and meaning another but a present profession of love to God and Religion without a cordial renouncing of every thing that is contrary to him and it or a great heat and forwardness to some things that God commands which are easie and more suitable to a mans gust and humor with a coldness to other things that are more difficult and contrary to his nature and interest There is an extraordinary measure of Zeal for some matters required to its constitution else they in whom it is would not be so confident as they are that they are good Christians but then this zeal is not equally destributed through the whole man and doth not animate and quicken him to all his duty and that is it which makes it to be Hypocrisie and not true Religion As for example if a man have this partial zeal in hearing of Gods word and diligent attending upon Sermons this may make him take himself for a Saint whereas his frozenness to meditation and secret converse with God and diligent examination of all his actions renders him a meer hypocrite So if he be partially zealous for the purging of himself from superstitious conceits and Popish tenents but yet remain a Mammonist a Lucifer a murtherer of his Brethren by hatred and uncharitable censuring of others that differ from him this is the same disease though he take himself for a man excellently pious And on the contrary if a man be just in his dealing and carefull not to cheat but yet be all bedaubed with the world and laden with thick clay stick fast in covetousness or neglect many religious duties to Godward he is but an hypocritical Religionist though he keep his Church and pay the Mininister his dues as well as others 7. And if you should ask me why this good conceit that men have of their Piety may not be easily beaten down when it is so visible that they live in great sins and have not denyed abundance of their earthly affections I answer that their first resolutions to undertake some duties of Religion are commonly very warm if not hot and fiery which inspires them presently with a perswasion that they are dearly beloved of God because they feel such a difference in themselves from what they were before in their total coldness Now though they continue to live in many sins yet this perswasion doth not abate 1. Because this zeal doth continue and hold on afterwards through the concurrence of their particular Temper with it which inclines them to that sort of actions or doth not make them averse from them And 2 Then they may think it to be a Temptation of the Devil to doubt of their good estate after they have had such great assurance as they imagine from God And 3 They find a desire to do those things that they do not which they take to be a great sign of grace Especially seeing 4 That they are troubled for the not doing of them and they have now and then some sad thoughts about it Yea 5 Their Conscience perhaps is much against it when they do it and they commit such sins not without great reluctance and difficulty Which indeed renders their condition the worse because they can sin even against conscience but they take it to be a sign of their tenderness not of their sins strength And 6 Perhaps they have learnt to call such sins their Infirmities and hearing that all have their failings these they think are theirs And 7 By their Confessions and Prayers and outward humiliations they hope to gain pardon for all or 8 Perhaps they think there is no need but by a device beyond all these they imagine Jesus Christ hath done all for them long ago And so the less they do the more they shall be beholden to him and the more honour they do him by putting more upon his account then others dare do who will be doing more themselves 8. Thus I say do they ratifie that Decree which they have passed for themselves in heaven They having so certainly fore-ordained that they shall inherit eternal joyes none of those foul blemishes that are in their actions can blot out their names which they have written in the Book of life But though they think that nothing can hinder their admission to that blessed place which they have designed for themselves yet God I am sure hath chosen no such persons to salvation If the holy Apostle be not less infallible then they you had better believe him 2 Thes 2.13 when he saith that God hath chosen us to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth and when he prayes that the whole Spirit 1 Thes 5.23 Soul and Body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus These men may mount up while they are in some holy exercise as high as the third heavens and think verily that they are in Gods embraces But they will find shortly that all their hopes will fall to the ground as that Turk did from the top of the Mosque who perswaded the people that he could fly And therefore let us be sure to lay the foundations of a solid and entire Religion in our souls and take heed we do not deceive our selves with some flashy devotions and a lame halting obedience To mortifie all our carnal affections to put off the body of sin is the work of a Christian and because of the multitude of our enemies and the infirmities of our flesh we shall find it a matter hard and difficult How insuperable then will this work be if our Religion it self do conspire with the Flesh and if that which should serve for the destroying of sin do by a great many false Principles exceedingly promote it That it may not do so but that our Religion may be in us a Divine nature I shall now proceed to shew you what the counterfeits of it are and how small a matter if we be not serious will tickle us with a belief that we are good Christians without a total change of our hearts and lives CAP. XVIII 1. The story of the Jews in the New Testament to be minded as well as in the Old and we find them great Professors 2. But their Religion was only talk 3. And with such windy Religion still men deceive themselves Good words may move a mans affections and so cozen him 4. Others delight only in high-flown and obscure language 5. An high proficiency they take themselves to have made if they dare leap into a Pulpit 6. The sins of such men A short description of True Religion in reference to this matter 1. NOW for the more full discovery of the several kinds of this Hypocrisie I think it will be best to examine the New Testament story as I have done the Old and see what the temper of the Jews was in our Saviours and the Apostles time who will give us as perfect a character of this false spirit as their fore-fathers
as they did to cause their voice to be heard on high not regarding either their mournful howlings or their clarnorous petitions whereby they thought to stir him up to help them And by the Prophet Jeremiah he tells them cap. 14. 12. that when they fast he will not hear their cry For he that turns away his ear from hearing the Law even his prayer shall be an abomination Prov. 28.9 If men will not hear God he will not hear them yea he cannot give ear unto them For the things that they love and embrace are such necessary causes of the evils under which they groan and so inconsistent with the mercies that they desire that unless God alter the nature of things or change the method of his proceedings in the government of the world he cannot hearken to their petitions Either he must change his mind or they must change theirs or their prayers be unanswered And therefore unless they heartily renounce their sins and throughly discharge their iniquities all their prayers for sending mercies and for removing miseries are a piece of meer non-sense incoherent ignorant stuff which will be returned with such shame upon them as if he had thrown the dung of the sacrifices in the face of those that brought them 4. When men bear a love to those sins the evil consequents of which they desire may be prevented or remedied that they may not ruine them they are as ridiculous and unsuccessful as if a man should beg health while he continues in his riotous and intemperate course of living It is as if we should desire that the effect may cease while the cause remains in act that God would not be angry though we continually provoke him and that he would not hate us though we do not love him Let a man raise his confidence by what arts he pleaseth and speak with a boldness in his prayers as though he would command heaven and have what he would of God yet he cannot have a true faith that he shall be heard unless he utterly abandon in heart and resolution whatsoever is incompatible and cannot stand with the things that he desires We may call our Fasts by the name of dayes of prayer as we commonly do but though we should pray from morning until night though the whole Nation should cry to God that he would bow the heavens and come to save us though it should be with a voice that would rend the clouds and seem to make way for him to come down to our rescue yet if we be in love with our sins the causes of our trouble we have put in such a strong Caveat such a barr to our suits and petitions in the Court of heaven that we can obtain no audience And therefore some Heathens were wiser then these sottish children of Israel as Jer. calls them 4.22 for when Niniveh was afraid of Gods Judgements they not only proclaimed a Fast and cryed mightily to the Lord but they turned every one from their evil way and the violence that was in their hands Jonah 3.5 8. It is a prudent saying of Cyril of Alexandria Fasting is a choice thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prayer is profitable and of great benefit In Isa 58.3 it is to humble our souls in Gods eyes but it is most absurd for those that come in this manner to obtain mercy to provoke the divine Law-giver in another way by not loving to do his commands 5. But so willing are men to deceive themselves that though sometimes they go a little further yet they suffer their prayers to fall short of heaven When men have made their faces sour with fasting they begin sometimes to look angrily upon their sins and to take up some resolutions to be revenged on them And therefore they beg the divine grace to destroy them and beseech him to send his Spirit to purge their souls from them But then as if they had no mind to be heard they resolve to be at no trouble nor pains themselves about this great business They leave all to the care of God whom they would have so far to concern himself in our affairs as not to expect that we should be such creatures as he made us They sit still and wait for an unheard of power from above as if divine Faith were a relyance on God to carry such by force to heaven who have no list to walk in the way thither Such prayers have a perfect likeness to the requests of the man in the Fable to Hercules when his cart stuck fast in the mire who would neither prick forward his Oxen nor lay his own shoulders to the wheels nor unload the waggon but cast all upon the strength of his God expecting that he should come and draw it out And such an answer as was returned to that silly swain will very well befit such petitioners O bone disce pigris non flecti numina votis Praesentesque adhibe quùm facis ipse Deos. Learn Good Sir that God is not moved by lazie desires and sluggish wishes but that thou shalt then find thy God present when thou thy self art busie about thy work It is help that we beg and that supposes we are active though infirm Assistance we crave and that implyes our endeavours though ineffectual unassisted They are in all regards therefore idle prayers which careless sinners put up for divine aid and strength seeing they cannot speak common sense nor know the meaning of their own language They ask succour against their enemies but either they mean nothing or else victory without fighting and if that be it they mean it is as if they asked nothing because there is no such thing to be granted O that all men would at last learn to labour for that after which they seem to long and not make a perpetual trade of praying much and doing little or nothing Let us not meerly run from one Church to another from private Fasts to publick from common to extraordinary devotions for this was the manner of the heathen people who when they could not prevail by their daily sacrifices and prayers betook themselves to more laborious but unsuccessful devices We read of Moab in Isa 16.12 that when he was weary in the high places he came to his sanctuary to pray but he could not prevail i. e. when they had tired themselves with petitions for deliverance after the ordinary form that was used they went to the most holy place in the Land where their great god Chemosh was worshipped and there they doubted not but to speed But as they prevailed not because they did nothing at all but pray no more shall we of whom they are a perfect picture while we have confidence in our repeated prayers without a real reformation This kind of faith which men cherish in themselves is the most horrid infidelity greater then which the worshippers of Chemosh or Baal could not be guilty of For they believe not him at all who
hath said Unless ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Luke 13.3 And whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his commandements and do the things that are pleasing in his sight 1 Joh. 3.22 6. But I must add further that the case may so be that though there be some Good men in a Nation that do most seriously and heartily pray for it yet they may not be able to help it nor prevail for the averting of Gods anger For the attesting of which truth I might call in the Testimony of the Prophet Jeremiah cap. 11. where after God had said ver 11. that if the people did cry unto him he would not hearken unto them he adds ver 14. that he will not have the Prophet pray for them nor lift up a cry in their behalf for it shall be in vain The like to which you may read Jer. 14.11 And therefore he saith in Lam. 3.8 44. that when he did cry and shout God shut out his prayers and covered himself with a cloud so that they could not pass through The like testimony Ezekiel would afford us who tels us more then once cap. 14. that in some cases three such prevalent persons as Noah Job and Daniel shall obtain no more then their own security And I might have all their suffrages to this that sometimes nothing less then an universal reformation in the great Officers Magistrates and Governors especially will procure Gods favour But it is time to draw towards a conclusion of this Chapter and in the following discourses this matter will be abundantly cleared 7. Then our prayers are to good purpose for our selves or the Nation when we or they come to God with an holy disposition of heart to forsake our sins which we pray may be forgiven with a readiness of heart to make use of that divine grace which we beg at his hands and with a resolution to do that our selves which we desire he would do for us When they are instruments to Piety and Godliness and put our hearts into such an holy frame that even by our actions we may pray and pull down the blessings of heaven upon us then they are indeed strong and prevailing petitions For as Clemens Alex. speaks of a spiritual person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His whole life is a prayer to God and a familiar converse with him He prayes all day long in some sort viz. as to the effect and issue of prayer For the holiness of his life speaks most powerfully and effectually if not more prevalently then any other thing in his behalf to God being the use and the improvement of that grace which he hath received and so directly intitleing him to the blessings that are in that promise To him that hath shall be given 8. But yet we must take notice of this that when we pray thus to the reforming and amending of our hearts and lives the blessings that we are most confidently to expect are those of a spiritual and eternal nature Such as are forgiveness of sins acceptance with God to life and we cannot be certain sometimes that by all our reformation we shall avert temporal judgements upon our own persons or our Nation Perhaps the Decree may be irrevocably gone forth the ruine of a people or person may be absolutely determined or at least some very sharp punishment without any possibility of reversing the sentence may be resolved upon and though the sin may be forgiven to some and those the chiefest purposes yet not to all Who can tell whether God will return and repent was all that could be said in the Ninivites case And in the case of Jerusalem it was at last decreed that their City and Temple should be destroyed without any hopes of prevention of such a calamity though they had space given them to repent in that their souls might find mercy Though it be said of Josiah that he turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might so that there was none like him yet notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah 2 King 23.25 26. And afterward when they were carried captive the Lord decreed a seventy years banishment and though many no question were reformed and they poured out their prayer when Gods chastning was upon them yet they could not get the time cut short nor spy any hopes of deliverance as you may see Isa 26.16 17 18. Like as a woman say they with child that draweth nigh to the time of delivery is in pain and cryeth out in her pangs so have we been in thy sight O Lord. We have been with child we have been in pain we have as it were brought forth wind we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth neither have the inhabitants of the world faln This therefore is our satisfaction that when we fast and pray aright we shall partake of the principal benefits that attend upon them though not always of all the fruits and blessings which have thereby been procured CAP. VI. 1. Sacrifices another way of turning away the wrath of God 2. But by their trusting in them they brought his wrath upon them 3. God did not value them when they neglected his greater commands 4. Therefore we should not trust in outward worship Many places of Scripture are in this Chapter illustrated 1. THose prayers that we spoke of in the last Chapter were thought by the Israelites to be most powerful which were offered up at the time of the morning and evening sacrifice which were the hours of prayer And therefore in these sacrisices they put a great deal of confidence which they were not forgetfull to offer unto God after as liberal a sort as he could wish They hoped by these holy vapors together with their own holy breath to make heaven of their mind and stoop to their desires And therefore as on the day of the great Fast there was the greatest sacrifice of expiation offered for the sins of the people So we may presume that on other dayes of fasting they offered some extraordinary sacrifices And so much me thinks may be collected out of the Book of Judith where we read cap. 4. 14. that on their fasting dayes the high Priest and the rest of the sons of Aaron stood and ministred before the Lord with their loyns girt with sack-cloth and offered the daily burnt offerings with the vows and free gifts of the people In Jer. 14.12 we read also of burnt-offerings joyned with fasting and crying unto God These sacred vapors and the holy perfumes of incense they thought would scatter all infections that might annoy the air If they did but pay God his sheaf and his cake at the appointed times of first-fruits and furnish him a plentiful Table every day then they feared no famine to eat up their Land The beasts that were slain at their Altar they thought would
God and were divinely moved in their dreams when they were but the vapours and reeks of their own flesh which their aspiring minds agitated them withall And Epiphanius applies the place to the Gnosticks whose fables and dotages the Apostle he saith reproves which were more like the talk of a man in a dream then well awake 2. Cap. 17. n. 7. And it is likely that both the Jewish and Christian dreamers have faln into this spiritual phrensie by that same heat which I before spoke of whereby they perswaded themselves too early that they were Saints When this meets with a melancholy temper and a selfish disposition it is no hard matter to beget in them an opinion of near converse with God or Angels For when that fierce humour works and boils up all experience tells us that it puts men into high and big conceits if they be of a proud nature And then their religious inclinations and affections determine the workings of this melancholy fancy to matters concerning God and his Son and Holy Spirit These motions they may take to be from a divine power because they are so great and because they are so much different from what they feel when in their ordinary temper And this self-love may make them conceit likewise that none are like to receive from God such inspirations sooner then themselves who have such a love to him and presuppose that they are so much in his affections Now I hope there are not many at this time of this conplexion in Religion but when there are you have two remarkable characters given of them by Saint Jude in that verse They are given to the grossest sensualities and are likewise turbulent and seditious persons By which they make it plainly appear that Christ is not in them who was holy meek and peaceable and makes all those to be so on whom his Spirit breaths 3. But there are others of a lower form who confidently talk of the mind of God likewise made known to them and are altogether busied in their fancies about the glorious times that are ensuing The Jews do not more expect their Messiah and think to be made great men by him then these wait to see Christ come to reign or at least themselves advanced to sit upon thrones to govern the Nations They take themselves to be the candles that are to enlighten all the darker places of Holy Writ They are as familiarly acquainted with Daniel as others are with the Proverbs of Solomon They understand St. Johns Revelation as well as they do his three Epistles And I shall not much disbelieve them in this particular for their Religion hath nothing to do with that love and sweetness that charity and humility which he commends While they fancy themselves Kings with Christ they neglect his government in their souls which should keep under all their head-strong passions quell their rebellious affections tame their wild natures and restrain their brutish desires which would indeed make that new world of things which all good Christians pray for They conceit a gorgeous pompous scene of things a secular and worldly greatness an overflowing tide of prosperous events while they neglect that poverty of spirit that lowliness of mind that meekness patience long-suffering and such like Royal graces as make Christians conquerours over the world and victors of all their enemies And therefore they are to be accounted among those whose religion is only words and great brags arising from an high conceit of favour with God who loves those that will be guided by his will and ruled by his Laws better then those that would fain fulfill prophecies and pour out some of his vials upon the earth 4. This religion is indeed Filia vocis as the Jews called their last kind of Revelation the daughter of a voice yet not of Gods but of their own They thunder and rattle in the world as if they would bring the heavens about our ears and pour down the clouds upon us but it is a tempest of their own raising and a storm which their blustering passions and boisterous affections make in themselves No whisper nor thunder neither from heaven nakes men irreligious proud contemptuous disobedient bitter cruel and full of black zeal These are the breathings of the evil spirit the belches of the bottomless pit These inspirations smell of Sulphur they stink of fire and brimstome The true Religion leads a man to a solicitous enquiry after that which God hath revealed for the reforming of himself and erecting the Government of Christ in his soul And the ruling over himself keeping dominion over his lusts is more desirable to him then reigning in pomp and state a thousand years upon the earth The power of Religion makes a man to know the certainty of those words of truth which lead him to the life of God but never makes men talk like infallible Prophets what scene of things must next take its turn and what piece of the Revelation must next come upon the stage All these pretences to expounding Revelations and Prophesies and Secrets of Providence may be but a fancy and the licourish desire that is in men to be medling with them may be but such a thing as Eves appetite to the Tree viz the fruit of Pride and curiosity But the Doctrine of Christ is plain full and certain and the desire in a mans soul after the knowledge of it and being acquainted with it must be the fruit of the good spirit of God which leads a man to the life and power of godliness giving him a great command over himself and all worldly affections making him to be good not in word and notion but in deed and truth 5. But it is time to leave this sort of men who are meer talkers of God and who only give him their good word as we ordinarily speak commend him and speak well of him but care not to be so well acquainted with him as to be made like him who complement with him and speak him fair to his face who pretend to friendship with him and to be of his secrets and will be as near him as he pleaseth so be it that he will do them no good nor make any alteration in their souls Let me only annex to this another False Religion very near of kin to it which consists in a great out-cry against Antichrist and all his adherents This word Antichrist is of that nature that it may be prest to serve any design and it is become such a Mormo to vulgar people that their hairs stand up an end and they run away from the face of it as if they were out of their little wits The more too blame they who upon every occasion fright them with it as unadvised people do their children with bugbears which makes them of such a timerous nature that they fear all things which they never saw before though never so good and necessary for them But in the ordinary sense
but be glad they might think that such good friends of his grew rich on any fashion seeing he was not like to lose but to get by it For if you look into Matth. 23. you cannot but observe that they were monstrous extortioners and as full of covetous desires as a drunkards cup is full of drink Besides they were abominably proud undervaluing all men in compare with themselves And so many wayes also they had of disanulling all Gods commands as if by their prayers they had obtained a power from God to wipe and cross what they pleased out of his Law They took God to be so much beholden to them for their pains and sweat in praying to him that they thought he was bound to let them make themselves an amends some other wayes And because it cost them much to be so devout they thought their labour was as pretious with him and that he put the same value upon it In short so little there was in all this devotion that if a man had had a mind to deny himself in little or nothing his best way had been to have put himself into the garb of a Pharisee and buy a grant of God to do what he list by many prayers Which was just as if a man should think by giving his neighbour many good morrows to make him overlook the breaking of his hedges and the stealing of his goods or as if a man should beseech another not to be offended with him though he beat his children and took upon him to do what he listed in his house 4. And such there have been in the Christian world who have delighted in praying and offering up continual petitions to heaven whom the earth could not bear because of their vile and wicked lives As John Basilides Duke of Muscovy whom Dr. Casaubon instances in who loved to be continually upon his knees and lifting up his hands to God when they were not employed in some butcherous and bloody action or other And Hacket here in England in the dayes of Queen Elizabeth of whom Saravia saith that he seemed to have a divine heat in him when he prayed though it is known to all the world with what wild fires he was acted For there is a natural ardor may do much this way as that Doctor speaks or rather a Religious melancholy as Mr. More hath shewn in his excellent Treatise of Enthusiasm For that humour will work and boil up even to an Exstasie and where it meets with some spice of Religion it may do strange feats by way of devotion Ignatius the Jesuites tell us was sometimes lifted up four cubits above the ground when he was at prayer and he might possibly seem to himself so to be if that be true which Eunapius reports of Jamblicus how that when he was a praying Eunap in vita Jambl. V. etiam in vita Aedesii he was heaved up from the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above ten cubits and his rayment seemed to shine with a brightness like to gold But above all I desire the Reader to take notice of what Theodoret saith of the Mossaliani or Prayers that they used to do nothing else and would not follow any calling but when they did not pray they fell asleep L. 4. Eccles hist cap. 10. L. 4. haeret fab cap. 11. And then they thought that they beheld Visions and could prophesie and saw the sacred Trinity with their eyes They said that there was an evil spirit in all men which must be cast out by prayers and then the holy Spirit of God comes in after which there was no need of fasting for to humble the body nor of any doctrine or teaching which bridles and guides the motion of the body but the Spirit doth all One egg is not more like another then those men were like them among us who say they are above all Ordinances They feel some heat in their hearts when they pray and they are lifted up in some kind of pious thoughts by the strong workings of their own melancholy fancies and then they think that this is to them instead of all other things so that the Lords Supper is but a carnal Feast and the Scriptures themselves are but dead letters and Ministers are but School-masters for children and fools 5. So much of the Pharisee is still among us that it would make any godly soul blush to see what foul things are done by those that make very fair pretences to God in their prayers The measure of which many times is length and loudness many words and much heat whilest there is no true spiritual life and sense of God which breaths forth their souls unto him Men care not to be as long in confessing of their sins as they intend to be in leaving of them if it will but pass current for Religion They will pray for forgiveness of their sins as often as God pleases so they may but have leave when they see occasion to commit them They will call for that strength and power which they never mean to use for that Spirit of holiness which they would not have so kind as to come and trouble them in their enjoyments They pray for that light which they would not have to look too broad in their faces for that purity and sanctity which they will bestow no more upon then a prayer to obtain and if they knew what they prayed for they would be loth to have an Answer They beg that comfort the spring of which they would be loth should dwell within them that righteousness of Christ which they would have to cover all their filthiness and keep them warm in their sins that blood of Jesus which should quench the fiery indignation which they say but think not that their sins do deserve 6. And yet I have told you the best of this sort of Religionists for there are that think they shall be heard for their much babling and are little better then heathenish worshippers They are rude and sensless in their Tautologies without any real and unforc't affection Their prayers are a confused indigested heap of words rash and bold expressions irreverent and unbecoming addresses to the glorious majesty of heaven fulsome and nauseating language savouring of an unprepared though hasty careless though confident mind They are measured by the glass and must be stretched though by heathenish repetitions i. e. without any order or handsom zeal to such a certain length And if a childish tone like that when they say their lessons can help out these devotions it is accounted a great token of good affection and a sign that a man is more then ordinarily moved If the voice likewise be loud sonorous most people are apt to think the heavens will hear those prayers sooner then others as coming from the greatest zeal and fervency of Spirit But all good Christians whose hearts are in their prayers feel that the sence of Gods Glory as well as his