold on their mirth till the end of the game But while they are saying Soul take thy ease eat drink and be merry they may suddenly be told from God Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee and then whose is thy wealth and then where is thy sport and mirth Luke 12. 19 20. As the tender flowers and Roses of the Spring do fall before the nipping Frosts and will not live in Winter storms no more will your fading mirth endure the frowns of God the face of death nor scarce a serious fore-thought of the day that you are near And such matter of horrour is continually before you while you are under the wrath and curse of God in a carnal unregenerate state that you are beholden to folly security and stupidity for that ease which hindreth your everlasting ease So that all things considered I must seriously profess that however the ungodly have some pleasant dreams and may live a while in carelesness and stupidity or fleere in the face while the beginning of hell is in their consciences yet I must judge that a life of Faith and Holiness are unspeakably sweet if it were but for this that they save the Conscience from the gripes and fears and terrible thoughts that either sometime feed on the ungodly or are ready to devour their mirth and them So sad and frightful a thing it is to be unsanctified and in a state of sin that it is an high commendation of the delights of Holiness that they so much deliver us from those grievous terrours and are so powerful an Antidote to preserve the heart from the wickeds pangs and desperation Believe it when conscience death and judgement are the messengers to declare your endless sorrows you will then wish and ten thousand times wish that you had some of the Faith and Holiness of the Saints to be a Cordial to your sinking hearts and then you would take it as a matter of unspeakable joy to be found in such a state as you now count sad and melancholy Ask but a dying man whether fleshly pleasure or Godliness be the sweeter thing Now when the delusions of prosperity are gone which do men most relish and which is it that they would own By the consent of all the wise men in the world I may well conclude that a Holy life is incomparably the most pleasant BUT I know there are many things that seem to cross all this that I have spoken which will be the matter of the Objections of ungodly men and therefore must have an answer before we pass any further And the principal Objection is from the too common case of those that fear God who walk so sadly and doubt and complain and mourn so frequently and shew so little chearfulness and joy when many of the ungodly live in mirth that you will think I speak against experience when I say that a life of Holiness is so pleasant and therefore that it is not to be believed You will say Do we not see the contrary in the sadness of their faces and hear it in their sad lamenting words To this I must give many particulars in answer which when you have laid together you may see that all this makes nothing against the Pleasantness of the waies of God And 1. You must difference between the Entrance into holiness and the Progress and between a new beginner that is but lately turned from his ungodliness and one that hath had time to try and understand the wayes of God Those that are entering or but newly come in must needs have sorrow But what is the cause of it Not their Godliness but their ungodliness I mean It is their ungodliness which they lament though it be godliness that causeth them to
mend his rellish and cure his ingratitude And will you do so your selves by Christ and Holiness and say as those Mal. 1. 13. What a weariness is it Take heed lest you provoke the Lord to cast you into a state in which you shall have more cause to be aweary If you are weary of reading and praying and hearing and other holy exercises and weary of heart-searching penitent meditations will you not be wearyer of Hell-fire and of the dolorous reviews of this your folly and of the endless easeless remediless sense of the wrath of God and gripes of your own self-tormenting consciences How just is it with God to give those men somewhat that they have cause to be aweary of that will be thus aweary of his sweetest service and reject the greatest mercies he can offer them as if they were some burdensom worthless things 3. Will you have any pleasure at all or will you have none If any in what then will you place it and whence will you expect it if not from God in a holy life If God be thy trouble what then is fit to be thy delight Darest thou say in thy heart or with thy tongue that sin and sensuality is better Darest thou say that a good bargain or other worldly gain or cards or dice or other sports or ease or good chear or an Ale-house or a Whore are pleasanter things then walking with thy God in faith and holiness and expectation of the everlasting joyes Heaven and earth shall bear witness against thee and common Reason shall bear witness against thee for this inhumane impious folly and ingratitude if ever thou appear at the barr of God with the guilt of such unreasonable sin What! is God no better in thine eyes then a filthy brutish sinful pleasure and is the Love of God no sweeter a work then the Love of sensual delights Saith blessed Augustine He that will sell or exchange his soul for transitory commodities doth censure Christ to be a foolish Merchant that knew no better what he aâ—â— when he gave his Life for those souls that you will not lose a sin for So I may say here Hath Christ bought for you Holy and Everlasting pleasures at the price of his own most bitter pains and precious blood and do you now think them no better then your fleshly beastial delights Is it Christ or you think you that is mistaken in the value of them Did he shed his blood to purchase you that which is not worth the parting with a cup of drink for or the parting with your pleasure or unjust commodity for Sure he that judgeth thus of Christ is far from believing in him with any true Christian saving Faith 4. If you can find no pleasure in God and in a holy life you may be sure that he will have no pleasure in you Wonder not if you find in your greatest need that you are abhorred and loathed by the Lord when you loathed the very thoughts and mention of him in the day of your visitation Marvail not if the most Holy God do take no pleasure in a leathsem sinner when the sinner is so ungodly that he takes more pleasure in the most sordid fading trifles then in God You may offer the sacrifice of your heartless hypocritical prayers and praises unto God and he will count them abomination and cast them back as dung into your faces and tell you that he hath no pleasure in the sacrifice of such fools Read it in his own words Prov 15. 8. 21. 27. Isa 1. 13. Eccles. 5. 4. As you are weary of serving him so he is â—â—â—ary of your services and it is a trouble to him 〈…〉 them and when you spread forth your hands he will hide his eyes from you yea when you make many prayers he will not hear Isa 1. 14 15. When the Jews offered their lame deceitful sacrifices and said Behold what a weariness is it God sends them word that he hath â—o pleasure in them nor would regard their persons nor accept a sacrifice at their hands Mal. 1. 8 9 10. and their solemn feasts he counteth dung And dung would be no acceptable present or seast to your selves if it were offered you instead of meat Mal. 2. 3. My soul saith the Lord loathed them and their soul abhorred me Zech 11. 8. As he that despiseth him shall be lightly esteemed by him 1 Sam. 2. 30. So he that loatheth him shall be loathed by him If any man draw back saith the Lord my soul shall have no pleasure in him Heb. 10. 38. For he is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness neither shall evil dwell with him the foolish shall not stand in his sight he hateth all the workers of iniquity Psalm 5. 4 5. And little do you now imagine what a horrour it will be to you in the day of your extremity for God to tell you that he hath no pleasure in you When you look before you into an eternity of woe which you have no hope to escape but by the mercy of the Lord and he shall dash that hope by telling you that he hath no pleasure in you it will give your souls the deadly wound that never shall be healed In vain then shall you wish that you had chosen in time the durable delights and not the pleasures of filthy sin for so short a season and to your torment you shall know whether God or the world was more worthy of your sweetest affections and delights and how deservedly they are all damned that obeyed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes 2. 12. Who knowing the judgement of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death not only do the same but have pleasure in them that do them Rom. 1. 32. If you will count it your pleasure to ryot in the day-time rather then to walk and work by the light you must look to receive the due reward of such unrighteousness 2 Pet. 2. 13. If it be your sport to sin and to do mischief Prov. 10. 23. you shall have small sport in suffering the punishment of your willful folly 5. If God and Holiness seem not pleasant to you then Heaven it self cannot seem pleasant to you if you consider it truly as it is For the Heavenly felicity consisteth in the perfection of our Holiness and the perfect fruition of God himself by Sight and Love and Joy for ever If the little Holiness be unpleasant and irksom to you which appeareth in the imperfect Saints on earth what pleasure could you take in that supereminent Holiness which is the state and work of the celestial inhabitants If the thoughts and mention of God be unpleasant to you and his holy praises do seem to you as matters of no delight What then would you do in heaven where this must be your everlasting work And if Heaven seem a place of toyle and trouble to you how just will it be that
you are everlastingly shut out How can you for shame beg of God to glorifie you when you take the Glory that he hath promised for a misery If you think that there is a Heaven of such sensual pleasures as you desire or that any shall be saved that only choose Heaven as a less and more tolerable misery then Hell you will shortly find your expectations deceived Lay all these five considerations together and you may perceive what miserable souls those are that can find pleasure in perishing trifles of the world and none in a Holy and Heavenly life Be assured of this whosoever thou art that if God and Heaven and a Holy life be not a thousand times sweeter and more delightful to thee then any thing that this world can afford to thy contentment it is not for want of matter of superabundant delight to be found in God and in his holy ways but it is for want of reason or faith or consideration or a sutable Heart in thee which may make thee fit to know and taste the pleasures which now thou art unacquainted with And is it not pitty that such infinite delights should be set before men and they should lose them all for want of a Heart and appetite to them and should perish by choosing the lowest vanities before them I do therefore earnestly beseech thee that readest these words if thou be one of these unhappy souls that canst find no pleasure in God and Holiness that thou wouldst speedily observe and lament that blindness and wickedness of thy heart that is the cause of this infatuation and corruption of thine apprehension and rational appetite and that thou wouldst presently apply thy self to Christ for the cure of it To which end I advise thee to these following means Direct 1. IF you would taste the pleasure of a holy life bethink you better of the necessity and excellency of it and cast away your prejudice and false conceits which have deceived you and turned your minds against it A child may be deluded to take his own Father for his enemy if he see him in an enemies garb or be perswaded by false suggestions that he hateth him A man may be perswaded to hate his meat if you can but make him believe that it is poyson or to hate his cloaths if you can make him believe they are infected with the plague If you will suffer your understandings to be deluded so far as to overlook the amiable nature of holiness and to think the image of God is but a fancie or that a heavenly life is nothing but hypocrisie and that it is but pride that maketh men seek to be holyer then others and that makes them they cannot goe quietly to Hell in despight of the commands and mercies of the Lord as others do I say if the Devil the great deceiver can possess you with such frantick thoughts as these what wonder if you hate the very name of Holiness How can you find pleasure in the greatest good while you take it for an evil If you will believe all that the Devil and his foolish malicious instruments say of God and of a holy life you shall never love God nor see any loveliness or taste any sweetness in his service Dir. 2. Come neer and search into the inwards of a holy life and try it a little while your selves if you would taste the pleasure of it and do not stand looking on it at a distance where you see nothing but the out side nor judge by bare hearsay which giveth you no taste or relish of it The sweetness of honey or wine oâ— meat is not known by looking on it but by tasting it Come neer and try what it is to live in the Love of God and in the belief and hope of life eternal and in universal obedience to the laws of Christ and then tell us how these things do relish with you You will never know the sweetness of them effectually as long as you are but lookers on It was the similitude which Peter Martyr used in a Sermon which converted the Noble Neopolitane Marquess of Uicum Galeacius Caracciolus who forsook wife and children and honours and lands and countrey and all for the liberty of the Reformed Religion at Geneva saith he If you see the motion of dancers a far off and hear not the Musick you will think they are frantick but when you come near and hear the musick and observe their harmonical orderly motion you will take delight in it and desire to joyn with them So men that judge at a distance of the truth and holy ways of God by the slanderous reports of malignant men will think of the godly as Festus of Paul that they are beside themselves But if they come among them and search more impartially into the reasons of their course and specially if they joyn with them in the inwards and vital actions of religion they will then be quickly of another mind and not go back for all the pleasures or profits of the world In the works of Nature and sometimes of Art the outside is so far from shewing you the excellencies that it is but a comely vaile to hide them Though you would have a handsome cover for your watch yet doth it but hide the well ordered frame and useful motions that are within You must open it and there observe the parts and motions if you would pass a right judgement of the work You would have a comely cover for your Books but it is but to hide the well composed letters from your sight in which the sense and use and excellency doth confist You must open it if you will read it and know the worth of it A common spectator when he seeth a Rose or other flower or fruit-tree thinketh he hath seen all or the chiefest part But it is the secret unsearcheable motions and operations of the vegetative life and juice within by which the beauteous flowers and sweet fruits are produced and wonderfully differenced from each other that are the excellent part and mysteries in these natural works of God Could you but see these secret inward causes and operations it would incomparably more content you He that passeth by and looketh on a Bee-hive and seeth but the Cover and the laborious creatures going in and out doth see nothing of the admirable operations within which God hath taught them Did you there see how they make their wax and honey and compose their combs and by what laws and in what order their Common-wealth is governed and their work carryed on you would know more then the out side of the â—ive can shew you So it is about the life of Godliness If you saw the inward motions of the quickening spirit upon the soul and the order and exercise of every grace and by what laws the thoughts and affections are governed and to whom they tend you would then see more of the beauty of Religion then you can see
as it were written in your fore-heads Such drooping pittiful creatures must all be that will lead so precise and heavenly a life Do you think your carnal neighbours and acquaintance will not be deterred from a holy life when they see that since you turned to it you do nothing but complain and droop and mourn as if you were worse then you were before And was it not enough that you hindred their conversion before when you were in your ignorance and sin by your wicked examples and encouragements but you must hinder it still by your dejected discouraging countenances and conversations Yea perhaps your later excessive troubles may do more to hinder their conversion then your perswasions and examples did before And can you find in your hearts to lay such a stombling block as this in the way of your miserable acquaintance to keep them from salvation Will it not grieve you to think that you should have so great a hand in mens damnation even since you are returned to God your selves I know by your sorrows and complaints that the perdition of a soul is no small matter in your eyes O therefore take heed of that which may procure it The use that Satan would have you make of these very words is to go away with more dejection and to say What a wretch am I even unmeet to live that by my griefs am not only miserable my self but also hinder the salvation of others And thus he would draw thee to grieve over all thy griefs again and because thou hast exceeded in thy sorrows to be more excessive and so to add one sin unto another and to do more because you have done too much â—o that grief is all that he can allow thee and one grief shall be made the reason of another that thou maist run thus in a round of misery and stop in grieving and go no further Whereas thou shouldst so grieve for such grief as may call thee off and stay thy grieving and thy repenting should be the cure and forsaking of thy sin and not the renewal of it But on the other side if thou couldst live a heavenly joyful life that the glory of thy hopes might appear in thy countenance thy conference and conversation how many might hereby be drawn to Christ and caused to think well of the ways of God Did the Godly but exceed the rest of the world in holy joy and cheerfulness of mind as much as they exceed them in happiness and in the causes of true joy what an honour would it be to Christ and holiness and what an attractive to win the ignorant to embrace the motions of salvation How easily would they let go their sinful pleasures their gluttony and drunkenness and filthiness and gaming if they did but see by the carriage of believers that they were like to exchange them for much greater joys You cannot expect that ignorant men that never tryed a holy life and have a natural enmity against it should see the excellency of it immediately in it self But they will judge of Religion by the persons that profess it That shall seem to them the best Religion that hath the best and happiest professors And those seem to them the happiest and best that have the greatest comforts and conquer most the troubles of their minds You can expect no other but that countrey people that know not the nature of medicines themselves should judge of them by the success and think that he followeth the best advice who is most healthful and of longest life And so will the ignorant judge of the holy doctrine and commands of God by the lives of those that seem to follow them O therefore behave your selves in the Church of God as those that remember that they live in the presence of a world of men whose happiness or misery hath much dependance on your lives If you were debating the case with a sensual wretch would you not tell him that Holiness is a state of greater pleasure then his sin Tell him so then by your example as well as by your words Let him see as well as hear of the confidence and comforts of true believers Were Christianity exemplified in the lives of Christians how excellent a state would it appear were we but such as the holy doctrine and Christian pattern requireth us to be even the blind malicious world would be forced to admire the attainments of the Saints Though they might hate them yet they would admire them Were we such as Stephen that was full of faith and of the Holy Ghost and could stedfastly look up to heaven by faith and see there the Glory of the living God and Jesus standing at his right hand till we were raised to his boldness in defence of the truth and his quiet submission to the greatest sufferings the world would not then be able to resist the wisdom and spirit by which we speak but the faces of believers would sometime appear to the terrour of their persecutors as the faces of Angels as Act. 6. 5 10 15. 7. 51 55 56 60. They are high and glorious things that are assured to us in the promises of the Gospel Did but these things appear in the stedfast faith the confident hopes desires and joys of us that do expect them believers then would be the wonder of the world and our joys would so shame their dreaming childish brutish pleasures that doubtless multitudes would flock in to see what it is that so delighteth us that they might be made partakers of our joys Even as Simon Magus himself when he saw the Miraculous guift of the Holy Ghost would fain have bought that guift with money so men that are yet carnal in the gall of bitterness and bond of their iniquities will yet see a desirable excellency in the Joy of the Holy Ghost and wish they were partakers of such joys though yet they are unacquainted with the way to attain it I do therefore intreat you all that believe and hope for an everlasting Crown that you will shew the poor deceived world the preciousness of your faith and hopes and the high prerogative of the Saints in your â—â—answerable cheerfulness and joy and live not with as dead and uncomfortable hearts as those that have nothing but a vexatious transitory world to comfort them much less to be more dejected then these wretched souls Do you not desire the conversion of your carnal friends and all about you would you not be glad if you could further it O that you could try this pleasant way and shew them that you have found the unvaluable treasure And as the Rich live in greater pompe and at higher rates then the poor so you that speak of the Riches of Grace and live in the family of the Lord O shew the world the dignity of your state by your holy courage and comfortable behaviour and by your living above the pleasures and griefs of unbelievers When they glory in their
is the highest and best condition on earth He is the best and happyest man that is likest to the glorified Saints and Angels And judge your selves whether a dejected or a rejoycing Christian be liker to these inhabitants of Heaven Object But you will say by that rule we should not mourn at all for they do not Whereas God delighteth in the contrite soul Christ blesseth mourners and weepers Answ 1. Your resemblance of the Saints in Heaven must be propertionable in all the parts You must labour first to be as like them as you can in Holiness and then in Joy If you could be as far from sin as they you need not mourn at all But because you cannot you must have moderate regular sorrows and humiliation while you have sin But yet withall you must endeavour to imitate the heavenly Joyes according to the measure of your Grace received 2. And it is such a regular contrition consisting in humble thoughts of our selves and tending to restore us from our falls and sorrows unto our integrity and joy which God delighteth in And it is such mourners as these and such as suffer for righteousness sake from men that Christ pronounceth blessed But the inordinate troubles of the soul that exclude a holy delight in God though he pardon yet he never doth encourage 6. Consider also that a great part of your Religion yea and the most high and excellent part doth consist in the causes form and effects of this holy joy and chearfulness 1. As to the causes of it they are such as in themselves are requisite to the very being of the new creature Faith and Love which are the Head and Heart of sanctifying grace are the causes of our spiritual joy An unwilling heavy forced obedience may proceed from meeâ— Fears and this will not prove an upright heart But when once we Believe Everlasting Glory and Love Christ as our Saviour and the Father as our Father and felicity and Love a holy frame of heart and life as the image of God and that which pleaseth him then our obedience will be chearful and delightful unless accidentally we trouble our selves by our own mistakes If you can truly make God and his will and service your Delight you may be sure you Love him and are beloved by him as being past the state of slavish fear 2. And I have shewed you that Joy in the Holy-Ghost is it self one part of that grace in which Gods Kingdom doth consist Though not such a part as a Christian cannot possibly be without yet such as is exceeding suitable to his state and necessary to his more happy being 3. And without this holy Delight and Joy you will deny God a principal part of his service How can you be thankful for the great mercies of your Justification Sanctification Adoption and all the special graces you have received or for your hopes of Heaven it self as long as you are still doubting whether any of these mercies are yours or not and almost ready to say that you never received them Nay you will be less thankful for your health and life and food and wealth and all common mercies as doubting leâ—t they will prove but aggravations of your sin and misery And for the great and excellent work of Praise which should be your daily sacrifice but specially the work of each Lords day how unfit is a doubting drooping distressed soul for the performance of it You stiffle holy Love within you and stop your mouthes when they should be speaking and singing the praises of the Lord and disable your selves from the most high and sweet and acceptable part of all Gods service by your unwarrantable doubts and self-vexations And when all these are laid aside how poor and lean a service is it that is left you to perform to him Even a few tears and complaints and prayers which I know God will mercifully accept because even in your desires after him there is Love but yet it is far short of the service which you might perform Nay your Heavenly-mindedness will be much supprest as long as you are sadly questioning whether ever you shall come thither and it will be yours or not 7. Are you not ashamed to see the servants of the Devil and the world so jocund and your selves so sad that serve the Lord Will you go mourning so inordinately to Heaven when others go so merrily to Hell Will you credit Satan and Sin so much as to perswade men by your practice that sin affordeth more pleasure and content then Holiness 8. You could live merrily your selves before your Conversion while you served sin And will you walk so dejectedly now you have repented of it As if you had changed for the worse or would make men think so I know you would not for all the world be what you were before your change Why then do you live as if you were more miserable then before 9. You would be loth so long to resist the sanctifying work of the Spirit And why should you not be loth to resist its comforting work It is the same Holy Ghost that you resist in both Nay you dare not so open your mouthes for wickedness and plead against Sanctification it self as you open them on the behalf of your sinful doubtings and plead for your immoderate dejections If you should how vile would you appear 10. Lastly consider that God will lay sufferings enow upon you for your sins and suffer wicked men to lay enow on you for well doing and you need not lay more upon your selves You have need to use all means for strength to bear the burdens that you must undergo and it is the joy of the Lord and the hopes of Glory that are your strength And will you cast away the only supports of your soul and sink when the day of suffering comes How will you bear poverty or reproach or injuries how will you meet approaching death if you feed your doubts of your salvation and of the Love of God in Christ which must corroborate you O weaken not your souls that are too weak already Weaken not your souls that have so much to do and suffer and that of so great necessity and importance While you complain of your weakness encrease it not by unbelieving uncomfortable complaints Gratifie not the Devil and wicked malicious men so far as to inflict on your selves a greater calamity then all their malice and power could inflict It is a madness in them that will please the Devil to the displeasing of God though the pleasing of their own flesh be it that moveth them to it But for a man to please the Devil and displease God even when he displeaseth his own flesh by it also and bringeth nothing but sorrow to himself by it this is in some respects more unreasonable then madness it self Many cast away their souls for Riches and Honours and carnal accommodations but who would do it for poverty sickness or disgrace So
though many undo their souls for fleshly pleasures and delights yet he is a strange man indeed that will offend God even for self-tormenting grief and trouble O therefore dear Christians as you have let go all your sensual pleasures for the pleasing of your Lord do not let go the pleasures of his love for which you have let go all The Lord taketh pleasure in his people even in them that fear him in those that hope in his mercy and the meek he will beautifie with salvation Psalm 147. 11. It is meet therefore that his people take pleasure in the Lord that the Saints be joyful in glory that they sing aloud upon their beds and that the high praises of God be in their mouthes Psalm 149. 4 5 6. O let not the Spirit of God be thought to be like the evil spirit that vexed Saul that filled his mind with melancholy anguish and confusion It is the evil spirit that renteth and tormenteth those that it possesseth though the spirit of God doth humble and by ordinate sorrow prepare for joy But its proper work is to sanctifie and to comfort and to establish the Believer with Peace that passeth understanding As it is a greater sign of the operation of the Spirit of Christ to restore the lapsed by a spirit of meekness and to bear one anothers burdens and exercise tenderness compassion and charity then to censure and envy and call for fire from heaven So even at home though there we are allowed to be more rigid and censorious it is a more sure and satisfactory discovery of the Spirit of Grace within us if we are raised to a sweet delight in God and quieted in his Love and carryed out in chearful obedience thankfully acknowledging the grace that we have received and waiting in the use of means for more then if we are only turmoiled and troubled in our minds and tossed up and down with unprofitable griefs and fears that abate our Love to God and our holy joyes It is the still voice that doth most fully acquaint us that it is Christ the Prince of Peace that speaketh to us Though at first when he findeth a sinner in a state of enmity and rebellion he often useth to thunder and lighten and call to him as to Saul Why persecutest thou me Wilt thou kick against the pricks Wilt thou fight against heaven Or canst thou bear the wrath of God Almighty Yet to the humbled penitent soul there is none in all the world so tender as Jesus Christ the Lamb of God the Churches husband that cherisheth them as his own flesh O that you did but know the greatness and tenderness of his love to you while you lie trembling under the unjust apprehensions of his wrath It would then so transport you with ravishing delights that the world would see that the Saints of the most High have higher Pleasures then the world affordeth BUt I know you will say Alas what need you exhort us to spiritual pleasures and consolations Do you think there is any man in love with sorrows or unwilling to live a joyful life O that you could tell us how we might attain it and you should quickly see that we are willing Answ And if you are so willing to attain it as to be also willing to use the means you shall quicklyer see that I shall certainly inform you how you may attain it and how you may come to find a life of Holiness to be the most sweet and pleasant life I therefore desire and require you to practise these Directions following Direct 1. Make it your first and principal business to attain the fullest fixed knowledge of God in his Attributes and Covenant-Relations to you 1. Study him in his Attributes If infinite Goodness take not up the soul with Love and with Delight it is because it is not known Where there is all things that the soul of man desires to its highest felicity and content and yet contentment and delight is wanting it must needs be ignorance and distance that is the cause If the Sun seem not light to you it is because you have not eye-sight or look not on the light If you find no pleasure in the most pleasant food it is because your appetites are diseased or you do not taste it If your most suitable and most affectionate friend seem not amiable to you it is because you know not his suitableness and love So if the eternal God that is infinitely powerful wise and good most perfect and most suitable to your highest affections do not possess you with abundant Pleasures and Delights of Love it is because you are unacquainted with him Study then his infinite perfections and be much with him in secret prayer and meditation where the retired soul having fewest avocations is fittest for the most near familiar converse And still remember that it is Love it self that you have to do with For God is Love It is the fountain of all delights and pleasures that you draw near to It is a cold heart indeed that fire it self cannot warm and a dead heart indeed that life it self cannot revive Conceive of God as God and you will delight in him Abhort all unworthy diminutive thoughts of him Set up his Love and Goodness in your estimation as infinitely above all the creatures Believe it the Love of your dearest friends is an inconsiderable drop to the Ocean of his Love Think not of him as cruel or an enemy if you would love him or delight in him Love and Delight are never forced by bare commands and threatnings but drawn forth magnetically by attractive Goodness Were not God most amiable and friendly and desirable to us it is not saying Love me or I will damn thee that would ever have caused man to love him but rather to fear and hate and fly from him Think but of Gods Love and Goodness and Fidelity as you do of his Power and then you will find that there are rivers of pleasure in his presence and fulness of joy at his right hand the fore-tastes whereof are the only delights that can quiet the troubled thirsty soul 2. And if you say What is all this to me any more then to the ungodly world on whom the wrath of God abideth I answer Thou art in Covenant with him and he is thine in the Covenant Relations even thy Reconciled Father thy Saviour and thy Sanctifier No husband is so inviolably bound to a wife nor will so faithfully answer his Relation as the blessed Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier unto thee Didst thou well know and consider what it is to have God himself to be thine in Covenant to all these uses and to all the ends that thou canst reasonably desire it would fill up thy soul with satisfying delights There is nothing that thou wantest but what belongs to God to give thee in one of these three great relations And sooner shall the day be turned into night and the frame of
fancie that it is an excellent thing to be Rich and Renowned and to rule over others or to have plenty of all accommodations for your flesh and then because God satisfieth not these carnal fancies you think he neglecteth you oâ— deals hardly with you As if every person in the Town should murmur because they are not Bâ—yliffs or Justices when if they had the wit to know it they are but kept from a double encumberance and from a burden which perhaps would break their backs When the people are thus befooled by the flesh into brutish conceits of the nature of felicity and into an over-valuing of these worldly things they are then always eitheir tickled by deluding pleasures or troubled for the crossing of their carnal wills so that they grow out of relish and liking with the true and durable delights Take heed therefore of this carnality Dir. 4. Study the greatness of the mercy which you have received You abound with mercies and yet undervalue them and over look them and sweeten not your souls with the serious observation and remembrance of them you study principally your afflictions and your wants And thus when you live in a land that floweth with milke and honey you will not feed on the prepared feast but keep still the gall and wormwood in your mouths and how then should you be acquainted with the pleasures of a holy life Yea you must use to look more to the spiritual part of all your mercies and see the love of God that appeareth in them and taste the blood of Christ in them and lose not the kernel and take not up with the common carnal part which every wicked man can value and enjoy Consider in all your mercies what there is in them for the benefit of your souls much rather then how they accommodate your flesh Could you do thus you would find the benefit of afflictions and that the denyal of what you have accounted your necessary mercies is not the smallest of your mercies And thus judging truly by the spirit and not by the flesh there is no condition except that of sin in which you might not find cause of joy Dir. 5. Take heed of sinning Keep still upon your watch against temptation sin is the cause of all your sufferings when it promiseth you delight it is preparing for your sorrow when it flattereth you into presumption it is preparing for despair when it promiseth you secresie and security it prepareth for your shame and be sure your sin will find you out Numb 32. 23. If therefore you have offended delay not your Repentance and spare not the flesh in your return but unless the honour of God forbid it take shame to your selves by free confession and make the fullest reparation of the injury that you can to God and man If you would thus get out the thorn that vexeth you the ways of God would be more pleasant Dir. 6. Daily live in the exercise of faith upon the everlasting pleasures Dwell as at the gates of Heaven as men that are waiting every hour when they are called in and when death will draw aside the vaile and shew them the blessed face of God And take heed that the enmity of interposing Death prevail not against the Joys of faith But look to Christ that hath conquered it and will conquer it for you And if thus you could live as strangers here and as the Citizens of Heaven that are ready to step into the immortal pleasures you would then taste the Pleasures of a holy life in the first fruits and foretasts thereof It is your Treasure that must Delight you As your Heart must be there so your pleasure must be derived thence Strangers to Heaven will be strangers to the Believers Joys As the pleasure of the Carnal world consisteth in the sense of what they have in hand so the pleasure of Believers consisteth in the fore-apprehensions of what they shall enjoy with God for ever If therefore you exercise not those apprehensions if you look not frequently seriously and believingly into the world that you must live in for ever how can the comforts of that world illustrate and refresh you in this present world The Light and Heat which is the Beauty and Life of this lower world proceedeth not from any thing in this world but from the Sun which is so far above us and sends down hither its quickning influence and rays They are not the genuine comforts of Christianity which are not fetcht from the world above Dir. 7. If you would have the experience of the Pleasures of a life of Faith and Holiness neither desire nor cherish any fears or sorrows but such as as are subservient to Faith and Hope and Love and preparatory to Thankfulness and Joy Think not Religion consisteth in any other kind of sorrows Nay if any other should assault you be so far from taking them for your duty or religion as to resist them and lament them as your sin That is true and saving Humiliation 1. which makes you vile in your own eyes and loath your selves for sin 2. And maketh you more desirous to be delivered and cleansed from your sin than to live in it how sweet or gainful soever it may seem and 3. which maketh you set more by a Saviour to deliver you than by all the pleasures riches and honours of the world What ever want of Grief or tears you find if you have these signs your Repentance and humiliation is sincere Do not therefore refuse your Peace because you have not greater sorrows nor disturb your souls by strugling for excessive sorrow Take not part with them but do your best to cast them out if they are such as would destroy your Love and Joy and drive you from Christ and hinder your Thansgivings Know that the Life of your Religion consisteth in the Holy Love of God and of his Image and servants and holy ways Love is your duty and your felicity and reward Therefore let all tend to the exercise of Love and value most those means which most promote it and think your selves best when you abound most in Love and not when you are overwhelmed with those Fears and Griefs which hinder Love Study therefore above all the Love of God revealed in Christ which is the best attractive of your Love to him and hate all suggestions which would represent God unlovely and undesirable to you Dir. 8. Use cheerful company Not carnal but holy not such as waste their time in unprofitable frothy speeches or filthy or prophane or scornful jeastings But such as have most of the sense of Love and mercy on their hearts and are best acquainted with a Life of Faith and whose speeches and cheerful conversations do most lively manifest their sense of the Love of God and of the Grace of Christ and the eternal happiness of the Saints There is a delightful and encouraging virtue in the converse of joyful thankful heavenly believers Use
be grievous to them 6. The very Bodily informities of Believers are a constant help to keep them humble They have all this treasure but is earthen vessels 2 Cor. 4. 7. Their souls are here so poorly lodged in corruptible Tabernacles of earth and so meanly cloathed with frail diseased mortal flesh that it is madness to be proud 7. And the many and great afflictions of the godly are medicines that are purposely given them by their Physicion to cure Pride and keep them humble Why else must their sufferings be so many and why must they daily bear the Cross but that they may be conformed to the image of Christ 8. And to the same end it is that God doth let loose upon them so many enemies All Satans temptations and the worlds allurements and vexations and all their disappointments here and all the scorns and mocks of the ungodly and the censures and slanders of wicked tongues and often bitter persescutions what are they but the bitter medicines of God permitted and ordered by him though cansed by the Devil and wicked men to save the servants of the Lord from the sin and danger of being lifted up Do you say that their Honour will make them proud Why you that thus oppose them and despise them are â—uring them of their pride and do not know it as Scullions scoure the rust off the vessels for their Masters use and as Leeches draw out the blood that causeth the disease and as the Jews by their sin promoted the Redemption of the world by the death of Christ When God seeth his servants in danger of being lifted up above measure he oft sendeth a messenger of Satan who may be an Executioner of Gods chastisements to buffet them 2 Cor. 12. 7. Sometimes by slanders sometime by reproaches sometime by imprisonments or greater sufferings and sometimes by horrid troublesom temptations 9. The very foresight of death it self is a humbling means and the last enemy Death is yet unconquered and our Bodies must corrupt in dust and darkness and be kept in the grave as common earth till the Resurrection that the soul may not grow proud that hath such a body 11. And the Day of Judgement is so described to us in the Scripture as tends to keep the soul in awe and in Humility To think of such a day and such a reckoning before such a God me 〈…〉 should humble us 11. And our Absolution and Glorification at that day is promised us now but conditionally though God will see that the condition be performed by all that he will save And therefore the poor soul is oft so far to seek about the certain sincerity of his own Faith and Repentance that most of the godly are kept in fears and doubtings to the death Yea and Humility and Self-denyal are part of this Condition And all their Honour and Glory with Christ is promised to the Humble only Humility is commanded them in the Precept Humility is it that they are exhorted to by the Ministers And Pride is threatened with everlasting wrath and described as the Devils image So that Holiness hath all the advantages against Pride that can be here expected 12. To conclude the Godly know that as they have nothing but from God so they have nothing but for God so that their own Honour is for him more then for themselves and it is essential to their Holiness to make God their end and set him highest and referr all to his Pleasure and Glory So that you see now that we may Honour them that fear the Lord Psalm 15. 4. without being guilty of making them proud and that we must not deny them the Honour that God hath given them as their due for fear of their being proud of it Though this as all things else must be prudently managed to particular persons according to their various states And therefore let me here warn all you that profess the fear of God Take heed lest you be proud of any thing that God hath Honoured you with For if you be you see what an Army of Reasons and Means you sin against and consequently how great your sin will be And your consciences and the world shall be forced to justifie God and his Holy wayes and to prove against you that it was not long of them that you were proud and that none in the world was more against it then God and Holiness and that it was not because you were so Religious but because you were no more Religious And if Pride of Knowledge Gifts or whatsoever be unmortified in you it will certainly prove that you are none of the sanctified when your profession of Sanctity will never prove that Sanctity was a cause or confederate in your sin AND now I have shewed you the Honour of Godliness let us briefly and but briefly consider of your Honour that reject it and see then whether the godly or ungodly are more Honourable 1. Ungodly men have the Basest Master in the world Would you know who Let Christ be Judge John 8. 44. Ye are of your father the Devil and the lusts of your father you will do 2 Tim. 2. 26. They are taken captive by the Devil at his will that is to do his will It is he that stirreth you up to filthy talking to speak against Godliness to curse and swear and you do his will His will is that you should neglect a holy life and you do his will His will is that you live not after the spirit but after the flesh and you do his will O poor souls Do you think it is only Witches that expresly Covenant with him that are his miserable servants Alas it is you also if you do his will For if you will believe either God or common reason to whom you yield your selves servants to obey his servants you are to whom you obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness Rom. 6. 16. The godly themselves were the servants of sin till they obeyed from the heart the doctrine of the Lord v. 17. And are you not come to fair preferment to be the Devils drudges Though he should cloath your Bodies with Purple and fine linnen and feed you sumptuously every day yet indeed you are no better as the case of that miserable man may tell you Luke 16. It is the greatest Baseness to have so Base a Master 2. And it is but an ignoble Base de sign that the ungodly carry on in the world What is it but to provide for and please their flesh It aimeth at nothing beyond this life And a beast can eat and drink and sleep and play and satisfie his lust as much as they A swine can carry a mouth full of straw to his lodging and a bird can build a nest for her young ones And what do ungodly men more in the world whether Gentlemen or Beggars the flattered Gallants or the poor day-labourers if they be not such as first seek Heaven