of thy childe and the blood of thy servant at thy hands one day Dost thou love thy childe a Heathen will teach thee thy duty To love saith hee Arist Ethic. l. 2. c. 4. is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to desire good things for such and according to the utmost ability to endeavour to accomplish them There i◠but one good thing that is absolutely necessary for thy childe and that is a happy union to God What hast thou yet done to the effecting of that Many are eagerly bent upon those designs how their children Sueton. in Calig c. 42. like Caligula in the Historian may tumble in a room full of gold but take little pains for the gold of Ophir Prov. 3.14 15. and that wisdome which is far above Rubies Know that all the sins of Relations under your charge that are not reproved and corrected for will become yours Every drunken fit of thy servant will be counted thine to answer for Every turn of pleasure that thy children and servants take in the fields upon Gods holy day with thy approving connivance Isa 58.13 2 Ep. Ioh. 11. will turn to thy account at the great Tribunal If thou wouldest finde favour with God labour to divert them from the waies that lead to the chambers of death He that neglects his duty herein does what in him lyes to damn his childe and himself too As if he were in league with death in covenant with Satan Isa 28.15 and with Hell were at an agreement as if it were a laughing matter for himself and all his Relations to fall into the bottomless pit of fire and brimstone Oh how many families are the filthy cages of unclean birds like so many hog-styes and sinks of all manner of abominations Wee can scarce walk the streets but we shall hear swearing and cursing and polluting Gods holy Name and many obscene and filthy speeches and see great wickedness committed even by young striplings and this is because they are not instructed and taught the fear of the Lord at home by their Parents and Rulers There be many ruffling Gallants in our times that look upon holiness as a crime and count it their bravery to go towards Hell with open mouth with a full swinge that swim down the Rivers of Riot and Luxury into the dead Sea 1 Pet. 2.13 That are so far from reproving others for sin that they commend and incourage them rather that have much ado to bear with servants that perform excellent service 1 Pet. 4.4 Sueton. in Nerone c. 5. if they will not drink healths and be debaucht as well as themselves more like Nero than Christians If their children serve Satan never so much they matter it not so they do not ruine their Patrimony No wonder that their children be profligate and vile that have such sad examples The Spirit of God takes notice that Ahaziah was a wicked man 2 Chron. 22.3 and gives this for the reason His Mother was his counsellour to do wickedly Such as will be angry rather if their Relations do not walk in the waies of sin Aelian de animal l. 5. c. 16. Rom. 3.13 like the Wasps in the Naturalist that dip their stings in the poison of Vipers Their angry tongues are tinctured in the venome of sin Oh how much good might a Theophilus do when greatness and holiness run in a blood how would the generations to come rise up and bless them how much honour might they bring to God how would Religion flourish how would our fields bring forth peace and our streets run down with rivers of Righteousness 3. Hence we learn the horrible sin of such that cause others to do wickedly that egge on others to the commission of sin that encourage children to prophane the Sabbath to lye and swear and seem to approve of delight and rejoyce in it Who knowing the judgement of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death not only do the same Rom. 1.32 but have pleasure in them that do them 4. Hence we may infer what great wisdome is requisite in managing those means that are proper and useful in order to the salvation of our Relations what integrity of heart what sincerity what holy contempt of the scorns of this wicked world Dost thou take upon thee the study of wisdome Epictet c. 29. saies the Stoick prepare thy self speedily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be laught to scorn and expect that many should mock at thee how much greater is the depravation of mens hearts since the fall in opposition to true holiness Many a bitter taunt and scoff must thou go under but in wisdome pass it by regard it not you work for souls One soul begotten to God is better than the gaining of whole Kingdomes and Empires 5. To such as live under holy Rulers and Governours of families that you would highly esteem them for their labour of love that you would count it a singular mercy that God hath given any of you a holy Father or a holy Mother such as have spent many an hour in secret for thy good that have sought it earnestly at the Throne of Grace that thy life might be hid with God in Christ Look upon their instructions as so many Pearls Prov. 1.9 their Reproofs as so many Rubies to wear about thy neck Not to be reproved in the way of sin is a great judgement Hos 2.6 To have these Thorns and Briars cast in the way to our sinful lovers is a great mercy Oh how many blessings do children injoy by means of praying-parents count it a great and an admirable favour from God 6. To such as are employed and exercised in this excellent duty and study to perform it conscientiously Who seriously endeavour that their yoak-fellows may be the Spouses of Christ their posterity the children of our heavenly Father their servants the freemen of Christ their kindred of the Blood-Royal of Heaven Let mee say as our blessed Lord to Zacheus This day is Salvation come to this house This day hast thou fellowship with the Father and with the Son The God of Heaven goes along with thee Though thou dost not see the desired fruit of thy labour at present do not despond the work is Gods It is like to some of those seeds which sown in the earth will not come up till the second Spring Iames 5.7 The husband-man waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it until hee receive the early and latter rain It is often seen that there is a mighty Power of God going along with such constant endeavours at length the diligent hand may make thee rich The Grace that dwelt in the Grandmother Lois in the Mother Eunice dwelt afterward in their little Son Timothy Though God is not tied by any bond of nature 2 Tim. 1.5 yet fervent prayer is of a high esteem in the sight of God The use
in our love towards them 1 John 2.15 Love not the World neither the things that are in the World by taking too much complacency and delight in them nor our rejoycing Eccles 11.9 if thou dost know for all these things God will bring thee to Judgment Nay our Saviour when the Disciples returned with joy that the Devils were subject to them Luk. 10.17 which was a divine and extraordinary gift calls them off and shews them a fit matter of rejoycing wherein they could not exceed not absolutely forbidding but limiting them with a rather but rather rejoyce that your names are written in heaven Ver. 20. nor in our glorying in them Jer. 9.23 24. Oh what need of moderation here In our eating drinking sleeping lawful recreations rayment in the using of our parts Learning Riches Honours and other Creature comforts If the enjoyment of these outward things had been so considerable think you our blessed Saviour who could have commanded them would have wanted them What are the best of them Are thy Riches any thing but of the earth and earthly Thy Pleasures any thing but a little titillation of the flesh of no permanent nature lives but one instant and dies as fast Thy Honour any thing besides a hollow eccho or noyse that like the circle of the water is but of little circumference and soon gone Doth not every cross wind or wave break and dash it away Is not he that 's great in this City scarce known in the next He that 's King in one nation unknown to many other nations How short lived I pray Have there not been many great ones we never heard of Those we read do we not skip their names often not troubling our selves with the thought or remembrance of them If we do what are they the better Read Psal 103.14 15 16 17 18. Nay have not the greatest judgments of God followed excess in things lawful I will trouble you with none but a few Scriptural Examples Two of the greatest the World ever knew the flood and destruction of Sodom and the rest of the Cities of the Plain to what are they ascribed but Security and Excess They did eat they drank they married Wives they were given in marriage What follows The flood came and destroyed them all Luk. 17.27 Likewise in the daies of Lot they did eat they drank they bought they sold they planted they builded all again things lawful in themselves but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all v. 28 29. If David too much pride and glory in the number of his people and fall to numbring them God quickly follows with Pestilence and makes them decrease seventy thousand 1 Chron. 21.14 If Nebuchadnezzar will vaunt Is not this great Babylon that I have built by the might of my power and for the honour of my Majesty While the word is in his mouth there falls a voice from heaven The Kingdom is departed from thee and he is turned to grass with the Oxen Dan. 4.30 33. And his Son Belshazzars great Feast fills up the measure for which he was that night slain and his Kingdom taken Dan. 5.1 30 31. If the rich man will think thus and so will I do and say Soul thou hast goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and be merry He is not only stigmatized for a fool but this night shall thy soul be required of thee follows Luk. 12.19 20. Nay if the wicked servant begin to eat and drink with the drunken his Lord will come unexpectedly and cut him asunder and appoint his portion with the hypocrites Mat. 24.49 51. How great then this sin is Gods judgments being alwaies equal and proportioned to our offences what slight thoughts soever we may have of it you cannot but by these Examples perceive Nay rather what a big-bellied Monster is it Full of many deadly sins full of Atheism unbelief idolatry carnal security preferring these things before God Christ heaven and happiness Take heed and beware therefore herein lest while they speak thee fair they wound thy heart ◠Towards the evills of this life 1. We must moderate our fears of these befalling us according to the good they threaten to deprive us of As we must not fear these groundlesly so when there is just cause and apparent danger we should not be senseless and secure nor fear all alike or over-fear any Security is the fore-runner to destruction 1 Thes 5.3 which these should awake us out of but not so affect us or affright us as to put us past our selves and our duty when the storm threatens us we must not with Jonah be asleep but praying and endeavouring as the poor Marriners for preservation Or as the Disciples Lord save us we perish though they were too fearful in regard of Christs being with them who was sufficient security for their safety There is a provident fear that opens our eyes to foresee dangers and quickens us in the use of lawful means for their prevention such was the good Patriarch Jacobs of Esau his destroying him and his company that makes him pray send presents to his brother divide his bands and use all prudent means of preservation Gen. 32. This we must have for security and putting far away the evill day when God threatens us even with temporal judgments is a great sin and hath a woe pronounced upon it Amos 6. whereas this makes us wisely serve the providence of God But then there is a diffident fear that distracts us and cuts all the nerves and sinews of lawful care and endeavours that brings a snare with it Prov. 29.25 and often drives us upon unwarrantable means or makes us sit down in despair This we must beware of by a due moderating our fears according to the impendent evill which must be judged by its opposite good Not fearing all evils alike the loss of some wealth like the loss of our health because health is the better good no nor all evils of the same kind alike not a Tertian Ague like the Stone this by its exquisite pain depriving us more of the natural comfort of health and more endangering our lives And not over-fearing the greatest viz. Death called by Job The King of terrors 15. and 14. and by the Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all terribles the most terrible which our Saviour as man feared with a natural fear yet chargeth we should not over-fear it Mat. 10.28 Luk. 12.4 Ye◠though we should fear political or publike evils as Wars Famine Pestilence more than our own personal of which you see I speak only all along in regard those are greater the publick good being be ter and to be preferred before any private yet not these too much 2. We must moderate our grief trouble for these according to the good we want or lose by them There are imaginary evils that are of our own creation begot brought up
whether there be any profit in his service Job 21.14 15. and Job 22.17 when those mercenary hypocrites had lost their worldly profits preferments which they had gained by the profession of Religion when the tide was turned and prophanness only countenanced they cast off all and said It is in vain to serve God and what profit is it that we have kept his Ordinances Mal. 3.14 15. But he that cometh to God must have such apprehensions of him as render him Gracious as well as Glorious Merciful as well as Righteous for we come to God sitting on his Throne of Grace Heb. 4. ult and we have to deal with mercy for supply to all our needs And he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11.6 Why did David prefer the lowest place or office in the House or Church of God a Porters plâ—ce before the highest preferments in the Tents of ungodliness Psal 84.10 He gives the reason Ver. 11. For the Lord is a Sun and shield A Sun to confer all good a shield to preserve from all evill He will give Grace and Glory what can a man desire more Yet if there be any good thing beside Grace and Glory he will not withhold it such a bountiful Master is God in his House and such a one his Servants apprehend him Now we cannot have right apprehensions and due conceptions of the Grace Mercy Good will of God to us but from the manifestations of God in Jesus Christ It is God in Christ reconciling the World to himself and beseeching us to be reconciled to him 2 Cor. 5.19 20. When God gave Moses a sight of his glory in the Clift of the Rock I will saith God make all my goodness pass before thee and he proclaimed the name of the Lord Exod. 34.6 7. The Lord the Lord God Mâ—rciful Gracious Long-suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth forgiving iniquity transgression and sin He presents himself in his richest robes of State and all his Attribuâ—es arrayed in a Livery of Grace Nor can we have right apprehensions of God as a bountiful rewarder of his Servants but through the manifeâ—tations of himself to us in Christ for we cannot expect the reward of Debt but of Grace God in Christ and upon the account of Christ is â—he most bountiful Rewarder So Christ tells his Disciples Joh. 12.26 If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall my servant be also If any man serve me him shall my Father honour We serve the Father in serving the Son never was service rewarded with such honour For saith Christ The Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me and believed that I am sent of God Joh. 16.27 4. Abraham had such apprehensions of God as did beget a comfortable perswasion of faith for his acceptation with God in that his drawing near to him It is the mind of God that such as come to him should have such apprehensions of him as one that will accept them embrace them when he discovers nothing but wrath and displeasure against them that stand in opposition against him Isa 27.4 5. Fury is not in me Let a man take hold of my strength that he may make peace with me and he shall make peace with me That holy man knew that all his happiness consisted in the enjoyment of God therefore he said It is good for me to draw near to God but was he sure God would accept him I have put my trust saith he in the Lord God Psal 73.27 28. Now such apprehensions of God as beget a faith of acceptation with God in our approaches to him can spring only from the manifestations of God to us in Christ that is supposed by judicious Interpreters to be spoken of Jesus Christ Jer. 30.21 who is said to engage his heart to approach unto the Lord and God saith I will cause him to draw near and he shall approach unto me Christ hath boldness and liberty full security of acceptation with God and hereby he hath procured us liberty boldness and acceptation with God Heb. 4.14 16. Seeing we have a great high Priest passed into the Heavens Let us come boldly to the Throne of Grace Heb. 10.19 21 22. Having boldness to enter into the Holiest And having an high Priest over the House of God Let us draw nigh to God with truth of heart and full assurance of faith Ver. 2. For the acceptation of our persons and services Eph. 3.12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him From what hath been laid down we may conclude That such apprehensions or Conceptions of God wherewith we are to draw near to God to perform every duty and every part of Divine Worship must flow from the manifestations of God in Jesus Christ The Use Use I shall make of this Point is to inform Christians how much it concerneth us to acquaint our selves more intimately with God as he hath manifested himself in Jesus Christ In whom alone we can have right apprehensions and due Conceptions of God without which we cannot perform aright any kind of Worship to God 1. Without due apprehensions and conceptions of Goâ— we câ—nnot perform any part of that Natural Worship we owe to God we cannot love him feâ—r him trust in him pray unto him praise him c. 2. Without the right apprehensions and due conceptions of God in Jesus Christ we cannot perform aright any part of his Instituted Worship 1. For all the Ordinances of Gods Instituted Worship as the Sacrifices and Sacraments under the Law so the Sacraments and other Ordinances under the Gospel seem to have immediate relation to and near dependance on Christ God manifested in the flesh You may observe they consist of two parts The one Natural the other Spiritual The one Ex ernal the other Internal The one as it were the Body the other the Soul of it The one representing the Humanity the other the Divinity of Jesus Christ So that every Oâ—dinance of Worship is as it were a representation of Christ Incarnâ—te 2. The Divine Essence or Godhead in Jesus Christ seems to be the proper object of all Worship The School-men have concluded to which I find our learned and pious Divines have given their assent That the Essence of the Godhead is the primary and proper Object of Worship Dr. Owens Commun with the H. Ghost Chap. 8. This Divine Essence is wholly in Christ Col. 2.9 In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily In that Body or Humane Nature of Chrâ—st the fulness of the Godhead dwelt not locally as Locatum in loco or contentum in continente but by personâ—l Union And the Divine Essence as it is in Christ seems to be the pâ—oper Oâ—ject of all Gospel-Worship It was so under the Law in Types and Figures and such was the Tabernacle and Temple Worship in its
Moses In the Mount there will God be seen Gen. 22.14 3. And Lastly * Superata Tellus Sydera donat Boet. Faelix post fata Ad delicias juvat ire periclis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heaven will pay for all at last Where every Tear shall be wiped off Rev. 21.4 The plesantness and security of the Port will make more than full Amends for the danger and difficulty of the passage And This is That wherein Faith Triumphs as knowing That He that for Christ's sake in obedience to Christ's will in conformity to Christ's Word in aiming at Christ's glory wears the sharpest Crown of Thorns Here shall by Christ have His Temples incircled with the fairest Crown of Glory hereafter As in this life an hundred fold so in the World to come Life Eternal Mark 10.30 How may we cure Distractions in holy Duties Mat. 15.7 8. Ye Hypocrites well did Isaiah prophesie of you saying This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth and honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from me IN this Chapter you will find a Contest between Christ and the Pharisees about their Traditions and old Customs which they valued above the Commandments of God as it is usual with formal men to love Chains of their own making and to make conscience of a Tradition when yet they can dispense with a Commandment and thereby discovering themselves to be very hypocrites who are more in Externals than in Internals in shew than substance minding the formality rather than the spirit and life of Service to God our Lord confirms his censure by the testimony of the Prophet Isaiah Ye hypocrites c. I shall not stand explaining the words Drawing nigh is a phrase peculiar to Worship especially to Invocation mouth and lips are put for all external Gestures and that bodily exercise which is necessary to the worship of God especially for words But their heart is far from me it chiefly intendeth their habitual averseness from God but may also comprize the wandering and roveing of the mind in duty which is a degree and spece of it of that I shall treat at this time and my Note will be That distraction of thoughts or the removing of the heart from God in Worship is a great sin and degree of hypocrisie The Text speaketh of gross hypocrisie or a zealous pretence of outward Worship without any serious bent of heart towards God but any removal of the heart from him in times necessary to think of him is a degree of it for though distractions in Worship are incident to the people of God yet they are culpable and do so far argue the relicks of hypocrisie in them I shall shew 1. The greatness of the sin 2. The Causes 3. The Remedies First That there is such a sin sad experiences witnesseth vain thoughts intrude importunately upon the soul in every duty in hearing the word we are not free Ezek. 33.31 nor in singing but chiefly they haunt us in Prayer and of all kinds of prayer in mental Prayer when our addresses to God are managed by thoughts alone there we are more easily disturbed words bound the thoughts and the inconvenience of an interruption is more sensible as occasioning a pause in our speech and as in mental Prayer so when we joyn with others to keep time and pace with their words unless the Lord quicken them to an extraordinary liveliness we find it very hard but how great a sin this is is my first task to shew I shall do it 1. By three generall considerations 2. By speaking particularly to the present case First Generally 1. Consider how tender God is of his Worship Lev. 10.3 He hath said That he will be sanctified in all that draw nigh unto him To sanctifie is to set apart from common use Now God will be sanctified that is not treated with as an ordinary person but with special heedfulness of soul and affection becoming so great a Majesty when you think to put him off with any thing you lessen his excellency and greatness and do not sanctifie him or glorifie him as God and therefore God pleadeth his Majesty when they would put a sorry Sacrifice upon him as if every thing were good enough for him Mal. 1.14 Cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a male and voweth and sacrificeth to the Lord a corrupt thing for I am a great King saith the Lord of hosts To be sleight in his service argueth mean thoughts of God Eccl. 5.2 Be not rash with thy mouth nor hasty to utter any thing before God for God is in heaven and thou upon earth We forget our distance and by a bold prophaneness are too fellow-like and familiar with God when we are not deeply serious and exact in what we do and say in his presence but only babble over a few impertinent words without attention and affection Certainly God is very sensible of the wrong and contempt we put upon him for he noteth all Heb. 4.13 All things are naked and open to him with whom we have to do And he will not put it up for he telleth us Exod. 20.8 That he will not hold them guiltless that take his Name in vain and he will be as good as his word For the least disorders in Worship have been sorely punished witness the stroke from heaven upon Aarons Sons Lev. 10.2 The breach made upon Uzzah 2 Sam. 6.6 And the havock made of the Bethshemites 1 Sam. 6.19 The diseases that raged at Corinth 1 Cor. 11.30 And though judgments be not so rise and visible now upon our unhallowed approaches to God yet he smiteth us with deadness where he doth not smite us with death for a man is punished otherwise than a boy and judgments are now spiritual which in the Infancy of the Church were temporal and bodily Certainly we have all cause to tremble when we come before the Lord. 2. The more sincere any one is the more he maketh conscience of his thoughts is more observant of them and more troubled about them Isa 55.7 Let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts then he beginneth to be serious and to have a conscience indeed when his thoughts trouble him So David Psal 119.113 I hate vain thoughts but thy Law do I love We think thoughts are free and subject to no Tribunal if there be any errour in them we think it is a very venial one they betray us to no shame in the world and therefore we let them go without dislike and remorse But a child of God cannot pass over the matter so he knoweth that thoughts are the immediate births of the soul and do much discover the temper of it that there Actions begin and if vain thoughts be suffered to lodge in him he will soon fall into further mischief and therefore he considereth what he thinketh as well as what he speaketh and doth and if at all times especially in Worship where the workings of the inward man are
1.21 23. When they knew God they glorified him not as God What follows upon this sloâ—h in not glorifying God as he ought to be glorified vers 23. They charged the glory of the incorruptible God into an image like to corruptible man and to birds Gâ—avissimum peccatum Aqui 2ª 2 ae quaest 94. act 3. Priâ—cipa ecrimen summus hujus saeculi reatus Tert. Omnis qui ad paradisum redire desiderat oportet transire per ignem aquam Aug. in serm ad Lipp and fourfooted beasts and creeping things Sloth is the high-way to Superstition and idlenesse the road-way to Idolatry 1. Cor. 10.7 neither be you idolaters as were some of them as it is written the people sate down to eate and drink and rose up to play by which is implied their idlenesse was the cause of their idolatry When Demas grew lazy and slothful in his Ministry he turned Priest in an Idols Temple where he had lesse work and more wages 2 Tim. 4.10 consider idolatry and superstition are God-provoking Land-destroying Soul-damning sins no wonder John should conclude his Epistle with keep your selves from Idols 1 Joh. 5.21 III. Consider how impossible it is that creeping Snails in Gods way should ever get to their journies end fair and softly goes far but never so far as Heaven Matth. 11.12 The Kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force * Brugens Non dormientibus provenit regnum caelorum nec otio desidia torpentibus beatitudo aeternitatis in geritur Prosp. de vit contempl Qui stadium currit eniti debet contendere quaÌ„ maxime possit ut vincat Tul. 3. off Petent cum ardore Humanum quiddam dicoâ— Eras Sicut non qualitatis sed aequalitatis Cyprian was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Orat. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a metaphor taken from storming Cities and Castles they storm Heaven hang their Petarhs of Praiers on heaven gates and blow them open that get Heaven by a conquest storming is not work either for the fearful or the slothful 1 Cor. 9.24 So run that you may obtain not creep but run not run but so run not indifferently but industriously as the racers in the Istmian Games to which the Apostle here alludes who did stretch and strein their legs and limbs that they might gain the prize Luke 13.24 strive to enter in at the strait gate Heaven hath a very strait gate we must crowd yea crush our selves if ever we get in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 play the Champions to a very agony for many I say unto you will seek to enter in and shall not be able 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall seek with industry and indeavour IV. Consider how equitable it is that you should be as active in the way of God as you were once in the way of sin and Sathan Rom. 6.19 I speak after the manner of men i. e. I speak Reason as well as Religion as you have yielded your members servants unto uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity As not of quality but equality even so now yield your members servants to righteousnesse unto holinesse even so in the same manner and the same measure this very consideration wrought effectually upon Paul himself who as he had formerly sinned more than all so afterwards he laboured more than all the time he could not recover by recalling he does recover by redeeming What a peircing and prevailing spur would this be to a dull and sluggish soul Ah soul what a shame what a sin is this to be a slow sâ—aâ—l in the way of â—od that have been a swift Dromedary in the way of sin V. Consider hoâ— you contradict your own Prayers your very Pater Noster wherein you desire Gods will should be so done by you on earth Angelos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 esse putat Plutarch as it is done by the Angels in Heaven now those winged Mercuries and messengers of Heaven do speedily and spritâ—fully execute the Commandments of God Psal 103.20 Blesse the Lord ye his Angels which excel in strength that do his Commandments hearkning to the voice of his word These heavenly Puâ—sevants stand listning to know their Princes royal pleasure and then they go to execute it 1. With all celerity and speed they are said to have wings Isa 6.2 which are the Emblems of velocity v. 6. the Seraphim came flying to Isaiah with a coal from the Altar Gabriel is sent post from Heaven Dan. 9.21 being câ—used to sly swiftly extraordinary hast that he seemed weary and tired the Angels flying upon Gods embasie is alwaies very swift the Schoolmen make a doubt whether they do ab extremo ad extremum transire yet it seems they can mend their pace in their flight from Heaven to Earth and so back again which is as those wise Astronomers Clavius in Sphaeram who have been there to measure it backward and forward above one hundred sixty millions of miles 2. With ardency and intensenesse they are called Seraphs Isa 6.2 Igniti fiery yea a flame of fire Heb. 1.7 Elijahs charet and horses of fire were Angels appearing in those forms 2 Kings 2.11 of all the Elements fire is the most intense and active the mouth of fire devours and destroys all that comes before it many of the Heathens did worship fire for their god because it devoured all their other gods these fiery Hosts of God are very devouring one of them in one night destroyed a hundred fourscore and five thousand Assyrians 2 Kings 19.35 3. With alacrity and cheerfulnesse it is a great part of their joy in Heaven that they do Gods service with joy as soon as ever they were created they rejoyced that they should be employed in such honourable service Job 38.7 When the morning Stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy how cheerfully did the Angels bring tidings of Christs birth to the World as appears by their praising God to the highest of their power Luke 2.14 Glory be to God in the highest c. surely if you consider Angels worship and doing Gods will it will make you leave off your sloth or your service either cause you to pray better or not to pray at all VI. Consider you lose the very soul and life of your duty if you do not perform it as for your life and soul You come to seek and see the face of God in the glasse of ordinances Psal 27.8 Lambunt petram mel non sugunt Cyp. de Caen. dom to have communion with him to fetch comfort from him to get some kisses of him Cant. 1.3 to mortifie some lust to increase some grace to strengthen your assurance to testifie your duty to expresse your affection c. now spiritual sloth hinders you of all this dull and drowsie eyes cannot see God heavy and slothful hearts cannot receive those benefits and blessings from God Torpor non sinit Deum esse beneficum Sloth
voluntati objiciuntur sint aut finis aut media haec ob sclum finem appeti media qua media dicunt tantum relationem ad finem non autem fundamentum ipsius tum quia contraria est puritati amoris quo deo inhaerere debemus Ita enim ut passim apud sol diores vitae spiritualis magistros videre est amare debâ—mus deum ut cum illo etiaÌ„ sub illo nihil aliud amemus sed omnia duntaxat in illo quia alià s non amamus illuÌ„ ex toto corde sed aliud quidpiam ab illo occupat cor nostrum Gibieuf de lib. dei creat l. 1. c. 11 p. 66. is our love to other things regular when the alone goodness of God moves us to love them as the alone respect to health makes me use physick the means hath no proper goodness distinct from the goodness of the end those means which were profitable though they remain unchanged in themselves yet they become unprofitable by the alone change of the end e. g. Health being recovered physick is unprofitable which while we were infirme was profitable so we are not to love any means without relation to the end because 't is contrary to the purity of that love which we owe to God for we ought so to love God that with him or under him we love nothing else but all things only in him because otherwise we do not love him with our whole heart e. g. In mens loving their wives and wives their husbands in Parents loving their children children their Parents 't is a rare pitch to love all these in God that is to advance our love to God by them and so far as any of them draw off our love to God to say to them as Christ to Peter Get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence unto me Love is extended to good the more good therefore any thing is the more it is to be beloved But thou O Lord my God saith Bradwardine f Tu autem Dâ—mine deus meus es omnis boni bonum super omnia bona bonus bonum infinitissimè infinitum quomodo tantum plus amabo te quam tu amas me quantum tu es melior me debeo amare te finaliter propter te omnia alia propter te tu autem non amas me proptér me nec caetera propter me debeo etiam amare te infinite quodammodo intersive supra quod cumque bonum finitum tu autem non sic amas me Debeo quoque amare te infinite quodammodo extensive volendo scil potiùs quotcumque quantacunque bona alâ—a etiam meipsum non esse quam te vel quam te semel offendere tu vero non sic amas me quia non debeo sic amari c. Bradwardin de causa dei l 2. c. 34. p. 627. seqq art the Good of every good good above all things that are good a good most infinitely infinite how much therefore should I rationally love thee should not my love be proportionably infinite I would I could so love thee but how shall I that am so very little finite love thee infinitely And yet without so loving thee how will there be kept any due proportion in loving thee who dost infinitely exceed all other lovely things I ought to love thee infinitely as to the manner though I cannot as to the act of my love i. e. I ought to love thee finally for thy self or else I may love thee in some sort infinitely as to the Act both intensively and extensively in some sort intensively i. e. more intensely more firmly more strongly then any finite good because I love them but for thee In some sort extensively by comparing all things how many or how great soever with thee and loving thee before above all that I had rather all things in the world and my self too to have no being then once to offend thee But Lord thou lovest thy friends in an unspeakable manner more then they can love thee O therefore thou great Lord thou great Good that fillest heaven and earth why doest thou not fill my very little soul O my soul that art so little so miserable why dost thou not open all thy little doors why dost thou not extend thy utmost capacity that thou mayest be wholly possest wholly satiated wholly ravished with the sweetness of so great love specially seeing thou art so very little yet nothing less will satisfie thee O therefore my most loving God I beseech thee tell me what may most effectually draw out my love to thee considering what prevention of love what privative positive good things I receive from thee infinite in greatness infinite in multitude It is a wonder that any one can think of these things and not be wholly swallowed up of love wholly turned into love But I see Lord 't is easier to speak these things and to write them down than to do them Thou therefore most good most powerful Lord to whom nothing is difficult give I beseech thee that I may more easily do these things in my heart then utter them with my mouth Open I beseech thee thy most bountiful hand and enable me that nothing may be more easie nothing more sweet nothing more delightfull then most effectually and most affectionately to fulfil that which I speak about loving of thee Lord give me leave a little to presume above my hope and to plead with thee about thy magnificent goodness humane friendship will not give the repulse to a poor wanting begging friend O therefore most liberal Lord help me that I may love thee Christians 't is worth while to make it your business to climb up to this love-extasie This you will find to be a compleating rule an effectual means and a singular exercise of exact and conscientious walking I shall briefly name I intended largely to have prest two arguments or motives to perswade the use of these directions 1. You cannot possibly get rid of your Conscience g Nec vi extinguitur nec fraude adeò altè inhaeret animo Tutissimus licet homo sit tamen securus non est ipsas tenebras nequitia imo tuta omnia timet multos fortuna liberat paena metu neminem Exemplo sunt potentissimi Imperatores qui aâ—cani licentiam nacti sine arbitris sine testibus c. Episcop Instit theol P. 1. c. 3. p. 10 11. Ipsa conscientia propriis stimulis agitatur atque compungitur sui ipsa efficitur accusatrix testis Origen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 2. c. 11. p. 707. therefore be perswaded to get a good one there 's nothing more common then for wicked men to do what they can to extinguish Conscience they flatter it with carnall reasoning they bâ—ibe it with mock devotions they wound it with hainous provocations they scar it with customary wickedness they trample it under foot by sinning in despight of it
two Caleb and Joshua followed God fully Numb 14.24 Of the four grounds in the Parable only one held out Many of John Baptists hearers left him and fell away Joh. 5.35 Many of Christs hearers and disciples Joh. 6.65 Many of Peters 2 Pet. 2.20 Many of Pauls 2 Tim. 1.15 and 1 Tim. 5.15 Many of John the Evangelists hearers 1 Joh. 2.19 They went out from us because they they were not of us for had they been of us they would no doubt have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us But none of these were ever sincere Christians and sound at the heart We wonder not to see an house built on the sand to fall or seed not having root wither or trees in the parched Wilderness decay Jer 17.6 or Meteors vanish or Blazing-stars fall or Clouds without rain blown about or Wells without springs dryed up So for Hypocrites to prove Apostates no strange thing and utterly to fall away There are four wills some have observed 1. The Divine will never alters or turns 2. The Angels will hath turned never returns 3. The will of man faln turned and in conversion returns 4. The will of Apostates after that grace received and abused turns away and never returns but becomes like the fallen Angels 2. Even Godly and gracious persons are subject to fall and therefore must not be secure they must work out their salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2 12. they are bidden to fear least they should fall short Heb. 4.1 Stand fast 1 Cor. 16.13 Take heed least they fall 1 Cor. 10.12 Look diligently least any fail of or fall from so is the other reading the grace of God Heb. 12.15 Take the whole armour of God that they may be able to stand Eph. 6.12 Even the very Elect have this root of bitterness and seeds of Apostacy within them Even Peter had sunk if Christ had not put forth his hand to save him from the water Mat. 14.31 and had been winnowed as chaff Luk 21.31 32 if Christ had not pray'd for him that his faith should not fail Let not him therefore that puts on his harness boast as he that puts it off 1 King 20.11 3. Yet a truly regenerate soul a plant of Gods planting by the water side a plant or graffe grafted into Christ and rooted in Christ can never fall away totally or finally Peter could not when Christ pray'd for him The Elect cannot Mat. 24.24 In the general Apostacy of the Christian world and the greatest persecutions under Rome-pagan and Rome-pseudo-christian Antichristian both times when all the world wandered after the Dragon and the Beast they who had their names written in the Lambs book held out and warped not Rev. 13.8 and 17.8 The elect are as Mount Sion that cannot be moved and are as fixed stars that fall not The house on the Rock stands firm in all weathers The Tree by the waters side Jer. 17.8 Seed in good ground Mat. 13. They who have a seed of God in them cannot so sin 1 Joh. 3 9 And they that are born of God 1 Joh. 5.18 They who are in the hand of Christ none can pluck them out Joh. 10.28 Yet as to the fallings of the Elect not presuming to tell you the minimum or summum quod sic we shall make those concessions or observations 1. We grant that the godly as well as others are subject to this Posit 1 falling-sickness having seeds of Apostacy in them and would certainly fall irrecoverably if left to themselves In te stas non stas Aug. By strength his own no man shall prevail or stand 1 Sam. 29. 2. Grace received truly sanctifying is not for his measure so great Posit 2 or for its nature so immutable and invincible but might be overhorn and would if not divinely supported and continually supplyed as the Widows oyl kept from decay fed by a spring of Auxiliary grace as Josephs bow abode in strength by the arm of God and his bough green and fruitful Gen. 49.22 23 24. Gratia gratiam postulat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 15.10 sed by a well of living water so that it is not the grace in us but the grace with us grace supervening and additional which keeps us from falling Even the good ground were it not for the influence of the Sun and Rain would prove as the stony and Thorny Ground Posit 3 3. There is no such state of consistency in the effectually called But there is a daily combate and of times a great inequality in his Pulse sometimes Amalek sometimes Israel prevails and this war lasts not as that between the house of Saul and David for certain years but as that between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days 2 Sam. 3.1 1 King 14.30 Paul sometimes as in the third heaven cries out We are more then Conquerors who shall separate us from the love of God c. sometimes as under foot cries out Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death Posit 4 4. Even godly persons may fall for once very fouly as Peter yea lye long as David it is hard to say how low they may fall and how long they may lye yet sin not unto death as the Sun is for many months absent from some Climates yet returns again so that they may then say with the Church Rejoyce not against me O mine enemy when I fall I shall arise Micah 7.8 when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me Posit 5 5. There may also possibly be a relapse or falling a new into the same act of sin through humane infirmity as Abraham twice denying his wife the Disciples twice contending for supremacy And as I will not say how oft thy brother trespassing and repenting is to be forgiven not to seven but to seventy times seven so I cannot say how oft through infirmity a sinner trespassing and returning with repentance may be forgiven Gods mercies and thoughts being so far above mans Posit 6 6. The Christian may as to his own sense be reduced to a very sad and low state 1. He is poor in spirit he mourns he hungers thirsts pants doubts dislikes all 2. He judgeth of himself as under present prevailency of corruption Carnal sold under sin a forced slave to it Rom. 7.14 3. As if nothing had been done yet and all was to do he begs O God create a new heart in me Psal 51. 4. He may be apt to conclude against himself I never did yet truly believe or repent and which is worse with Thomas I never shall believe 5. In this case he lies bound as Peter Joh. 20.25 Act. 12.6 7. and can't help himself till the Angel comes and strikes off the bands and opens the iron-gate 6. And as to comfort he may be at an utter loss walk in darkness Esay 50.10 judge himself cut off Ezek.
if he had said Go lead on my God behold I follow as neer as close as I can è vestigiò I would not leave any distance but pursue thy footsteps step by step leaning upon thine everlasting arms that are underneath me and following thy maunduction Lot had almost perisht in Sodom for lingring when his God hastned him away Gen. 19.16 But Sampson till then invincible awoke too late from the bosome of his Delilah when the Philistines had shaved his seven locks And he thought to go out and shake off their cords wherewith they bound him as at other times but the Lord was departed from him and they took him and put out both his eyes Judg. 16.20 21. A Christâ—an is more then a man when he acts in concurrence with his God â—sal 27.1 The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I feare the Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid But if he resists the holy Ghost he doth not only grieve him but will if he go on resisting quench him and then he is all alone becomes heir to the curse of Reuben Gen. 49.3 4. he who was a while since the excellency of dignity the excellency of power is now weak as water and cannot excell The proverb tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is a great deale of Time in a little opportunity It is good striking while the Iron is hot and lanching out whilst wind and tide serve Open all thy Sailes to every breath and gale of Gods good spirit Welcome every suggestion reverence every dictate cherish every illapse of this blessed Moniâ—or let every inspiration find thee as the Seal doth the Waxe or the spark the tinder and then as the Spouse tels her beloved or ever thou art aware thy Soul will make thee as the Charet of * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. a free and willing people Aminadab Step into the pool when the Angel stirs the water John 5.4 Keep touch with the motions of the spirit and all is well But if these three Rules are too generall and remote I shall now lay down some more particular and exact directions for checking the beginnings of sinne and these are of two sorts as Physitians have their Prophylactiques and their Therapeutiques Some for prevention of the fit and paroxysme others for the cure and removall when the symptomes of it are upon thee 1 Before the Paroxisme cometh prepare and antidote thy Soul against these lusts of the flesh by observing these advices Rule 1 The first is that noble counsell of Eliphaz to Job cap. 22. vers 21. Acquaint thy selfe now with God and be at peace Get thy heart fixed where thy treasure is have thy conversation in heaven and thy fellowship with the father and with his sonne Jesus Christ Flee to thy God to hide thee He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Aâ—mighty Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler He shall cover thee with his feathers and under his wings shalt thou trust his truth shall be thy shield and buckler Psal 91.1 3 4. Arise with thine arisen Lord and seek the things that are above Set thine affections there where Christ sits at the right hand of God If the Soul is not where it animates but where it loves awaken thinâ— and kindle it into holy passionate Extasies of love that thou mayest live in heaven all day long and which is the priviledge of the upright Psal 140 13. dwell in the presence of that God whom thy soul delighteth in The Tempter cannot reach thee there Be much in converse with God and the Devil will have litttle converse with thee or if he have it will be to little purpose How was the Majesty of King Ahasuenus incensed at that affront of Haman when he threw himself upon Queen Esters bed what will he force the Queen in our presence Esth 7.8 Keep but in the presence of thy Lord thy King thy Husband and the Ravisher will not offer to force thee there or if he do it wil be but in vain How secure is that Soul that lives under the deep and warme and constant sense of Gods being it's all in all What a munition of rocks is this against all assaults and incursions of the Tempter They are our tame and common Poultry whose wings sweep the ground as they flie and raise a dust but the generous Eagle soon mounts above this smoaky lower Region of the Aire till she makes the clouds a pillow for her head Put on Christian thy Eagles wings which are the same with those Doves wings which David pray's for Psal 55.6 and flee away that thou maist be at rest They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as Eagles c. Isa 40.31 When the soul is once but upon the wing heaven-ward O how easily then doth it soare away above this region of smoak and dust above this Atmosphaene of earnality and fleshly lustings into the pure free Aethereal aire the blessed serenity and rest of Gods life and kingdome which is righteousnesse and peace and joy in the holy Ghost Rom. 14.17 it is cold iron that shews its rusty scales they disappear when it is red hot Get but thine heart on fire heaven-ward be but ascending thither Eliah like in a flaming Chariot of holy longings and paintings after God and the lustings of the flesh shall no more appear to deform thy beauty then the rust of iron appears when the metal is Candent i. e. all over of a light and glowing ardour The Rule then is Be sick of love to thy dear Master and Lord and thou shalt not be sick of sin Stir up spiritual and holy lustings in thy soul after the love and favour the grace and image of thy God and thou shalt not fulfill the lustings of the flesh Study throughly the unchangeable natures the eternal laws and differences of moral good and evill To open this There are some things of a middle and indifferent nature neither good nor evill in themselves But if God commands or forbids any of these they are then good or evill indeed but only because or whilest he doth so The Ceremonial Law of the Old Testament stood in these things and is now abolished by the same Divine authority which enacted it And it is now the glory of Christian Religion that excepting the two Sacraments and a very few other positive institutions for great and weighty causes reserved the Evangelical Law of the New Testament consists of such preceps as carry their own Credentiall letters and are built upon morall grounds of everlasting equity and righteousnesse Wherefore the Romanists deserve very ill of Christian Religion nor are the Lutheran Churches to be excused who of their owne heads impose so many indifferent things now in the service of God under the Gospel and that for no
and this like Pathologie or understanding the disease and the constitution of the patient will hugely minister and condence to the exact method of Physick either for prevention or for cure Rule 4 Get and keep a tender Conscience Be sensible of the least sin As the apple of the eye the fittest Emblem in the world of a tender conscience is not only offended with it blow or wound but if so much as a little dust or smoak get in it weeps them out Some mens consciences are like the stomack of the Estrich which digesteth iron they can swallow and concoct the most notorious sins swearing drunkenness c. without regret their consciences are seared as with an hot iron as the Apostle phraseth it 1 Tim. 4.2 they have so inured their souls to the grossest wickedness as the Psylli a people of Africa whom Plutarch mentions had their bodies to the eating poyson that it becomes as it were natural But a good conscience hath a delicate sense it is the most tender thing in the whole world it feels the least touch of known sin and grieves at the grieving of Gods good Spirit not only for quenching or resisting or rebelling against the Holy Ghost but even for grieving the holy Spirit of promise whereby it is sealed to the day of redemption Eph. 4.80 The most tender hearted Christian he is the stoutest and most valiant Christian Happy is the man that feareth always but he that hardneth his heart shall fall into mischief Prov. 28.14 it is the truest magnanimity and heroique courage in our spiritual warfar to tremble at the least iniquity A Christian is never fitter to endure hardness as a faithful souldier of Jesus Christ 2 Tim. 2.3 then when his conscience is most tender To be such a coward as not to dare to break any one of Gods Commandments is to be the valiantest person in the world for such a one will chuse the greatest evil of suffering before the least of sinning and however the jeering Ishmaels of the world be ready to reproach and laugh one to scorn for this niceness and precise scrupulosity as they term it yet the choice if God be but wiser then vain man is a very wise one Keep an exact guard upon thy heart Prov. 4.23 let the eyes of thy Rule 5 soul be open and awake upon all the stirrings of thy thoughts affections Bid them stand at their first appearance As soon as ever thou discriest any of them in motion summon them before thy souls tribunal let them not pass till thou knowest perfectly whence they come whither they go Ask their errand State viri quae caussa viae quive estis in armis Virg. Is it grief or is it joy or hope or fear or love c. that is now upon the march demand the Word of it ask whether it have a Pass from God and conscience Catechize it examine it search it speak to it in the Centinel's and Watchman's phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shew me your Ticket Tell me my desire my love my fear my anger by whose authority art thou now up and in motion if they are able to produce a good warrant from Gods Commandments or from the dictate of reason and conscience let them go on in Gods name they are about their business But if they cannot arrest them as idle vagrants nay as enemies to thy souls peace and charge them upon their allegiance to their superiors that they stir no further Rule 6 Be daily training and exercising all thy graces Have them always in battel-â—ray be in a military posture both defensive and offensive Stand constantly to thine arms for thou hast to do with two enemies that will never give thee any truce or respite the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jews call them the flesh within thee Jer. 17 9. and the Tempter that destroying Angel of the bottomless pit without thee 1 Pet. 5.8 the Christian warfare is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a war never to be altered it admits of no peace no cessation The Souldier of Christ must never lay down his arms but expect to be upon continual duty and travel till the great Lord of Hosts under whose banner he now fighâ—â—th is pleased to remove his Quarters from that Army Militant here on Earth to that blessed and triumphant in the Heavens Rule 7 Be well skilled in the Elenchs of Temptation I mean in unmasking the Sophistry and Mystery of iniquity in defeating the Wiles and Stratagems of the Tempter and in detecting and frustrating the cheats and finesses of the flesh with its deceitful lusts Eph. 4.23 2 Cor. 2.11 No small part of spiritual wisdom lies in the blessed art of discovering and refuting sins fallacies and impostures If ever thou wouldst prove famous and victorious and worthy honour and reverence in thy spiritual warfare be well seen in the skill of fencing know all thy wards for every attaque Provide thy self with answers and retorts beforehand against the subtle insinuations and delusions of thine enemy Ex. gr If Satan tels thee as he often will that the sin is pleasant ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Musae ask whether the gripings of conscience be so too whether it be such a pleasant thing to be in hell to be under the wrath of an Almighty Judge If he tels thee no body sees thou mayst commit it safely ask whether he can put out Gods all-seeing eye whether he can find a place empty of the divine presence for thee to sin in or whether he can blot out the Items out of the Book of Gods Remembrance If he tels thee it is a little one ask whether the Majesty of the great Jehovah be a little one whether there be a little hell or no. If he talks of profits and earthly advantages that will acrew ask what account it will turn to at the last day and what profit there is Mat. 16.26 if one should gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what one should give in exchange for his soul When sin like Jael invites thee into her Tent Judg 4.11 21. 5.25 â—6 with the lure and decoy of a lordly treatment think of the nail and hammâ—r which fastened Sisera dead to the ground Be not caught with chaff lay by thee such memoires such answers and reparties as these wherewith thou mayst reply upon the Tempter that the God of truth hath other manner of pleasures profits honours to court thy love and reward thy service with then the father of lies viz. true and real solid and eternal ones what are the pleasures that are sin for a season to be compared with the rivers of Gods pleasure that are for evermore at his right hand and what is a little wealth that thieves can steal a despicable heap of riches which like a flock of birds a lighting a little while in thy yard will take wing presently and fly away to be named
banner thou servest Upon thy good behaviour and address in Arms depends much of the renown and honour of Christianity A cowardly Souldidier is the reproach of his Commanders Thou hast a noble General O Christian that hath done and finished perfectly what ever concerns thy Redemption from the powers of darkness To him that over cometh will he give to sit on his throne even as he overcame and is set downe on his fathers throne Rev. 3.23 Do valiantly and worthily Follow thy victorious Leader let all that know thee see that Religion is no mean and feeble thing that the School of Christ breeds the excellent of the earth that the Divine life is the most powerfull principle in the world that the Spirit of God in thee and his grace 〈◊〉 stronger then all thy lusts and corruptions Not he that talks mâ—st or professeth most but he that acts and lives most as a Christian shall be the man whom the King delights to honour 3. The lusts of the flesh are thy greatest enemies as well as Gods they warre against thy soul 1 Pet. 2.11 To resist them feebly is to do not only the work of the Lord but of thy Soul negligently 4ly It is easie vanquishing at first in comparison a fire newly kindled is soon quenched and a young thorn or bramble easily pulled up The fierce Lyon may be tamed when a whelp but if thou stay a little there will be no dealing with a Lust any more than with 〈◊〉 salvage Beast of prey Grace will lose and corruption get strength continually by delaying Fifthly If thou resistest the victory is thine Iames 4.7 And 〈◊〉 my Text Walke c. and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the fâ—â—sh Thoâ— caust never be conquered if thou wilt not yield Stand but 〈…〉 thou art invincible while thou art unwilling all the Devilâ— in hell cannot force thee to sin Temptation puts on it's strength as the will is Cease but to love the sin and the temptation is answered Indeed if thou chusest to be a slave thou shalt be one Nothing but thy owne choice can undo thee Sixthly Consider what thou dost if thou fulfillest the lusts of the flesh 1 Sam. 15 23. Heb. 6.6 thou provokest thy Heavenly Father rebellest against him and Rebellion is as witchcraft and stubbornesse as idolatry Thou crucifiest Jesus Christ afresh and puttest him to open shame Is this thy love and thanks to thy Lord to whom thou art so infinitely beholding Canst thou find in thy heart to put thy Spear again in his side Hath he not suffered yet enough Is his bloody passion nothing must he bleed again Ah monster of ingratitude ah perfidious Traytor as thou art thus to requite thy Master Again thou grievest thy Comforter and is that wisely done Who shall comfort thee if he depart from thee grieved Or is it ingenuous thus unworthily to treat that noble Guest to affront Gods sacred Spirit to his very face and in despight and mockery of him to side with his Enemy the flesh Is this thy kindnesse to thy best Friend thy faithfull Counsellour thy infallible Guide thy Minister and Oracle thy sweet and only Comforter What need I add that thou breakest thy peace woundest thy conscience forfeitest the losse of Gods countenance and makest a gap in the divine protection for all evill to rush in at 7ly And lastly Consider the invaluable benefit of resisting of not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh in two great instances First Unutterable joy and pleasure will be shed abroad in thy Soul as often as thou gettest the day I know no greater triumph then that of a Christian when he is more then conquerour through Christ that loves him O the peace the joy and holy glorying in the Lord and in the power of his might that a good man is even ravisht and caught up into the third Heavens with when the Lord covers his head in the day of Battell and lifts it up above his spiritual enemies To vanquish ones self is a nobler exploit than to subdue a City Pro. 16 32. Nay a vaster Conquest then if one could with that great Macedonian Captain atchieve the empty title of the vanquisher of the world 2. Every Conquest will encrease thy strength and dexterity against the next assault So that when the vanquisht lust recruits it's forces thou wilt be able to outvie thy self and become more dextrous every time Nay the mortifying of one earthly member like the cutting off a limb from the naturall body will make the whole body of sin tremble all the rest of thy Lusts will fare the worse and by consent languish So that every victory over any one corruption weakens that and all the rest and breaks the way for future Conquests How Ministers or Christian Friends may and ought to apply themselves to Sick Persons for their Good and the discharge of their own Conscience JOB 33.33 24. If there be a messenger with him an interpreter one among a thousand to shew unto man his uprightness then he is gracious unto him and saith Deliver him from going down into the pit I have found a ransom THese words are part of Elihu's discourse uttered by way of Reprehension and Conviction to Job and by way of Vindication and Apology for God in his dealings with men and although he premiseth this that God giveth no account of his matters ver 13. yet he doth ex abundanti give an account for God and makes a defence or gives a rationale of Gods proceedings with men c. where he shews that it is not mans torment or ruine that God desires but his reformation and amendment and that it may appear how sincerely and fervently he desires it he shews that there are several ways and means which God useth which are most powerful and likely to produce it 1. He speaks to men in dreams ver 15 c. 2. When that will not do by afflictions ver 19 c. 3. To make those afflictions more intelligible and more effectual he sends a messenger c. this is the business of the Text if there be with him c. wherein you may observe two parts 1. A supposition ver 23. If there be a messenger with him an interpreter c. 2. A position ver 24. Then he is gracious to him c. the words may be called the sick mans cordial or his restorative wherein you may observe 1. The patient expressed in the word him 2. The disease his danger and misery he is going down to the pit 3. The Physitian who is described 1. Ab officio by his Office a messenger 2. Ab opere by his work an interpreter 3. A praestantid a rare man one of a thousand multis è millibus unus 4. The Physick to shew unto a man his uprightness 5. The cure then he is gracious c. where are considerable 1. The quality of it the kind of the cure deliver him from going down to the pit i. e. from
discreet Physicians diversifie their applications according to the difference of the Patients disposition and condition so here and there are many differences to be eyed here 1. Difference of tempers whether tender or rough stubborn as you read it is the husbandmans discretion that the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument neither is the cart-wheel turned upon the cummine but the fitches are beaten out with a staff and the cummine with a rod Isa 28.27 so it must be the discretion of a Minister to have respect to the different tempers of men in his applications to them it is said of Christ he taught the Disciples as they were able to bear 2. Difference of education and conversation some have been nuzzled in ignorance others brought up in the knowledge of the truth not considering of this occasions much mischief Discourse to an ignorant person of the necessity of faith and repentance you lose your labour oft times he conceits he hath believed and repented for he takes faith to be a believing though without any grounds that God hath pardoned him and repentance a crying God mercy c. one must consider where foundations must be laid and where we need only raise superstructions some have had a loose and profane education others civil and religious the former require more terrour the latter more caution lest they deceive themselves 3. Difference of guilt Great difference is to be made in the handling of sinners of a smaller size and inveterate sinners as God expects so Ministers must endeavour that sorrow may bear some proportion with the sin Peter having sinned grievously wept bitterly Mat. 27. last 5. It is a very bad guide to follow the counsels or desires of sick persons or their carnal friends It fares with faithfull Ministers as with honest and able Physicians that are many times ill thought of by the sick man and foolish friends when they put him to pain or trouble they charge him with cruelty and delighting to torment the poor man unnecessarily it may be think of discharging him and getting a Physician that will deal more gently with him whereas indeed he is the sick mans best friend and many times should he not pain him he would kill him so is it here Come to a sick man he cries Comfort for Gods sake so say his friends and they think all is done if they can get comfort why you shall have it but in due time you shall have ease health c. but you must be contented to wait for it and expect it in due order first you must be sick oft times that physick is the best which makes you sickest you shall be healed but if you would proceed regularly and work a true cure you must first have your wound searched and then healed else you have only a palleative cure and the wound will fester inwardly and it is an horrible mistake of sick persons they think comfort is all they are to look after I tell you it is not present comfort but everlasting happiness you must make your business to get it is not Augustus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to die quietly like a Lamb as the vulgar phrase it but a Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to die the death of the righteous it is not so much a calm and sweet and easie passage the fishes have that when they swim down the sweet stream of Jordan into the dead sea where they perish but a safe harbour one may go to heaven in a storm and to hell in a calm and which is better judge you those wretches in Psal 73. have no bands in their death and yet death hath dominion over them Comfort is not the great business you need 6. The same course for substance is to be taken for the conversion of sick and healthful persons c. there is but one way to heaven for all persons and therefore consider with your selves what you would do if they were in health and what were necessary then why that same course you must take now and if it be more troublesome to sick persons they may thank themselves for it who neglected the time of their health c. indeed sick men are apt to favour themselves and to think God will accept of less from them then others whereas if possible they have need to do more then others and to make the more haste having the less time for their Work 7. The greatest care must be to keep sick persons from those errours whereby such persons commonly miscarry such as these 1. Insensibleness of their danger whereas the first step to a cure is to know ones malady It is a dreadfull thing to see poor ignorant unconverted sinners at the very brink of the pit ready to drop into hell and not at all affected with it c. If ever you mean to do them any good you must awaken them out of that mortall sleep or lethargy lighten their eyes with a conviction of their danger lest they sleep the sleep of death 2. Willingness to be deluded You may know it thus If a dawbing Minister or friend offers comfort how greedily they catch it They will receive comfort upon any grounds nay upon no grounds but upon the bare words it may be of a time-serving and man-pleasing Minister But let a serious and faithfull Minister come to them and shew them their sad and sinfull and hazardous condition and demonstrate it by irrefragable arguments they will not yield to it But as St. Peter speaks 2 Pet. 3.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this they willingly are ignorant of You must possess them with the folly of such a temper the unavoydable misery of self-deluding persons c. and the dread of disappointment when too late 3. Carelesness and listnesness This is the temper of many knowing the difficulty of believing repenting c. and remembring their own guilt they cast off the care of that which they think will be to no purpose c. You must therefore possess them with the necessity of Christian carefulness what madness it is to be careless now which is the only season of caring to any purpose c. What folly it is to free themselves from the care of a few dayes to ascertain to themselves everlasting care and torment c. Also you must possesse them with the benefit of this care and laying it to heart c. That it is Gods course in opening the heart to stir up this care 4. Resting in generals Dolosus versatur in generalibus This deceives many into Hell You may discourse excellently against sin in the generall and raise in them some passion against it yet not profit them at all c. For true repentance takes notice of particular sins c. And as generals have no existence but in the particulars according to principles of Philosophy So it is sin in particular which doth primarily affect the heart of a true penitent 5. The concealment of some
Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. By this his desire wee are to understand a marvellous strong intention of spirit Hâ—sych and an earnest study and indeavour after accomplishment Hesychius expounds the term by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to will desire wish love and delight in the work Hee wills it not onely as a possible atchievement but as amiable hee endeavours to compass it by all good means because he proposes so desireable an end The sincerity of our desires in obtaining of possible designs is manifested by our diligent endeavours in the use of proper waies to effect them Aristot Rhet. l. 2. c. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the most part saies the Philosopher no man delights in or hankers after impossibilities No rational man certainly And therefore wee are to conceive that our Apostle doth here under his importunate desires couch and imply all holy means to accomplish his end Upon which account hee presently subjoyns 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his prayer to God for that purpose of which afterwards Onely at present observe from the connexion of his prayers to his hearty desires That lively are those prayers which flow from the heart Note Most harmonious in the ears of God are those groans that mount up to Heaven upon the wings of ardent emanations out of the depth of our hearts Suspiria è sulco pectoris ducta When the words of our petitions ascend warm and reeking out of our bowels when every expression is dipt in our heart blood 2. The persons that were the subject of his prayers and desires For Israel And here it is considerable in what relation Israel stood to the blessed Apostle Rom. 9.3 Rom. 11.1 Phil. 3.5 Act. 23.6 They were his Brethren his Kinsmen according to the Flesh For I also saith Paul am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the Tribe of Benjamin In another place hee acquaints us that hee was circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel of the Tribe of Benjamin an Hebrew of the Hebrews i. e. both by Father and Mother as touching the Law a Pharisee It appears thence 2 Cor. â—1 22 that the Israelites were his kindred his own dear and near relations remaining for the most part in a state of ignorance as to the Messiah and of alienation and estrangement from the Covenant of Grace and the mystery of the Promise through Faith in the blood of a Mediator For these it is that our Apostle groans for these hee is so ardent in prayer for these hee pours out such earnest petitions to the Father 3. The great scope and design of the Apostle for his kindred and relations according to the flesh in all his desires endeavours prayers was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they might bee saved The earnest sollicitude of his Spirit the fervent petitions poured out into the Divine bosome did all combine in this that his natural might become spiritual relations that his kindred of the Tribe of Benjamin might through union to Christ be allied to him in the Tribe of Judah What is natural to animals and plants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to thirst after an impression of their own likeness upon another Arist Pol. l. 1. c. 1. Is much more longed for by Saints that others might be holy and happy as well as themselves but especially such as are nearest to them by the bonds of nature Holy Paul doth not press after outward injoyments as health strength riches power or dominion in the world that Israel might have prosperity and plenty in their Streets and Pallaces or that the Kingdome should bee restored to them from the Romans Not the great things of the Earth but the greater of Heaven This his soul travels with that Christ might bee formed in them and dwell in their hearts by Faith that so Israel might bee saved 4. In these words wee may observe likewise the kind compellation wherewith our Apostle doth salute the saints at Rome to whom hee wrote this Epistle by the name of Brethren Now though hee wrote to the Gentiles yet hee lets them know that his bowels did yern over his poor kindred that they also might bee saved The Reason why in this letter to the Romans he doth so pathetically mention these his desires with such strong and vehement asseverations is because there were great numbers of the Jews at Rome and principally of he two Tribes that returned out of the Babylonian captivity who after the wars of Pompey and other Roman Generals and Captain in Judea were very many of them transplanted into Italy Which is not onely attested by Civil and Ecclesiastical Historians but also by Scripture it self declaring that there was a solemn Convocation of the Jews assembled by Paul at his arrival Act. 2â— 17 c. To whom the Apostle did first preach the Gospel and related the story of his coming to that Imperial City by reason of his appeal to Caesar From all these parts laid down together there result this Doctrinal Conclusion Observ That to endeavour the conversion and salvation of our near relations is a most important duty The president and example of our holy Apostle compared with and confirmed by other Scriptures will notably evince the truth of this assertion 1 Cor. 12.7 The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withall One great end why God bestows the graces of his Spirit upon us is that wee should spend the savour thereof upon others Our discourse must hee seasoned with the salt of grace Col. 4.6 Ephes 4.29 that it may minister edification to others Our speech should never overflow in abundance but like the waters of Nilus to render the neighbouring Plantations fruitful Grace is sometimes compared to Light by reason of its diffusive nature that our shining conversations night illustrate others in the paths of Truth and Holiness Cant. 1.12 Prov. 27.9 John 12.3 Sometimes Grace is likened to Spikenard to perfumed ointment which must not bee shut up in a box though of purest Alabaster but opened that the whole house may bee filled with the fragrant odour thereof Psal 133.2 To Oil to the costly sacred Oil that ran down not onely upon the beard of Aaron but to the skirts of his garments To Talents which must bee industriously traded with and not laid up in napkins To Dews Showers Waters because of their fructifying virtue 1 Thes 5.11 Rom. 14.19 Heb. 3.13 Col. 3.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ezek. 18.30 Heb. 10.24 To a generative Principle because of it's begetting power and influence Wee are therefore commanded exhorted directed to edifie one another to exhort one another to admonish one another to turn one another as that phrase in Ezekiel seems to import converti facite and make others to bee converted as well as our selves to provoke one another to love and to good works When converted wee are injoyned to strengthen our Brethren that wee may save
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to interpret all things in the worst sense Id. in Rhet. l. 2. c. 12. and so possibly to be too quick and ready upon easie suggestions to think of and deal hardly with their Inferiors Bee careful to use both your ears and hearken to both parties in matters of complaint But if upon deliberate and mature conviction nothing less will prevail Follow Gods command herein Prov. 29.17 and thy Son shall give rest unto thy soul In all these cases there lies a great point of prudence to let them know that thou hast yet greater corrections for them if they mend not That the fear and terrour of what thou hast yet reserved may work them to a compliance They that shew the utmost of their rigour and power in such acts at once despoil themselves of that authority and awe which otherwise they might ingenerate in their hearts But take heed of all violent and passionate corrections A Heathen could say to his servant Caederem te nisi irascerer I would beat thee were I not angry Hee that smites when his passion boils Seneca de ird l. 1. c. 15. is too too subject to transcend the limits of moderation vehement anger makes the hands to tremble that such are not able to strike aright Take heed lest thou make thy childe or thy servant to become vile in thine own eyes by too many stripes Deut. 25.3 Such persons plant quicksets in the hearts of their children that may grow up too fast to prick their own hands yea their hearts another day 10. If the fore-mentioned means through divine blessing prove effectual then praise and encourage them when they come on though yet but a little Ingenuous yea rugged tempers are sometimes wrought upon by moderate and prudent Euge's It 's spoken of God himself Psa 103.9 Rom. 13.3 Mat. 25.21 that hee will not alwaies chide nor keep his anger for ever As Magistrates so Parents must be sometimes praisers of them that do well Our Lord comes in sometimes with Well done good and faithful servant So must you when they are towardly and dutiful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 call up their spirits by commendation Laudibus excitandum est ingenium Hier. ad Lat. p. 55. There is a notable vertue in praise especially as to generous spirits to excite and prick them forward to duty and that principally when divers together according as deserts vary are unequally praised it stirs up a vertuous emulation Onely take heed of exceeding too much for little vessels can bear no great sails pride and arrogancy are many times nurst up by too exuberant and lavish expressions and sometimes an unmannerly familiarity appears 11. Do they flourish and thrive in duty and obedience and begin to take in precepts freely and kindly then win them on further by rewards according to their several capacities and the qualitie of thine own estate God is pleased most graciously to draw and allure us on in the waies of holiness by the proposal of reward Hee is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11.6 Hieron Tom. p. 100. I remember that Jerom as to the green years of Pacatula wishes her Father to use these means proponantur ei crustula mulsa praemia quicquid gustu suave est quod vernat in floribus quod rutilat in gemmis quod blanditur in puppis acceptura festinet c. Psalmos mercede decantet give her sweet-meats flowers jewels babies to entice her to learn the Psalms As to years of further growth such rewards as become them may be more proper In some cases these have proved great spurs and incitations at least to the outward work of Religion in younger ones 1 Sam. 2.19 Hannah that good woman brought up a little Coat every year to her Son Samuel when hee was in the service of the Lord at the Tabernacle in Shiloh under Eli. And you know the Father of the Prodigal in the Parable when his Son returned home to lead a new life he killed a fatted Calf for him put the best Robe upon his back a Ring upon his hand and Shooes upon his feet 12. In the last place be exceeding conscientious and cautelous in disposing them abroad Luk. 15.22 when either their education or profession requires it As to the Schools when young and tender chuse out such Guides and Masters as may edifie them and imprint something more of God upon their hearts It is a great fault in many that take up any neighbour-school where there are prophane and wicked children such as have learnt of their Parents to swear and take Gods Name in vain Many times little youths gather a great deal of filth and soil and pollution in such places that sticks by them many years after It is a good work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to prohibit and keep them off from all illiberal and sordid speeches and spectacles Arist Pol. l. 7. c. 17. There was it seems a great crew of naughty children at Bethel in the daies of Elijah that mockt the Prophet a place that was a Seminary and Nursery for young ones in knowledge 2 King 2.23 2 King 2.3 Oh how sad is it for children that have been diligently taught at home in the fear of God to unlearn all in wicked schools Have a great eye to this and especially if they be such as are designed for Academical learning that they be placed under godly Tutors at the University or if for Trades or other Mechanical Mysteries that you chuse out the blessed shadow of a godly Master and Mistress that may rivet and clench the nail that thou hast knockt in Great will be thy comfort in this if thou soughtest more a pious family than a great and rich Trade A family wherein ships go to Heaven and a Trade is driven to Canaan But especially in the grand concernment of Marriage that they may match into a godly family in whose veins the blood of the Covenant doth run An Heiresse of the Divine Promises is a greater match than an Empress of the whole world Hee that hath but one foot of Land in Mount Zion is richer than hee that holds a Scepter over the round Globe I come now to the second branch of this Question and that is Quest 2. By what means wee may attain our desires in reference to a good work in the hearts of those that are our equals whether of consanguinity affinity or neighbourhood Ans As to this I shall onely propose two particular Rules which I cannot now handle largely 1. Be diligent in private conference and admonition as the providence of God shall administer seasonable occasions 1 Tim. 4.13 Heb. 10.25 Give attendance to Exhortation Exhorting one another Lay before them the weighty and momentous matters of eternity and another world Such things will make deep wounds to be cured in time by the hand of Heaven Be short and nervous and lead them off from carnal
other two offices and if thou hast any love to Christ in sincerity it was the sight of him in this that first kindled it And thus bespeak thy self Didst thou ever oh my soul seriously consider what Christ hath undertaken in thy behalf with the jealous God whose face thou couldst not see and live wa st thou ever convinced that all thy prayers duties outward priviledges and devotions were little worth and could not have ought availed thee Heb. 10.10.12 1 Cor. 2.2 unless by his own blood hee had first entred within the vail and made attonement for thee And then with the same blood went afterwards to the right hand of God and put him in minde of his Covenant to procure actual Grace and Peace and Adoption for thee And is it a pleasure to thee as well as thy admiration to be alwaies musing and searching what such an Abysse of grace and goodness should mean And in the midst of thy musings was it that thy affections first took this holy fire and were even surprized into love Rom. 8.34 Phil. 3.7 8. Is it by his Mediation that thou findest thy expectations from God and thy delight in him supported And dost thou rejoyce in him as one whose goodness thou adorest and whose favour with God purchased by his own merit thou admirest And therefore art most willing to trust all thy concernments in his hands and in all thy addresses to God comest leaning upon the Arms of him Cant. 8.5 as thy Beloved Mediatour and Intercessor why thus to renounce our own Righteousness and â—â—â—â—el our hearts warmed into a further estimation of his to attributâ—â—â—l our acceptance with God to him Briefly to be intensively willing of Christ and to look upon him with full satisfaction of spirit in all his priestly Administrations This is sincerely to love Christ as our High-Priest And on the contrary to undervalue his blood either as needless by presumption or as worthless by desperation to be ascribing to our selves when wee receive any kindness or favour from God to doate upon our own worth and righteousness as that which is sufficient without either Christs Righteousness Satisfaction or Intercession Heb. 10.28 This is interpretatively to reject him from being our High-Priest and to hate the person of our Lord. Thus try your selves whether yee love Christ in his Priestly Office and when you have done with that take thy soul to his Prophetical Office and make a further trial by bespeaking thy self after the same manner Thus Didst thou ever oh my soul seriously consider that thou wast made for an eternal life and that none could ever chalk thee out the way thereto it being only to be learnt in the School of this great Prophet And thereupon hast thou wholly ceased from listening unto any other and as a loving Disciple hast thou found pleasure in seeking the Law even the word of thy Salvation at his mouth Doth thy heart throughly savour his Doctrine and dost thou like the Discipline of his School Dost thou make it thy study to know and lay it as a charge upon thy self to keep the words of this great Master and Prophet Ioh. 14.23 24. And even now that hee is gone to Heaven and hath left his word in the Scripture behinde him and hath sent his Spirit and set up under Officers in his School and precious Ordinances for thy guidance and direction dost thou value the Scriptures above all other writings in the world and witness thy esteem of them by thy daily perusal and study of them dost thou bear a Reverence in thy breast to all Christs Officers and Institutions Cant. 5.16 Psal 1.2 Heb. 2.1 Dost thou account the mouth of Christ most sweet and even delight to hear his voice in the Scripture and in every Ordinance and when thou hast heard doest thou lay up what thou hast been taught as the faithful counsel of thy dearest Teacher and rejoyce therein More particularly what is thy carriage towards his Spirit dost thou hear when hee calls and art thou tractable to all his Motions dost thou grieve him or art thou willing to be instructed and guided by him why thus to cease from leaning to our own understandings to give up our selves to Christ and his Spirit in the Scriptures and in all the Ordinances of the Gospel to be the serious and willing Disciples of Christ This is to love Christ as our Prophet in sincerity That is the second office Once more to make thâ—â—â—al by this mark Compleat and that will respect his Kingly office 〈◊〉 this is as easie as either of the former for our loyalty and voluntary Subjection to Christ as commanding and governing this is love And the hearts rebellion against Christ rejecting his dominion murmuring against his Laws finding fault with his administrations disturbing his subjects and disquieting the peace of his Kingdome envying him the multitude of his subjects and yeelding no obedience to his commands all these are several branches of enmity against Christ as King and Soveraign Put the case therefore home to thy own soul if thou wouldest not be mistaken and say Doth Christ rule within thee oh my soul or doth self and Satan Art thou glad with his Soveraignty or is it the yoak thou canst not bear do the Laws of his Kingdome bear sway within thee Rom. 6. or is it the Law of thy Members and carnal self when both come in competition whose command doest thou in the course of thy life most commonly fulfill whose Kingdome art thou most delighted in the advancement of Is it a pleasure to thee that thy Lord doth reign and that his Throne is more universally exalted or else doth thy heart rise against the advancement of Christs Kingdome In whom dost thou finde thy greatest delight is it rather in the company of Rebels that would pull the Crown from the head of Christ then in the humble and obedient subjects of thy Lord dost thou take Christ to be thy Prince and Soveraign and dost thou love the peace and glory of his Kingdome as becomes an obedient subject of so great a Lord why this is intensively to will Christum Regem or to love him as King And this is the third Office and the fourth Character If you would make sure work this is a Rule which will not deceive you 5. Character If wee have a fellowship with Christ in his honour and dishonours or in his joyes and sorrows then is our love not feigned unto Christ but in sincerity True-love if I may be allowed so to speak mixeth concernments my meaning is that it makes anothers joyes and sorrows to be mine as well as his they may write hatred upon themselves who are regardless whether it go well or ill with Christs interests in the world No communion with Christ no love Even the personal reproaches and abuses which Christ indured here below though so many hundred years since do yet affect them and they that love
Opppressors publike Defamers and the like wrongers of thy Estate Reputation and other thy temporal good things in charity and according to Equity equally seeking thy own right and good not thy neighbours wrong much less ruin and destruction And thus for moderation towards others in Civil matters In Religious matters Although I have spoken in the opening the nature of moderation and the general Object that which might serve to direct us herein Yet lest I be mistaken and thence any of you mistake your duty I shall further open this particular Object by speaking to it negatively about what moderation is not to be practised and positively wherein it must Negatively 1 Not in matters of faith For the believing these being not only absolutely required of every Christian and in that measure that we cannot fully come up to in regard of the great truth and reality of spiritual objects and their revelation the best being alas miserably short and deficient herein but also internal the profession of these being matter of practice Moderation cannot possibly here have any place much less that which respects others 2. Nor in matters of moral practice such as the Moral Law requires and grace and vertue should perform For in these can be no excess either in degree or duration We cannot love God too much nor with grace our neighbour nor too constantly Consider Father Mother Wife Children as moral Objects so we exceed not as natural goods and so in the exercise of natural affection we frequently as is said before do exceed which is discernable especially by the end with grace we love them for God with the moral vertue of love for the relation they stand in to us with the affection of love when we sinfully over-love them for our selves for though the natural affection co-operates with the former yet it solely exceeds But it being difficult for us to discern these formalities in objects and the operations of principles about them it is our only way to have recourse to Gods Laws which though founded upon the nature of things yet shews us plainly our duty where we cannot discern them which in all things wherein we may exceed as in the Externals of the First Table and the duties of the Second not only prescribe us what and also particularly how to act by positive Precepts but lest we should miscarry by Negative also which respect the end manner measure c. of such duties restraining and bounding us that we exceed not Both which are Moral and comprehended in this particular it being equally moral not to over-love as to love thy Neighbour the former being forbidden as well by the Negative as the latter enjoyned by positive Precepts In Negatives which forbid the action absolutely as Blasphemy Adultery c. no need of any such Precepts to regulate us for the actions being not to be done no need of direction for their manner and consequently no place for Moderation such being to be subdued and supprest not ordered or regulated as I have formerly spoken and in things only indefinitely forbidden as Swearing Travelling on the Lords day c. when we are to practice them we have the rules for Positive actions Affirmative and Negative to direct us sufficiently 3. Nor especially in the weightier matters of the Law or Religion I must speak a little to this because that may be commanded absolutely in it self which comparatively when it comes in competition with other duties of greater moment becomes only conditional For Affirmative Precepts are so many it is impossible they should bind ad semper so that when two or more duties come together man in regard of his finite capacity being not able to perform them at once must duly consider the weightiest and that do it being requisite in terms of inconsistency that the lesser alwaies give place to the greater and cease pro hic nunc or for that present to oblige us Thus Davids eating the shew-bread and the Disciples plucking the ears of corn on the Sabbath day when hungry is defended by our Saviour Mat. 12. Yea even frequently the externals of the First Table give way to the weighty exigent duties of the Second as the sanctification of the Sabbath to the defending the City in the Macchabees case according to that I will have mercy and not sacrifice Hos 6.6 Not only rather than sacrifice but in such cases not sacrifice God dispensing with the lesser so that its omission becomes no sin as is clear in our Saviours practice in his healing the man with the withered hand c. as well as in his defence of his Disciples Luk. 6. For that may be our duty and necessary at one time which at another when a weightier comes that should take place ceaseth to be so by vertue of the reason and constiâ—ution of the Laws themselves that the Superiour Law take place Therefore under the notion of moderation to omit Moral and especially the great and necessary duties required and practice only the less is Pharisaical hypocrisie not Christianity If to do the great duties of Religion God requires of us be accounted immoderateness let us say with David If this be to be vile we will be more vile still Gods Laws admit of no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or dispensation from us but what he hath admitted himself we must neither add or detract Deut. 4.2 Thou canst neither mitigate their execution nor any other besides himself on thee for thy transgressing them Digest de legib senatus cons If the wise Romans were so careful to preserve their Laws from others than the supream dispensing wiâ—h them lest they should prove a Lesbian rule much more the Great and Wise God hath reason to keep up the authority of his Laws and expect our punctual observance of them Moderation in Religion and religious Duties is the devillish Precept of Machiavel not the Doctrine of the Gospel or St. Paul To engage or wade no further in Religion than temporal interests will permit uâ— to come safely again to shore was the resolution and speech of a great Courtier of France than of heaven and of such as resolve more to save their skins than their souls How doth Christ every where arm those that will be his Disciples against their desisting from their necessary duty for the offence of the world Is so far from concealing this that it is the first thing he tels them of invites them upon no other terms than the Cross tels them they must trust him in this world for compensating them in the future c. Mat. 16. from 24. to ult And how eminent was he in the practice of this How did the Zeal of Gods House eat him up and he persist in doing the work he was sent about notwithstanding all the offence the Jews took And yet in his own private concerns how meek gentle patient which none can be ignorant of that read the Gospel and which he commands us to learn
of chief regard and the acts of the outward only required as a help to our serving God in the Spirit Phil. 3.3 3. Carelesness in Duties is the high way to Atheism For every formall and sleight Prayer doth harden the heart and make way for contempt of God Men that have made bold with God in duty and it succeeds well with them their awe of God is lessened and the lively sense of his Glory and Majesty abated till it be quite lost by degrees they out-grow all feelings and tenderness of conscience every time you come to God sleightly you lose ground by coming till at length you look upon Worship as a meer Custome or something done for fashions sake Secondly Particularly 1. It is an affront to God and a kind of mockery we wrong his Omnisciency as if he saw not the heart and could not tell man his thought It is Gods Essential glory in Worship to be acknowledged an all-seeing Spirit and accordingly to be worshipped in spirit and in truth Joh. 4.24 Thoughts are as audible with him as words therefore when you prattle words do not make conscience of thoughts you do not worship him as a spirit We wrong his Majesty when we speak to him in Prayer and do not give heed to what we say surely we are not to prattle like Jayes or Parrots words without affection and feeling or to chatter like Cranes or be like Ephraim whom the Prophet calls a silly Dove without an heart A mean man taketh it ill when you have business to talk with him about and your minds are elsewhere you would all judge it to be an affront to the Majesty of God if a man should send his cloaths stuffed with straw or a Puppet dressed up instead of himself into the Assemblies of Gods people and think this should supply his personal presence yet our cloaths stuffed with straw or an Image dressed up instead of us such as * 1 Sam. 19.12 13. Michol put into Davids bed would be less offensive to God than our bodies without our souls the absence of the spirit is the absence of the more noble part We pretend to speak to God and do not hear our selves nor can give any account of what we pray for or rather let me give you Chrysostom's Comparison A man would have been thought to have prophaned the mysteries of the Levitical Worship if instead of * Chrys Hom. 74. in Mat. sweet incense he should put into the Censer Sulpher or Brimstone or mingle the one with the other Surely our Prayers should be set forth as Incense Psal 141.2 And do not we affront God to his face that mingle so many vain sinfull proud filthy blasphemous thoughts What is this but to mingle Sulpher with our incense Again when God speaketh to us and knocks at the heart and there is none within to hear him is it not an affront to his Majesty Put it in a Temporal Case if a great person should talk to us and we should neglect him and entertain our selves with his servants he would take it as a despight and contempt done to him The Great God of heaven and earth doth often call you together to speak to you Now if you think so slightly of his speeches as not to attend but set your minds adrift to be carried hither and thither with every wave where is that reverence you owe to him It is a wrong to his goodness and the comforts of his holy presence for in effect you say that you do not find that sweetness in God which you expect and therefore are weary of hâ—s company before your business be over with him it is said of the Israelites when they were going for Canaan that in their hearts they turned back again into Aegypt Acts 7.39 They had mo e mind to be in Aegypt than under Moses Government and their thoughts ever ran upon the flesh-pots and belly chear they enjoyed there we are offended with their impatience and murmurings and the affronts they put upon their Guides and do not we even the same and worse in our careless manner of worshipping When God hath brought us into his presence we do in effect say give us the world again this is better entertainment for our thoughts than God and holy things if Christians would but interpret their actions they would be ashamed of them is any thing more worthy to be thought of than God The Israelites hearts were upon Aegypt in the Wilderness and our hearts are upon the World nay every toy even when we are at the Throne of grace and conversing with him who is the Center of our rest and the fountain of our blessedness 2. It grieveth the Spirit of God he is grieved with our vain thoughts as well as our scandalous actions other sins may shame us more but these are a grief to the Spirit because they are conceived in the heart which is his Presence Chamber and place of special residence and he is most grieved with these vain thoughts which haunt us in the time of our special addresses to God because his peculiar operations are hindered and the heart is set open to Gods adversary in Gods presence and the World and Satan are suffered to interpose in the very time of the reign of grace then when it should be in solio in its royalty commanding all our faculties to serve it this is to steal away the soul from under Christs own arm as a Captain of a Garrison is troubled when the enemies come to prey under the very walls in the face of all his forces and strength So certainly it is a grief to the spirit when our lusts have power to disturb us in holy duties and the heart is taken up with unclean glances and worldly thoughts then when we present our selves before the Lord God looks upon his peoples sins as aggravated because committed in his own house Jer. 23.11 In my house I have found their wickedness What is this but to dare God to his very face Solomon saith * Pro. 20.8 A King sitting upon his throne scattereth away evil with his eyes They are bold men that dare break the Laws when a Magistrate in upon the Throne and actually exercising judgment against Offenders so it argueth much impudence that when we come to deal with God as sitting upon the Throne and observing and looking upon us that we can yet lend our hearts to our lusts and suffer every vain thought to divert us There is more of modesty though little of sincerity in them that say to their lusts as Abraham to his Servants * Gen. 12.5 Tarry here while I go yonder and Worship or as they say the Serpent layeth aside her poyson when she goeth to drink When a man goeth to God he should leave his lusts behind him not for a while and with an intent to entertain them again but for ever However this argueth some reverence of God and sense of the weight of
praise to God for all or any of his benefits promised or bestowed and that with our hearts Filliucius out of Aquin We praise God for all his perfections we thank God for his benefits lips and lives Some affirm that much of Religion is seen in piety to parents observance to our betters and thankfulnesse to our benefactors God is indeed all these to us Yet the proper notion of our thankfulnesse refers to God as our benefactor every benefit from God makes the receiver a debtor thankfulnesse is rather the confessing of our debt then the paiment of it and for as much as we are bound alwaies to be thankfull it doth acknowledge we are alwaies beholden to God and allwaies insolvent Now a child of God is bound to be thankfull to God above all men because 1. He is more competent then any other 2. He is more concerned then any other I. More competent by acts of reason and grace too All that the Scripture speaks as to the duty of thankfulnesse may be referred to these Heads 1. To know and acknowledge the Lords mercies 2. To remember them i. e. to record and commemorate them 3. To value and admire them 4. To blaze and proclaim them In all which a gracious soul is much more competent then a meer natural man though indued with quick understanding strong memory and great eloquence For the Spirit of God hath inlightened his soul and taught him this lesson he is principled for it he is a well tuned instrument his heart boyleth with good matter and his tongue is as the pen of a ready writer Psal 45.1 as David speaks on this occasion when he spake of the praises of the King in his Song of Loves This Spirit of God in a thankfull soul is as the breath of the Organ without which the pipes make no sound yea as the breath of the Trumpetter by which the Trumpet gives a certain and melodious sound This is it that makes that noble Evangelical spirit yea that heavenly Angelical spirit in Christians See a place for it Eph. 5.18 19 20. Be not drunk with wine wherein is excesse but be filled with the spirit speaking to your selves in Psalms and Hymns c. giving thanks alwaies for all things unto God and the Father in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ shewing that what wine doth in Poets and good fellows it makes them sing and roar out Catches by which they make musick to the devil so the Spirit of God in Saints is the principle of all true thankfulnesse and holy joy towards God and indeed there was a very gracious frame of spirit this way in Primitive Christians II. More concerned as hâ—â—ing received more then others to whomsoever much is given of them much is required Luke 12.48 a proportion of duty according to the degree of every portion of mercy whether you consider what is given or what is forgiven you There are two things which every gracious soul will acknowledge No man saith he in the world hath deserved less of God than I and none hath received more of God than I how much then am I concerned to be thankful I have read of a holy man that was seen once standing still with tears in his eyes and looking up to heaven and being asked by one that passed by why he did so said I admire the Lords mercy to me that did not make me a Toade that Vermine being then casually at his feet The least common mercy affects a gracious soul that knows his desert nothing but misery 2 Sam. 9 8. Mephibosheth bowed himself and said What is thy servant that thou shouldst look upon such a dead dog as I am When David had told him he should have his Lands and eat bread at his Table When the Lord spares our lives and gives us common mercies we must admire and adore his goodness And this leads me to the second general Question Quere 2 Why and upon what grounds Christians are bound to give thanks in every thing Answ 1 It is the will of God in Christ Jesus The will of God in Christ Jesus is the clearest Rule and the highest Obligation to any soul for the performance of any duty O that men would now adaies study more act by and hold fast to this rule And ask conscience in the performance of every duty is this the will of God in Christ Jesus It was meet that this duty of thankfulness should be prest and practised under the Gospel because it argue a spiritual and noble frame of Soul the highest pitch of grace which is a true Gospel frame David under the Old Testament had a New Testament heart in this particular his Psalms which were all penn'd upon emergent occasions are all Tehillah and Tephillah Prayer and Praise his Heart and Harp were so tuned to the Praises of God to Psalms of Degrees to Hallelujahs that some have thought the Lord is praised with those Psalms in Heaven Zach. 12.8 Greg. Hom. 20. in Ezek. Yet is it promised under the Gospel that he that is feeble shall be as David which some understand as to Praise and Thanksgivings upon the account of Gospel grace More punctually this is the will of God in Christ Jesus i. e. Jesus Christ shews us the duty of thankfulness both by Pattern and by Precept for he was not only usherd into the World with Songs of Thanksgiving by Angels Luk. 1.46 68. Luk. 2.13 14 20 29. by Zachary by Mary by Simeon by the Shepherds c. but the Lord Jesus himself was a great Pattern and President of Thankfulness all his life long and in this also was a true Son of David He thanked God frequently and fervently I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth because thou hast hid these things from the Wise and Prudent Matth. 11.25 and hast revealed them unto babes when his Disciples preached and cast out devils Thus also when he raised Lazarus Father Joh. 11.41 I thank thee that thou hast heard me When he was to eat common bread Mark 8.6 Luk. 22.19 he blessed it with giving of thanks Much more consecrated bread Thus was he a Pattern of thankfulness he did in every thing give thanks In like manner we find him reproving the nine Lepers for their unthankfulness which shews that he held out thankfulness as a duty Luk. 17.16 17. personally he gave a Pattern and Precept for it Now though this were enough to shew it the will of God in Christ Jesus yet these words reach further namely to shew that is the strain of the Gospel in the Apostles Doctrine and Practice for they through their Commission and the great measure of Gods Spirit in them declared the will of God in Christ Jesus They worshipped Luke 24. ult and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the Temple praising and blessing God Amen What the Apostle Pauls spirit was in this by whom so
as such they are the stroaks of Gods vindictive Justice the fruit of sin and destructive to the creature in which sense they have not rationem beneficii sed supplicii they are not benefits but punishments But whereas the Lord hath so ordered that all things shall work together for good to them that are good and crosses are some of those things they are hereby sanctified and become the matter of thanksgiving to a child of God And this was that noble primitive frame of spirit among Christians under what providence soever dark or light sweet or sour they were thankful in all alwaies thankful St. Augustine upon the 132 Psalm commendeth that ancient custome among Christians Aug. Epist 77. Quid melius animo geramus ore promamus calamo exprimamus quam deo gratias hoc nec dici brevius nec audiri latius nec intelligi grandius nec agi fructuosius potest Deo gratias in whose mouths you should alwayes hear these words Deo gratias thanks be to God when they met and saluted one another Deo gratias God be thanked when they heard any tidings of persecution or protection favour or frown gain or loss cross or comsort still Deo gratias the Lord be thanked at which custome the Circumcellians pick quarrels but St. Austine defends it as laudable and religious what saith he shall brethren in Christ not give God thanks when they see one another What better thing can we speak or think or write than this God be thanked nothing can be more compendiously spoken nor more gladly heard nor more solemnly understood nor more profitably acted then this God be thanked Thus he Such a frame of heart had holy Job the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh blessed be the name of the Lord. Psal 34.1 On Psal 115. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Hieron And such a one wâ—s in the sweet singer of Israel I will bless the Lord at all times Notable is that of Chrysostome there is nothing saith he nothing we can study more pleasing to God than to be thankful not only in good dayes but when things likewise fall out cross this is the best Sacrifice and oblation we offer God of a like spirit was famous Mr. Bradford Martyr speaking of Queen Mary at whose cruel mercy he then lay If said he she will release me I will thank her if she will imprison me I will thank her if she will burn me I will thank her c. So saith a believing Soul let God do with me what he will I will be thankful This made one of the Ancients to say it is peculiar to Christians to give thanks in adversity To praise God for benefits this Jew and Gentile can do but to give God thanks in dangers according to the Apostles sense and in miseries and alwayes to say blessed be God this is the highest pitch of Virtue for a true Christians language is this I cannot tell how I should suffer less these things are but little to my sins I deserve much more at the Lords hands here is your Christian such a one takes up his cross and follows his Saviour no loss or cross can dishearten him but as the Poet saith if the World break and fall about his ears he would not be afraid Thus St. Hieron By whom it should seem that to give God thanks for crosses and afflictions is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be numbred among those singular things which Christians are bound to excel in beyond Heathens and Publicans as to love enemies to blesse them that curse c. to which our Saviour exhorts and commands Matth. 5. Papists indeed tell us they are Counsels and not Commands and therefore required only of perfect ones in order to merit and supererrogation which is a blasphemous fancy those duties and so this of thankfulnesse in every thing is required of every Christian virtute precepti this is the will of God concerning you saith my Text. Why and how do we give thanks in and for afflictions Quere 4 I. We must give thanks for good afflictions are not evil but good Psal 119.67 68 71. Biel others David tells you so and wherein which every child of God also finds To this agrees that of the Schooles that crosses are not evil but good 1. Because inflicted by the Lord who is the chief good 2. Because suffered by the Lord Jesus who is the chief good 3. They conform us to the Lord who is the chief good 4. They prepare us for communion with the Lord in Heaven which is our chief good therefore be thankful for crosses II. We must thank God for every token of his Fatherly love Heb. 12.6 but now crosses and troubles are such Fatherly love tokens Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth therefore give thanks for them as well for the rod as for bread This is thank-worthy this is acceptable to God 1 Pet. 2.19 20. God will thank us for suffering patiently therefore we must thank him for inflicting it as a tender Father on beloved sons Would you be counted bastards Alexander cashiered one of his name that would not fight Et cum blandiris pater es cum caedis pater es Aug. in Psal 98. the Eagle is said to cast off those young ones that cannot bear the sight of the Sun and some Germans counted such children spurious brats that could not swim So our Heavenly Father will never own them for his children that will not submit to his rod and kisse it too Lord when thou stroakest and when thou strikest thou art alike a Father saith St. Austin III. The Lord by afflicting his People doth prevent sin and purge it Therefore give thanks for it for thâ—s is good because it frees us from the greatest evil 2 Cor. 12.7 1. He prevents sin by it lest saith Paul I should be exalted above measure there was given to me a thorn in the flesh a messenger of Satan to buffet me 2. He purgeth sin by it by this saith the Prophet shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged Isa 27. Chrysost Now do we not thank and pay the Chirurgeon that lets out our bad blood that launceth our festred sores that cuts out our proud and rotten flesh yes surely we do thank him do we not also thank the Physician that keeps us to a strickt diet confines us to our chamber gives us bitter pils and potions and crosses our appetites yes we do thank him for hereby he cures a disease defends and preserves both our health and life Now what else I beseech you doth the Lord do more or lesse by all that we suffer at his hands and doth not he deserve our thanks as well as the Physician and Chirurgeon When we are vexed and pinched then ought we more especially to give the Lord thanks who as a most indulgent Father will not suffer our corruptions to spread further
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more venatorum persequentium feram Aret. Ignatius Epist ad Rom. James 5 17. Eye Paul how industriously and indefatigably he pursues even as a Beagle his chase with full cry and all celerity Phil. 3.10 ad 15. Observe Ignatius how he goes to the beasts to be devoured as if he had gone to a Bridal to be married Lastly Slight not the Martyrs in Q. Maries daies who went to the fire as if they had been going to a bonefire En amote hoc parum est amem validius Aug lib. de Med. c. 18. Seest thou this woman saith our Saviour to Simon of Mary Magdalen with what activity and affection she hath washed and wiped my feet her tears being the water her hair the towel let it provoke thee to more diligence and devotion Luk. 7.44 45. Examples are pricking and provoking goads to quicken us fires to light our candles by to heat our bodies with 8. Keep quickning company As bad company is water to quench so good company is oyl to quicken fervour Bonus comes pro vehiculo As Iron sharpens Iron soone gracious heart sets an edge upon another Prov. 27.17 Holy Companions are bellows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to blow up and make burn the graces that lye in embers 2 Tim. 1.16 The gracious affections of Saints are called beds of spices Cant. 6.2 Holy conference of holy company is the rubbing and chafing those spices to make them sent and send forth their perfumes Alexander where ever he came perfumed the Room with his presence so does every believer with his speeches David who desires quicknings picks out quickning company I am a companion of all them rich or poor that fear thee and of them that keep thy precepts Psal 119.63 Paul is pressed in spirit by the company and conference of Silas and Timotheus Acts 18.5 the two Disciples hearts burn'd within them in their journy to Emans by that sweet discourse they had with Christ Luke 4.32 9. Consider quickning considerations they that are apt to faint and tire in a journey carry about their bottles of water to quicken their spirits let these ten considerations be such bottles to you when you tire in the journey of a duty 1. Consider how odious and abominable Sloth is to man or God the Romans judged sloth and idlenesse worthy of the greatest contempt Asinus ad lyram Asinus ad tibiam Zon. Annal l. 2. Peir 87. d. l. 3. cap. 16. Enerves animos odisse virtus solet Val. Max. lib. 2. cap. 7. are Proverbs of the greatest derision and disgrace how contemptibly does Jacob speak of Issachar a strong Asse couching down between two burthens Gen. 49.14 15. yea God himself refuses the first-born of an Asse in Sacrifice Exod. 13.13 Bellarmin gives this reason because it was animal tardigradum a slow paced and sluggish creature which God hates God being a pure act loves pure activity Oh what thunder-claps and cracks of threatnings may you hear from the Mount Ebal of his Word able to make the most sluggish Caligula to creep under his bed for shelter Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently Jer. 48.10 Cursed be the deceiver that hath in his flock a male and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing Mal. 1.14 God threatens to remove the candlestick from the Church of Ephesus because she was grown remisse in her first love Rev. 2.5 6. he terrifies the Church of Laodicea with the menace of spuing her out of his mouth for her lukewarmnesse the servant who had not returned Cent per Cent for his talent is called wicked and slothful servant and cast into the darkest dungeon Matth. 25.26.30 how would this consideration well considered on cause all slothful servants ears to tingle and their hearts to tremble II. Consider sloth exposes you to all manner of sin especially these two desperate and dangerous ones 1. Sordid Apostacy 2. Spiritual Adultery I. Sordid Apostacy Sloth in the Soul is like Green Sicknesse in the body of a Virgin which makes her not only fall from her colour strength stomach to wholsom food but also to long and lust after trash and trumpery coales soot ashes the Galathians because they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without mind and metal do therefore prove Apostates beginning in the Spirit ending in the flesh Gal. 3.1 3. * Tepiditas si â—allum obduxerit siet Apostasia Greg. Moral lib. 22. cap. 5. falling off from fervor will turn to falling away to folly The slothful man will not bring his hand to his mouth Prov. 19.24 it is expounded of a slothful Minister who will not bring voci suae vitam suam his works to his words though this be an undoubted truth of lazy and slothful Ministers yet the Provetb holds true of all sluggards tendency to falling away in their hand from their mouth i. e. from what they have formerly professed Consider how great and grievous a sin Apostacy is it was the first sin that ever was committed it was the sin of the Devils for which they were cast out of Heaven and cast down into Hell Heb. 10.38 if any man draw back my Soul shall have no pleasure in him a metaphor taken from a sluggish Jade who finding the load come heavy draws back again the backslider in heart much more in hand from Gods way shall be fil'd with his own waies Prov. 14.14 i. e. he hath run away from his Captain Colours Cause and he shall have Marshal Law for it it will be worth my pains and your patience to give an instance what severe Martial Law God hath executed on all Runnagadoes and Revolters 1. Ministers Judas who revolted from his Master and Ministrie turning from being a guard to his Saviour to be a guide to the Souldiers Acts 1.17 afterward hanged himself his bowels burst out of his belly and so he took his proper and peculiar place in Hell vers 18.25 John Speiser Preacher at Ainsborough in Germany Scâ—lt annal 118. who preached so profitably and powerfully that the common strumpets left the Brothel-houses then tolerated and betook themselves to a better course Anno. 1523. yet afterwards revolting to the Papists he perished miserably Joseph Antiq. l. 1. c. 12. Ut condimentum sit aliis Aug. lib. 16. de Civ Dei c. 30. 2. People Remember Lots wife Luke 17.32 who turning back to Sodom was turned into a pillar of salt to season us that we may be preserved from the stinking sin of Apostacy Lucian a great Professor in the daies of Trajan but revolting was torn in pieces and devoured of Dogs The Emperour Julian the Apostate was wounded with an arrow none knowing from whence in his War against the Persians who throwing his blood up to Heaven died scornfully crying Vicisti Galilaee vicisti II. Spiritual Adultery Bodily sloth exposes to corporal Adultery Quaritur Aegisthus Davids instance clears it sufficiently 2 Sam. 11.2 Spiritual sloth exposes to Spiritual Adultery Rom.
signifieth a kind of brutish feeding themselves without fear as it is Jude 12. but here in the Text the words runne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. they are expressed by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without a copulative Camerarius observes haec ita 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 petita magis notant arguunt hominum temporis illius securitatem so that the vehemency and eagernesse and intention of their spirits in the things they were imployed in is hereby noted They were very busie their hearts and heads and hands all taken up in eating drinking buying selling c. the actions named and the comforts which they were injoying those naturall and civil imployments in which they were ingaged all good and lawfull in themselves but they were not well imployed in them the use of those things was lawfull but they did sinfully use them for there is in all these actions a narrow way and a broad way Matth 21.13 14. the narrow way which is bounded and limited and under a rule as to the end 1 Cor. 10.31 viz. the glory of God and also to the circumstances this there be but few that find it But the broad way which is without bounds and limits this is the common road which most walk in Thus farre but no further saith God the will of God is the boundary of the narrow way but lust knoweth no bounds and will not be prescribed to The very Heathens looked at their common actions as under bounds they had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sustine abstine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gelli Noctes Act. l. 7. c. 19. Anton. Pig l. 4. § 3. but the difficulty lies in observing the just limits in the use of lawfull things and therefore one said well Licitis perimus omnes c. ruin usually ariseth from the use of lawfull things there being most danger where it is least suspected In all our comforts there is a forbidden fruit which seemeth sair and tasteth sweet but which must not be touched The Observations may be these 1. That all our actions naturall in eating c. and civill in buying and selling c. come under a rule This is implyed else the Lord would not have brought those great judgments on them barely for their eating c. had they not in those imployments transgressed a rule 2. Such are usually the miscarriages of men in the use of lawfull things that they are the procuring causes of the most dreadfull judgments For we see that the Lord makes mention of these very things lawfull in themselves as the causes of the floud on the world and fire on Sodom 3 The Lord puts great weight and stresse on those very things which we take but little or no notice of The old world and Sodom little thought they should come to so severe a reckoning for their eating and drinking c. To bring things to an issue as to the case concerning our danger of sin and miscarriage in lawfull things I shall 1. inquire When lawfull things become sin to us 2. How we may judg of our hearts and selves and discern their miscarriage and sin in the pursuing injoyment and use of lawfull things 3. What are the sins that attend the immoderate and inordinate use of lawfull things As to the first I answer When lawfull comforts which are given us for helps become hinderances in our way to Heaven then they become sin to us When we by our abusive cleaving to the creature by our inordinate affection to it by our exorbitant disorderly pursuing of it doe abuse our helps they become hinderances to us and as it was said of Gideons Ephod Judg. 8.27 He made an Ephod which when it became an Idol became a snare When lawfull comforts are immoderately and passionately desired pursued enjoyed then they become an Idol and a beloved or at least they become beloved so far as to carry it from Christ from duty Now when any thing becomes an Idol in the heart so as that the soul begins to bow before it and yeild obedience to it then it becomes an Idol and what is an Idol in the heart is a stumbling block of iniquity in our life Ezek. 14.4 it is a stumbling block an hinderance in our way such Idols in the heart usually prove great offences and both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stumbling blocks and occasions of falling the first signifies a stumbling block to keep one off from duty such an offence Peter was to Christ Matth. 16.23 He would have hindred him in that great work which He had to do The second signifies a galltrapp which will vex and trouble one in duty so that when our comforts become Idols images of jealousie in our hearts then they are stumbling blocks and so obstacles in our way to Heaven Again when our lawfull comforts by our dotage become beloveds or greatly passionately beloved then they become hinderances when your hearts inflame themselves with your comforts as the Lord speaks of them Isa 57.5 They inflamed themselves with their Idols when the heart doth inordinately love creature comforts they are then turned into lusts so that of lawfull comforts they are made unlawfull lusts 1 Ioh 2.15 16. the things of the world or the profits pleasures honours which usually mens hearts and thoughts are taken up withall are good and lawfull things in themselves but being abused they are called the lusts of the flesh the lust of the eye c. The Holy Ghost puts the lust that is within us to expresse the profits pleasures and honours of the world which are without us So that the good things of this life by our inordinate love to them being abused the very nature and property of â—he things are altâ—red for instead of proving good helps to us when lawfully loved and used become lusts that hinder us for they fight against our souls 2 Pet. 2.11 and members of the old man and weapons in his hand to fight against God they become one with old Adam in us and therefore Col. 3.5 we are bid to mortifie our earthly members he doth not say mortifie your lusts but members they being all one and make up together body of sin one old man as it is called Eph. 4.22 Now it is certain that the old man in us the body of sin is an enemy and a hinderance to us in our way to Heaven In this case those foul sins of Idolatry and adultery are committed with the creature in both which sins the heart is stolen away from God drawn away from the proper object The Apostle useth that expression Iam. 1.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drawn away by lust or some object in an unlawfull conjunction with the heart then the heart comes to be gâ—ued to it as God speaks Hos 4.17 They are joyned to Idols fixed to them so that as in Idolatry the heart is joyned to and fixed to the Idol so as that it will not easily part with it as it is Ier. 2.10 Has
the throne thou shalt be greater 3. We make Religion our businesse when our thoughts are most busied about Religion while others are thinking how they shall do to get a living our thoughts are how we shall do to be saved David did muse upon God Psal 139.3 While I was musing the fire burned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theoph. Thoughts are as passengers in the soul when we travell every day to the City of God and are contemplating glory and eternity this is to make Religion our businesse Theophilact calls holy contemplation the gate and portall by which we enter into Heaven a Christian by divine soliloquies and ejaculations is in Heaven before his time he is wrapd up into Paradise his thoughts are all packd up and gone 4. We make Religion our businesse when our main end and scope is to serve God he is said to make the world his businesse whose great design is to get the world St Pauls ultimate end was that Christ might be magnified and the Church edified Phil. 1.20 2 Cor. 12 19. our aimes must be good as well as our actions Many make use of Religion for sinister ends like the Eagle while she flies aloft her eye is upon her prey Hypocrites serve God propter aliud they love the Temple for the gold they court the Gospell not for its beauty Mat. 23.17 but for its Jewels these do not make Religion their businesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys but a politick trick and artifice to get money but then we make Religion our businesse when the glory of God is mainly in our eye and the very purport and intent of our life is to live to him who hath died for us 2 Cor. 5.15 God is the center and all the lines of our actions must be drawn to this center 5. We make Religion our businesse when we do trade with God every day Phil. 3.20 Our conversation is in Heaven The greek word for conversation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies commerce and traffique our merchandize is in Heaven a man may live in one place and drive his trade in another a Saint though he lives in the world Vt municipes coelorum nos gerimus yet he trades above the Moon he is a merchant for the Pearl of price This is to make Religion our businesse when we keep an holy intercourse with God there 's a trade driven between us and Heaven 1 Joh. 1.3 Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Sonne Jesus God comes down to us upon the wing of his Spirit and we go up to him upon the wing of prayer 6. We make Religion our businesse when we redeem time from secular things for the service of God a good Christian is the greatest monopolizer he doth hoard up all the time he can for Religon Psal 119.62 at midnight will I rise and praise thee Those are the best hours which are spent with God and David having tasted how sweet the Lord was would borrow some time from his sleep that he might take a turn in Heaven It well becomes Christians to take time from worldly occasions sinfull dressings idle visits that they may be the more intent upon the matters of Religion I have read of an holy man who being tempted by his former evil companions to sin he made this answer I am so busie in reading in a little book with three leaves that I have no leisure so much as to mind my other businesse and being asked afterward whether he had read over the book replyed this book with three leaves are of three severall colours red white and black which contain such deep misteries that I have resolved with my self to read therein all the daies of my life in the first leaf which is red I meditate on the pretious bloud of Christ which was shed for my sins in the white leaf I meditate on the pure and â—elitious joyes of Heaven in thâ— black leaf I contemplate the hideous and dreadfull torments of Hell prepared for the wicked to all eternity This is to make Religion our businesse when we are so taken up with it that we have scarce any leisure for other things Christian thou hast a God to serve and a soul to save and if thou hast any thing of Religion in thee thou wilt take heed of the thieves of time and wilt engrosse all opportunities for the best things How far are they from Christianity who justle out holy duties instead of borrowing time from the world for prayer they steal time from prayer that they may follow the world 7. We make Religion our businesse when we serve God with all our might our strength and spirits are drawn forth about Religion we seck sweat strive bestir our selves as in a matter of life and death and put forth not only diligence but violence 2 Sam. 6.14 David danced before the Lord with all his might This is to make Religion our businesse when we shake off sloath and put on zeal as a garment We must not only pray but pray fervently Jam. 5.16 we must not only repent but be zealous and repent Rev. 3.9 we must not only love but be sick of love Cant. 2.5 Horat. multa tulit sudavit alsit This is to be a Christian to purpose when we put forth all our vigour and fervour in Religion Matth. 12.11 and take the Kingdom of God as it were by storm 'T is not a faint velleity will bring us to Heaven there must not only be wishing but working and we must so work as being damned if we come short Vse 1 Vse 1. Information Information Branch 1 1. Branch Hence learn that there are but few good Christians oh how few make Religion their businesse is he an Artificer that never wrought in the trade is he a Christian that never wrought in the trade of godlinesse How few make Religion their businesse 1. Some make Religion a complement but not their businesse they court Religion by a profession and if need be Religion shall have their letters of commendation but they do not make Religion their business Many of Christs Disciples who said Lord evermore give us this bread yet soon after basely deserted Christ Ioh. 6.34 and would follow him no longer Joh. 6.66 From that time many of his Disciples went back and walked no more with him 2. Others make the world their business Phil. 3.19 Who mind earthly things The earth puts out the fire So the love of earthly things puts out the fire of heavenly affections It was a judgement upon Korah and Dathan Numb 16.22 the earth swallowed them up Thus it is with many the world swallows up their time thoughts discourse they are swallowed up alive in the earth There is a lawfull use of these things but the sin is in the excess The Bee may suck a little honey from the leaf but put it in a Barrell of honey and it is drown'd How many ingulph themselves in
Vowes art thou under any or no I am perswaded now thou canst not deny it methinks I could believe I heard thee say such a Feaver such an Ague the small Pox a Surfet the Pestilence or some such disease made me Vow to be another man to destroy sinne to exercise grace to love God to hate lust to be holy and heavenly Now thou seest thy bond where is thy payment of thy debt Oh how few do well keep any how much fewer do well keep their sick-bed Vowes as if these Vowes were as sickly as their makers and doomed to as short a life as the sick Votary thought he had been doomed to Reader thy conscience tels thee what thou canst answer or what thou must confesse in this matter and upon thy consciences answer I have advice for thee if thou art conscious 1. Of totall neglect go speedily on thy knees blesse infinite patience humble thy self before infinite grace get out thy pardon and whilst God saith by me by these lines defer not to pay be thou honest to thy word thankfull to thy God advantageous to Religion and an example of reformation lest next sicknesse be thy death and thy Vowes be thy sinne which shut out thy hopes of praying and speeding God delights not to answer such fools thou maist find Motives enough to hasten thee to this duty from Eccl. 5.2 4 5 6. which I commend to thy thoughts with these Quaeries 1. Is not God in Heaven and thou on earth 2. And Is not thy Vow made to this great God 3. And Is not this Vow thy voluntary debt And 4. Doth God require present payment Or indeed 5. Wilt thou worse thy condition by Vowing Or 6. Wilt thou provoke Gods anger and displeasure 7. Dar'st thou venture on threatned destruction These are Solomon's Motives to a punctuall and present payment of Vowes I offer them to awake thee from neglect of thy Vowes Or Secondly Hast thou Vowed and performed in part but not fully hast thou done somewhat but not all of that thou hast promised and Vowed I advise 1. See what hindred wast thou rash in promising more than thou couldst do is this the reason thou didest not all because some of it was out of thy power thou must be humbled for thy rash Vow and if ever it come within thy power do it 2. See whether thy sloth and negligence did not hinder when thou mightest have performed but now it is out of thy power and thou canst not this is a high breach of thy Vowes and I know no way for thee but due and seasonable repentance and confessing that God may pardon thee and be thou better in what thou canst since thou canst not be so good in this thou shouldest 3. See whether it continue yet in thy power to do though as yet thou hast not done it and if so be affected with the sight of thy unthankfullnesse but remove this sinne by performing thy Vowes for God will not release the promise nor cancell the Bond untill the debt be paid by him who hath power in his hand and may do it But What if it were in my power when I Vowed Dub. but since that time providence hath put it out of my power I was rich when I Vowed to relieve the poore but when I was recovered God suffered me to be spoiled as Job was what shall I do then 1. Thy Vow well composed engaged thee so far as it was in thy power Sol. 1 Remember a well-advised Vow hath this expresse condition or this implyed so far and so long as it is in my power to do untill I have done all The tenth of all I have of all that God shall give me saith Jacob I will give to God now if the Lord exercise his bounty to Jacob Jacob is ingaged then he hath power and can do it if God make Jacob poore the limitation his Vow implyed in it doth quit him Secondly So far as God puts it out of thy power so far he releaseth Sol. 2 thee from the debt When God by his providence overruling all doth disable thee to the payment then he dischargeth thee from the bond this is Gods reall discharge and cancelling of the Obligation Are well composed Vowes such promoters of Religion and are Vse 3 they to be made so warily and do they bind so strictly Then be sure to wait untill God give you just and fit seasons for Vowing be not over-hasty to Vow it is an inconsiderace and foolish haste of Christians to make more occasions of Vowing than God doth make for them Make your Vowes and spare not so often as God bids you but do not do it oftner you would wonder I should disswade from Vowing often when you have such constant mercies and wonder well you might if God did expect your extraordinary bond and security for every ordinary mercy but he requires it not he is content with ordinary security of gratitude for ordinary mercies when he cals for extraordinary security and acknowledgment by giving extraordinary mercies then give it and do it 1. Chearfully enter such bonds willingly 2. Pay the bond punctually at its time 3. Pay it fully in the whole of it so do it that you may say I will chearfully and of choise so do it that you may call it a paying punctually and fully And this will be accounted a rendring to the Lord and a reall promoting of Religion by setting forth our debt and the Lords goodnesse to which we are endebted Fear not to give thy God double security when he requires it Fail not to pay readily and fully when pay day comes for the Lord doth expect and command thee so to do and if thou do willfully make default he will lay folly to thy charge and take the forfeiture of thy bond and make thee know it too some way or other to thy grief and trouble keep out so long or get out of such debts so soon as thou canst Pay the Lord thy Vowes How are we compleat in Christ COL 3. last clause of ver 11. But Christ is all and in all THe great concernment of lost creatures is above all things to mind salvation this is the one thing needfull Luk. 10.42 Act. 16.30 this should be the great enquiry and in the neglect of this all our other endeavours are no better than laborious trifles The great danger which even they are in who seriously mind salvation is least they build upon some sandy foundation seeking Heaven in those wayes which lead not thither The great design of Satan is either to detain poor undone creatures in a totall neglect of salvation or to deceive them in the way and means thereof 't is therefore the great care of the Apostle as in other Scriptures so in this not only to undeceive the world as to those mistakes which prevailed then but to point out the right the proper the onely sure way of salvation viz. through Christ whom he here declares
are lost and undone but in him is redemption We are empty of all good but he is a full fountain from whom flow all those blessings which concern either our present comfort or future happinesse We are necessitous and indigent in him are hid all the treasures of wisdome and knowledge Col. 2.3 Yea in him dwells the fulnesse of the Godhead bodily and ye are compleat in him Col. 2.9 10. Or as you have it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 1.19 In him dwells all fulnesse The rich Merchant thought himself no loser by the bargain in parting with all he had to purchase an interest in Christ Mat. 13.45 46. But when never so much is said there cannot a greater word be used than what the Apostle speaks here Christ is all The Greeks were wont of old to account it an excellency to speak much in a few words to give their Auditors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Ocean of matter in a drop of words Thus does the Apostle here give us as I may speak gold in the wedge which I shall endeavour to beat out into the leaf by showing how much is comprized in this one word All. The two names by which the most ancient Philosophers were wont to speak of God were that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the true being and the universall good all the scattered excellencies which are dispersed among severall ranks of creatures meeting in him as the lines of the Circumference in the Center This does the Apostle speak here of Christ He is All. Physitians speak of an universall medicine suited to all diseases and helpfull in all maladies but whether this can be found in nature or not yet certainly Christ is a Panacea in him we have a plaister for all sores a remedy against all distempers There are indeed thousands of cases wherein all other helps are but miserable comforters and Physitians of no value but not one case wherein Christ is not a full and proper help When all that friends can do is only to pity us he can help us because Christ is All. For the further explaining and confirming of this great truth three things shall be spoke to 1. Wherein Christ is All. 2. How Christ is All. 3. What advantage it is to sincere Christians to have their All in Christ 1. Wherein Christ is All. In general He is All in All things for so some of no small account render the following words and in All as hath already been hinted But more particularly 1. Christ is All to sincere Christians to free them from whatever might hinder their salvation Salvation is not a meer negative thing nor does it consist in a bare exemption from hell and wrath but a translation into heaven and glory but alas betwixt us and glory there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great Gulph many bars and impediments aye but Christ is All to deliver us from these and though our deliverance in this world is not compleat or perfect yet is it so for compleat as to render our salvation undoubtfull if we be in the number of them to whole Christ is here said to be All. 1. The wrath of an offended God which like that flaming sword that kept our Apostate Parents from returning into Paradise out of which because of their Apostacy they had been ejected would render our admission into heaven equally impossible but Christ by bearing the wrath of God in his own person hath taken it off from ours and therefore he is said to deliver us from the wrath to come 1 Thess 1.10 he who was the Son of Gods love became the subject of his displeasure as appears by comparing Matth. 3.17 with Isa 53.10 that we who were children of wrath might become the objects of his favour and however Christ hath not deliverâ—d beleevers from the anger of God as a Father yet from the anger of God as a Judge There is an anger that proceeds from love as the anger of a Parent towards that childe whose good he desires and there is a vindictive anger Heb. 12.6 7 8 c. the former beleevers are neither freed from nor would it indeed be their priviledge there is not a greater judgement can befall poor sinfull creatures here on earth than for God not to discover himself angry with them for their sins Isa 1.5 God then deals with men as a skiliull Physitian with an unruly Patient whom he gives up as desperate Magna ira est quando peccantibus non iâ—ascitur Deus Hieron or as a tender Parent with a graceless childe whom he utterly rejects In a word what ever kinde of anger might tend to the prejudice of beleevers that they are delivered from but what is for their advantage that they are subject to That Christ is All in delivering from the wrath of God may further be evidenced by these Considerations 1. The adequate of Gods wrath is sin Object there is this difference 'twixt wrath and mercy in God that mercy flows as I may so speak naturally from God and hath no other motive but onely the gracious and mercifull disposition of God but wrath hath alwayes its rise from us and nothing in us but sin can draw down his wrath upon us Our meaness cannot our afflictions cannot these may sometimes be the effects of Gods wrath but never the causes No 't is because of these things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience Eph. 5 6. because of these things ie because of these sins as appears from the Verses foregoing What is it that hath filled every age and place of the world with so many dreadfull tokens of Gods displeasure but onely sin What was it that cast the Angels out of heaven and degraded them from their first station but onely sin What was it that drove our first Parents out of Paradise and subjected them and all their Posterity to so many miseries but onely sin What was it that brought destruction upon the old World upon Sodome Gemorrah Admah Zeboim What was it that broke off the natural branches and hath for so many hundreds of years continued them under a divorce from God but onely sin In a word look over all those miseries under which the whole Creation groans Rom. 8 22. And though those miseries in several creatures are divers yet do they all proceed from the same fountain viz. Sin 2. Christ is All in making expiation for sin He is that Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world Joh. 1.29 He is our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Joh 2.2 Rom. 3.25 't was not thousands of Rams not ten thousands of Rivers of Oyl could have born any proportion in point of satisfaction for our sins 'T was not all the Legal Sacrifices of old could do any thing nor can all our duties now but Christ is all in expiating for sin Heb 10.5 6 7. compared with Heb. 10.14 And such is the fulness of
Christs satisfaction that he hath not onely freed such as are united unto him from condemnation Rom. 8.1 but purchased for them the Adoption of children Rom. 8.14 15 16. And thus Christ is All in removing this bar and opening this door to salvation which had it not been for his mediation would for ever have remained shut against all the children of men The pollution and prevalency of corruption how great an impediment this is to salvation and happiness was typified by the Lepers and unclean persons of old who were not admitted within the Camp Lev. 13.46 Heaven is no common receptacle for all persons as Noahs Ark was for all sorts of creatures Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdome of God 1 Cor. 6.9 Know ye not if you know any thing in Religion you cannot but know thus much In the Church of God on earth there is a mixture of Corn with Chaffe of Wheat with Tares of good Fish with bad of Sheep with Goats but there shall be a separation of the precious from the vile and God will come with his Fan in his hand and throughly purge his floor Luke 3 17. Do but consider and pause a while upon that mischief which sin hath done poor creatures by its pollution How hath it stained their glory cast them down from their excellency turned Angels into Devils and debased man who was once almost the top of the whole Creation in whom all the scattered Excellencies in the Book of Nature were bound up together in one Volume and met together in a blessed union How unlike hath sin made us to what God at first made us Those souls of ours which were once as so many pure beams of Light how is the beauty of them now blotted and darkned But Christ is that Fountain opened for sin uncleanness Zech. 13.1 in his blood is vertue enough to fetch out scarlet spots and crimson stains Isa 1.18 and if any of the children of men perish in their pollutions 't is not because he wants sufficiency but because they want faith Christ is All in the business of cleansing and purifying But alas Ioh. 3.16 besides the pollution of sin there is the prevalency of it This was to St. Paul so great an affliction that he who could bear the greatest of outward afflictions patiently 2 Cor. 11.23 24 25 c. cannot but express something of an holy impatience under this burden Rom. 7.24 he that could triumph over Principalities Powers Life Death c. Rom. 8 38 39. is yet more than a little discouraged when he reflects upon the corruptions he found lodging in his own heart Corruption is the great Tyrant that hath usurped over the whole world the bounds of its Dominion are almost as large as all mankinde there is not a man in all the world except the first man Adam made after Gods Image and the second Adam who was God as well as man but he is born a slave a vassal to this Usurper The four great successive Monarchies Chaldean Persian Graecian Roman though the extent of them were great and the circumference vast yet were all these limited and bounded some parts of the world there were which knew nothing of their yoke But alas the Empire of Corruption reaches every corner of the earth every person born into the world We may therefore not unfitly compare it to Nebuchadnezzars Tree Dan. 4 11. the top whereof reaches Heaven from thence it threw the Angels and the boughs thereof spreading themselves to the ends of the earth yea this vassallage unto Corruption as it is the largest and universalest so also the miserablest and most dreadfull All other slaveries compared with this are but like Rehoboams Government compared to his Father Solomons the least finger of whose Dominion he threatens should be heavier than his Fathers loyns 1 King 12.10 We read in Scripture of an Egyptian slavery in History of the Spartan slavery and of the Turkish all these sad and lamentable but yet all these reached but the body and that for a time onely whereas the slavery of Corruption reaches the soul and that for ever unless Christ become our Jesus in saving us from our sins Matth 1.21 He hath purchased our freedome and that with a great summe as the Centurion speaks of his Roman freedome Act 22 26 27 28. There are none can say with St. Paul they are born free except they who are born again and they are free indeed Joh. 8.36 Christ is All in removing this impediment also in setting our poor captive souls at liberty from the bonds and fetters of our corruption Rom. 6.6 7 8 c. Rom 7.25 'T is he alone can conquer these great Goliahs these untamed affections but yet even this deliverance is also incompleat in this world he delivers his people from corruption as to the reign and dominion of it though not as to the presence and disturbance of it ut non regnet sed nondum ut non sit 3. The oppositions of Satan his wiles and subtilties these are another impediment and that no small one neither for if our first parents in whom there was nothing of ignorance but a sufficiency of knowledge there was indeed a nescience of many things so is there also in the Angels Matth 24 36. but yet their knowledge was both full and clear in things necessary and pertinent Col. 3.10 This was no small advantage against the methods of Satan because his usual way of mischieving poor creatures hath not been so much by force as fraud not as a Lion but as a Serpent not so much by conquering as cheating acting all his enmity under a pretence of friendship and tempting us to no evil but under the pretence of some good The advantage of our first Parents was in this respect great in respect of their knowledge Besides in them was nothing of weakness but a sufficiency of strength in them was nothing of corruption but an universal rectitude and uprightness The wayes by which Satan ordinarily prevails is either by our ignorance or by our weakness or else by making a party within us against our selves The advantages of our first Parents were in all these respects far greater than any have against Satan now yet Satan prevailed against them What cause therefore have we to fear 2 Cor. 11.3 But Christ is all to free us from these dangers to carry us through these oppositions who hath led captivity captive Ephes 4.8 who hath spoiled Principalities and powers and triumphed over them Col. 2.15 but yet even this deliverance is at present incompleat for though Christ hath delivered believers from Satan as a destroyer yet not from Satan as a tempter he may disquiet such but he cannot ruin them 4. The disturbances and interruptions of a prophane world its allurements discouragements promises threats smiles frowns our difficulties and dangers from hence cannot be little since the people of God in all ages have found them so
teach us the worth of mercies either temporal or spiritual by the want of them and to bring us to want those mercies which we abuse if the childe play with or throw about his meat he may well think a wise and loving Father will make him feel the want of it and thereby know the worth of it and certainly we have as much reason to fear the fulfilling of those threatnings which the Ministers of the Gospel have for many years sounded in our ears for our abuse of the means of grace and certainly if Gods providence should call the most of us into Spain or some other Popish Country where we should have a famine of hearing the word of the Lord might we not sadly reflect upon our despising yea and loathing the heavenly Manna of Gods Word I speak not of the prophane ungodly wretches who scarce ever had any serious thoughts of Eternity nor ever soberly considered whether they were at all beholden unto God or no that never knew how to value a Bible above a Play-book or the Sacrament above a drunken meeting whose Religion is to scoffe and mock at godliness and godly men and who scarce ever knew any other end in coming to Church but to mock or carp at the Preacher who may with trembling read their doom 2 Chron. 36.16 But I speak of the Professors of Religion how have they either by reason of new fangled opinions sleighted and despised Gospel-Ordinances or else by reason of fulness of spiritual food have loathed and trampled upon the means of grace to whom the Lord seems to speak as to those Ezek 34 18 19. Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture but you must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures and to have drunk of the deep waters but ye must foul the residue with your feet And as for my flock they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet or else having enjoyed them and made use of them have been little the better by them have not lived and practised the Sermons they have heard and the prayers they have made Oh let such be sure in the first place to give glory to God when he deprives them of such means by acknowledging his justice in taking away what hath been so much abused or at best so little improved then let them with broken and bleeding hearts reflect upon those full Banquets of spiritual dainties the fragments of which in a time of want they would be glad of 2. Heartily resolve if ever the Lord bring you again to enjoy Gospel-Ordinances you will more value prize and improve them and indeed that alone which can make our repentings and sad reflections upon former miscarriages not to be mockings of God and cousening our selves must be an hearty resolution against what we profess to be sorry for and therefore that our resolution in such a case may be the more fixed it would be good to record it in our Note-books that so it may be a continual Monitor on all occasions minding us of our duty and checking us if afterwards we prove like the Israelites who soon forgat the Lord. Psal 106.13 And the truth is a Christians Note-book is usually a more faithfull register than his heart and 't is easier for the Divel to blot a good resolution out of our mindes than out of our books 3. Labour to know and understand well and often remember wherein consists the life of true and real Religion there be so many things in the world that pretend to be Religion and less deserve that name than the picture of a man deserves the name of a man that 't is an easie mistake to nourish an enemy to Religion instead of Religion unless we be serious and wary and more apt to regard the characters which the Scriptures give of real Religion than hasty to take up the forms and fancies of men instead of Religion I have read of a young French Lady who observing the glorious pomp and splendour of a Popish Procession cryed out How fine a Religion is ours in comparison of the Hugonots a speech suiting her age and quality but indeed if Religion did consist in such things the question I have in hand would fall to the ground for there could then be no exercise of Religion among those who would not admit of such pompous solemnities Let us therefore be often remembring that the Religion of the Gospel consists in righteousnesse Rom. 14.17 peace and joy in the holy Ghost in denying ungodlinesse and worldly lusts and living soberly righteously and godly in this present world Tit. 2.12 13 and so looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God Jam. 1.27 and our Saviour Jesus Christ in visiting the fatherlesse and widowes in their affliction and keeping our selves unspotted from the world He that hath a precious Jewell which he would secure must be able to distinguish it well from a counterfeit stone lest he neglect his Jewell and spend his care and pains upon a glittering glasse foysted into the room of it 4. In all your actions be often fixing your eye upon your great end be often asking your selves what is the work and businesse for which God sent me into the world which lyes in three words 1. Honour God 2. Save your souls 3. Do good to others Be often minding your selves that you have a better Trade to drive than for the corruptible riches of this world even for the pearl of great price the eternall happinesse of your souls Religion is the way to Heaven and he that doth not often eye his journeys end and consider whether the way he takes do lead unto his end is never like to keep long in the right way but now he that often with seriousnesse considers with himself that the God who made him expects to be honoured by him that the securing his souls welfare is his grand concernment and that to save the soul of one sinner is a greater good than to save a Countrey from drowning or a City from burning and therefore on all occasions asks himself how may I mannage such a businesse so as to honour God and promote the good of mine own and other mens souls How may I prosecute such an affair without prejudicing the grand design of my life This man is like to secure Religion in his soul 5. Live up to the professed principles of your Religion and believe it to be a greater glory to God honour to your Religion and security to your own souls to live according to than to argue and dispute for your Religion for most certain it is that self-love worldly interest pride passion c. may urge men to argue eagerly for the Christian or Protestant Religion whereas nothing but love to God and care of our own souls and charity to the souls of others can make a
man yet wantest thou one thing sincerity wouldst thou have Heaven too why then didst thou all things for the praise of men thou hast thy reward and art over-paid Mat. 7.23 depart from me you that work iniquity 2. Frustrating of hopes great hopes hopes of glory and Heaven and escaping eternall misery oIb 8.13 all these hopes must perish to the hypocrite perish like a ship at the very mouth of the haven perish whiles they are crying Lord Lord perish into everlasting horrour and eternall dispair 3. Full detection and manifesting of them in the sight and face of all the world Luk. 12.2 for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed nor hid that shall not be known the vizor will be then taken off which was feigned sanctity and the face will appear which was indeed double iniquity and for going about to cousin God and the world and his own soul the miserable hypocrite will be left to eternall intollerable confusion To be detested and derided by God Angels and Saints to be insulted on by the devils and damned to all eternity 4. And in Hell the hypocrite shall be beaten with many stripes for he knew his Masters will Luk. 12.47 and pretended he was doing of it and yet did it not Shall he that judged others to Hell lye lower in Hell and have more of Hell than those condemned by him shall it be worse with a proud Pharisee than with a Publicane nay a damned Publicane Mat. 24.51 is Hell the portion of Hypocrites are they the freeholders and all others but tennants and inmates with them or else if there be a worse place in Hell must it be theirs it must be so for the nearer Heaven the more of Hell and that will be the Hell of Hell to all aeternity Surely then hypocrisie is a dangerous thing there is exceeding danger of and danger by this leaven of the Phasees which is hypocrisie Vse I shall commend but one Use to be made of this Doctrine at this time and it is the beware in the Text. To stirre and provoke you to put forth your utmost care diligence and circumspection to beware of this leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisie Here I could shew you how much you are concerned to beware of the Pharisees leaven in doctrinals to beware of Doctrines advancing any thing in man or of man doctrines that are derived from any other fountain than the pure Word of God as traditions Enthusiasmes impulses besides or against the Word doctrines of will-worship superstition voluntary humility c. doctrines ascribing too much to and laying too much stresse on externals in worship not instituted by Christ doctrines of rigid imposition of things indifferent doctrines that have a tendency to blind obedience and implicite faith Whoever reads the New Testament may soon discern such were their doctrines and this is the leaven of the Pharisees in doctrinals and truly you had need to take care of this for doctrines and principles have no small influence on conversation and practice But I shall choose rather to prosecute this Use by endeavouring to give an Answer and resolution to two Questions which together constitute a great and weighty Case of Conscience Quest How may we discover and find out this subtill close evil of hypocrisie and convince our own and others souls that we are guilty of it and under the danger of it I must here first premise some general Cautions and then produce some particular evidences and discoveries of it I shall not meddle at all with grosse hypocrisie which is usually known both to the Hypocrite himself and frequently apparent to others too Some mens sins are open beforehand going before to judgement 1 Tim. 5.24 and some men they follow after But I shall labour to trace out and unkennel that latent close and deep Hypocrisie formally self-deceiving Hypocrisie whereby the Hypocrite may cousin others and himself too Here 1. I must premise these Cautions and Negations 1. That hic labor hoc opus my task is very hard my work difficult Caution 1 nice and curious that it is very difficult to find out the hypocrisie of ones own heart much more to convince others of the hypocrisie in theirs for the heart of man is deceitfull above all things Ier. 17 9. And hence the most serious inquisitive jealous and heart-searching Christians have used to call God in to their help in this work Search me O God and know my heart try me and know my reins Psal 139.23 24. c. Search my heart and try my reins examine whether there be any way of wickednesse in me 2. That as difficult as it is yet it is possible and feasible for we Caution 2 are not commanded impossibilities when we are required to search and try our wayes and turn unto the Lord Lam. 3.40 2 Cor. 13.5 1 Ioh. 3.19 to examine our hearts and to prove our selves whether we be in the faith whether our own hearts condemn us not David Hezekiah Job and Paul 2 Cor. 1.12 these all examined their own hearts and attained thereby to a knowledge and sense of their own sincerity And we are not directed to absurdities when we are cautioned to beware of men to take heed of those that come in sheeps cloathing but inwardly are ravening Wolves And we are not herein bid to make Brick without straw for the spirit of a man which is in him knoweth the things of a man 1 Cor. 2.11 and as face answereth to face in a glasse Prov. 27.19 so doth the heart of man to man Nay we have a far greater help viz. the Spirit of God which searcheth all things yea the deep things of God One of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit in the primitive Church 1 Cor. 2.10 11. and very necessary for those times in which Satan was very busie and the Canon of Scripture not compleated was the gift of discerning of spirits 1 Cor. 12.10 some think that by vertue of this gift Peter discerned Ananias and Saphira their hypocrisie Acts 5. and afterwards Simon Magus his too which Philip could not do as not having that gift or such a measure of it but indeed there was no need of any extraordinary gift to discern Simon Magus by Acts 8. to any man that had reason and but common illumination Simon Magus his hypocrisie might easily and clearly appear in that motion of his Sell me this gift Who but an hypocrite could have thought it had been to be sold and who but an hypocrite would have offered money for it It was easie to conclude him in the gall of bitternesse and the bond of iniquity And the Ministers of the Gospel have authority calling and commission and therefore gifts to detect and bewray the guiles and wiles the depths and deceits and snares of Satan much more the workings and turnings of mens deceitfull hearts and the Word of God which is the
pursued presently into act if they convince you of any neglected duty fall immediately upon the practise of it If they make you more resolute against any carnal or worldly lust betake your selves presently to the mortifying of it If they kindle any holy affection to Christ or his people give some real expression thereof without delay If they revive any languishing grace let it be forthwith exercised This was Davids practice Psal 119 60. you will finde this one of the best expedients for the fixing and securing of those good motions which are raised in your mindes and hearts by the Ordinances When the blossoms of a fruit-tree are once knit though the flourish thereof be gone and you see nothing but the bare rudiment of the expected fruit yet you think it more secured from the injury of frosts and winds than if it were still in the flower good motions when they are once reduced into act are thereby as it were knit and brought to more consistency They are then well past one of their critical periods where most miscarry and so are more like to live and continue with you Besides the act strengthens that good motion and disposition which leads to it and so makes you more ready for another act and that disposeth to more acts and those to better and repeated acts beget a habit and this as the Philosopher tells us is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something that will stay by you The hearts of the people being raised by Hezekiahs zealous speech 2 Chron. 29. they were kept up in that posture till the work designed by him was finished till Religion was restored and reformed and how came this to pass Why the thing was done suddenly vers 36. he pursued the peoples good inclinations and brought them into act suddenly he struck while the iron was hot When your hearts are heated by the Ordinances set immediately upon your work the primus impetus affords a great advantage if it be improved possibly in the vigour of it you may overcome those great dfficulties and oppositions which have been too hard for you formerly and may otherwise give you impediment hereafter and this being mastered your progress will be easier you may go on towards heaven under the power of the Ordinances with less interruption and fewer intercisions of these divine influences Jam. 1.22.23 But be ye doers of the word and not hearers onely deceiving your own selves for if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer i. e. if he do it not presently as appears by what follows he is like to a man beholding his natural face in a glass for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and streight way forgetteth what manner of man he was The glass discovers what spots and sullages are in his face that he may wash them off or what is disordered about him that he may correct and compose it but if he do not this presently if he put it off till some occurence divert him from the thoughts and remembrance of it his looking in the mirror will prove but a loss of time a vain curiosity Your use of the Ordinances is like to prove no better if you practise not what they lead you to without delay its like to be no other than such a viewing of your selves in a glass a meer fruitless speculation 5. You must take much pains with your hearts if you would have them retain the vertue and efficacy of the Ordinances The effect of them should be as a nail fastned in a sure place but the heart is so hard and knotty a piece that you cannot drive it in without many blows it will require all your strength to force it in far enough and all your care and watchfulness to keep it in when it is there They grosly mistake Christianity who take it to be consistent with our carnal ease and slothfulness who place it in notions or opinions in fair shews and a specious profession in forms gestures or external observances in conforming to this or that mode of Worship or Discipline It were well for the World if one could be a Christian at such an easie rate but they that please themselves with such conceits they erre not knowing the Scriptures The action of a Christian is all along in the New Testament expressed by striving wrestling running and combating exercises wherein he that will not be worsted must intend all his spirits stretch all his sinews put forth all his strength he that is a Christian indeed he must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 6.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3.12 13 14. Heb. 12.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 13.24 his daily course must be a combating as for victory a running as for a Crown a striving as for life The power and life of holiness can neither be attained nor upheld without an effectual use of the Ordinances the Ordinances will never be effectual to purpose unless the vertue of them abide upon the heart now it meets with such reluctancy and opposition from the heart so far as it is unrenewed that it can never be fastned there without striving and strugling and earnest contending it must be done in despight of our own ease and carnal humours and natural inclination and all the resistance of the body of death If you think this too much you think much to be Christians indeed however you pretend to the name Those that are acquainted with their own hearts finde it very hard to get them raised to a spiritual and heavenly temper very difficult to get them pullied up though they have the advantage of the most powerfull Ordinances to any good posture and when with much ado they are got up exceeding difficult to keep them there Alas we seem to be forcing a weighty stone up a steep hill when with much toyl we have got it near the top take but our hands off a little leave it but to it self and down it runs further in a moment than we can get it up again in some hours Our way to heaven lyes up the hill that which is spiritual and heavenly is above us the natural bent and tendency of our hearts is downwards as there is no getting them up without toyl and pains so when we have raised them a little leave them but to themselves grow but a little remiss and negligent and down they run on a sudden we shall quickly finde them at the bottome of the hill in a carnal lukewarm earthly temper When our hearts are effectually touched and raised and moved in the use of Ordinances there 's no keeping them in a quick and lively motion without striving and strugling and as it were forcing them on with might and main The influence of the Ordinances falling upon a sloathfull soul is quite lost and meerly thrown away upon it Prov. 12.27 The sloathful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting So he loseth all his former labour because he will not take a little more
such prodigious mercy and that when this love would have opened to thee the door of glory how great how infinite glory and when the rejecting of it would infallibly plunge thy soul into misery how dreadful how intollerable was ever madness like thine oh my soul will conscience say certainly Hell is too easie a punishment for such a Serpent such an Incarnate Devil as thou art well may God rejoyce to bee avenged on such a wretch as thee and make thee to drink up the very dreggs of his Indignation while others that dwell in God shall dwell in love oh how will God bee nothing else but fury and wrath and vengeance to thee Thou shalt one day and that day such as never shall have an end hear Justice call upon Omnipotency still to add more flame to thy torment Thus conscience will look backward and forward and even wreak it self with the most dismal flaming language that it can finde out upon the haters of Christ And is not that a dreadful sin which shall thus set a man against himself and put a sword into the hand of cruel conscience to cleave the soul in peeces And is not that a dreadful punishment when a man shall become his own Accuser Judge and Executioner When conscience shall burn so hot within a man that hee shall be a terrour to himself and an eternal amazement And yet alas what is all this to the immediate impressions of the wrath of God upon the soul when hee that hath said Vengeance is mine and I will repay Heb. 20.30 shall grasp the soul in his dreadful hand which might bee farther Improved and be demonstrated to be Incomparably the sorest part of the punishment but I come to the second particular which was to lay down some moving Considerations to provoke such as love themselves to love Christ and besides the particulars last mentioned Consider 1. Who it is that I plead for this day Sirs I do not call you to doat upon thick clay filth and vanity I do not plead to gain your hearts to one that is not worthy or hath not deserved that you should place your affections upon him if you can make either of these manifest hate him and spare not but I plead for one who is 1. glorious and excellent if you doubt it read his Character Cant. 5.9 What sayest thou now is hee not Altogether lovely is there any blemish to bee found in him and if thou mistrustest the Judgement of the Church sure thou canst not doubt of Gods Hear his sentence Matth. 3.17 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Hee knew of whom hee spake for hee was his Son and hee doth not say hee was pleased with him only but well-pleased i. e. delighted See Prov. 8.30 and satisfied And was hee worthy of Gods love and doest thou doubt whether he have deserved thine 2. Consider hee is one that died for thee first to purchase thy love and since is gone to Heaven where yet hee doth not Cease to call upon thee and Invite thee to bestow thy heart upon him were hee excellent but proud it would bee little to thy advantage But hee stoops and wooes and intreats thee Isa 55.1 Luke 15.20 Act. 9.4 John 5.21.26 'T is a day of the Gladness of his heart when hee prevailes but with one soul to close with him And all the rage of his persecutors did not grieve him more than you will if you stand it out against him 3. Consider hee is one that hath the power of thy life and death in his own hands and this is one part of his Covenant upon which thy life or death depends as offered in the promise so hee waites but as love is the Condition of it so if thou hearkenest not thou loosest thy share therein and what thou choosest bee it life or death thou shalt Certainly have 2. Consider what it is I plead for why all that I aske is love and will you deny Christ that I call thee to think well of Christ to desire him to take Complacency in him to breath after union and eternal communion with him And which of these dost thou think too much for such an object or where canst thou place them more fitly than upon him what is hee worthy of if not of this did ever death content it self with such a recompence was ever any debt easier paid any service so easily performed as this only to love hath God made Christ a King Priest and Prophet and is that all which thou must do to partake of his love in him to love him in those relations and wilt thou stick at this Hast thou any other way to the bosome of God but by him yet rather than thou wilt come thither by love wilt thou damn thy soul by hating Christ is not the enjoyment of God worth the labour of love 1 Thes 1.3 shall all go rather than be saved by love to thy Redeemer 3. Consider what hee will do for thee if thou art a sincere lover of him Hee comes not to Court thee and flatter thee to thy loss but his reward is great Rev. 22.12 and hee brings it with him Give mee leave to tell thee some particulars thereof If thou wilt love him hee will betroth thee to himself in dearest love Hee will bee thy Bridegroom and thou shalt bee his Bride Hos 2.19 20. Ephes 5.32 Zech 3 4. Gen. 20.16 Rev. â—1 9 Isa 62.5 'T is not all thy filthy garments Ragges or Poverty that shall hinder but hee will bee to thee the Covering of thine eyes And a gladness of heart shalt thoa bee unto him Zeph. 3.17 Thou shalt bee the Joy of Christ himself for as the Bridegroom rejoyâ—eth over the Bride so shall the Lord thy God rejoyce over thee 2ly He will dwell with thee John 14.23 24. Husband and Wife dwell together and so doth the betrothed soul and Christ John 17.23 I in them and they in mee saith Christ Now this is a priviledge which carries many in the womb of it Rev. 3.20 such are these 1. Intimacy and daily familiarity Christ and Christians Eph. 5.23 take their meals together there is no Communion so neer as that which is between them One spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 2. Maintenance and provision 1 Tim. 5.8 Hee is worse than an Infidel that provides not for his own house Heb. 13.5 All that live under the same roof with Christ have their daily bread provided for them at his charges and hee hath said that hee will never leave them 3. Protection every mans house is his Castle they are under safe Covert that dwell with Christ 4. Counsel guidance and direction This great Husband dwels with all his family according to knowledge 1 Pet. 3.7 for hee teacheth them all his Secrets and shews them his Covenant Psal 25.14 3ly Hee will Interest thee in all his own Riches purchases possessions and dignities
together with his person hee offers Heaven and Earth for a Dowry Rom. 8.17 All things are his by purchase and thou shalt bee a Copartner or Coheir with him when thou art espoused to him 4ly 1 Cor. 3.22 23. He will manifest the highest Indulgence and Tenderness towards thee Not all thy cross walkings if through temptations it shall so fall out shall put him upon any more then a moment any departure from thee Isa 54.7 8. for hee hath resolved that his faithfulness towards thee shall never fail Isa 89.33 and therefore when thou seemest almost lost and ready to despond hee will return to thee again and the more time he hath lost by absence the more full will his heart bee of ravishing love and affections to thee 5ly Hee will Turn all to thy good neither thy sins Cant. 6.3 though many and great nor thy miseries though overwhelming and discouraging no nor lastly shall death it self Rom. 8.28 38. bee ever able to make a divorce between thee and him but serve as a passage to thee when thy work is done into the Bridechamber of thy Lord and now tell mee Phil. 1.21 hast not thou Reason to love him 4. Consider but thy case while this Virgin affection to thy Saviour is wanting 1. Thou multipliest thy whoredomes and thy abominations continually for what are thy Intensive willings of other things but so many acts of spiritual adultery and base prostitutions of thy soul to thy dishonour and disadvantage while other things usurp the room of Christ 2. Thou art a treacherous Hypocrite and deceiver forasmuch as thou pretendest to the eye of the world to bee Christs and yet art nothing less than his 3. You lay a barr in against your selves and the acceptance of all your duties when faith works by love then is obedience illustrious and meet for a gracious acceptaotin that obedience which owes no part of it self to love is worth little and brings in no more Gal. 5.6 then it is worth 4. You make bonds for your selves in death Iob 27.6 and lay up terrible reprâ—oches in the Consciences against the day of Judgement 5. You make your damnation necessary there being no Congruity to any of the Divine Attributes much less to the offices of Christ that that man should ever bee saved who never had any sincere affection to him These are some of the Considerations which may bee of use to them that have no spark of love yet kindled in their hearts There are a few of the other kinde which may provoke to get this love Inflamed where it is such are these Consider 1. The love of Christ to thee was a growing Increasing love I do not mean in respect of the habit but in the outward demonstration thereof The neerer hee was to his death the more exuberant in love and when hee rose again his heart did overflow with tender indulgence as appears by the meltings of his bowels towards Mary and over Peter and much more may wee beleeve him now to be full of them now that hee is at the Right hand of God 2. There is more lovelyness in Christ than ever thou canst finde out or fathome when wee have let out our affections to the utmost there will still bee more than wee can finde affection for our love to eternity will have something of admiration mixed with it 3. It 's all you can return to him it 's all hee looks for at our hands that which lies in love and which flowes from it is the whole that is required to compleat Christianity 4. The more you love him the more lovely you are unto him Then hath Christ the highest complacency in us when our hearts are under the greatest Raptures of love to him Beatus est qui intelligit quid sit amare Jesum contemnere scipsum propter Jesum A Kempis de imitatione Christi l. 2. c. 7. 5. It is the honour of a man to love Christ superlatively It is the sweetest part of our lives and that which Christ values us more by than by any thing else It 's Heaven on Earth 6. According to the measure of your love so will all the rest of your services and graces be i. e. either more or less better or worse Love is like the Master wheel in an Engine making the whole soul to move faster or slower These are the considerations of the last kind will some say oh but what shall wee do to get this blessed affection into our souls which was the third thing proposed And in order thereto I offer these Directions 1. Direction Bee well acquainted with the nature of this great duty The great mistake of the world lies in this That is thought to be love which is not and thence men and women grow bold and confident and value themselves more than they ought I have given in my best assistance so far as the nature of the first case would permit to prevent mistakes in this matter before and therefore I will not do it over again Only remember if you would not miscarry that it is not a Naked Christ but a Christ advanced by incomparable Personal Excellencies and cloathed with his offices of King and Priest and Prophet that is the Christ to bee loved and you cannot well miscarry This is that damning mistake of the world they love Christ but not as dignified by God with any of his offices 2. Direction Bee much in the study of your selves what you were originally and what you are since become through your own miscarriage wilfulness and folly Take your souls to the glass of the Law and go from one precept to another and when you have done there go to the Gospel And be sure you do not deal sleightly but understand throughly how much you have offended And when you have well studied the number and quality of your sins then consider the justice and holiness of the Eternal God which you shall understand by the same Law and Gospel where they speak the Divine Terrour against offending-sinners but more specially shall yee know is by going to the Cross of Christ and wisely and seriously considering the horrour of that punishment which Christ there indured for wee never know as wee ought the evil of sin and our misery thereby until wee know what hee indured to make an Expiation for it Do this and do it faithfully They that never knew themselves they are most certainly without love to Christ And it is enough to prove it because unless this foundation be first laid they can see no sufficient reason for it 3. Direction Get a true Conviction concerning thy own ultimate end and happiness Where it lies viz. not in the objects of sense but in the Beatifical vision of God possesse thy soul by Scripture light Mat. 16.26 of the grand importance of securing thy Interest therein while you think your happiness lyes any where else than in God it will be
word signifieth both a wicked man and a deceiver And it is observed that those whom David the devoutest man called wicked Solomon the wisest man calls fools and Job the most upright man calls hypocrites all is but one and the same thing under divers names Hypocrisie then is but a feigning vertue and piety it seems to put on and vice and impiety it conceals and would seem to put off It is indeed vice in a vizor the face is vice but virtue is the vizor The form and nature of it is imitation the ends are vain glory to be seen of men or some gain or carnal respects There is a grosse hypocrisie whereby men pretend to the good they know they have not and there is a formall close hypocrisie whereby men deceive others and themselves too are hypocrites and do not know it In this case it is probable the Pharisee was Luk. 18. Mat. 25. and those signified by the five foolish Virgins and all formall Christians that are not regenerated by the spirit nor put into Christ by faith This is a subtle evill a secret poyson a close contagion and here it is infinite mercy and grace that we do not all split and perish and if we can scape this if we are indeed sincere we are out of the greatest danger of all the leaven of hypocrisie To direct you to find out and to purge out this shall be my especiall endeavour at this time 2. How is hypocrisie resembled by leaven Briefly thus 1. Leaven is hardly discerned from good dough by the sight and as hardly is hypocrisie distinguished from piety You outwardly appear righteous unto men Mat. 23.18 1 Cor. 5.6 but within you are full of hypocrisie and iniquity 2. Leaven is very spreading a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump and so it is a great deal of mischief hypocrisie doth it spreads over all the man and all his duties parts performances leavens all as we may observe Esa 1.12 13 14 15. Esa 66.3 3. Leaven is of a sour tast and ingratefull smell so is hypocrisie to God and man I will spread dung upon your faces even the dung of your solemn assemblies Mal. 2.3 all were leavened with hypocrisie and were accounted and savoured but as dung in the nostrils of the Lord. How odious and loathsome was that service of Annanias and Saphira Act. 5. both to the holy Ghost and to the Church because it was leavened with hypocrisie 4. Leaven is of a swelling nature it extends and puffs up the dough and so doth hypocrisie it is all for the praise of men the Scribes and Pharisees were all for preheminence chief places chief seats chief appellations to be called Rabbi Rabbi and if others will not admire and over value them they will admire and advance themselves Mat. 18. Luk. 16.14 15. I am not as this Publicane You are they that justifie your selves but God knoweth your heart for that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to the Lord. They highly esteemed of themselves they justified themselves they derided Christ for not having the same thoughts of them Pride and vain-glory is the inseparable companion if not the mother of hypocrisie 3. Why is it called the leaven of the Pharisees Because they were leavened with it to purpose they were exact and supereminent in this divelish art of personating and counterfeiting to the life The devill indeed is the arch-hypocrite of the world transforming himself into an Angell of light his first-born in this generation are the Scribes and Pharisees his next born the Jesuites so like their predecessors the Pharisees that a man may believe that Christ looked so farre as to them in Matth 23. and strook at them through the Pharisees sides that they were indeed the types but the Pope Cardinals Prelates and Jesuites the antitype Their Doctrines are alike leavened they both set up traditions superstitious customs and forms against and above the Word of God when once they come in competition they both would ordinarily suspend and dispence with Gods commands but most rigorously impose their own and that under severe paenalties and both upon the account of extraordinary holinesse and high actings of devotion And so for their conversation there was grosse hypocrisie in all to be seen prayed in corners of the streets gave alms openly Mat. 6.4 5 6. disfigured themselves that they might appear to fast So the Jesuites if we may beleeve some of themselves being converted and many of the Saeculars that know them well enough affect the name but hate the reallity of true piety and devotion They would be accounted as Henry the 4th of France said of them Timothies at home in the Colledge Chrysostomes in the pulpit and Augustines in disputation this they would be accounted though it be nomen inane crimen immane they would have the name though not the thing for that is the nature of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisie 4. Wherein is this leaven of hypocrisie so dangerous that Ministers and people ought firstly chiefly to beware of it A very little and briefly of that There is great danger of it and great danger by it There is great danger of it 1. For we have the ground of the matter in our selves hearts deceitfull above all things Ier. 17.9 and desperately wicked who can know thy wickednesse I the Lord search the heart and try the reynes c. As if none besides the Lord knew the bottomlesse depths and deceits of the heart In the heart are those lusts and affections that feed and foment all the hypocrisie in the world pride vain-glory concupiscence carnall wisdome were it not for these there would not be an hypocrite living 2. The Devill watcheth night and day to set fire to this towe he is fitted to the purpose and filled with raging desire to comply with a filthy heart and to ingender this spurious offspring of hypocrisie He hath in a readinesse his wiles and his depths his baits and his snares and for a false heart hath false wayes false Doctrines false faiths false seasons false ends and aims vix caret effectu when two such be agreed to such a purpose hardly will they be frustrated 3. And that we may not be secure there are before our eyes and in our view dreadfull examples Baalam a great Prophet Judas an Apostle familiar with Christ Saul Jehu Herod and Agrippa famous Kings Five Virgins conspicuous and most confident Ananias and Saphyra eminent converts Alexander and Demas confessors and in some degree Martyrs it may grieve and make a tender heart tremble to think what they became and what is become of them To teach him that standeth to take heed least he fall and all of us to our dying day to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisie 2. And there is great danger by it 1. The losse of all that is done Mat. 19. Christ will say as to that young