and my last end might be like his Never take heed therefore what they think or say now for as sure as they shall dye they will one of these days think and say clean contrary As we regard not what a drunken man says because it is not he but the drink and when he hath slept he will awake in another minde so why should we regard what wicked men say now who are drunk with security and fleshly delights When we know before hand for certain that when they have slept the sleep of death at the furthest they will awake in another minde Onely pity the perverted understandings of these poor men who are beside themselves knowing that one of these days when too late experience brings them to their right mindes they will be of a far different Judgment They ask us What are you wiser then your fore-fathers then all the Town besides then such and such Great men and learned men And do you think in good sadness we may not with better reason ask you What are you wiser then Henoch and Noah then Abraham Isaac Jacob Samuel then David and Solomon then Moses and the Prophets then Peter Paul all the Apostls and all the Saints of God in all Ages and Nations that ever went to Heaven yea then Jesus Christ himself Men may be deceived but we appeal to the unerring Judgment of Wisdom it self even the wise All-Knowing God whether a day in his Courts be not better then a thousand elsewhere and whether it be not better to be door-keepers there then to dwell in the Tents of wickedness Nay whether the very Reproaches of Christ even the scorns we have from you for Christs sake and the Gospel be not greater riches then all the Treasures of the World If Wisdom then may pass the sentence you see which way the cause will go and Wisdom is justified of all her children SECT IX 9. LAstly Another Rule in Reason is this That Good which containeth all other Good in it must needs it self be best And where do you think in Reason that all the streams of Goodness do finally empty themselves Is it not in God from whom by secret springs they first proceed Where else do all the Lines of Goodness concenter Are not all the sparks contained in this fire and all the drops in this Ocean Surely the time was when there was nothing besides God and then all Good was onely in him And even now the creatures essence and existence is secondary derived contingent improper in comparison of his who Is and Was and Is to Come whose Name alone is called I AM. What do thine eyes see or thy heart conceive desireable which is not there to be had Sin indeed there is none but darest thou call that good Worldly delights there are none for they are Good but for the present Necessity and please but the bruitish Senses Brethren do you fear losing or parting with any thing you now enjoy What do you fear you shall want when you come to Heaven shall you want the drops when you have the Ocean or the light of the Candle when you have the Sun or the shallow Creature when you have the perfect Creator Cast thy bread upon the waters and after many days thou shalt There finde it Lay abroad thy tears thy prayers pains boldly and unweariedly as God is true thou dost but set them to usury and shalt receive an hundred fold Spare not man for State for Honor for Labor If Heaven do not make amends for all God hath deceived us which who dare once imagine Cast away Friends House Lands Life if he bid thee Leap into the Sea as Peter if he command thee Lose thy life and thou shalt save it everlastingly when those that saved theirs shall lose them everlastingly Venture all man upon Gods Word Promise There 's a Day of Rest coming will fully pay for all All the pence and the farthings thou expendest for him are contained with infinite advantage in the massie Gold and Jewels of thy Crown When Alexander had given away his Treasure and they asked him where it was he pointed to the poor and said in scriniis in my chests And when he went upon a hopeful expedition he gave away his Gold and when he was asked what he kept for himself he answers spem majorum meliorum The hope of greater and better things How much more boldly may we lay out all and point to Heaven and say it is in scriniis in our everlasting treasure and take that hope of greater and better things in stead of all Nay lose thy self for God and renounce thy self and thou shalt at that day finde thy self again in him Give him thy self and he will receive thee upon the same terms as Socrates did his Schollar Aeschines who gave himself to his Master because he had nothing else accipio sed ea lege ut te tibi mâ—liorem reddam quam accepi that he may return thee to thy self better then he received thee So then this Rest is the Good which containeth all other Good in it And thus you see according to the Rules of Reason the transcendent Excellency of the Saints Glory in the General We shall next mention the particular Excellencies CHAP. VII The Excellencies of our Rest. SECT I. YEt let us draw a little neerer and see more immediately from the pure fountain of the Scriptures what further Excellencies this Rest affordeth And the Lord hide us in the Clefts of the Rock and cover us with the hands of indulgent Grace while we approach and take this view and the Lord grant we may put off from our feet the shoes of unreverence and fleshly conceivings while we stand upon this holy ground SECT I. 1. ANd first it 's a most singular honor and ornament in the stile of the Saints Rest to be called the Purchased Possession That it is the fruit of the Blood of the Son of God yea the chief fruit yea the end and perfection of all the fruits and efficacy of that Blood Surely Love is the most precious ingredient in the whole composition and of all the flowers that grow in the Garden of Love can there be brought one more sweet and beautiful to the Garland then this Blood Greater Love then this there is not to lay down the life of the Lover And to have this our Redeemer ever before our Eyes and the liveliest Sense and freshest Remembrance of that dying-bleeding-Love still upon our Souls Oh how will it fill our Souls with perpetual Ravishments To think that in the streams of this Blood we have swam through the violence of the world the snares of Satan the seducements of flesh the curse of the Law the wrath of an offended God the accusations of a Guilty Conscience and the vexing doubts and fears of an unbeleeving heart and are passed through all and here arrived safely at the brest of God!
and drinking marrying and giving in marriage till the day that Noah entered into the Ark and knew not till the Flood came and took them all away So will the coming of Christ be and so will the coming of their particular judgment be For saith the Apostle when they say peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travel upon a woman with childe and they shall not escape 1 Thes. 5.3 O cruel Peace which ends in such a War Reader If this be thy own case if thou hast no other peace in thy Conscience then this ungrounded self-created peace I could heartily wish for thy own sake that thou wouldst cast it off As I would not have any humble gratious soul to vex their own consciences needlesly nor to disquiet and discompose their spirits by troubles of their own making nor to unfit themselves for duty nor interrupt their comfortable communion with God nor to weaken their bodies or cast themselves into Melancholy distempers to the scandal of Religion so would I not have a miserable wretch who lives in daily and hourly danger of dropping into Hell to be as merry and as quiet as if all were well with him It is both unseemly and unsafe more unseemly then to see a man go laughing to the Gallows and more unsafe then to favor the Gangren'd member which must be cut off or to be making merry when the enemy is entring our Habitations Mens first peace is usually a false peace it is a second peace which is brought into the soul upon the casting out of the first which will stand good and yet not alway that neither for where the change is by the halves the second or third peace may be unsound as well as the first as many a man that casteth away the peace of his Prophaness doth take up the peace of meer Civility and morality or if he yet discover the unsoundness of that and is cast into trouble then he healeth all with outward Religiousness or with a half Christianity and there he taketh up with peace This is but driving Satan out of one room into another but till he be cast out of possession the peace is unsound Hear what Christ saith Luke 11.21.22 When a strong man armed keepeth his palace his goods are in peace but when a stronger then he shall come upon him and overcome him he taketh from him all his Armour wherein he trusted and devideth his spoils The soul of every man by nature is Satans Garrison all is at peace in such a man till Christ comes when Christ storms this heart he breaks the peace he giveth it most terrible Alarms of Judgment and Hell he battereth it with the Ordnance of his Threatnings and Terrors he sets all in a combustion of Fear and Sorrow till he have forced it to yield to his meer mercy and take him for the Governor and Satan is cast out and then doth he establish a firm and lasting Peace If therefore thou art yet but in that first peace and thy heart was never yet either taken by storm or delivered up freely to Jesus Christ never think that thy peace will indure Can the soul have peace which is at enmity with Christ or stands out against him or thinks his Government too severe and his Conditions hard Can he have peace against whom God proclaimeth war I may say to thee as Jehu to Joram when he asked Is it peace What peace while the whordoms of thy mother Jezabel remain So thou art desirous to hear nothing from the mouth of a Minister but peace but what peace can there be till thou hast cast away thy wickedness and thy first peace and made thy peace with God through Christ Wilt thou believe God himself in this Case Why read then what he saith twice over Isai. 48.22 and 57.21 There is no peace saith my God to the wicked And hath he said it and shall it not stand Sinner Though thou maist now harden and fortifie thy heart against Fear and Grief and Trouble yet as true as God is true they will batter down thy proud and fortified spirit and seize upon it and drive thee to amazement This will be done either here or hereafter My counsel therefore to thee is that thou presently examine the grounds of thy peace and say I am now at ease and quiet in my minde but is it grounded and will it be lasting Is the danger of eternal Judgment over Am I sure my sins are pardoned and my soul shall be saved If not alas what cause of peace I may be in hell before the next day for ought I know Certainly a man that stands upon the Pinacle of a Steeple or that sleeps on the top of the main Mast or that is in the heat of the most bloody fight hath more cause of peace and carelesness then thou Why thou livest under the wrath of God continually thou art already sentenced to eternal death and maist every hour expect the execution till thou have sued out a pardon through Christ. I can shew thee a hundred threatnings in Scripture which are yet in force against thee but canst thou shew me one Promise for thy safety an hour What assurance hast thou when thou goest forth of thy doors that thou shalt ever come in again I should wonder but that I know the desperate hardness of the heart of man how a man that is not sure of his peace with God could eat or drink or sleep or live in peace That thou art not afraid when thou liest down lest thou shouldst awake in hell or when thou risest up lest thou shouldest be in hell before night or when thou sittest in thy house that thou still fearest not the approach of death or some fearful Judgment seizing upon thee and that the threats and sentence are not alwayes sounding in thy ears Well if thou were the nearest friend that I have in the world in this case that thou art in I could wish thee no greater good then that God would break in upon thy careless heart and shake thee out of thy false peace and cast thee into trouble that when thou feelest thy heart at ease thou wouldest remember thy misery that when thou art pleasing thy self with thy estate or business or labours thou wouldest still remember the approaching wo that thou wouldest cry out in the midst of thy pleasant discourse and merry company O how neer is the great and dreadful change that what ever thou art doing God would make thee read thy sentence as if it were still written before thine eyes and which way soever thou goest he would still meet thee full in the face with the sense of his wrath as the Angel did Balaam with a drawn sword till he had made thee cast away thy groundless peace and lye down at the feet of Christ whom thou hast resisted and say Lord what wouldest thou have me to do and so receive from him a surer and better peace
the goats on the left and so on as you may read in the Text. But why tremblest thou Oh humble gracious Soul Cannot the enemies and slighters of Christ be foretold their doom but Thou must quake Do I make sad the Soul that God would not have sad Doth not thy Lord know his own sheep who have heard his voyce and followed him He that would not lose the family of one Noah in a common deluge when him onely he had found faithful in all the earth He that would not over-look one Lot in Sodom nay that could do nothing till he were forth Will he forget thee at that day Thy Lord knoweth now to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust to the day of Judgment to be punished He knoweth how to make the same day the greatest for terror to his foes and yet the greatest for joy to his people He ever intended it for the great distinguishing and separating day wherein both Love and Fury should be manifested to the highest Oh then let the Heavens rejoyce the Sea the Earth the Floods the Hills for the Lord cometh to judg the Earth With Righteousness shall he judg the World and the People with Equity But especially let Sion hear and be glad and her children rejoyce For when God ariseth to judgment it is to save the meek of the Earth They have judged and condemned themselves many a day in heart-breaking confession and therefore shall not be judged to condemnation by the Lord For there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit And who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect Shall the Law Why whatsoever the Law saith it saith to them that are under the Law but we are not under the Law but under Grace For the Law of the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus hath made us free from the Law of sin and death Or shall Conscience Why we were long ago justified by faith and so have peace with God and have our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and the Spirit bearing witness with our spirits that we are the children of God It is God that justifieth who shall condemn If our Judg condemn us not who shall He that said to the Adulterous woman Hath no man condemned thee neither do I condemn thee He will say to us more faithfully then Peter to him Though all men deny thee or condemn thee I will not Thou hast confessed me before men and I will confess thee before my Father and the Angels of Heaven He whose first coming was not to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved I am sure intends not his second coming to condemn his people but that they through him might be saved He hath given us Eternal Life in Charter and Title already yea and partly in possession and will he after that condemn us When he gave us the knowledg of his Father and himself he gave us Eternal Life And he hath verily told us That he that heareth his word and beleeveth on him that sent him hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death to life Indeed if our Judg were our enemy as he is to the world then we might well fear If the Devil were our Judg or the Ungodly were our Judg then we should be condemned as Hypocrites as Heretiques as Schisinatiques as proud or covetous or what not But our Judg is Christ who dyed yea rather who is risen again and maketh request for us For all power is given him in Heaven and in Earth and all things delivered into his hands and the Father hath given him authority to execute judgment also because he is the Son of man For though God judg the world yet the Father immediately without his Vicegerent Christ judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father Oh what inexpressible joy may this afford to a Beleever That our Dear Lord who loveth our Souls and whom our Souls love shall be our Judg Will a man fear to be judged by his dearest friend By a Brother By a Father Or a Wife by her own Husband Christian Did he come down and suffer and weep and bleed and dye for thee and will he now condemn thee Was he judged and condemned and executed in thy stead and now will he condemn thee himself Did he make a Bath of his blood for thy sins and a garment of his own Righteousness for thy nakedness and will he now open them to thy shame Is he the undertaker for thy Salvation and will he be against thee Hath it cost him so dear to save thee and will he now himself destroy thee Hath he done the most of the work already in Redeeming Regenerating and Sanctifying Justifying preserving and perfecting thee and will he now undo all again Nay hath he begun and will he not finish Hath he interceded so long for thee to the Father and will he cast thee away himself If all these be likely then fear and then rejoyce not Oh what an unreasonable sin is unbelief that will charge our Lord with such unmercifulness and absurdities Well then fellow Christians let the terror of that day be never so great surely our Lord can mean no ill to us in all Let it make the Devils tremble and the wicked tremble but it shall make us to leap for Joy Let Satan accuse us we have our answer at hand our surety hath discharged the debt If he have not fulfilled the Law then let us be charged as breakers of it If he have not suffered then let us suffer but if he have we are free Nay our Lord will make answer for us himself These are mine and shall be made up with my Jewels for their transgressions was I stricken and cut off from the earth for them was I bruised and put to grief my Soul was made an offering for their sin and I bore their transgressions They are my seed and the travel of my Soul I have healed them by my stripes I have justified them by my knowledg They are my sheep who shall take them out of my hands Yea though the humble Soul be ready to speak against it self Lord when did we see thee hungry and feed thee c. yet will not Christ do so This is the day of the Beleevers full Justification They were before made just and esteemed Just and by Faith justified in Law and this evidenced to their consciences But now they shall both by Apology be maintained Just and by Sentence pronounced Just actually by the lively voyce of the Judg himself which is the most perfect Justification Their Justification by Faith is a giving them Title in Law to that Apology and Absolving
exhortation which they were wont to hear will be hot burning words to their hearts upon this sad review It cost the Minister dear even his daily study his earnest prayers his compassionate sorrows for their misery his care his sufferings his spending weakning killing pains But O how much dearer will it cost these rebellious sinners His lost tears will cost them blood his lost sighs will cost them eternall groans and his lost exhortations will cause their eternall lamentations For Christ hath said it that if any City or people receive not or welcome not the Gospel the very dust of the messengers feet who lost his travaile to bring them that glad tidings shall witness against them much more then his greater pains And it shall be easier for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of Judgement then for that City That Sodom which was the shame of the world for unnaturall wickedness the disgrace of mankind that would have committed wickedness with the Angels from Heaven that were not ashamed to prosecute their villany in the open street that proceeded in their rage against Lots admonitions yea under the very miraculous judgement of God and groped for the door when they were stricken blinde That Sodom which was consumed with fire from Heaven and turned to that deadly Sea of waters and suffers the vengeance of eternall fire Jud. 7. even that Sodome shall scape better in the day of Judgment then the neglecters of this so great Salvation It will somewhat abate the heat of their torment that they had not those full and plain offers of grace nor those constant Sermons nor pressing perswasions nor clear convictions as those under the sound of the Gospel have had I beseech thee who Readest these words stay here a while and sadly think of what I say I professe to thee from the Lord it is easier thinking of it now then it will be then What a dolefull aggravation of thy misery would this be that the food of thy soul should prove thy bane And that That should feed thy everlasting torment which is sent to save thee and prevent thy torments SECT XI SIxthly Yet further it will much add to the torment of these wretches to remember that God himself did condescend to intreat them That all the intreatings of the Minister were the intreatings God How long he did wait How freely he did offer how lovingly he did invite and how importunately he did solicite them How the spirit did continue striving with their hearts as if he were loath to take a denyall How Christ stood knocking at the door of their hearts Sermon after Sermon and one Sabbath after another crying out Open sinner open thy heart to thy Saviour and I will come in and sup with thee and thou with me Rev. 3.20 Why sinner â— Are thy lusts and carnall pleasures better then I Are thy worldly Commodities better then my everlasting Kingdom Why then dost thou resist me Why dost thou thus delay What dost thou mean that thou dost not open to me How long shall it be till thou attain to innocency How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee Wo to thee O unworthy sinner wilt thou not be made clean Wilt thou not be pardoned and sanctified and made happy When shall it once be O that thou wouldst hearken to my word and obey my Gospel Then should thy peace be as the river and thy righteousness as the waves of the Sea though thy sins were as red as the Crimson or Scarlet I would make them as white as the Snow or Wooll O that thou were but wise to consider this and that thou wouldest in time remember thy latter end before the evil dayes do come upon thee and the yeers draw nigh when thou shalt say of all thy vain delights I have no pleasure in them Why sinner Shall thy Maker thus bespeak thee in vain shall the God of all the world beseech thee to be happy and beseech thee to have pitty upon thy own soul and wilt thou not regard him Why did he make thy ears but to hear his voice VVhy did he make thy understanding but to consider Or thy heart but to entertain the Son in obedientiall Love Thus saith the Lord of Hosts consider thy wayes O how all these passionate pleadings of Christ will passionately transport the damned with self-indignation That they will be ready to tear out their own hearts How fresh will the remembrance of them be still in their minds launcing their souls with renewed torments What self-condemning pangs will it raise within them to remember how often Christ would have gathered them to himself even as the Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings but they would not Then will they cry out against themselves O how justly is all this befallen me Must I tire out the patience of Christ Must I make the God of Heaven to follow me in vain from home to the Assembly from thence to my Chamber from Alehouse to Alehouse Till I had wearied him with crying to me Repent Return Must the Lord of all the world thus wait upon me and all in vain O how justly is that Patience now turned into fury which falls upon my soul with irresistible violence when the Lord cryed out to me in his word How long will it be before thou wilt be made clean and holy My heart or at least my practice answered Never I will never be so precise And now when I cry out How long will it be till I be freed from this torment and saved with the Saints How justly do I receive the same answer Never Never O sinner I beseech thee for thy own sake think of this for prevention while the voice of mercy soundeth in thine ears Yet patience continueth waiting upon thee Canst thou think it will do so still yet the offers of Christ and life are made to thee in the Gospel and the hand of God is stretched out to thee But will it still be thus The spirit hath not yet done striving with thy heart But dost thou know how soon he may turn away and give thee over to a reprobate sense and let thee perish in the stubbornness and hardness of thy heart Thou hast yet life and time and strength and means But dost thou think this life will alwayes last O seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is neer He that hath an ear to hear let him hear what Christ now speaketh to his soul. And to day while it is called to day harden not your hearts lest he swear in his wrath that you shall never enter into his Rest. For ever blessed is he that hath a Hearing heart and ear while Christ hath a Calling voice SECT XII SEventhly Again it will be a most cutting consideration to these damned sinners to remember on what easie tearms they might have escaped their miserie and on what
of others that think so too and to love them that have low thoughts of him as well as those that have high to bear easily the injuries or undervaluing words of others against him to lay all that he hath at the feet of Christ and to prefer his Service and Favor before all to prepare to die and willingly to leave all to come to Christ c. This outside Hypocrite will never be perswaded to any of these Above all other two notable sorts there are of these Hypocrites First The superficial opinionative Hypocrite Secondly The worldly Hypocrite First The former entertaineth the Doctrine of the Gospel with Joy but it is onely into the surface of his soul he never gives the seed any depth of earth It changeth his opinion and he thereupon ingageth for Religion as the right way and sides with it as a party in a Faction but it never melted and new molded his heart nor set up Christ there in full Power and Authority but as his Religion lyes most in his Opinion so he usually runs from Opinion to Opinion and is carried up and down with every winde of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in weight to deceive and as a childe is tossed too and fro for as his Religion is but Opinion so is his Study and Conference and chief business all about Opinion He is usually an ignorant proud bold unreverent enquirer and babler about controversies rather then an humble embracer of the known truth with love and subjection you may conjecture by his bold and forward tongue and groundless conceitedness in his own Opinions and sleighting of the Judgments and persons of others and seldom talking of the great things of Christ with seriousness and humility that his Religion dwelleth in his brain and not in his heart where the winde of Temptation assaults him he easily yieldeth and it carrieth him away as a Feather because his heart is empty and not ballaced and stablished with Christ and Grace If the Temptation of the Times do assault mens Understandings and the sign be in the Head though the little Religion that he hath lyes there yet a hundred to one but he turneth Heretick or catcheth the Vertigo of some lesser errors according to the nature and strength of the seducement If the winde do better serve for a vicious conversation a hundred to one but he turns a purveyor for the flesh and then he can be a Tipler and yet religious a Gamster a Wanton a neglecter of Duties and yet religious If this mans Judgment â—ead him the Ceremonious way then doth he imploy his chiefest zeal for Ceremonies as if his Religion lay in Bowing Kneeling observation of Dayes number and form of words in Prayer with a multitude of Traditions and Customs of his Forefathers If his Judgment be against Ceremonies then his strongest zeal is imployed against them studying talking disputing against them censuring the users of them and perhaps fall into a contrary superstition placing his chief Religion in Baptism Church Combinations and forms of Policy c. For having not his soul taken up with the essentials of Christianity he hath onely the Mint and Cummin the smaller matters of the Law to lay out his zeal upon You shall never hear in private conference any humble and hearty bewailings of his souls imperfections or any heart bleeding acknowledgments of his unkindnesses to Christ or any pantings and longings after him from this man but that he is of such a Judgment or such a Religion or Party or Society or a Member of such a Church herein doth he gather his greatest comforts but the inward and spiritual labours of a Christian he will not be brought to Secondly The like may be said of the worldly Hypocrite who choaketh the Doctrine of the Gospel with the thorns of worldly cares and desires His Judgment is convinced that he must be Religious or he cannot be saved and therefore he reads and hears and prays and forsakes his former company and courses but because his belief of the Gospel-Doctrine is but wavering and shallow he resolves to keep his hold of present things lest the promise of Rest should fail him and yet to be religious that so he may have heaven when he can keep the world no longer thinking it wisdom to have two strings to his bow lest one should break This mans Judgment may say God is the chief good but his heart and affections never said so but look upon God as a kinde of strange and disproportionate Happiness to be tollerated rather then the flames of hell but not desired before the felicity on earth In a word the world hath more of his Affections then God and therefore is his God and his Coveteousness is Idolatry This he might easily know and feel if he would judg impartially and were but faithful to himsef And though this man do not gad after Opinions and Novelties in his Religion as the former yet will he set his sails to the winde of worldly advantage and be of that opinion which will best serve his turn And as a man whose spirits are seised on by some pestilential malignity is feeble and faint and heartless in all that he does so this mans spirits being possessed by the plague of this malignant worldly disposition O how faint is he in secret prayer O how superficial in Examination and meditation How feeble in heart-watchings and humbling mortifying endeavours how nothing at all in loving and walking with God rejoycing in him or desiring after him so that both these and many other sorts of lazy Hypocrites there are who though they will trudge on with you in the easie outside of Religion yet will never be at the pains of inward and spiritual duties SECT V. 4. ANd even the godly themselves deserve this Reproof for being too lazie seekers of their everlasting Rest. Alas what a disproportion is there betwixt our Light and our Heat our Professions and Prosecution who makes that haste as if it were for heaven How still we stand how idly we work how we talk and jest and trifle away our time how deceitfully we do the Work of God! how we hear as if we heard not and pray as if we prayed not and confer and examine and meditate and reprove sin as if we did it not and use the Ordinances as if we used them not and injoy Christ as if we injoyed him not as if we had learned to use the things of heaven as the Apostle teacheth us to use the world Who would think that stood by us and heard us pray in private or publike that we were praying for no less then everlasting glory should heaven be sought no more earnestly then thus Me thinks we are none of us all in good-sadness for our souls We do but dally with the Work of God and play with Christ as children we play with our meat when we should eat it
If the Law of the Land did punish every breach of the Sabbath or every omission of family duties or secret duties or every cold and heartless prayer with Death If it were Felony or Treason to be ungodly and negligent in Worship and loose in your lives What manner of persons would you then be and what lives would you lead And is not Eternal death more terrible then temporal 3 Quest. If it were Gods ordinary course to punish every sin with some present Judgment so that every time a man swears or is drunk or speaks a lye or back-biteth his neighbor he should be struck dead or blind or lame in the place If God did punish every cold prayer or neglect of duty with some remarkable plague what manner of persons would you then be If you should suddenly fall down dead like Ananias and Saphira with the sin in your hands or the plague of God should seize upon you as upon the Israelites while their sweet morsels were yet in their mouths If but a Mark should be set in the forehead of every one that neglected a duty or committed a sin What kind of lives would you then lead And is not Eternal Wrath more terrible then all this Give but Reason leave to speak 4 Quest. If one of your old acquaintance and companions in sin should come from the dead and tell you that he suffereth the Torments of Hell for those sins that you are guilty of and for neglecting those duties which you neglect and for living such a careless worldly ungodly life as you now live should therfore advise you to take another course If you should meet such a one in your Chamber when you are going to bed and he should say to you Oh take heed of this carnal unholy life Set your self to seek the Lord with all your might neglect not your Soul Prepare for Eternity that you come not to the place of Torment that I am in How would this take with you and what manner of persons would you afterwards be It is written in the life of Bruno that a Doctor of great note for learning and godliness being dead and being brought to the Church to be buried while they were in their Popish Devotions and came to the words Responde mihi the Corps arose in the Beir and with a terrible voyce cryed out Justo Dei Judicio accusatus sum I am accused at the Just Judgment of God At which voyce the people run all out of Church affrighted On the morrow when they came again to perform the Obsequies at the same words as before the Corps arose again and cryed with a hideous voyce Justo Dei Judicio Judicatus sum I am Judged at the righteous Judgment of God Whereupon the people run away again amazed The third day almost all the City came together and when they came to the same words as before the Corps rose again and cryed with a more doleful voyce then before Justo Dei Judicio Condemnatus sum I am Condemned at the Just Judgment of God The consideration whereof that a man reputed so upright should yet by his own confession be damned caused Bruno and the rest of his companions to enter into that strict order of the Carthusians If the voyce of the dead man could affright them into Superstition should not the warnings of God affright thee into true Devotion 5 Quest. If you knew that this were the last day you had to live in the world how would you spend this day If you were sure when you go to bed that you should never rise again would not your thoughts of another life be more serious that night If you knew when you are praying that you should never pray more would you not be more earnest and importunate in that prayer Or if you knew when you are preaching or hearing or exhorting your sinful acquaintance that this were the last opportunity you should have would you not ply it more closely then usually you do Why you do not know but it may be the last and you are sure your last is near at hand 6 Quest. If you had seen the general dissolution of the world and all the pomp and glory of it consumed to ashes If you saw all on a fire about you sumptuous buildings Cities Kingdoms Land Water Earth Heaven all flaming about your ears If you had seen all that men labored for and sold their Souls for gone friends gone the place of your former abode gone the history ended and all come down what would such a sight as this perswade you to do Why such a sight thou shalt certainly see I put my Question to thee in the words of the Apostle 2 Pet. 3.11 Seeing all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat As if he should say We cannot possibly conceive or express what manner of persons we should be in all holiness and godliness when we do but think of the sudden and certain and terrible dissolution of all things below 7 Quest. What if you had seen the process of the Judgment of the great day If you had seen the Judgment set and the Books opened and the most stand trembling on the left hand of the Judg and Christ himself accusing them of their rebellions and neglects and remembring them of all their former slightings of his grace and at last condemning them to perpetual perdition If you had seen the godly standing on the right hand and Jesus Christ acknowledging their faithful obedience and adjudging them to the possession of the Joy of their Lord What manner of persons would you have been after such a sight as this Why this sight thou shalt one day see as sure as thou livest And why then should not the fore-knowledg of such a day awake thee to thy duty 8 Quest. What if you had once seen Hell open and all the damned there in their easeless Torments and had heard them crying out of their sloathfulness in the day of their visitation and wishing that they had but another life to live and that God would but try them once again One crying out of his neglect of duty and another of his loitering and trifling when he should have been labouring for his life What manner of persons would you have been after such a sight as this What if you had seen Heaven opened as Stephen did and all the Saints there triumphing in Glory and enjoying the End of their labours and sufferings What a life would you lead after such a sight as this Why you will see this with your eyes before it be long 9 Quest. What if you had lien in Hell but one year or one day or hour and there felt all those Torments that now you do but hear of
again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him Can the Head live and the body or members remain Dead Oh write those sweet words upon thy heart Christian Because I Live Ye shall Live also As sure as Christ lives we shall live And as sure as he is risen we shall rise Else the Dead perish Else what is our Hope what advantageth all our duty or suffering Else the sensual Epicure were one of the wisest men and what better are we then our beasts Surely our knowledg more then theirs would but encrease our sorrows and our dominion over them is no great felicity The Servant hath oft-times a better life then his Master because he hath few of his Masters Cares And our dead Carcasses are no more comely nor yeeld a sweeter savour then theirs But we have a sure ground of Hope And besides this Life we have a Life that 's hid with Christ in God and when Christ who is our Life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in Glory Col. 3.3 4. Oh let not us be as the purblinde world that cannot see afar off Let us never look at the Grave but let us see the Resurrection beyond it Faith is quick-sighted and can see as far as that is yea as far as Eternity Therefore let our hearts be glad and our Glory rejoyce and our flesh also shall rest in hope for he will not leave us in the Grave nor suffer us still to see Corruption Yea therefore let us be stedfast unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as we know our Labor is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 It 's a Question much debated Whether a Resurrection be onely an effect of Christs Death and Resurrection And whether there should have been any Resurrection if Christ had not come Some that maintain the Negative of the last Question do also maintain That the Sin under the Covenant of Nature or Works did deserve onely the separation of Soul and Body and not Eternal Torments Whence also follows that the Soul is or at least then was Mortal or that it hath no Being or no Sense when it 's separated from the Body As also that Christ dyed to Redeem us onely from the Grave and not from Hell And so their Doctrine of Universal Redemption in this sence asserted doth neither so much honor the merits of Christ nor advance his mercy as they pretend For it maketh him to raise us onely from the Grave and bring all the world into a Capacity of Eternal Torment He fore-knowing the same time that most would certainly reject him and so perish But as I confess these of weight and difficulty so having professed in this Discourse to handle matters less controverted I pretermit them This sufficeth to the Saints Comfort That Resurrection to Glory is onely the fruit of Christs Death and this fruit they shall certainly partake of The Promise is sure All that are in the Graves shall hear his voyce and come forth Joh. 5.28 And this is the Fathers will which hath sent Christ that of all which he hath given him he should lose nothing but should Raise it up at the last Day Joh. 6.39 And that every one that beleeveth on the Son may have Everlasting Life and he will raise him up at the last Day Vers. 40. If the prayers of the Prophet could raise the Shunamites Dead Childe and if the dead Souldier revive at the touch of the Prophets bones How certainly shall the will of Christ and the power of his death raise us That voyce that said to Jairus Daughter Arise and to Lazarus Arise and come forth can do the like for us If his death immediately raised the dead bodies of many Saints in Jerusalem If he gave power to his Apostles to raise the Dead Then what doubt of our Resurrection And thus Christian thou seest that Christ having sanctified the Grave by his burial and conquered Death and broke the Ice for us a dead Body and a Grave is not now so horrid a spectacle to a beleeving Eye But as our Lord was neerest his Resurrection and Glory when he was in the Grave even so are we And he that hath promised to make our bed in sickness will make the dust as a bed of Roses Death shall not dissolve the Union betwixt him and us nor turn away his affections from us But in the morning of Eternity he will send his Angels yea come himself and roll away the stone and unseal our Graves and reach us his hand and deliver us alive to our Father Why then doth the approach of Death so cast thee down O my Soul and why art thou thus disquieted within me The Grave is not Hell if it were yet there is thy Lord present and thence should his Merit and Mercy fetch thee out Thy sickness is not unto death though I dye but for the Glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified thereby Say not then He lifteth me up to cast me down and hath raised me high that my fall may be the Lower But he casts me down that he may lift me up and layeth me low that I may rise the higher An hundred experiences have sealed this Truth unto thee That the greatest dejections are intended but for advantages to thy greatest dignity and thy Redeemers Glory SECT III. THe third part of this Prologue to the Saints Rest is the publick and solemn process at their Judgment where they shall first themselves be acquit and justified and then with Christ judg the World Publick I may well call it for all the world must there appear Young and old of all estates and Nations that ever were from the Creation to that day must here come and receive their doom The judgment shal be set and the books opened the book of Life produced and the Dead shall be judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works and whosoever is not found written in the book of Life is cast into the lake of fire O Terrible O Joyful Day Terrible to those that have let their Lamps go out and have not watched but forgot the coming of their Lord Joyful to the Saints whose waiting and hope was to see this day Then shall the world behold the goodness and severity of the Lord on them who perish severity but to his chosen goodness When every one must give account of his stewardship And every Talent of Time Health Wit Mercies Afflictions Means Warnings must be reckoned for When the sins of youth and those which they had forgotten and their secret sins shall all be layd open before Angels and men When they shall see all their Friends wealth old delights all their confidence and false hopes of Heaven to forsake them When they shall see the Lord Jesus whom they neglected whose Word
Sentence which at that Day they shall Actually receive from the mouth of Christ. By which Sentence their sin which before was pardoned in the sence of the Law is now perfectly pardoned or blotted out by this ultimate Judgment Act. 3.19 Therefore well may it be called the Time of Refreshing as being to the Saints the perfecting of all their former Refreshments He who was vexed with a quarrelling Conscience an Accusing World a Cursing Law is solemnly pronounced Righteous by the Lord the Judg. Though he cannot plead Not Guilty in regard of fact yet being pardoned he shall be acquit by the proclamation of Christ. And that 's not all But he that was accused as deserving Hell is pronounced a member of Christ a Son of God and so adjudged to Eternal Glory The Sentence of pardon past by the spirit and conscience within us was wont to be exceeding sweet But this will fully and finally resolve the question and leave no room for doubting again for ever We shall more rejoyce that our names are found written in the Book of Life then if men or Devils were subjected to us And it must needs affect us deeply with the sense of our mercy and happiness to behold the contrary condition of others To see most of the world tremble with Terror while we triumph with Joy To hear them doomed to everlasting flames and see them thrust into Hell when we are proclaimed heirs of the Kingdom To see our neighbors that lived in the same Towns came to the same Congregation sate in the same seats dwelt in the same houses and were esteemed more honorable in the world then our selves to see them now so differenced from us and by the Searcher of hearts eternally separated This with the great magnificence and dreadfulness of the day doth the Apostle pathetically express in 2 Thess. 1.6 7 8 9 10. It is Righteous with God to recompence tribulation to them that trouble you and to you who are troubled Rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels In flaming fire taking vengeance on then that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the Glory of his power c. And now is not here enough to make that day a welcom day and the thoughts of it delightful to us But yet there 's more We shall be so far from the dread of that Judgment that our selves shall become the Judges Christ will take his people as it were into Commission with him and they shall sit and approve his Righteous Judgment Oh fear not now the reproaches scorns and censures of those that must then be judged by us Did you think Oh wretched worldlings that those poor despised men whom you made your dayly derision should be your Judges Did you beleeve this when you made them stand as offenders before the Bar of your Judgment No more then Pilate when he was judging Christ did beleeve that he was condemning his Judg Or the Jews when they were whipping imprisoning killing the Apostles did think to see them sit on twelve Thrones Judging the twelve Tribes of Israel Do you not know saith Paul that the Saints shall judg the world Nay Know you not that we shall judg Angels Surely were it not the Word of Christ that speaks it this advancement would seem incredible and the language arrogant Yet even Henoch the seventh from Adam prophecyed of this saying Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute Judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoke against him Jude 14. Thus shall the Saints be honored and the Righteous have dominion in the morning O that the careless world were but wise to consider this and that they would remember this latter end That they would be now of the same minde as they will be when they shall see the Heavens pass away with a noise and the elements melt with fervent heat the earth also and the works that are therein to be burnt up 2 Pet. 3.10 When all shall be on fire about their ears and all earthly Glory consumed For the Heavens and the Earth which are now are reserved unto fire against the day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men 2 Pet. 3.7 But alas when all is said the wicked will do wickedly and none of the wicked shall understand But the wise shall understand Rejoyce therefore O ye Saints yet watch and what you have hold fast till your Lord come Revel 2.25 and study that use of this Doctrine which the Apostle propounds 2 Pet. 3.11 12. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness Looking for and hasting to the coming of the day of God wherein the Heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the Elements melt with fervent heat But go your way keep close with God and wait till your change come and till this end be for you shall Rest and stand in the Lot at the end of the days Dan. 12.13 SECT IV. THe fourth Antecedent and highest step to the Saints Advancement is Their solemn Coronation Inthronizing and Receiving into the Kingdom For as Christ their head is anointed both King and Priest so under him are his people made unto God both Kings and Priests for Prophecy that ceaseth to Reign and to offer praises for ever Revel 5.10 The Crown of Righteousness which was layd up for them shall by the Lord the Righteous Judg be given them at that day 2 Tim. 4.8 They have been faithful to the death and therefore shall receive the Crown of Life And according to the improvement of their Talents here so shall their rule and dignity be enlarged Mat. 25.21 23. So that they are not dignified with empty Titles but real Dominions For Christ will take them and set them down with himself in his own Throne and will give them power over the Nations even as he received of his Father Revel 2.26 27 28. And will give them the morning Star The Lord himself will give them possession with these applauding expressions Well done good and faithful Servant thou hast been faithful over a few things I will make thee Ruler over many things Enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord Matt. 25.21 23. And with this solemn and blessed Proclamation shall he Inthrone them Come ye Blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Every word full of Life and Joy Come This is the holding forth of the golden Scepter to warrant our approach unto this Glory Come now as neer as you will fear not the Bethshemites Judgment for the enmity
For no man can give this Rest to us and none can take our Joy from us Joh. 16.22 SECT V. 5. ANother Rule is this That is ever better or best which maketh the owner or possessor himself better or best And sure according to this Rule there 's no state like Heaven Riches honor and pleasure make a man neither better nor best Grace here makes us better but not best That is reserved as the Prerogative of Glory That 's our Good that doth us Good and that doth us Good which makes us Good Else it may be Good in it self but no good to us External Good is at too great a distance to be our Happiness It is not bread on our Tables but in our stomacks that must nourish nor blood upon our clothes or skin but in the Liver heart and veins which is our Life Nay the things of the world are so far from making the owners Good that they prove not the least impediments thereto and snares to the best of men Riches and honor do seldom help to humility but of pride they occasionally become most frequent fomentors The difficulty is so great of conjoyning Graciousness with Greatness that it's next to an impossibility And their conjunction so rare that they are next to inconsistent To have a heart taken up with Christ and Heaven when we have health and abundance in the world is neither easie nor ordinary Though Soul and Body compose but one man yet they seldom prosper both together Therfore that 's our chief Good which will do us Good at heart and that 's our true Glory that makes us all Glorious within and that the Blessed day which will make us holy and blessed men which will not onely beautifie our House but cleanse our Hearts nor onely give us new Habitations and new Relations but also new Souls and new Bodies The true knowing living Christian complains more frequently and more bitterly of the wants and woes within him then without him If you over-hear his prayers or see him in his tears and ask him what aileth him he will cry out more Oh my dark understanding Oh my hard my unbeleeving heart rather then Oh my dishonor or Oh my poverty Therefore it is his desired place and state which affords a relief suitable to his necessities and complaints And surely that is onely this Rest. SECT VI. 6. ANother Rule is That the Difficulty of obtaining shews the Excellency And surely if you consider but what it cost Christ to purchase it what it costs the Spirit to bring mens hearts to it what it costs Ministers to perswade to it what it costs Christians after all this to obtain it and what it costs many a half-Christian that after all goes without it You will say that here 's Difficulty and therefore Excellency Trifles may be had at a Trivial rate and men may have damnation far more easily It is but lie still and sleep out our days in careless laziness It is but take our pleasure and minde the world and cast away the thoughts of Sin and Grace and Christ and Heaven and Hell out of your mindes and do as the most do and never trouble our selves about these high things but venture our Souls upon our presumptuous conceits and hopes and let the vessel swim which way it will and then stream and wind and tyde will all help us apace to the gulph of perdition You may burn an hundred houses easier then build one and kill a thousand men easier then make one alive The descent is easie the ascent not so To bring diseases is but to cherish sloth please the appetite and take what most delights us but to cure them will cost bitter pills loathsom potions tedious gripings absteinious accurate living and perhaps all fall short too He that made the way and knows the way better then we hath told us it is narrow and strait and requires striving And they that have paced it more truly and observantly then we do tell us it lies through many tribulations and is with much ado passed through Conclude then it is sure somewhat worth that must cost all this SECT VII 7. ANother Rule is this That is Best which not onely supplieth necessity but affordeth abundance By necessity is meant here that which we cannot live without and by abundance is meant a more perfect supply a comfortable not a useless abundance Indeed it is suitable to a Christians state and use to be scanted here and to have onely from hand to mouth And that not onely in his corporal but in his spiritual comforts Here we must not be filled full that so our emptiness may cause hungering and our hungering cause seeking and craving and our craving testifie our dependance and occasion receiving and our receiving occasion thanks-returning and all advance the Glory of the Giver But when we shall be brought to the Well-head and united close to the overflowing Fountain we shall then thirst no more because we shall be empty no more Surely if those Blessed Souls did not abound in their Blessedness they would never so abound in praises Such Blessing and Honor and Glory and Praise to God would never accompany common mercies All those Alleluja's are not sure the language of needy men Now we are poor we speak supplications And our Beggars tone discovers our low condition All our Language almost is complaining and craving our breath sighing and our life a laboring But sure where all this is turned into eternal praising and rejoycing the case must needs be altered and all wants suppplied and forgotten I think their Hearts full of Joy and their mouthes full of thanks proves their estate abounding full of Blessedness SECT VIII 8. REason concludes that for the Best which is so in the Judgment of the Best and wisest men Though it 's true the Judgment of imperfect man can be no perfect Rule of Truth or Goodness Yet God revealeth this Good to all on whom he will bestow it and hides not from his people the end they should aim at and attain If the Holiest men are the Best and Wisest then their Lives tell you their Judgments and their unwearied labor and sufferings for this Rest shews you they take it for the perfection of their Happiness If men of greatest experience be the wisest men and they that have tryed both estates then surely it 's vanity and vexation that 's found below and solid Happiness and Rest above If dying men are wiser then others who by the worlds forsaking them and by the approach of Eternity begin to be undeceived then surely Happiness is hereafter and not here For though the deluded world in their flourishing prosperity can bless themselves in their fools paradise and merrily jest at the simplicity of the Saints yet scarce one of many even of the worst of them but are ready at last to cry out with Balaam Oh that I might dye the death of the righteous
of Life and the naked to be cloathed from above for the children to come to their Fathers house and the dis-joyned members to be conjoyned with their Head me thinks this should be seldom unseasonable When the Atheistical world began to insult and question the Truth of Scripture promises and ask us Where is now your God where is your long lookt for glory where is the promise of your Lords coming O how seasonable then to convince these unbelievers to silence these scoffers to comfort the dejected waiting believer will the appearing of our Lord be we are oft grudging now that we have not a great share of comforts that our deliverances are not more speedy and eminent that the world prospers more then we that our prayers are not presently answered not considering that our portion is kept to a fitter season that these are not always Winter fruits but when Summer comes we shall have our Harvest We grudg that we do not finde a Canaan in the VVilderness or cities of Rest in Noahs Ark and the songs of Sion in a strange Land that we have not a harbor in the main Ocean or finde not our home in the middle way and are not crowned in the midst of the fight have not our Rest in the heat of the day and have not our inheritance before we are at age and have not Heaven before we leave the Earth and would not all this be very unreasonable I confess in regard of the Churches service the removing of the Saints may sometimes appear to us unseasonable therefore doth God use it as a Judgment and therefore the Church hath ever prayed hard before they would part with them and greatly laid to heart their loss Therefore are the great mournings at the Saint departures and the sad hearts that accompany them to their graves but this is not especially for the departed but for themselves and their children as Christ bid the weeping women Therefore also it is that the Saints in danger of death have oft begged for their lives with that Argument What profit is there in my blood when I go down to the Pit Psal. 30.9 Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead shall the dead arise and praise thee shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave or thy faithfulness in destruction shall thy wonders be known in the dark and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness Psal. 88.10 for in death there is no remembrance of thee in the grave who shall give thee thanks Psal. 6.5 And this was it that brought Paul to a streight because he knew it was better for the church that he should remain here I must confess it is one of my saddest thoughts to reckon up the useful instruments when God hath lately called out of his Vineyard when the Loyterers are many and the Harvest great and very many Congregations desolate and the people as sheep without shepherds and yet the laborers called from their work especially when a door of Liberty and opportunity is open we cannot but lament so sore a judgment and think the removal in regard of the Church unseasonable I know I speak but your own thoughts and you are too ready to over-run me in application I fear you are too sensible of what I speak and therefore am loath to stir in your sore I perceive you in the posture of the Ephesian Elders and had rather abate the violence of your passions our applications are quicker about our sufferings then our sins and we will quicklier say This loss is mine then This fault is mine But O consider my dear friends hath God any need of such a worme as I cannot he a 1000 wayes supply your wants you know when your case was worse and yet he provided Hath he work to do and will he not finde instruments And though you see not for the present where they should be had they are never the further off for that Where was the world before the creation and where was the promised seed when Isaac lay on the Altar Where was the Land of Promise when Israels burden was increased or when all the old stock save only two were consumed in the Wilderness Where was Davids Kingdom when he was hunted in the Wilderness or the Glory of Christs Kingdom when he was in the Grave or when he first sent his 12. Apostles How suddenly did the number of Labourers encrease immediately upon the Reformation by Luther and how soon were the rooms of those filled up whom the rage of the papists had sacrificed in the flames Have you not lately seen so many difficulties overcome and so many improbable works accomplished that might silence unbelief one would think for ever But if all this do not quiet you for sorrow and discontent are unruly passions yet at least remember this suppose the worst you fear should happen yet shall it be well with all the Saints your own turnes will shortly come and we shall all be hous'd with Christ together where you will want your Ministers and friends no more And for the poor world which is left behind whose unregenerate state causeth your grief why consider shall man pretend to be more merciful then God Hath not he more interest then we both in the Church and in the world and more bowels of compassion to commiserate their distress There is a season for Judgment as well as for mercy and if he will have the most of men to perish for their sin and to suffer the eternal tormenting flames must we question his goodness or manifest our dislike of the severity of his judgments I confess we cannot but bleed over our desolate congregations and that it ill beseems us to make light of Gods indignation but yet we should as Aaron when his sons were slain hold our peace and be silent because it is the Lords doing And say as David If I and his people shall finde favor in the eyes of the Lord he will bring me again and shew me them and his Habitation But if he thus say I have no delight in thee behold here am I let him do with me as seemeth good unto him I conclude then that whatsoever it is to those that are left behinde yet the Saints departure to themselves is usually seasonable I say usually because I know that a very Saint may have a death in some respect unseasonable though it do translate him into this Rest. He may dye in Judgment as good Josiah he may die for his sin For the abuse of the Sacrament many were weak and sickly and many fallen asleep even of those who were thus Judged and chastened by God that they might not be condemned with the world He may die by the hand of publike Justice or die in a way of publike scandal He may die in a weak degree of grace and consequently have a less degree of glory He may die in smaller improvements of his talents and so be Ruler but
not be Christs Disciple It is the common mark whereby his Disciples are known to all men That they love one another Is it not his last great Legacy My peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you Mark the expressions of that command If it be possible as much as in you lieth live peaceably with all men Rom. 12.18 Follow peace with all men and holiness Heb. 12.14 O the deceitfulness of the heart of man That those same men who lately in their self-examination could finde nothing of Christ so clear within them as their love to the Brethren and were confident of this when they could scarce discover any other grace should now look so strangely upon them and be filled with so much bitterness against them That the same men who would have travelled through reproaches many miles to hear an able faithful Minister and not think the labor ill bestowed should now become their bitterest enemies and the most powerful hinderers of the success of their labors and travel as far to cry them down It makes me almost ready to say O sweet O happy days of persecution Which drove us together in a closure of Love who being now dryed at the fire of Liberty and Prosperity are crumbled all into dust by our contentions But it makes me seriously both to say and to think O sweet O happy day of the Rest of the Saints in Glory When as there is one God one Christ one Spirit so we shall have one Judgment one Heart one Church one Imployment for ever VVhen there shall be no more Circumcision and Uncircumcision Jew and Gentile Anabaptist or Poedobaptist Brownist Separatist Independent Presbyterian Episcopal but Christ is All and in All. We shall not there scruple our Communion nor any of the Ordinances of Divine Worship There will not be one for singing and another against it but even those who here jarred in discord shall all conjoyn in blessed concord and make up one melodious Quire I could wish they were of the Martyrs minde who rejoyced that she might have her foot in the same hole of the Stocks in which Master Philpots had been before her But however I am sure they will joyfully live in the same Heaven and gladly participate in the same Rest. Those whom one house could not hold nor one Church hold them no nor one Kingdom neither yet one Heaven and one God may hold One House one Kingdom could not hold Joseph and his Brethren but they must together again whether they will or no and then how is the case altered Then every man must strait withdraw while they weep over and kiss each other O how canst thou now finde in thy heart if thou bear the heart or face of a Christian to be bitter or injurious against thy Brethren when thou dost but once think of that time and place where thou hâ—pâ—â—t in the nearest and sweetest familiarity to live and rejoyce with them for ever I confess their infirmities are not to be loved nor sin to be tolerated because it s theirs But be sure it be sin which thou opâ—posest in them and do it with a Spirit of meekness and compassion that the world may see thy love to the Person while thou opposest the Offence Alas that Turks and Pagans can agree in wickedness better then Christians in the Truth That Bears and Lyons Wolves and Tygers can agree together but Christians cannot That a Legion of Devils can accord in one body and not the tenth part so many Christians in one Church Well the fault may be mine and it may be theirs or more likely both mine and theirs But this rejoyceth me That my old Friends who now look strangely at me will joyfully triumph with me in our common Rest. SECT XV. 7. WE shall then rest from all our dolorous houres and sad thoughts which we now undergo by participating with our Brethren in their Calamities Alas if we had nothing upon our selves to trouble us yet what heart could lay aside sorrows that lives in the sound of the Churches sufferings If Job had nothing upon his body to disquiet him yet the message of his Childrens overthrow must needs grieve the most patient soul. Except we are turned into steel or stone and have lost both Christian and humane affection there needs no more then the miseries of our Brethren to fill our hearts with successions of sorrows and make our lives a continued lamentation The Church on Earth is a meer Hospital which way ever we go we hear complaining and into what corner soever we cast our eyes we behold objects of pity and grief some groaning under a dark understanding some under a senseless heart some languishing under unfruitful weakness and some bleeding for miscarriages and wilfulness and some in such a Lethargy that they are past complaining some crying out of their pining Poverty some groaning under pains and Infirmities and some bewailing a whole Catalogue of Calamities especially in days of common Sufferings when nothing appears to our sight but ruine Families ruined Congregations ruined Sumptuous Structures ruined Cities ruined Country ruined Court ruined Kingdoms ruined Who weâ—ps not when all these bleed As now our friends distresses are our distresses so then our friends deliverance will be part of our own deliverance How much more joyous now to Joyn with them in their days of Thanksgiving and gladness then in the days of Humiliation in sackcloth and ashes How much then more joyous will it be to joyn with them in their perpetual praises and triumphs then to hear them bewailing now their wretchedness their want of light their want of life of joy of assurance of grace of Christ of all things How much more comfortable to see them perfected then now to see them wounded weak sick and afflicted To stand by the bed of their languishing as silly comforters being overwhelmed and silenced with the greatness of their griefs conscious of our own disability to relieve them scarce having a word of comfort to refresh them or if we have alas they be but words which are a poor relief when their sufferings are real Faine we would ease or help them but cannot all we can do is to sorrow with them which alas doth rather increase their sorrows Our day of Rest will free both them and us from all this Now we may enter many a poor Christians cottage and there see their Children ragged their purse empty their Cubbard empty their belly empty and poverty possessing and filling all How much better is that day when we shall see them filled with Christ cloathed with Glory and equalized with the richest and greatest Princes O the sad and heart-piercing spectacles that mine eyes have seen in four yeers space In this fight a dear friend fall down by me from another a precious Christian brought home wounded or dead scarce a moneth scarce a week without the sight or noise of blood Surely there is none of
before a Sunshine day and that God delighteth to work by contraries and to walk in the clouds and to hide the birth in the womb till the very hour of deliverance that I am the less afraid of all this Our unbelief hath been silenced with wonders so oft that I hope we shall trust him the better while we live I know the Sword is a most heavy plague and War is naturally an enemy to Vertue and Civility and wo be to them that delight in bloud or use the Sword but as the last remedy and that promote not Peace to the utmost of their power I know also how unsatisfied many are concerning the lawfulness of the war which hath been managed This is not a time or place to satisfie such I have attempted that largely in another audience And as I cannot yet perceive by any thing which they object but that we undertook our defence upon most warrantable grounds so am I most certaine that God hath wonderfully appeared through the whole And as I am certain by sight and sense that the extirpation of Piety was the enemies great designe which had so far succeeded that the generality of the most able Ministers were silenced Lectures and Evening Sermons on the Lords Day suppressed Christians imprisoned dismembred and banished the Lords Day reproached and devoted to Pastimes that it was as much as a mans estate at lest was worth to hear a Sermon abroad when he had none or worse at home to meet for prayer or any godly exercise and that it was a matter of credit and a way to preferment to revile at and be enemies against those that were most consciencious and every where safer to be a Drunkard or an adulterer then a painfull Christian and that multitudes of humane Ceremonies took place when the worship of Christs institution was cast out besides the slavery that invaded us in civil respects so am I most certain that this was the work which we took up Arms to resist and these were the offenders whom we endeavoured to offend And the generality of those that scruple the lawfulness of our war did never scruple the lawfulness of destroying us nor of that dolefull havock and subversion that was made in the Churches of Christ among us though now perhaps they will acknowledg some of our persecutors miscariages The fault was that we would not dye quietly nor lay down our necks more gently on the block nor more willingly change the Gospel for the Mass-book and our Religion for a fardle of Ceremonies nor betray the hopes of our Posterity to their wils As Dalilah by Sampson so do they by us They accuse us that we do not love them because we will not deliver up our strength that they may put out our eyes and make us their slaves Now the former dangers and miseries are forgotten and the groans of the godly under persecution and of the land under the departure of their freedomes are not heard men begin to forget the state they were in and to be incompetent judges of the former engagement And as bad as they deeme the successe hath yet been sure I am many hundred congregations that were in darknesse and are now in light and multitudes of souls who by these means have been already converted and brought to the knowledge and love of Christ are real Testimenies of our happy change Beside the high hopes of the far greater spreading of the Gospel and the foundation that is laid for the happiness of Posterity I am no Prophet nor well skilled in the interpretation of Scripture prophesies yet the clear and deep engagements of God in this work which I have so evidently discerned do strongly perswade me that in despite of all the policy and hopes of our enemies and of all our own unworthiness folly miscarriages and errors yet God will end this work in mercy and make the Birth which we travell with more beautifull then our slanderous enemies or our unbelieving hearts do yet imagine and that the records of the wonders of this our Age shall even convince the world of the truth of the Promises and consequently That the Scripture is the very word of God In the mean time me thinks I hear Christ as it were saying to me as in my personall so in the Churches dangers and distresses as he did to Peter What I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter SECT III. THirdly Consider also of the strange judgements which in all ages have overtaken the most eminent of the enemies of the Scriptures Besides Antiochus Herod Pilate the persecuting emperours especially Julian Church Histories will acquaint you with multitudes more Foxes book of Martyes will tell you of many undeniable remarkable judgements on those adversaries of pure Religion the Papists whose greatest wickedness is against these Scriptures subjecting them to their Church denying them to the people and setting up their Traditions as equall to them Yea our own times have afforded us most evident examples Sure God hath forced many of his enemies to acknowledg in their anguish the truth of his threatnings and to cry out as Julian Vicisti Galilee SECT IV. FOurthly Consider also the eminent Judgements of God that have befallen the vile transgressors of most of his Laws Besides all the voluminous Histories that make frequent mention of this I refer you to Doctor Beard his Theatre of Gods Judgments and the book entituled Gods Judgements upon Sabbath-breakers And it is like your own observation may adde much SECT V. FIfthly Consider further of the eminent providences that have been exercised for the bodies and states of particular believers The strange deliverance of many intended to Martyrdome As you have many instances in the Acts and Monuments besides those in Eusebius and others that mention the stories of the first persecutions If it were convenient here to make particular mention of mens names I could name you many who in these late wars have received such strange preservations even against the common course of nature that might convince an Atheist of the finger of God therein But this is so ordinary that I am perswaded there is scarce a godly experienced Christian that carefully observes and faithfully recordeth the providences of God toward him but is able to bring forth some such experiment and to shew you some such strange and unusuall mercies which may plainly discover an Almighty disposer making good the promises of this Scripture to his servants some in desperate diseases of body some in other apparent dangers delivered so suddenly or so much against the common course of nature when all the best remedies have failed that no second cause could have any hand in their deliverance Sixthly And Lastly Consider the strange and evident dealings of God with the souls and consciences both of believers and unbelievers What pangs of hellish despaire have many enemies of the truth been brought to How doth God extend the spirits of
be gluttonous no more nor oppress the innocent nor grind the poor nor devour the houses and estates of their brethren nor be revenged on their enemies nor persecute and destroy the members of Christ All these and many more actual sins will then be laid aside But this is not from any renewing of their natures they have the same dispositions still and fain they would commit the same sins if they could they want but opportunity they are now tied up it is part of their torment to be denied these their pleasures No thanks to them that they sin not as much as ever Their hearts are as bad though their actions are restrained Nay it is a great question whether those remainders of good which were left in their natures on earth as their common honesty and morall vertues be not all taken from them in Hell according to that From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath This is the judgment of Divines generally But because it is questionable and much may be said against it I will let that pass But certainly they shall have none of the Glorious perfection of the Saints either in soul or body There will be a greater difference between these wretches and the glorified Christian then there is betwixt a Toad under a sill and the Sun in the Firmament The rich mans purple robes and delicious fare did not so exalt him above Lazarus at his door in scabs nor make the difference between them so wide as it is now made on the contrary in their vast separation SECT IV. SEcondly But the great loss of the damned will be their loss of God they shall have no comfortable relation to him Nor any of the Saints communion with him As they did not like to retain God in knowledg but did him Depart from us we desire not the knowledg of thy wayes So God will abhor to retain them in his houshold or to give them entertainment in his Fellowship and Glory He will never admit them to the inheritance of his Saints nor endure them to stand amongst them in his presence but bid them Depart from me ye workers of iniquity I know you not Now these men dare belye the Lord if not blaspheme in calling him by the title of Their Father How boldly and conâ—idently do they daily approach him with their lips and indeed reproach him in their formall prayers with that appellation Our Father As if God would Father the Divels children or as if the slighters of Christ the pleasers of the flesh the friends of the world the haters of godliness or any that trade in sin and delight in iniquity were the Off-spring of Heaven They are ready now in the height of their presumption to lay as confident claim to Christ and heaven as if they were sincere believing Saints The Swearer the Drunkard the Whoremaster the Worldling can scornfully say to the People of God What is not God our Father as well as yours Doth he not love us as well as you Will he save none but a few holy Precisians O but when that time is come when the case must be decided and Christ will separate his followers from his foes and his faithfull friends from his deceived flatterers where then will be their presumptuous claim to Christ Then they shall finde that God is not their Father but their resolved foe because they would not be his people but were resolved in their negligence and wickedness Then though they had preached or wrought miracles in his name he wil not know them And though they were his Brethren or sisters after the flesh yet will he not own them but reject them as his enemies And even those that did eat and drink in his presence on earth shall be cast out of his heavenly presence for ever And those that in his name did cast out Divels shall yet at his command be cast out to those Divels and endure the torments prepared for them And as they would not consent that God should by his Spirit dwell in them so shall not these evil doers dwell with him the Tabernacles of wickedness shall have no fellowship with him nor the wicked inhabit the City of God For without are the Dogs the Sorcerers Whoremongers Murderers Idolaters and whatsoever loveth and maketh a lye For God knoweth the way of the righous but the way of the wicked leads to perishing God is first enjoyed in part on earth before he be fully enjoyed in Heaven It is only they that walked with him here who shall live and be happy with him there O little doth the world now know what a loss that soul hath who loseth God! VVhat were the world but a dungeon if it had lost the Sun What were the body but a loathsome carrion if it had lost the soul Yet all these are nothing to the loss of God even the little taste of the fruition of God which the Saints enjoy in this life is dearer to them then all the world As the world when they feed upon their forbidden pleasures may cry out with the sons of the Prophets There 's death in the pot So when the Saints do but taste of the favor of God they cry out with David In his favour is life Nay though life be naturally most dear to all men yet they that have tasted and tryed do say with David his loving kindness is better then life So that as the enjoyment of God is the heaven of the Saints so the loss of God is the hell of the ungodly And as the enjoying of God is the enjoying of all So the loss of God is the loss of All. SECT V. THirdly Moreover as they lose God so they lose all those spiritual delightful Affections and Actions by which the Blessed do feed on God That transporting knowledg those ravishing views of his Glorious Face The unconceivable pleasure of loving God The apprehensions of his infinite Love to us The constant joys which his Saints are taken up with and the Rivers of consolation wherewith he doth satisfie them Is it nothing to lose all this The employment of a King in ruling a kingdome doth not so far exceed the imployment of the vilest scullion or slave as this Heavenly imployment exceedeth his These wretches had no delight in Praising God on earth their recreations and pleasures were of another nature and now when the Saints are singing his prayses and imployed in magnifying the Lord of Saints then shall the ungodly be denyed this happiness and have an imployment suitable to their natures and deserts Their hearts were full of Hell upon earth in stead of God and his Love and Fear and Graces there was Pride and self-love and lust and unbelief And therefore Hell must now entertain those Hearts which formerly entertained so much of it Their Houses on Earth were the resemblances of Hell in stead of worshipping God and calling upon
of those forlorn wretches How they will even tear their own hearts and be Gods Executioners upon themselves I am perswaded as it was none but themselves that committed the sin and themselves that were the onely meritorious cause of their sufferings so themselves will be the chiefest executioners of those sufferings God will have it so for the clearing of Justice and the aggravating of their distress even Satan himself as he was not so great a cause of their sinning as themselves so will he not be so great an instrument as themselves of their torment And let them not think here that if they must torment themselves they will do well enough they shall have wit enough to ease and favor themselves and resolution enough to command down this violence of their passions Alas poor souls They little know what passions those will be and how much beyond the power of their resolutions to suppress Why have not lamenting pining self-consuming persons on earth so much wit or power as this Why do you not thus perswade despairing soul who lye as Spira in a kinde of Hell upon earth and dare not eat nor drink nor be merry but torment themselves with continual terrors Why do you not say to them Sir why will you be so mad as to be your own Executioner and to make your own life a continual misery which otherwise might be as joyful as other mens Cannot you turn your thoughts to other matters and never think of Heaven or Hell Alas how vain are all these perswasions to him how little do they ease him you may as well perswade him to remove a mountain as to remove these hellish thoughts that feed upon his spirit it is as easie to him to stop the stream of the Rivers or to bound the overflowing waves of the Ocean as to stop the stream of his violent passions or to restrain those sorrows that feed upon his soul. O how much less then can those condemned souls who see the Glory before them which they have lost restrain their heart-renting self-tormenting Passions So some direct to cure the Toothach Do not think of it and it will not grieve you and so these men think to ease their pains in Hell O but the loss and pain will make you think of it whether you will or no. You were as Stocks or Stones under the threatnings but you shall be most tenderly sensible under the execution O how happy would you think your selves then if you were turned into Rocks or any thing that had neither Passion nor Sense O now how happy were you if you could feel as lightly as you were wont to hear and if you could sleep out the time of Execution as you did the time of the Sermons that warned you of it But your stupidity is gone it will not be SECT V. 5. MOreover it will much increase the torment of the damned in that their Memories will be as large and strong as their Understandings and Affections which will cause those violent Passions to be still working Were their loss never so great and their sense of it never so passionate yet if they could but lose the use of their Memory those passions would dye and that loss being forgotten would little trouble them But as they cannot lay by their life and beeing though then they would account annihilation a singular mercy so neither can they lay aside any part of that beeing Understanding Conscience Affections Memory must all live to torment them which should have helped to their Happiness And as by these they should have fed upon the Love of God and drawn forth perpetually the Joys of his Presence so by these must they now feed upon the wrath of God and draw forth continually the dolours of his absence Therefore never think that when I say the hardness of their hearts and their blindness dulness and forgetfulness shall be removed that therefore they are more holy or more happy then before No but Morally more vile and hereby far more miserable O how many hundred times did God by his Messengers here call upon them Sinners consider whether you are going Do but make a stand a while and think where your way will end what is the offered Glory that you so carelesly reject will not this be bitterness in the end And yet these men would never be brought to consider But in the later days saith the Lord they shall perfectly consider it when they are ensnared in the work of their own hands when God hath Arrested them and Judgment is past upon them and Vengeance is poured out upon them to the full then they cannot chuse but consider it whether they will or no. Now they have no leasure to consider nor any room in their Memories for the things of another life Ah but then they shall have leasure enough they shall be where they have nothing else to do but consider it their Memories shall have no other imployment to hinder them it shall even be engraven upon the Tables of their Hearts God would have had the Doctrine of their eternal State to have been written on the posts of their doors on their houses on their hands and on their hearts He would have had them minde it and mention it as they rise and lye down as they sit at home and as they walk abroad that so it might have gone well with them at their latter end And seeing they rejected this counsel of the Lord therefore shall it be written always before them in the place of their thraldom that which way soever they look they may still behold it Among others I will briefly lay down here some of those Considerations which will thus feed the anguish of these damned wretches SECT VI. FIrst It will torment them to think of the greatness of the Glory which they have lost O if it had been that which they could have spared it had been a small matter or If it had been a losse repairable with any thing else If it had been health or wealth or friends or life it had been nothing But to lose that exceeding Eternall weight of Glory SECT VII SEcondly It will torment them also to think of the possibility that once they were in of obtaining it Though all things considered there was an impossibility of any other event then what did befall yet the thing in it self was possible and their will was left to act without constraint Then they will remember The time was when I was in as faire possibilitie of the Kingdome as others I was set up on the stage of the world If I had plaid my part wisely and faithfully now I might have had possession of the inheritance I might have been amongst yonder blessed Saints who am now tormented with these damned fiends The Lord did set before me life and death and having chosen death I deserve to suffer it The prize was once held out before me If I had run well I
to stir against the Lord. O how the reviews of this vvill feed the flames of Hell With vvhat rage vvill these damned wretches curse themselves and say Was damâ—nation vvorth all my cost and pains vvas it not enough that I perished through my negligence and that I sit still vvhile Satan played his game but I must seek so diligently for my own perdiâ—tion Might I not have been damned on free-cost but I must purchase it so dearly I thought I could have been saved without so much ado and could I not have been destroyed without so much ado How wel is all my care and pains and violence now requited Must I work out so laboriously my own damnation vvhen God commanded me to vvork out my Salvation O if I had done as much for Heaven as I did for Hell I had surely had it I cried out of the tedious vvay of Godliness and of the painful course of Duty and Self-denial and yet I could be at a great deal more pains for Satan and for death If I had loved Christ as strongly as I did my pleasures and profits and honors and thought on him as often and sought him as painfully O how happy had I now been But justly do I suffer the flames of Hell who would rather rather buy them so dear then have Heaven on free cost when it was purchased to my hands Thus I have shewed you some of those thoughts which will aggravate the misery of these wretches for ever O that God would perswade thee who readest these words to take up these thoughts now seasonably and soberly for the preventing of that unconceivable calamity that so thou mayest not be forced in despite of thee to take them up in Hell as thy own Tormentor It may be some of these hardened wretches will jest at all this and say How know you what thoughts the damned in Hell will have Ans. First VVhy read but the 16 of Luke and you shall there finde some of their thoughts mentioned Secondly I know their understandings will not be taken from them nor their conscience nor Passions As the Joyes of Heaven are chiefly enjoyed by the Rationall soul in its Rationall actings so also must the pains of Hell be suffered As they will be men still so will they act as men Thirdly Beside Scripture hath plainly foretold us as much that their own thoughts shall accuse them Rom. 2.15 and their hearts condemn them And we see it begun in despairing persons here CHAP. III. They shall lose all things that are comfortable as well as Heaven SECT I. HAving shewed you those considerations which will then aggravate their misery I am next to shew you their Additonall losses which will aggravate it For as Godliness hath the promise both of this life and that which is to come and as God hath said that if we first seek his Kingdom and Righteousness all things else shall be added to us so also are the ungodly threated with the loss both of spiritual and of corporal blessings and because they sought not first Christs Kingdom and righteousness therefore shall they lose both it and that which they did seek and there shall be taken from them even that little which they have If they could but have kept their present enjoyments they would not much have cared for the loss of Heaven let them take it that have more minde of it But catching at the shadow and loosing the substance they now finde that they have lost both and that when they rejected Christ they rejected all things If they had lost and forsaken all for Christ they would have found all again in him for he would have been all in all to them But now they have forsaken Christ for other things they shall lose Christ and that also for which they did forsake him But I will particularly open to you some of their other losses SECT II. FIrst They shall lose their present presumptuous conceit and belief of their Interest in God and of his favour towards them and of their part in the merits and sufferings of Christ. This false Belief doth now support their spirits and defend them from the terrors that else would seiz upon them and fortifie them against the fears of the wrath to come Even as true Faith doth afford the soul a true and grounded support and consolation and enableth us to look to Eternity with undaunted courage So also a false ungrounded Faith doth afford a false ungrounded comfort and abates the trouble of the considerations of Judgment and damnation But alas this is but a palliat salve a deceitful comfort what will ease their trouble when this is gone VVhen they can Believe no longer they will be quieted in minde no longer and rejoyce no longer If a man be neer to the greatest mischief and yet strongly conceit that he is in safety his conceit may make him as cheerfull as if all were well indeed till his misery comes and then both his conceit and comforts vanish An ungrounded perswasion of happiness is a poor cure for reall misery VVhen the mischief comes it will cure the mis-belief but that belief can neither prevent nor cure the mischief If there were no more to make a man happy but to believe that he is so or shall be so happiness would be far commonner then now it is like to be It is a wonder that any man who is not a stranger both to Gospel and Reason should be of the Antinomian faith in this who tell us that faith is but the believing that God loveth us and that our sins are already pardoned through Christ that this is the cheif thing that Ministers should preach that our Ministers preach not Christ because they preach not this that every man ought thus to believe but no man to question his Faith whether he believe truly or not c. But if all men must believe that their sins are pardoned then most of the world must believe a lye And if no man ought to question the truth of his faith then most men shall rest deluded with an ungrounded belief The Scripture commandeth us first to believe for remission of sins before we believe that our sins are remitted If we believe in Christ that is accept him cordially for our Saviour and our King then we shall receive the pardon of sins The truth is we have more ado to Preach down this Antinomian faith then they have to Preach it up and to Preach our people from such a believing then they have to preach them to it I see no need to perswade people so to believe the generality are strong and confident in such a belief already Take a congregation of 5000. persons and how few among them all will you finde that do not believe that their sins are pardoned and that God loves them Especially of the vilest sinners who have least cause to believe it Indeed as it is all the work of those men to perswade
people to this beliefâ— so is it the hardest task almost that we meet with to convince men 〈◊〉 the ungroundedness of this belief and to break that peace 〈…〉 maintaineth in their souls Neither do I know a 〈…〉 of mens destruction then such a misbelief Who will â—eek for that which he believes he hath already This is the great engine of Hell to make men go merrily to their own perdition I know men cannot believe Christ or believe in or upon Christ either too soon or too much But they may believe or judg that themselves are pardoned adopted and in favour with God too soon and too much For a false judgment is always too much and too soon As true grounded Faith is the master grace in the Regenerate and of greatest use in the Kingdom of Christ so is a false ungrounded faith the master vice in the unregenerate soul and of greatest use in the Kingdom of Satan Why do such a multitude sit still when they might have pardon for the seeking but that they verily think they are pardoned already Why do men live so contentedly in the power of the devil walk so carelesly in the certain way to Hel but that they think their way wil have no such end and that the Divel hath nothing to do with them they defie him they spit at the mention of his name If you could aske so many 1000 as are now in Hell What madness could cause you to come hither voluntarily or to follow Satan to this place of torment when you might follow Christ to the land of Rest They would most of them answer you VVe believed that we had followed towards Salvation and that the way which we were in would have brought us to Heaven VVe made sure account of being saved till we found our selves damned and never feared Hell till we were suddenly in it we would have renounced our sinfull courses and companions but that we thought we might have them and heaven too VVe would have sought after Christ more heartily but that we thought we had part in him already VVe would have been more earnest seekers of Regeneration and the power of godliness but that we verily thought we were Christians before O if we had known as much as now we know what lives would we have led what persons would we have been But we have flattered our selves into these unsufferable torments VVe were told of this before from the word of God but we would not believe it till we felt it and now there is no remedy Reader do but stop and think here with thy self how sad a Case this is That men should so resolutely cheat themselves of their Everlasting Rest The Lord grant it never prove thy own case I would be very loath to weaken the true faith of the meanest Christian or to perswade any man that his faith is false when it is true God forbid that I should so disparage that pretious grace which hath the stamp of the spirit or so trouble the soul that Christ would have to be comforted But I must needs in faithfullness tell thee that the confident belief of their good estate and of the pardon of their sins which the careless unholy unhumbled multitude amongst us do so commonly boast of will prove in the end but a soul-damning delusion It hath made me ready to tremble many a time to hear a drunken ungodly unfaithful Minister as confidently in his formall prayers in the Pulpit give God thanks for Vocation Justification Sanctification and assured hope of Glorification as if he had been a most assured Saint when it may be his Sermon was intended to reproch the Saints and to jeer at Sanctification Me thoughts I even heard the Pharisee say I thank thee that I am not as other men Or Corah Are not all the people holy every one How commonly do men thank God for these which they never received nor ever shall do How many have thanked God for pardon of sin who are now tormented for it and for Sanctification and assured hope of Glory who are now shut out of that Inheritance of the Sanctified I warrant you ther 's none of this believing in hell nor any perswasions of pardon or happiness nor any boasting of their honesty nor justifying of themselves This was but Satans stratagem that being blindfold they might follow him the more boldly but then he will uncover their eyes and they shall see where they are SECT III. 2. ANother addition to the misery of the damned will be this That with the loss of heaven they shall lose also all their hopes In this life though they were threatned with the wrath of God yet their hope of escaping it did bear up their hearts And when they were wounded with the terrors of the Word they lick't all whole again with their groundless hopes but then they shall part with their hopes and heaven together We can now scarce speak with the vilest Drunkard or Swearer or covetous Wordling or scorner at Godliness but he hopes to be saved for all this If you should go to all the Congregation or Town or Countrey and ask them one by one whether they hope to be saved how few shall you meet with that will not say yea or that make any great question of it But O happy world if Salvation were as common as this Hope Even those whose hellish nature is written in the face of their conversation that he that runs may read it whose tongues plead the cause of the devil and speak the language of hell and whose delight is in nothing but the works of the flesh yet these do strongly hope for heaven though the God of heaven hath told them over and over again in his Word that no such as they shall ever come there Though most of the world shall eternally perish and the Judg of the world himself hath told us that of the many that are called yet but few are chosen yet almost all do hope for it and cannot endure any man that doth but question their hopes Let but their Minister Preach against their false hopes or their best friend come to them and say I am afraid your present hopes of heaven will deceive you I see you minde not your soul your heart is not set upon Christ and heaven you do not so much as pray to God and worship him in your Family and the Scripture gives you not the least hope of being saved in such a condition as this is How ill would they take such an admonition as this and bid the Admonisher look to himself and let them alone he should not answer for them they hope to be saved as soon as these preciser men that pray and talk of heaven so much Nay so strong are these mens hopes that they will dispute the case with Christ himself at Judgment and plead their eating and drinking in his presence their Preaching in his Name and casting out devils and these are
of their warning and they have not heard the voice of the rod which hath cryed up and down their streets Yet O England will ye not sanctifie my Sabbaths nor call upon my name nor regard my word nor turn from your worldliness and wickedness God hath given them a lash and a reproof a wound and a warning he hath as it were stood in their blood with the sword in his hand and among the heapes of the slain hath he pleaded with the living and said What say you Will you yet worship me and fear me and take me for your Lord And yet they will not Alas yet to this day England will not Let me here write it and leave it upon record that God may be justified and England may be shamed and posterity may know if God do deliver us how ill we deserved it or if he yet destroy us how wilfully we procured it And if they that passe by shall ask Why hath God done thus to a flourishing and prosperous land You may give them the true though sad answer They would not hear they would not regard He smit them down he wounded them he hewed them as wood and then he beseeched the remainder to consider and return but they never would do it They were weary of his wayes they polluted his Sabbaths they cast his word and worship out of their families they would not be at the pains to learn and obey his will nay they abhorred his Ministers and servants and holy paths and all this to the last breath When he had slain five thousand or eight thousand at a fight the rest did no more reform then if they had never heard of it Nay such a spirit of slumber is faln upon them that if God should proceed and kill them all save one man ask that one man Wilt thou yet seek me with all thy heart he would rather slight it Lord have mercy upon us What is gone with mens understanding and sense Have they renounced Reason as well as Faith Are they dead naturally as well as spiritually Can they not hear nor feel though they cannot believe That sad judgment is falâ— upon them mentioned in Isai. 42.24 25. Who gave Jacob for a spoil and Israel England to the robbers Did not the Lord He against whom we have sinned For they would not walk in his wayes neither were they obedient to his Laws Therefore he hath poured upon them the fury of his anger and the strength of battel and it hath set them on fire round about yet they knew it not it burned them yet they laid it not to heart Yea this much more let us leave upon Record against England They have been so far from Reforming and taking up the Worship of God with delight after all this that they have contrarily abhorred it at the very heart and fought against it as long as they could stand and when they have been wounded and overthrown in one Fight they have been as forward to the next and when they have been quite subdued in all parts of the Land they are as ready again for another war as if they had never felt the hand of God at all and to root out the sincere Worshippers and Worship of God they are ready to dye to the last man Lord how hast thou deserved so much ill at these mens hands what harm hath praying and reading and preaching painfully and sanctifying the Sabbath and fearing to offend done to England Have they suffered for these or for their enmity to these what evil do these wretches discern in the everlasting Kingdom that they do not only refuse to labor for it but so detest and resist the holy way that leads to it It is wel for them that they live in Gospel times when the patience of God doth wait on sinners and not in those severer days when fire from heaven destroyed the Captaines and their Companies that were commanded by the King to bring but one Prophet before him or when the Lyons destroyed fourty two children for calling a Prophet of God Bald-head Or rather it had bin better for these men to have lived in those times that though their temporal Judgments had been greater yet their eternal plagues might have bin the less Yet this much more let me leave upon Record to the shame of England That all this is not meerly through idleness because they will not be at the pains to serve God but it is out of a bitter enmity to his Word and wayes for they will be at more pains then this in any way that is evil or in any worship of mans devising They are as zealous for Crosses and Surplices Processions and Perambulations reading of a Gospel at a cross way the observation of Holidays and Fasting days the repeating of the Letany or the like forms in the Common Prayer the bowing at the naming of the word Jesus while they reject his Worship the receiving of the Sacrament when they have no right to it and that upon their knees as if they were more revererent and devout then the true laborious servants of Christ with a multitude of things which are onely the traditions of their Fathers I say they are as zealous for these as if eternal life consisted in them Where God forbids them there they are as forward as if they could never do enough and where God commands them they are as backward to it yea as much against it as if they were the commands of the Devil himself and for the discipline of Christ though all parts of the world have much opposed it yet where hath it been so fiercely and powerfully resisted The Lord grant that this hardned wilful malicious Nation fall not under that heavy doom Luke 19.27 But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them bring them hither and slay them before me SECT IV. 3. THe third sort that fall under this Reproof are those self-couzening formal lazie Professors of Religion who will be brought to any outward duty and to take up the easier part of Christianity but to the inward work and more difficult part they will never be perswaded They will Preach or hear or read or talk of heaven or pray customarily and constantly in their Families and take part with the persons or causes that are good and desire to be esteemed among the godly but you can never bring them to the more spiritual and difficult duties as to be constant and fervent in secret Prayer to be conscionable in the duty of self-examination to be constant in that excellent duty of Meditation to be heavenly minded to watch constantly over his heart and words and wayes to deny his bodily senses their delights to mortifie the flesh and not make provision for it to fulfil its lusts to love and heartily forgive an enemy to prefer his brethren heartily before himself and to think meanly of his own gifts and worth and to take it well
and we play with our clothes and look upon them when we should put them on and wear them we hang upon Ordinances from day to day but we stir not up our selves to seek the Lord I see a great many very constant in hearing and Praying and give us some hopes that their hearts are honest but they do not hear and prâ—y as iâ— it were for their lives O what a frozen stupidity hath benummed us The judgment of Pharaoh is among us we are turned into Stones and Rocks that can neither feel nor stir The plague of Lots wife is upon us as if we were changed into liveless unmoveable Pillars we are dying and we know it and yet we stir not we are at the door of eternal Happiness or Misery and yet we perceive it not Death knocks and we hear not Christ calls and knocks and we hear not God cries to us To day if you will hear my voyce harden not your hearts work while it is day for the night cometh when none shall work Now ply your business now labour for your lives now lay out all your strength and time now do it now or never and yet we stir no more then if we were half asleep What haste doth Death and Judgment make how fast do they come on they are almost at us and yet what little haste make we what haste makes the Sword to devour from one part of the Land to another what haste doth Plague and Famine make and all because we will not make haste The Spur of God is in our sides we bleed we groan and yet we do not mend our pace The Rod is on our backs it speaks to the quick our lashes are heard through the Christian world and yet we stir no faster then before Lord what a sensless sottish earthly hellish thing is a hard heart that we will not go roundly and cheerfully toward heaven without all this ado no nor with it neither where is the man that is serious in his Christianity Methinks men do every where make but a trifle of their eternal state they look after it but a little upon the by they do not make it the taske and business of their lives To be plain with you I think nothing undoes men so much as complementing and jesting in Religion O if I were not sick my self of the same disease with what teares should I mixt this Ink and with what groans should I express these sad complaints and with what hearts-grief should I mourn over this universal deadness Do the Magistrates among us seriously perform their portion of the work Are they zealous for God Do they build up his House and are they tender of his Honor Do they second the Word and encourage the Godly and relieve the Oppressed and compassionate the Distressed and let fly at the face of sin and sinners as being the disturbers of our peace and the onely cause of all our miseries Do they study how to do the utmost that they can for God to improve their power and parts and wealth and honor and all their interests for the greatest advantage to the Kingdom of Christ as men that must shortly give account of their Stewardship or do they build their own houses and seek their advancements and stand upon and contest for their own honors and do no more for Christ then needs they must or then lyes in their way or then is put by others into their hands or then stands with the pleasing of their friends or with their worldy interests which of these two courses do they take and how thin are those Ministers that are serious in their work Nay how mightily do the very best fail in this above all things Do we cry out of mens disobedience to the Gospel in the evidence and power of the Spirit and deal with sin as that which is the fire in our Towns and houses and by force pull men out of this fire Do we perswade our people as those that know the terrors of the Lord should do Do we press Christ and Regeneration and Faith and Holiness as men that believe indeed that without these they shall never have Life Do our bowels yearn over the Ignorant and the Careless and the obstinate Multitude as men that believe their own Doctrine that our dear people must be eternally damned if they be not timely recovered When we look them in the faces do our hearts melt over them lest we should never see their faces in Rest Do we as Paul tell them weeping of their fleshly and earthly disposition and teach them publikely and from house to house night and day with tears And do vve intreate them as if it were indeed for their lives and salvation that vvhen vve speak of the Joys and Miseries of another world our people may see us affected accordingly and perceive that we do indeed mean as we speak Or rather do vve not study vvords and neat Expressions that vve may approve our selves able men in the judgment of critical Hearers and speak so formally and heartlesly of Eternity that our people can scarcely think that vve believe our selves or put our tongues into some affected pace and our language into some forced Oratorical strain as if a Ministers business were of no more weight but to tell them a smooth tale of an hour long and so look no more after them till the next Sermon Seldom do vve fit our Sermons either for Matter or Manner to the great end our peoples salvation but we sacrifice our studies to our own credit or our peoples content or some such base inferiour end Carnal discretion doth controll our fervency It maketh our Sermons like beautiful Pictures which have much pains and cost bestowed upon them to make them comely and desirable to the eye but life or heat or motion there is none Surely as such a conversation is an Hypocritical conversation so such a Sermon is as truly an hypocritical Sermon O the formal frozen lifeless Sermons which we daily hear preached upon the most weighty piercing Subjects in the world How gently do we handle those sins which will handle so cruelly our poor peoples souls And how tenderly do we deal with their careless hearts not speaking to them as to men that must be wakened or damned We tell them of heaven and hell in such a sleepy tone and sleighty way as if we were but acting a part in a Play so that we usually preach our people asleep with those subjects which one would think should rather endanger the driving of some besides themselves if they were faithfully delivered Not that I commend or excuse that reall indiscretion and unseemly language and nauseous repetitions and ridiculous gestures whereby many do disgrace the work of God and bring his ordinances in contempt with the people nor think it fit that he should be an Embassador from God on so weighty a business that is not able to
speak sense or reason But in a word our want of seriousness about the things of Heaven doth charme the souls of men into formality and hath brought them to this customary careless hearing which undoes them The Lord pardon the great sin of the Ministery in this thing and in particular my own And are the people any more serious then Magistrates and Ministers How can it be expected Reader look but to thy self and resolve the question Ask conscience and suffer it to tell thee truely Hast thou set thine Eternal Rest before thine eyes as the great business which thou hast to do in this world Hast thou studied and cared and watcht and labored and laid about thee with all thy might lest any should take thy Crown from thee Hast thou made hast lest thou shouldest come too late and dye before the work be done Hath thy very heart been set upon it and thy desires and thoughts run out this way Hast thou pressed on through crowdes of opposition towards the Mark for this price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus still reaching forth unto those things which are before When you have set your hand to the work of God have you done it with all your might Can conscience witness your secret cries and groans or teares Can your families witness that you have taught them the fear of the Lord and warned them all with earnestness and unweariedness to remember God and their souls and to provide for Everlasting Or that you have done but as much for them as that damned Glutton would have had Lazarus do for his brethren on earth to warn them that they come not to that place of Torment Can your Ministers witness that they have heard you cry out What shall we do to be saved and that you have followed them with complaints against your corruptions and with earnest enquiries after the Lord Can your neighbors about you witness that you are still learning of them that are able to instruct you and that you plainly and roundly reprove the ungodly and take pains for the saving of your brethrens souls Let all these witnesses Judg this day between God and you Whether you are in good sadness about the affaires of Eternall Rest. But if yet you cannot discern your neglects Look but to your selves within you without you to the work you have done you can tell by his work whether your servant have loytered though you did not see him so you may by your selves Is your love to Christ your faith your zeal and other graces strong or weak What are your joyes what is your Assurance Is all right and strong and in order within you Are you ready to dye if this should be the day Do the souls among whom you have conversed bless you Why Judg by this and it will quickly appear whether you have been Labourers or Loyterers O Blessed Rest how unworthily art thou neglected O glorious Kingdom how art thou undervalued Little know the careless sons of men what a state they set so light by If they once knew it they would sure be of another minde CHAP. VI. An Exhortation to Seriousness in seeking Rest. SECT I. I Hope Reader by this time thou art somewhat sensible what a desperate thing it is to trifle about our Eternal Rest and how deeply thou hast been guilty of this thy self And I hope also that thou darest not now suffer this Conviction to dye but art resolved to be another man for the time to come What sayst thou Is this thy Resolution If thou were sick of some desperate disease and the Physitian should tell thee If you will observe but one thing I doubt not to cure you wouldst thou not observe it Why if thou wilt observe but this one thing for thy Soul I make no doubt of thy Salvation If thou wilt now but shake off thy sloath and put to all thy strength and ply the work of God unweariedly and be a down-right Christian in good sadness I know not what can hinder thy Happiness As far as thou art gone from God if thou wouldst but now return and seek him with all thy heart no doubt but thou shalt find him As unkindly as thou hast dealt with Jesus Christ if thou didst but feel thy self sick and dead and seek him heartily and apply thy self in good earnest to the obedience of his Laws thy Salvation were as sure as if thou hadst it already But as full as the Satisfaction of Christ is as free as the Promise is as large as the Mercy of God is yet if thou do but look on these and talk of them when thou shouldst greedily entertain them thou wilt be never the better for them and if thou loiter when thou shouldst labour thou wilt lose the Crown Oh fall to work then speedily and seriously and bless God that thou hast yet time to do it and though that which is past cannot be recalled yet redeem the time now by doubling thy diligence And because thou shalt see I urge thee not without cause I will here adjoyn a multitude of Considerations to Move thee yet do I not desire thee to take them by number but by waight Their intent and use is to drive thee from Delaying and from Loytering in seeking Rest And to all men do I propound them both Godly and ungodly Whoever thou art therefore I entreat thee to rouze up thy spirit and read them deliberately and give me a little while thy attention as to a message from God and as Moses said to the people Deut. 32.46 Set thy heart to all the words that I testifie to thee this day for it is not a vain thing but it is for thy Life Weigh what I here wright with the Judgment of a man and if I speak not Reason throw it back in my face but if I do see thou entertain and obey it accordingly and the Lord open thy heart and fasten his counsel effectually upon thee SECT II. 1. COnsider Our Affections and Actions should be somewhat answerable to the Greatness of the Ends to which they are intended Now the Ends of a Christians Desires and Endeavors are so Great that no humane understanding on earth can comprehend them whether you respect their proper Excellency their exceeding Importance or their absolute Necessity These Ends are The Glorifying of God The Salvation of our own and other mens Souls in our escaping the Torments of Hell and Possessing the Glory of Heaven And can a man be too much affected with things of such Moment Can he Desire them too Earnestly or Love them too Violently or Labour for them too Diligently When we know that if our prayers prevail not and our labour succeed not we are undone for ever I think it concerns us to seek and labour to the purpose When it is put to the Question Whether we shall live for ever in Heaven or in Hell and the Question must be resolved upon our Obeying
Damnation is in Question and to be determined every mistake is insufferable and inexcusable which might have been prevented by any cost or pains Therefore men will chuse the most able Lawyers and Physicians because the mistakes of one may lose them their Estates and the mistakes of the other may lose them their lives But mistakes about their Souls are of a higher nature 5. If you should continue your mistakes till death there will be no time after to correct them for your recovery Mistake now and you are undone for ever Men think to see a man dye quietly or comfortably is to see him dye happily But if his comfort proceed from this mistake of his condition it is the most unhappy case and pittiful sight in the world To live mistaken in such a case is lamentable but to dye mistaken is desperate Seeing then that the case is so dangerous what wise man would not follow the search of his heart both night and day till he were assured of his safety SECT V. 4. COnsider how small the labour of this duty is in comparison of the sorrow which followeth its neglect A few hours or days work if it be closely followed and with good direction may do much to resolve the Question There is no such trouble in searching our hearts nor any such danger as may deter men from it what harm can it do to you to Try or to know It will take up no very long time Or if it did yet you have your time given you for that end One hour so spent will comfort you more then many otherwise If you cannot have while to make sure of heaven how can you have while to eat or drink or live You can endure to follow your callings at Plow and Cart and Shop to toil and sweat from day to day and year to year in the hardest labours And cannot you endure to spend a little time in inquiring what shall be your everlasting state What a deal of sorrow and after-complaining might this small labour prevent How many miles travel besides the vexation may a Traveller save by inquiring of the way Why what a sad case are you in while you live in such uncertainty You can have no true comfort in any thing you see or hear or possess You are not sure to be an hour out of Hell And if you come thither you will do nothing but bewail the folly of this neglect No excuse will then pervert Justice or quiet your Conscience If you say I little thought of this day and place God and Conscience may reply why did'st thou not think of it Wast thou not warned Had'st thou not time Therefore must thou perish because thou wouldest not think of it As the Commander answered his Souldier in Plutarch when he said non volens erravi I erred against my will he beat him and replied non volens poenas dato Thou shalt be punished also against thy will SECT VI. 5. THou canst scarce do Satan a greater pleasure nor thy self a greater injury It is the main scope of the Devil in all his Temptations to deceive thee and keep the ignorant of thy danger till thou feel the everlasting flames upon thy soul And wilt thou joyn with him to deceive thy self If it were not by this deceiving thee he could not destroy thee And if thou do this for him thou dost the greatest part of his work and art the chief destroyer and Devil to thy self And hath he deserved so well of thee and thy self so ill that thou shouldst assist him in such a design as thy damnation To deceive another is a grievous sin and such as perhaps thou wouldst scorn to be charged with And yet thou thinkest it nothing to deceive thy self Saith Solomon As a mad man who casteth fire-brands arrows and death So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour and saith Am not I in sport Surely then he that maketh but a sport or a matter of nothing to deceive his own soul may well be thought a mad man casting fire-brands and death at himself If any man think himself to be something when he is nothing he deceiveth himself saith Paul Gal. 6.3 Certainly among all the multitudes that perish this is the commonest cause of their undoing that they would not be brought to Try their state in time And is it not pity to think that so many thousands are merrily travelling to destruction and do not know it and all for want of this diligent search SECT VII 6. THE time is neer when God will search you And that will be another kind of Tryal then this If it be but in this life by the fiery tryal of affliction it will make you wish again and again that you had spared God that work and your selves the sorrow and that you had Tryed and Judged your selves that so you might have escaped the Tryal and Judgment of God He will Examine you then as officers do offenders with a word and a blow and as they would have done by Paul Examine him by scourging It was a terrible voyce to Adam when God calls to him Adam where art thou hast thou eaten c and to Cain when God asketh him Where is thy brother To have demanded this of himself had been easier Men think God mindeth their state and ways no more then they do their own They consider not in their hearts saith the Lord Hos. 7.2 that I remember all their wickedness now their own doings have beset them about they are before my face Oh what a happy preparation would it be to that last and great Tryal if men had but throughly Tryed themselves and made sure work before-hand When a man doth but soberly and believing think of that day especially when he shall see the Judgment set what a Joyful preparation is it if he can truly say I know the sentence shall pass on my side I have Examined my self by the same Law of Christ which now must Judg me and I have â—ound that I am quit from all my guilt and am a Justified person in Law already Oh Sirs if you knew but the comfort of such a preparation you would fall close to the work of Self-Examining yet before you slept SECT VIII 7. LAstly I desire thee to Consider What would be the sweet effects of this Examining If thou be upright and Godly it will lead thee straight toward Assurance of Gods Love If thou be not though it will trouble thee at the present yet doth it tend to thy happiness and will lead thee to Assurance of that happiness at length 1. The very Knowledg it self is naturally desireable Every man would fain know things to come especially concerning themselves If there were a book written which would tell every man his destiny what shall befall him to his last breath how desirous would people be to procure it and read it How did Nebuchadnezzars thoughts run on things that after should come
Condition and to enlighten thee in thy whole progress in the work 3. Make choyce of the most convenient Time and Place I shall not stand upon the particular Directions about these because I shall mention them more largely when I come to direct you in the duty of Contemplation Only thus in brief 1. Let the Place be the most private that you may be free from distractions 2. For the Time thus 1. When you are most solitary and at leasure You cannot cast accounts especially of such a nature as these either in a croud of company or of imployments 2. Let it be a set and choâ—en Time when you have nothing to hinder you 3. But if it may be let it be the present Time especially if thou have been a stranger hitherto to the work There is no delaying in matters of such weight 4. Especially when you have a more special call to search your selves as in publique calamities in time of sickness before Sacrament c. 5. When God is Trying you by some Affliction and as Job saith is searching after your sin then set in with him and search after them your selves 6. Lastly You should specially take such a Time when you are most fit for the work when you are not secure and stupid on one hand nor yet under deep desertions or Melancholly on the other hand for else you will be unfit Judges of your own states 4. When you have thus chosen the fittest Time and Place then draw forth either from thy Memory or in writing the forementioned Marks or Gospel-Conditions or Descriptions of the Saints Try them by Scripture and convince thy Soul throughly of their infallible Truth 5. Proceed then to put the Question to thy self But be sure to state it right Let it not be Whether there be any Good in thee at all for so thou wilt err on the one hand Nor yet Whether thou have such or such a degree and measure of Grace for so thou wilt err on the other hand But Whether such or such a Saving Grace be in thee at all in sincerity or not 6. If thy heart draw back and be loath to the work suffer it not so to give thee the slip but force it on Lay thy command upon it let Reason interpose and use its authority Look over the fore-going Arguments and press them home Yea lay the Command of God upon it and charge it to obey upon pain of his displeasure Set Conscience a work also let it do its office till thy lazy heart be spurred up to the work For if thou suffer it to break away once and twice c. it will grow so head-strong that thou canst not master it 7. Let not thy Heart trifle away the Time when it should be diligently at the work Put the Question to it seriously Is it thus and tâ—us with me or no Force it here to an Answer suffer it not to be silent nor to jangle and think of other matters If the Question be hard through the darkness of thy Heart yet do not give it over so but search the closer and study the case the more exactly And if it be possible let not thy Heart give over till it have Resolved the Question and told thee off or on in what case thou art Ask it strictly as Joseph examined his Brethren Gen. 43.7 how it stands affected Do as David Psal. 77.6 My spirit made Diligent Search If thy Heart strive to break away before thou art resolved wrestle with it till thou hast prevailed and say I will not let thee go till thou hast Answered He that can prevail with his own Heart shall also be a prevailer with God 8. If thou finde the work beyond thy strength so that after all thy pains thou art never the more resolved then seek out for help Go to some that is Godly experienced able and faithful and tell him thy case and desire his best advice and help Not that any can know thy heart so well as thy self But if thou deal faithfully and tell him what thou knowest by thy self he can tell thee whether they be sound Evidences or not and shew thee Scripture how to prove them so and direct thee in the right use of such Evidences and shew thee how to conclude from them Yea when thou canst get no further the very Judgment of an able Godly man should take much with thee as a probable Argument as the Judgment of a Physician concerning the state of thy body Though this can afford thee no full certainty yet it may be a great help to stay and direct thee But be sure thou do not make this a pretence to put off thy own duty of Examining But onely use it as one of the last remedies when thou findest thy own endevors will not serve Neither be thou forward to open thy case to every one or to a carnal flattering unskilful person But to one that hath wisdom to conceal thy secrets and tenderness to compassionate thee and skill to direct thee and faithfulness to deal truly and plainly with thee 9. When by all this pains and means thou hast discovered the truth of thy state then pass the Sentence on thy self accordingly A meer examination will do thee little good if it proceed not to a Judgment Conclude as thou findest Either that thou art a true Beleever or that thou art not But pass not this Sentence rashly nor with self-flattery nor from Melancholly terrors and fears But do it groundedly and deliberately and truly as thou findest according to thy Conscience Do not conclude as some do I am a good Christian or as others do I am a Reprobate or a Hypocrite and shall be damned when thou hast no ground for what thou sayst but thy own fancy or hopes or fears nay when thou art convinced by Scripture and Reason of the contrary and hast nothing to say against the Arguments Let not thy Judgment be any way by assed or bribed and so fore-stalled from sentencing aright 10. Labor to get thy heart kindly Affected with its discovered condition according to the sentence passed on it Do not think it enough to know but labor to feel what God hath made thee see If thou finde thy self undoubtedly graceless Oh get this to thy heart and think what a doleful Condition it is To be an Enemy to God! to be unpardoned unsanctified and if thou shouldst so dye to be Eternally damned One would think such a thought should make a heart of stone to quake On the contrary If thou finde thy self renewed and sanctified indeed Oh get this warm and close to thy heart Bethink thy self What a blessed state the Lord hath brought thee into To be his Childe his Friend to be pardoned justified and sure to be saved Why what needest thou fear but sinning against him Come war or plague or sickness or death thou art sure they can but thrust thee into Heaven Thus follow these Meditations till they have left
thou hast a building with God not made with hands Eternal in the Heavens 2 Cor. 5.1 2. It would therefore better become thee earnestly to groan desiring to be cloathed upon with that house Is thy flesh any better then the flesh of Noah was And yet though God saved him from the common deluge he would not save him from common death Or is it any better then the flesh of Abraham or Job or David or all the Saints that ever lived Yet did they all suffer and dye Dost thou think that those Souls which are now with Christ do so much pity their rotten or dusty corps or lament that their ancient habitation is ruined and their oneâ— comely bodies turned into earth Oh what a thing is strangeness and disacquaintance It maketh us afraid of our dearest friends and to draw back from the place of our only happiness So was it with thee towards thy chiefest friends on earth While thou wast unacquainted with them thou didst withdraw from their society but when thou didst once know them throughly thou wouldst have been loath again to be deprived of their fellowship And even so though thy strangeness to God another world do make thee loath to leave this flesh yet when thou hast been but one day or hour there if we may so speak of that Eternity where is neither day nor hour thou wouldst be full loath to return into this flesh again Doubtless when God for the Glory of his Son did send back the Soul of Lazarus into its body he caused it quite to forget the Glory which it had enjoyed and to leave behind it the remembrance of that happiness together with the happiness it self Or else it might have made his life a burden to him to think of the blessedness that he was fetched from and have made him ready to break down the prison doors of his flesh that he might return to that happy state again Oh then impatient Soul murmur not at Gods dealings with that body but let him alone with his work and way He knows what he doth but so dost not thou He seeth the End but thou seest but the beginning If it were for want of love to thee that he did thus chastise thy body then would he not have dealt so by all his Saints Dost thou not think he did not love David and Paul or Christ himself Or rather doth he not chasten because he loveth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth Heb. 12.4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11. Believe nor the Fleshes reports of God nor its commentaries upon his Providences It hath neither Will nor Skill to interpret them aright Not Will for it is an enemy to them They are against it and it is against them Not Skill for it is darkness It savoreth only the things of the flesh but the things of the Spirit it cannot understand because they are spiritually discerned Never expect then that the flesh should truly expound the meaning of the rod. It will call Love Hatred and say God is destroying when he is saving and murmur as if he did thee wrong and used thee hardly when he is shewing thee the greatest mercy of all Are not the foul steps the way to Rest as well as the fair Yea are not thy sufferings the most necessary passages of his providence And though for the present they are not Joyous but Grievous yet in the End do they bring forth the Quiet fruits of Righteousness to all those that are exercised thereby Hast thou not found it so by former experience when yet this flesh would have perswaded thee otherwise Believe it then no more which hath mis-informed thee so oft For indeed there is no believing the words of a wicked and ignorant enemy Ill-will never speaks well But when malice viciousness and Ignorance are combined what actions can expect a true and fair interpretation This flesh will call Love Anger and Anger Hatred and Chastisements Judgments It will tell thee That no mans case is like thine and if God did Love thee he would never so use thee It will tell thee That the promises are but deceiving words and all thy prayers and uprightness is vain If it find thee sitting among the ashes it will say to thee as Jobs wife Dost thou yet retain thine integrity Job 2. 8 9 10. Thus will it draw thee to offend against God and the generation of his Children It is a party and the suffering party and therefore not fit to be the Judg. If your Child should be the Judg when and how oft you should chastise him and whether your chastisement be a token of fatherly love you may easily imagine what would be his Judgment If we could once believe God and Judg of his dealings by what he speaks in his Word and by their usefulness to our Souls and reference to our Rest and could stop our ears against all the clamours of the flesh then we should have a truer Judgment of our Afflictions SECT VII 6. LAstly Consider God doth seldom give his people so sweet a fore-taste of their Future Rest as in their deep Afflictions He keepeth his most precious cordials for the time of our greatest faintings and dangers To give such to men that are well and need them not is but to cast them away They are not capable of discerning their working on their worth A few drops of Divine Consolation in the midst of a world of pleasure and contents will be but lost and neglected as some precious spirits cast into a vessel or river of common waters The Joys of Heaven are of unspeakable sweetness But a man that overflows with earthly delights is scarce capable of tasting their sweetness They may easilier comfort the most dejected Soul then him that feeleth not any need of comfort as being full of other comforts already Even the best of Saints do seldom-taste of the delights of God and pure spiritual unmixed Joys in the time of their prosperity as they do in their deepest troubles and distress God is not so lavish of his choice favours as to bestow them unseasonably Even to his own will he give them at so fit a time when he knoweth that they are needful and will be valued and when he is sure to be thanked for them and his people rejoyced by them Especially when our sufferings are more directly for his cause then doth he seldom fail of sweetening the bitter cup. Therefore have the Martyrs been possessors of the highest Joys and therefore were they in former times so ambitious of Martyrdom I do not think that Paul and Silas did ever sing more Joyfully then when they were sore with scourgings and were fast in the inner prison with their feet in the stocks Acts 16.24 25. When did Christ preach such comforts to his Disciples and leave them his Peace and assure them of his providing them mansions with himself but when he was ready to leave them and their hearts
be an Ignorant carnal person that you have to deal with who is an utter stranger to the Mysteries of Religion and to the work of Regeneration on his own Soul the first thing you have to do is to acquaint him with these Doctrines Labour to make him understand wherein mans chief Happiness doth consist and how far he was once possessed of it and what Law and Covenant God then made with him and how he broke it and what penalty he incurred and what misery he brought himself into thereby Teach him what need men had of a Redeemer and how Christ in mercy did interpose and â—ear the penalty and what Covenant now he hath made with man and on what terms only Salvation is now to be attained and what course Christ taketh to draw men to himself and what are the riches and priviledges that Believers have in him If when he understandeth these things he be not moved by them or if you find that the stop lieth in his will and affections and in the hardness of his heart and in the interest that the flesh and the world have got in him Then shew him the excellency of the Glory which he neglecteth and the intolerableness of the loss of it and the extremity and eternity of the torments of the damned and how certainly they must endure them and how just it is for their wilful refusals of grace and how hainâ—us a sin it is to reject such free and abundant mercy and to tread under foot the blood of the Covenant Shew him the certainty nearness and terrors of death and judgment and the vanity of all things below which now he is taken up with and how little they will bestead him in that time of his extremity Shew him that by nature he himself is a child of wrath and enemy to God and by actual sin much more Shew him the viâ—e and hainous nature of sin the absolute necessity he standeth in of a Saviour the freeness of the promise the fulness of Christ the sufficiency of his Satisfaction his readiness to receive all that are willing to be his the Authority and Dominion which he hath purchased over us Shew him also the absolute necessity of Regeneration Faith and Holiness of life how impossible it is to have Salvation by Christ without these and what they are and the true nature of them If when he understandeth all this you find his Soul inthralled in presumption and false hopes perswading himself that he is a true Believer and pardoned and reconciled and shall be saved by Christ and all this upon false grounds or meerly because he would have it so which is a common case Then urge him hard to examine his state shew him the necessity of trying the danger of being deceived the commonness and easiness of mistaking through the deceitfulness of the heart the extream madness of putting it to a blind adventure or of resting in negligent or wilful uncertainty Help him in trying himself Produce some undenyable Evidences from Scripture Ask him Whether these be in him or not Whether ever he found such workings or dispositions in his heart Urge him to a rational answer do not leave him till you have convinced him of his misery and then seasonably and wisely shew him the remedy If he produce some common gifts or duties or works know to what end he doth produce them If to joyn with Christ in composing him a Righteousness shew him how vain and destructive they are If it be by way of Evidence to prove his title to Christ shew him how far a common work may reach and wherein the Life of Christianity doth consist and how far he must go further if he will be Christ's disciple In the mean time that he be not discouraged with hearing of so high a measure shew him the way by which he must attain it be sure to draw him to the use of all means set him a hearing and reading the Word calling upon God accompanying the godly perswade him to leave his actual sin and to get out of all ways of temptation especially to forsake ungodly company and to wait patiently on God in the use of means and shew him the strong hopes that in so doing he may have of a blessing this being the way that God will be found in If you perceive him possessed with any prejudicate conceits against the godly and the way of holiness shew him their falshood and with wisdom and meekness answer his Objections If he be addicted to delay the duties he is convinced of or laziness and stupidity do endanger his Soul then lay it on the more powerfully and set home upon his heart the most piercing considerations and labour to fasten them as thorns in his conscience that he may find no ease or rest till he change his estate SECT IV. BUt because in all works the manner of doing them is of greatest moment and the right performance doth much further the success I will here adjoyn a few Directions which you must be sure to observe in this work of Exhortation for it is not every advice that useth to succeed nor any manner of doing it that will serve the turn Observe therefore these Rules 1. Set upon the work sincerely and with right intentions Let thy Ends be the Glory of God in the parties Salvation Do it not to get a name or esteem to thy self or to bring men to depend upon thee or to get thee followers Do not as many carnal Parents and Masters will do viz. rebuke their Children and Servants for those sins that displease them and are against their profit or their humors as disobedience unthriftiness unmannerliness c. and labour much to reform them in these but never seek in the right way that God hath appointed to save their Souls But be sure thy main end be to recover them from misery and bring them into the way of eternal Rest. SECT V. 2. DO it Speedily As you would not have them Delay their returning so do not you Delay to seek their return You are purposing long to speak to such an Ignorant neighbor and to deal with such a scandalous sinner and yet you have never done it Alas he runs on the score all this while he goes deeper in debt wrath is heaping up Sin taketh rooting Custom doth more fasten him Engagements to sin grow stronger and more numerous Conscience grows seared the heart grows hardened while you delay the Devil rules and rejoyceth Christ is shut out the Spirit is repulsed God is dayly dishonored his Law is violated he is without a Servant and that service from him which he should have the Soul continueth in a doleful state time runs on the day of visitation hasteth away death and judgment are even at the door and what if the man dye and miss of Heaven while you are purposing to teach him and help him to it What if he drop into hell while you are purposing to prevent
them begin to look about them Let them know that thou speak not to them of indifferent things not about childrens games or worldlings vanities or matters of a few days or years continuance nor yet about matters of uncertainty which perhaps may never come to pass But it is about the saving or damning of their Souls and bodies and whether they shall be Blessed with Christ or tormented with Devils and that for ever and ever without any change It is how to stand before God in Judgment and what answer to give and how they are like to speed And this Judgment and eternal state they shall very shortly see they are almost at it yet a few more nights and days and they shall presently be at that last day a few more breathes they have to breathe and they shall breathe out their last and then as certainly shall they see that mighty change as the Heaven is over their heads and the earth under their feet Oh labour to make men know that it is mad jesting about Salvation or Damnation and that Heaven and Hell be not matters to be playd with or passed over with a few careless thoughts Is it most certain that one of these days thou shalt be either in everlasting unchangeable Joy or Torments and doth it not awake thee Is there so few that find the way of life so many that go the way of death so hard to escape so easie to miscarry and that while we fear nothing but think all is well and yet do you fit still and trifle Why what do you mean what do you think on The world is passing away its pleasures are fading its honours are leaving you its profits will prove unprofitable to you Heaven or Hell are a little before you God is Just and Jealous his Threatenings are true the great day of his Judgment will be terrible your time runs on your lives are uncertain you are far behind hand you have loitered long your case is dangerous your Souls are far gone in sin you are strange to God you are hardened in evil customs you have no assurance of pardon to shew if you dye to morrow how unready are you and with what terror will your Souls go out of your bodies And do you yet loiter for all this Why consider with your selves God standeth all this while waiting your leasure his patience beareth his Justice forbeareth his Mercy intreateth you Christ standeth offering you his blood and merits you may have him freely and life with him the Spirit is perswading you Conscience is accusing and urging you Ministers are praying for you and calling upon you Satan stands waiting when Justice will cut off your lives that he may have you This is your time Now or Never What! had you rather lose Heaven then your profits or pleasures had you rather burn in Hell then repent on Earth had you rather howl and roar there then pray day and night for mercy here or to have Devils your Tormentors then to have Christ your Governor Will you renounce your part in God and Glory rather then renounce your cursed sins Do you think a holy life too much for Heaven or too dear a course to prevent an endless misery Oh friends What do you think of these things God hath made you men and endued you with Reason do not renounce your Reason where you should chiefly use it In this manner you must deal roundly and seriously with men Alas it is not a few dull words between Jest and earnest between sleep and waking as it were that will waken an ignorant dead-hearted sinner When a dull hearer and a dull speaker meet together a dead heart and a dead exhortation it is far unlike to have a lively effect If a man fall down in a Swoun you will not stand trifling with him but lay hands on him presently and snatch him up and rub him and call loud to him If a house be on fire you will not in a cold affected strain go tell your neighbor of it nor go make an oration of the nature and danger of fire but you will run out and cry Fire Fire Matters of moment must be seriously dealt with To tell a man of his sins so softly as Eli did his sons or reprove him so gently as Jehosaphat did Ahab Let not the King say so doth usually as much harm as good I am perswaded the very manner of some mens reproof and exhortations hath hardened many a sinner in the way of destruction To tell them of Sin or of Heaven or Hell in a dull easie careless language doth make men think you are not in good sadness nor do mean as you speak but either you scarce think your selves such things are true or else you take them for small indifferent matters or else sure you would never speak of them in such a slight indifferent manner Oh Sirs deal with Sin as Sin and speak of Heaven and Hell as they are and not as if you were in Jest. I confess I have failed much in this my self the Lord lay it not to my charge Loathness to displease men makes us undo them SECT IX 6. YEt lest you run into extreams I advise you to do it with Prudence and discretion Be as serious as you can but yet with Wisdom And especially you must be wise in these things following 1. In choosing the fittest season for your Exhortation not to deal with men when they are in passion or drunk or in publique where they will take it for a disgrace Mâ—n should observe when sinners are fittest to hear instructions Physick must not be given at all times but in season Opportunity advantageth every work It is an excellent example that Paul giveth us Gal. 2. â— He communicated the Gospel to them yet privately to them of reputation lest he should run in vain Some men would take this to be a sinful complying with their Corruption to yield so far to their pride and bashfulness as to teach them only in private because they would be ashamed to own the Truth in Publique But PAVL knew how great a hinderance mens reputation is to their entertaining of the Truth and that the remedy must not only be fitted to the disease but also to the strength of the Patient and that in so doing the Physician is not guilty of favoring the disease but is praise-worthy for taking the right way to cure and that learners and young-beginners must not be dealt with as open professors Moreover means will work easily if you take the opportunity when the Earth is soft the Plow will enter Take a man when he is under affliction or in the house of mourning or newly stirred by some moving Sermon and then set it home and you may do him good Christian Faithfulness doth require us not onely to do good when it falls in our way but to watch for opportunities of doing good 2 Be wise also in suiting your Exhortation to the quality and
we would not plead with sinners with our tongues God locketh up the clouds because we have shut up our mouthes The earth is grown hard as Iron to us because we have hardened our hearts against our miserable neighbors The cryes of the poor for bread are lowd because our cryes against sin have been so low Sicknesses run apace from house to house and sweep away the poor unprepared inhabitants because we swept not out the sin that breedeth them When you look over the woful desolations in England how ready are you to cry out on them that were the causers of it But did you consider how deeply your selves are guilty And as Christ said in another case Luk. 19 40. If these should hold their peace the stones would speak So because we held our peace at the Ignorance ungodliness and wickedness of our places therefore do these plagues and Judgments speak 7. Consider What a thing it will be to look upon your poor friends eternally in those flames and to think that your neglect was a great cause of it and that there was a time when you might have done much to prevent it If you should there perish with them it would be no small aggravation of your torment If you be in Heaven it would sure be a sad thought were it possible that any sorrow could dwell there To hear a multitude of poor souls there cry out for ever O if you would but have told me plainly of my sin and danger and dealt roundly with me and set it home I might have scaped all this torment and been now in Rest O what a sad voice will this be 8. Consider What a Joy is it like to be in Heaven to you to meet those there whom you have been means to bring thither To see their faces and joyn with them for ever in the praises of God whom you were instruments to bring to the knowledge and obedence of Christ. What it will be then we know not But sure according to our present temper it would be no small Joy 9. Consider how many souls have we drawn into the way of damnation or at least hardened or setled in it And should we not now be more diligent to draw men to life There is not one of us but have had our companions in sin especially in the dayes of our Ignorance and unregeneracy We have enticed them or encouraged them to Sabbath-breaking drinking or revellings or dancings and stageplayes or wantonness and vanities if not to scorn and oppose the godly We cannot so easily bring them from sin again as we did draw them to it Many are dead already without any change discovered who were our companions in sin we know not how many are and will be in hell that we drew thither and there may curse us in their torments for ever And doth it not beseem us then to do as much to save men as we have done to destroy them and be merciful to some as we have been cruel to others 10. Consider how diligent are all the enemies of these poor souls to draw them to Hell And if no body be diligent in helping them to Heaven what is like to become of them The Divel is tempting them day and night Their inward lusts are still working and withdrawing them The flesh is still pleading for its delights and profits Their old companions are ready to entice them to sin and to disgrace Gods wayes and people to them and to contradict the doctrine of Christ that should save them and to encrease their prejudice and dislike of holiness Seducing Teachers are exceeding diligent in sowing tares and in drawing off the unstable from the doctrine and way of life so that when we have done all we can and hope we have won men what a multitude of late have after all been taken in this snare And shall a seducer be so unwearied in Proselyting poor ungrounded souls to his Fancies And shall not a sound Christian be much more unwearied in laboring to win men to Christ and Life 11. Consider The neglect of this doth very deeply wound when conscience is awaked When a man comes to dye conscience will ask him VVhat good hast thou done in thy life time The saving of souls is the greatest good work what hast thou done towards this How many hast thou dealt faithfully with I have oft observed that the consciences of dying men do very much wound them for this omission For my own part to tell you my experience when ever I have been neer death my conscience hath accused me more for this then for any sin It would bring every ignorant prophane neighbor to my remembrance to whom I never made known their danger It would tell me Thou shouldst have gone to them in private and told them plainly of their desperate danger without bashfulness or dawbing though it had been when thou shouldest have eaten or slept if thou hadst no other time Conscience would then remember me how at such a time or such a time I was in company with the ignorant or was riding by the way with a wilful sinner and had a fit opportunity to have dealt with them but did not or at least did it by the halves and to little purpose The Lord grant I may better obey conscience hereafter while I live and have time that it may have less to accuse me of at death 12. Consider further It is now a very seasonable time which you have for this work Take it therefore while you have it There are times wherein it is not safe to speak it may cost you your liberties or your lives It is not so now with us Besides your neighbours will be here with you but a very little while They will shortly dye and so must you Speak to them therefore while you may set upon them and give them no rest till you have prevailed Do it speedily for it must be now or never A Roman Emperor when he heard of a neighbor dead he asked And what did I do for him before he dyed and it grieved him that a man should dye neer him and it could not be said that he had first done him any good Me thinks you should think of this when you hear that any of your neighbors are dead But I had far rather while they are alive you would ask the question There is such and such a neighbor alas how many that are ignorant and ungodly what have I done or said that might have in it any likely-hood of recovering them They will shortly be dead and then it is too late 13. Consider this is a work of greatest charity and yet such as every one of you may perform If it were to give them moneys the poor have it not to give if to fight for them the weak cannot if it were to suffer the fearful will say they cannot But every one hath a tongue to speak to a sinner The poorest may be thus charitable as well as the
go on well in Wars nor the business of mens salvation succeed among dissentions but if one have in such times proved a gainer multitudes have bin losers The same God is the God both of Truth and Peace the same Christ is the Prince of Peace and Author of Salvation the same Word is the Gospel of Peace and Salvation both have the same causes both are wrought and carried on by the same Spirit the same Persons are the Sons of Peace and Salvation so inseparably do they go hand in hand together O therefore let us be the Ministers and helpers of our peoples peace as ever we desire to be helpers of their Salvation And how impossible is it for Ministers to maintain peace among their people if they maintain not peace among themselves O what a staggering is it to the faith of the weak when they see their Teachers and Leaders at such odds It makes them ready to throw away all Religion when they see scarce two or three of the most learned and godly Divines of one minde but like the bitterest enemies disgracing and vilifying one another and all because the Articles of our faith must be so unlimited voluminous and almost infinite so that no man well knows when he may call himself an Orthodox Christian. When our Creed is swelled to the bigness of a National Confession one would think that he that subscribeth to that Confession should be Orthodox and yet if he jump not just with the Times in expounding every Article of that Confession and run not with the stream in every other Point that is in question amongst them though he had subscribed to the whole Harmony of Confessions he is never the neerer the estimation of Orthodox Were we all bound together by a Confession or Subscription of the true Fundamentals and those other Points that are next to Fundamentals onely and there took up our Christianity and Unity yielding each other a freedom of differing in smaller or more difficult Points or in expressing our selves in different tearms and so did live peaceably and lovingly together notwithstanding such differences as men that all knew the mysteriousness of Divinity and the imperfection of their own understandings and that here we know but in part and therefore shall most certainly err and dâ—ffer in part what a world of mischiefs might this course prevent I oft think on the examples of Luther and Melancthon It was not a few things that they differed in nor such as would now be accounted small besides the imperious harshness of Luthers disposition as Carolostadius could witness and yet how sweetly and pâ—aceably and lovingly did they live together without any breach or disagreement considerable As Mel. Adamus saith of them Et si tempora fuerunt ad distractiones proclivia hominumque levitas dissidiorum cupida tamen cum alter alterius vitia nosset nunquam inter eos simultas extitit ex qua animorum alienatio subsecuta sit so that their agreement arose not hence that either was free from faults or errors but knowing each others faults they did more easily bear them Certainly if every difference in Judgment in matters of Religion should seem intolerable or make a breach in affection then no two men on earth must live together or tolerate each other but every man must resolve to live by himself for no two on earth but differ in one thing or other except such as take all their faith upon trust and explicitly believe nothing at all God hath not made our Judgments all of a complexion no more then our faces nor our Knowledg all of a size any more then our bodies and methinks men that be not resolved to be any thing in Religion should be afraid of making the Articles of their Faith so numerous lest they should shortly become Hereticks themselves by disagreeing from themselves and they should be afraid of making too strict Laws for those that differ in Judgment in controvertible Points lest they should shortly change their Judgments and so make a Rod for their own Backs for how know they in difficult disputable Cases but within this twelve months themselves may be of another minde except they are resolved never to change for fear of incurring the reproach of Novelty and Mutability and then they were best resolve to study no more nor ever to be wiser I would we knew just as what Age a man must receive this principle against changing his Judgment I am afraid lest at last they should teach it their children and lest many Divines did learn it too young and if any besides besides Christ and his Apostles must be the Standard and Foundation of our faith I would we could certainly tell who they are for I have heard yet none but the Pope or his General Councel expresly lay claim to the Prerogative of infallibility and I think there is few that have appeared more fallible for my own part I admire the gifts of God in our first Reformers Luther Melancthon Calvin c. And I know no man since the Apostles days whom I value and honor more then Calvin and whose Judgment in all things one with another I more esteem and come neerer too Though I may speed as Amiraldus to be thought to defend him but for a defence to his own errors but yet if I thought we must needs be in all things of his minde and know no more in any one Point then he did I should heartily wish that he had lived one fifty years longer that he might have increased and multiplied his knowledg before he died and then succeeding Ages might have had leave to have grown wiser till they had attained to know as much as he Some men can tell what to say in point of Ceremonies Common Prayer c. when they are prest with the Examples and Judgments of our first Reformers but in matters of Doctrine they forget their own Answers as if they had been perfect here and not in the other or as if Doctrinals were not much fuller of Mysteries and difficulties then Worship So far am I from speaking all this for the security of my self in my differing from others that if God would dispense with me for my Ministerial Services without any loss to his people I should leap as lightly as Bishop Ridley when he was stript of his Pontificalia and say as Paedaretus the Laconian when he was not chosen In numerum trecentorum Gratias habeo tibi O Deus quod tot homines meliores me huic Civitati dedisti But I must stop and again apologize for this tediousness though it be true as Zeno saith Verbis multis non eget veritas yet Respiciendum etiam quibus egent lectores And as Plato to Antisthenes Orationis modus est non penes dicentem sed penes audientem I conclude not with a Laconism but a Christianism as hoping my Brethren will at lest hear their Master Marke 9.50 Have salt in your selves and have peace
the Sun the Fountain the Father of light as certain herbs and meats we feed on do tend to make our sight more clear so the soul that 's fed with Angels food must needs have anâ— understanding much more clear then they that dwel and feed on earth And therefore you may easily see that such a man is in far less danger of temptations and Satan will hardlier beguile his soul even as a wise man is hardlier deceived then fools and children Alas the men of the world that dwell below and know no other conversation but earthly no wonder if their understandings be darkned and they be easily drawn to every wickedness no wonder if Satan take them captive at his will and leade them about as we see a Dog leade a blinde man with a string The foggy Air and Mists of earth do thicken their sight the smoak of worldly cares and business blindes them and the dungeon which they live in is a land of darkness How can Worms Moles see whose dwelling is alwayes in the earth while this dust is in mens eyes no wonder if they mistake gain for godliness sin for grace the world for God their own wils for the Law of Christ and in the issue hell for heaven if the people of God will but take notice of their own hearts they shall finde their experiences confirming this that I have said Christians do you not sensibly perceive that when your hearts are seriously fixt on heaven you presently become wiser then before Are not your understandings more solid and your thoughts more sober have you not truer apprehensions of things then you had For my own part if ever I be wise it is when I have been much above and seriously studied the life to come Me thinks I finde my understanding after such contemplations as much to differ from what it was before as I before differed from a Fool or Idiot when my understanding is weakned and befool'd with common imployment and with conversing long with the vanities below me thinks a few sober thoughts of my Fathers house and the blessed provision of his Family in Heaven doth make me with the Prodigal to come to my self again Surely when a Christian withdraws himself from his earthly thoughts and begins to converse with God in heaven he is as Nebuchadnezzar taken from the beasts of the field to the Throne and his understanding returneth to him again O when a Christian hath had but a glimpse of Eternity and then looks down on the world again how doth he befool himself for his sin for neglects of Christ for his fleshly pleasures for his earthly cares How doth he say to his Laughter Thou art mad and to his vain Mirth What dost thou How could he even tear his very flesh and take revenge on himself for his folly how verily doth he think that there is no man in Bedlam so truly mad as wiful sinners and lazy betrayers of their own souls and unworthy sleighters of Christ and glory This is it that makes a dying man to be usually wiser then other men are because he looks on Eternity as neer and knowing he must very shortly be there he hath more deep and heart-piercing thoughts of it then ever he could have in health and prosperity Therefore it is that the most deluded sinners that were cheated with the world and bewitched with sin do then most ordinarily come to themselves so far as to have a righter judgment then they had and that many of the most bitter enemies of the Saints would give a world to be such themselves and would fain dye in the condition of those whom they hated even as wicked Balaam when his eyes are opened to see the perpetual blessedness of the Saints will cry out O that I might dye the death of the righteous and that my last end might be like his As Witches when they are taken and in prison or at the Gallows have no power left them to bewitch any more so we see commonly the most ungodly men when they see they must dye and go to another world their judgments are so changed and their speech so changed as if they were not the same men as if they were come to their wits again and Sin and Satan had power to bewitch them no more Yet let the same men recover and lose their apprehension of the life to come and how quickly do they lose their understandings with it In a word those that were befool'd with the world and the flesh are far wiser when they come to die and those that were wise before are now wise indeed If you would take a mans judgment about Sin or Grace or Christ or Heaven go to a dying man and ask him which you were best to chuse ask him whether you were best be drunk or no or be lustful or proud or revengeful or no ask him whether you were best pray and instruct your Families or no or to sanctifie the Lords Day or no though some to the death may be desperately hardned yet for the most part I had rather take a mans judgment then about these things then at any other time For my own part if my judgment be ever solid it is when I have the seriousest apprehensions of the life to come nay the sober mention of death sometimes will a little compose the most distracted understanding Sirs do you not think except men are stark devils but that it would be a harder matter to intice a man to sin when he lyes a dying then it was before If the devil or his Instruments should then tell him of a cup of Sack of merry company of a Stage-play or Morrice-Dance do you think he would then be so taken with the motion If he should then tell him of Riches or Honors or shew him a pair of Cards or Dice or a Whore would the temptation think you be as strong as before would he not answer Alas what 's all this to me who must presently appear before God and give account of all my life and straitways be in another world Why Christian if the apprehension of the neerness of Eternity will work such strange effects upon the ungodly and make them wiser then to be deceived so easily as they were wont to be in time of health O then what rare effects would it work vvith thee and make thee scorn the baits of sin if thou couldst always dwell in the views of God and in lively thoughts of thine everlasting state Surely a believer if he improve his faith may ordinarily have truer and more quickning apprehensions of the life to come in the time of his health then an unbeliever hath at the hour of his death Thirdly Furthermore A Heavenly minde is exceedingly fortified against temptations because the affections are so throughly prepossessed with the high delights of another world Whether Satan do not usually by the sensitive Appetite prevail with the Will without any further prevailing with the
but make it stay to hear its sentence If once or twice or thrice will not do it nor a few days of hearing bring it to issue follow it on with unwearied diligence and give not over till the work be done and till thou canst 〈◊〉 knowingly off or on either thou art or art not a member of Christ either that thou hast or that thou hast not yet title to this Rest. Be sure thou rest not in wilful uncertainties If thou canst no◠dispatch the work well thy self get the help of those that are skilful go to thy Minister if he be a man of experience or go to some able experienced friend open thy case faithfully and wish them to deal plainly And thus continue till thou hast got assurance Not but that some doubtings may still remaine but yet thou maist have so much assurance as to master them that they may not much interrupt thy peace If men did know Heaven to be their own inheritance we should less need to perswade their thoughts unto it or to press them to set their delight in it O if men did truly know that God is their own Father and Christ their own Redeemer and Head and that those are their own Everlasting habitations and that there it is that they must abide and be happy for ever how could they chuse but be ravished with the forethoughts thereof If a Christian could but look upon Sun and Moon and Stars and reckon all his own in Christ and say These are the portion that my Husband doth bestow These are the blessings that my Lord hath procured me and things incomparably greater then these what holy raptures would his spirit feel The more do they sin against their own comforts as well as against the Grace of the Gospel who are wilful maintainers of their own doubtings and plead for their unbelief and cherish distrustful thoughts of God and scandalous injurious thoughts of their Redeemer who represent the Covenant as if it were of works and not of grace and represent Christ as an enemy rather then as a Savior as if he were glad of advantages against them and were willing that they should keep off from him and dye in their unbelief when he hath called them so oft and invited them so kindly and born the hell that they should bear Ah wretches that we are that be keeping up Jealousies of the Love of our Lord when we should be rejoycing and bathing our souls in his love That can question that love which hath been so fully evidenced and doubt still whether he that hath stooped so low and suffered so much and taken up a nature and office of purpose be yet willing to be theirs who are willing to be his As if any man could chose Christ before Christ hath chosen him or any man could desire to have Christ more then Christ desires to have him or any man were more willing to be happy then Christ is to make him happy Fie upon these injurious if not blasphemous thoughts If ever thou have harboured such thoughts in thy brest or if ever thou have uttered such words with thy tongue spit out that venome vomit out that rancor cast them from thee and take heed how thou ever entertainest them more God hath written the names of his people in heaven as you use to write your names in your own books or upon your own Goods or set your Marks on your own sheep And shall we be attempting to rase them out and to write our names on the doors of hell But blessed be our God whose foundation is sure and who keepeth us by his mighty power through Faith unto salvation 1 Pet. 1.5 Well then this is my second advice to thee that thou follow on the work of self-examination till thou hast got assurance that this rest is thy own and this will draw thy heart unto it and feed thy spirits with fresh delights which else will be but tormented so much the more to think that there is such Rest for others but none for thee SECT III. 3. ANother help to sweeten thy soul with the foretasts of Rest is this Labor to apprehend how neer it is Think seriously of its speedy approach That which we think is neer at hand we are more sensible of then that which we behold at a distance When we hear of war or famin in another country it troubleth not so much or if we hear it prophesied of a long time hence so if we hear of plenty a great way off or of a golden age that shall fall out who knows when this never rejoyceth us But if Judgments or Mercies begin to draw neer then they affect us If we were sure we should see the golden Age then it would take with us When the plague is in a Town but twenty miles off we do not fear it nor much prehaps if it be but in another street but if once it come to the next door or if it seaze on one in our own family then we begin to think on it more feelingly It is so with mercies as well as Judgments VVhen they are far off we talk of them as marvells but when they draw close to us we rejoyce in them as Truths This makes men think on Heaven so insensibly because they conceit it at too great a distance They look on it as twenty or thirty or fourty yeers off and this is it that duls their sense As wicked men are fearless and senseless of judgment because the sentence is not speedily executed Eccles. 8.11 So are the godly deceived of their comforts by supposing them further off then they are This is the danger of putting the day of death far from us VVhen men will promise themselves longer time in the world then God hath promised them and judg of the length of their lives by the probabilities they gather from their Age their health their constitution and temperature this makes them look at heaven as a great way off If 〈◊〉 the rich fool in the Gospel had not expected to have lived many yeers he would sure have thought more of providing for Eternity and less of his present store and possessions And if we did not think of staying many yeers from Heaven we should think on it with far more piercing thoughts This expectation of long life doth both the wicked and the godly a great deal of wrong How much better were it to receive the sentence of death in our selves and to look on Eternity as neer at hand Surely Reader thou standest at the door and hundreds of diseases are ready waiting to open the door and let thee in Is not the thirty or fourty years of thy life that is past quickly gone Is it not a very little time when thou lookest back on it And will not all the rest be shortly so too Do not dayes and nights come very thick Dost thou not feel that building of flesh to shake and perceive thy house of
or the frequency of the understandings apprehensions this Truth doth make a deeper impression so is longer retained which impâ—â—ssion and retention we call memory And as truth is thus variously presented to the understanding and received by it so also is the goodness of the object variously represented to the will which doth accordingly put forth its various acts When it appeareth only as good in it self and not good for us or suitable it is not the object of the will at all but only this Enuntiation It is good is passed upon it by the Judgment and withal it raiseth an admiration at its excellency If it appeare evil to us then we Nill it But if it appear both good in it self and to us or suitable then it provoketh the affection of Love If the good thus loved do appear as absent from us then it exciteth the passion of Desire If the good so Loved and Desired do appear possible and feasible in the attaining then it exciteth the passion of Hope which is a compound of Desire and Expectation when we look upon it as requiring our endeavor to attain it and as it is to be had in a prescribed way then it provokes the passion of courage or boldness and concludes in resolution Lastly if this good be apprehended as present then it provoketh to delight or Joy If the thing it self be present the Joy is greatest If but the Idea of it either through the remainder or memory of the good that is past or through the fore-apprehension of that which we expect yet even this also exciteth our Joy And this Joy is the perfection of all the rest SECT II. SO that by this time I suppose you see both what are the objects that must move our affections and what powers of the soul apprehend these objects you see also I doubt not what affections you must excite and in what order it is to be done Yet for your better assistance I will more fully direct you in the several particulars 1. Then you must by cogitation go to the memory which is the Magazine or Treasury of the understanding thence you must take forth those heavenly doctrines which you intend to make the subject of your Meditation for the present purpose you may look over any promise of eternal life in the Gospel any description of the glory of the Saints or the very Articles of the Resurrection of the body and the Life everlasting some one sentence concerning those Eternal Joyes may afford you matter for many yeers Meditation yet it will be a point of our wisdom here to have always a stock of matter in our memory that so when we should use it we may bring forth out of our treasury things new and old For a good man hath a good Treasury in his heart from whence he bringeth forth good things Luke 6.45 and out of this abundance of his heart he should speak to himself as well as to others Yea if we took things in order and observed some Method in respect of the matter and did Meditate first on one Truth concerning Eternity and then another it would not be amiss And if any should be barren of Matter through weakness of memory they may have notes or books of this subject for their furtherance SECT III. 2. WHen you have fetcht from your memory the matter of your Meditation your next work is to present it to your Judgment open there the case as fully as thou canst set forth the several ornaments of the Crown the several dignities belonging to the Kingdom as they are partly laid open in the beginning of this Book Let judgment deliberately view them over and take as exact a survey as it can Then put the question and require a determination Is there happiness in all this or not Is not here enough to make me blessed Can he want any thing who fully possesseth God Is there any thing higher for a creature to attain Thus urge thy judgment to pass an upright sentence and compel it to subscribe to the perfection of thy Celestial happiness and to leave this sentence as under its hand upon Record If thy senses should here begin to mutter and to put in a word for fleshly pleasure or profits let judgment hear what each can say weigh the Arguments of the world and flesh in one end and the Arguments for the preheminence of Glory in the other end and judg impartially which should be preferred Try whether there be any comparison to be made which is more excellent which more manly which is more satisfactory and which more pure which freeth most from misery and advanceth us highest and which dost thou think is of longer continuance Thus let deliberate judgment decide it and let not Flesh carry it by noise and by violence And when the sentence is passed and recorded in thy heart it will be ready at hand to be produced upon any occasion and to silence the flesh in its next attempt and to disgrace the world in its next competition Thus exercise thy Judgment in the contemplation of thy Rest thus Magnifie and Advance the Lord in thy heart till a holy admiration hath possessed thy Soul SECT IV. 3. BUt the great work which you may either promise or subjoyn to this as you please is To exercise thy belief of the truth of thy Rest And that both in respect of the truth of the Promise and also the truth of thy own Interest and Title As unbelief doth cause the languishing of all our Graces so Faith would do much to revive and actuate them if it were but revived and actuated it self Especially our belief of the verity of the Scripture I conceive as needful to be exercised and confirmed as almost any point of Faith But of this I have spoken in the Second Part of this Book whither I refer thee for some confirming Arguments Though few complain of their not believing Scripture yet I conceive it to be the commonest part of unbelief and the very root of bitterness which spoileth our Graces Perhaps thou hast not a positive belief of the contrary nor dost not flatly think that Scripture is not the Word of God that were to be a down-right Infidel indeed And yet thou maist have but little belief that Scripture is Gods Word and that both in regard of the habit and the act It s one thing not to beleeve Scripture to be true and another thing positively to beleeve it to be false Faith may be idle and suspend its exercise toward the Truth though it do not yet act against the Truth It may stand still when it goes not out of the way it may be asleep and do you little service though it do not directly fight against you Besides a great deal of unbelief may consist with a small degree of Faith If we did soundly beleeve That there is such a Glory that within a few days our eyes shall behold it O what passions would it
having lost their strength and Afflictions less grievous as having lost their sting and every Mercy will be better known and relished Reader it is under God in thine own choice now whether thou wilt live thus blessed or not and whether all this pains which I have taken for thee shall prosper or be lost If it be lost through thy laziness which God forbid be it known to thee thou wilt prove the greatest looser thy self If thou value not this Heavenly Angelical life how canst thou say that thou valuest Heaven And if thou value not it no wonder if thou be shut out The power of godliness lieth in the actings of the soul Take heed that thou stick not in the vain deluding form O man VVhat hast thou to minde but God and Heaven Art thou not almost out of this world already Dost thou not look every day when one disease or other will let out thy soul Doth not the Bier stand ready to carry thee to the Grave and the VVorms wait to feed upon thy face and heart What if thy Pulse must beat a few strokes more and what if thou have a few more breathes to fetch before thou breathe out thy last and what if thou have a few more nights to sleep before thou sleep in the dust Alas what will this be when it is gone And is it not almost gone already Very shortly thou wilt see thy glass run out and say thy self My life is done my time is gone its past recalling there 's nothing now but Heaven or Hell before me O where then should thy heart be now but in Heaven Didst thou but know what a dreadful thing it is to have a strange and doubtful thought of Heaven when a man lies dying it would sure rowze thee up And what other thoughts but strange can that man have that never thought seriously of Heaven till then Every mans first thoughts are strange about all things Familiarity and acquaintance comes not in a moment but is the consequent of Custom and frequent Converse And strangeness naturally raiseth dread as familiarity doth delight What else makes a Fish or a wilde Beast flie from a man when domestick Creatures take pleasure in his company So wilt thou flie from God if thou knewest how who should be thy onely happiness if thou do not get this strangeness removed in thy life time And is it not pity that a childe should be so strange to his own Father as to fear nothing more then to go into his presence and to think himself best when he is furthest from him and to flie from his face as a wilde Creature will do from the face of a man Alas how little do many godly ones differ from the world either in their comforts or willingness to die and all because they live so strange to the place and Fountain of their comforts Besides a little verbal or other outside duties or talking of controversies and doctrines of Religion or forbearing the practice of many sins how little do the most of the Religious differ from other men when God hath prepared so vast a difference hereafter If a word of Heaven fall in now and then in their conference alas how slightly is it and customary and heartless And if their Prayers or Preaching have heavenly expressions they usually are fetcht from their meer invention or memory or Books and not from the experience or feeling of their hearts O what a life might men live if they were but willing and diligent God would have our joyes to be far more then our sorrows yea he would have us to have no sorrow but what tendeth to joy and no more then our sins have made necessary for our good How much do those Christians wrong God and themselves that either make their thoughts of God the in-let of their sorrows or let these offered joyes lie by as neglected or forgotten Some there be that say It is not worth so much time and trouble to think of the greatness of the joyes above so we can make sure they are ours we know they are great But as these men obey not the Command of God which requireth them to have their Conversation in Heaven and to set their Affections on things above so do they wilfully make their own lives miserable by refusing the delights that God hath set before them And yet if this were all it were a smaller matter if it were but the loss of their comforts I would not say so much But see what abundance of other mischiefs do follow the absence of these Heavenly Delights First It will damp if not destroy our very love to God so deeply as we apprehend his bounty and exceeding love to us and his purpose to make us eternally happy so much will it raise our love Love to God and delight in him are still conjunct They that conceive of God as one that desireth their blood and damnation cannot heartily love him Secondly It will make us have seldom and unpleasing thoughts of God for our thoughts will follow our love and delight Thirdly And it will make men to have as seldom and unpleasing speech of God For who will care for talking of that which he hath no delight in What makes men still talking of worldliness or wickedness but that these are more pleasant to them then God Fourthly It will make men have no delight in the service of God when they have no delight in God nor any sweet thoughts of Heaven which is the end of their services No wonder if such Christians complain That they are still backward to Duty that they have no delight in Prayer in Sacraments or in Scripture it self If thou couldst once delight in God thou wouldst easily delight in duty especially that which bringeth thee into the neerest converse with him But till then no wonder if thou be weary of all further then some external excellency may give thee a carnal delight Doth not this cause many Christians to go on so heavily in secret duties like the Ox in the Furrow that will go no longer then he is driven and is glad when he is unyoaked Fifthly Yea it much endangereth the perverting of mens judgments concerning the ways of God and means of Grace when they have no delight in God and Heaven Though it be said Perit omne judicium cum res transit in affectum That Judgment perisheth when things pass into Affection yet that is but when Affection leadeth the Judgment and not when it followeth Affection holdeth its object faster then bare Judgment doth The Soul will not much care for that Truth which is not accompanied with suitable goodness and it will more easily be drawn to believe that to be false which it doth not delightfully apprehend to be good which doubtless is no small cause of the ungodlies prejudice against the ways of God and of many formal mens dislike of extemporate Prayers and of a strict observation of the Lords day Had they a true
Melch. Adam in vita Luth. Sozom. lib. 6. cap. 28. Lib. 7 c. 23. Lavater pag. 64 65. De gent. Sept. lib. 2. cap. 3. Exam. Theol. In obsidione Nolanae Civitatis Nolanum Episcopum Faelicem mortuum conspectum fuisse a multis civitatem illam defendentem refert August lib de Mirab. Scripturae si ille liber sit Augustini Scio innumera reserri fabulosa vel a fraude c. sed n a vâ—ris tum doctis tum perspicacibus tum gravibus probis pluramis retrò seculis allata sunt hodie memorantur innumera ubi non possit non cum operá humana concurrisse illusio aut vâ—s diabolica supplente viz. spiritu maligno quod hominis superet potestatem Vossius Epistol de Samuele in Beverovitii Epistol pag. 203. Vid. Mercur. viperam de prodig lib. 8. Psellum Thyreus de locis infestis Object So his seeming Miracles Lege Jo. Bap. Van Helmont de Lethiasi c. 9 §. 27. pag. 168. §. 3. Si quando nos oporteat his opitulari non loquamur cum spiritu vel adjurando vel imperando quasi nos audiat sed tantum precibus jejuniis incumbendo perfeveremus Origen in Math. 17. The devil had the power of death saith the holy Ghost Heb. 2.14 Vid. Petr. Martyr in Loc. Commun Class 1. cap. 8. §. 8. pag. 39 40. Daemoniaci semper fere sunt melancholici sed non omnes melancholici daemoniaci Forest. obs lib. 10. obs 19. Melch. Adam in vit Luther Vide Petr. Martyr Loc. Commun Clas 1. cap. 9. per totum For speaking strange languages versifying See Graine rius Tract 15. de melanc c. 4. Et Wierum de praesagijs li. 2. c. 21 22. 22. Et Forest. obs lib. 20. Obs. 19. in schol De Abdit Rer. Causis l. 2. c. 16. Vide Fael Plateri Observat. pag. 20. de stupore daemoniaco et de Exorcista ipso a Daemone percusso et laeso * Lib. 30. de Venenis observat 8. in schol Cyprian Serm. de lapsis hath a History of one possessed and of her impatience during the time of prayer And in those times when they went to Sacrament the Catechised the penitents and the possessed were all warned to depart the Assembly Tertul. Apolog. §. 4. Car. Piso. de morbis serosis observ 9. de Dolore auris cum odontaâ—giâ pag. 45 26. Even the Papists confesse that all those spels scrols and actions which must be done at such an hour or in such a form and order and with such circumstances as nothing conduce to the effect intended if these do any thing it is from the devill Vide Reginaldum Prax. conscien Cas. part 1. Q. 7. Prax. for poenitential lib. 17. nu 157. Seq * See Sir Ken. Digby of the Immort of the soul. And Ab. Rosse his Philosophicall Touchstone in Ans. to it §. 5. §. 6. a Sir Walter Raleigh Hist. of the World sheweth that Pythagoras Orphaeus and Plato had their doctrine of God from Scripture but durst not profess it Plotinus was Origens condisciple of Ammonius therefore no wonder if he be liker a Divine then the rest See Pemble Vind. Grat. of this pag 60.61 62. c. b Therefore Numenius cited by Orig. against Celsus doth call him Moses Atticus And divers of Numenius his Books do recite with great reverence many texts out of Moses and the Prophets c Though the Epistles betwixt Paul and Seneca may be fained yet it is more then probable that he had heard or read Pauls Doctrine Aquin. Sum. prima 1 ae Art 1. Q. 1. 2 a. 2 ae Q 2. Art 3 4. §. 7 Object Object §. 8. a The Apocryphal books are but Records more imperfect and uncertain of the same doctrine for the substance with the rest though mixt with some suspected History and doth confirm but not contradict the Scriptures and but few of those books do pretend to a Divine Authority as the rest b Though Mahomet pretended to speak from God as Prophet The barbarousness and sottishness of his Alcoran its contradiction to its self and to the Scripture which he acknowledgeth may satisfie any man of its forgery so that it is the most stupendious Judgment of God that so great a part of the world should continue so brutish as to believe and follow him still Read â—radwardines excellent dispute of this subject De causa Dei lib. 1. cap. 1. Corol. part 32. Grotius de veritate Relig. Christianae * As pag. 10. with thâ— first Argumâ—nt to confirm it and so pag. 18. and the frequent use of the equivocal tearm Foundation without explication So Dr. Preston on the Attributes pag. 47 48. and forward And Byfields Principles §. 1. Matth. 22.5 6 7. Luke 14 24. Heb. 12.14 Joh. 3.3 Joh 3 18.36 1 Cor. 6.9 10. Gal. 5.21 Psal 9.17 2 Thes 1.8 9 10. §. 1. Question It is a doubt whether to be in place only Dâ—finitive not Circumscriptive do not contradict the definition of place ‖ Vers. 6.7 8. * Crotius his fancie â—hat to be with Christ is no more then to be Christi depositum is evidently vain for so to be with Christ would not be best of all seeing that our meer deliverance from present sufferings is not so great a good as our present life in the service and enjoyment of God in his ordinances and mercies though accompanied with imperfection and afflictions Except he take a stone or a carkass to be happier then a man * Doct. Twisse See Barlows Exercit. post Metaph. Schib Jo. Franciscus Picus Mirand saith he heard of a Pope that in his life time told a familiar friend of his that he believed not the Immortality of souls His friend beâ—ng dead appeared to him as he watched and told him that his soul which he believed to be mortall he should by the Just Judgement of God prove to be immortall to his exceeding torment in eternall fire This Pope seemeth to be Leo the tenth Vide Du Plessis Mysterie of Iniquity pag. 641. Polycarpus inter multas praeclaras voces quas flâ—mmae admotâ—sâ— didit eo die repraesentandum se dixit coram deo in spiritu Quo eâ—dâ—m tempore Mâ—lito Episcopus Sardensis vir paris siâ—ceritatis librum scripsit de corporâ— anima c. Adeo autem haec sententia mâ—liore illo sâ—culo valuit ut Tertullianus reponat eam inter communes primas animi conceptiones quae natura communiter appraebenduntur Calvin in Psychopannyc vid. Euseb. Histor. lib. 1. c. 15. tit c. If you would see this subject handled more fully and all the Arguments answered which are brought to prove That souls have neither Joy nor Pain till the Resurrection See Calvins Treatise hereof called Psychopannychia §. 1. §. 2. Vse I. Consuevimus nos homines praesertim qui crassiore mente praediti sumus metis potius quam beneficicia quod oporâ—et addiscerâ— Tophylact in Joan. c. 5. vers 22. Judg. 2.20 21. Matth. 10.31
member be cut off If it be true and of flat necessity though it be displeasing there is no remedy Why I beseech you think on it reasonably without prejudice or passion and tell me Where doth God give any hope of your salvation till you are new Creatures Gal. 6.15 Nay I have shewed you where he flatly overthroweth all such hope And will it do you any good for a Minister to give you hope where God gives you none or would you desire them to do so Why what would you think of such a Minister when those hopes forsake you or what thanks will you give him when you finde your self in Hell would you not there lye and curse him for a deceiver for ever I know this to be true and therefore I had rather you were displeased with me here then curse me there For my own part if I had but one Sermon to preach while I lived I think this should be it to perswade down all your ungrounded hopes of Heaven not to leave you there in despair but that you may hope upon better grounds which will never deceive you God hath told us what we shall say Isai. 3.10 11. Say to the Righteous It shall be well with him and to the wicked It shall be ill with him And if I shall say it shall be well with thee when God hath said it shall be ill with thee what the better were thou for this Whose word would stand think you Gods or mine O little do carnall Ministers know what they do who strengthen the hopes of ungodly men They work as hard as they can against God while they stand there to speak in the name of God God layeth his battery against these false hopes as knowing that they must now down or the sinner must perish And these teachers build up what God is pulling down I know not what they can do worse to destroy mens souls There are false teachers in regard of application though they are true in regard of doctrine This is partly through their flattering men-pleasing temper partly because they are guilty themselves and so should destroy their own hopes as well as others and partly because being graceless they want that experience which should help them to discern betwixt hope and hope The same may be said of carnall friends If they see a poor sinner but doubting whether all be well with him and but troubled for fear least he be out of the way What paines do they take to keep up his old hopes What say they If you should not be saved God help a great many You have lived honestly c. Never doubt man God is mercifull Alas silly creatures You think you perform an office of friendship and do him much good Even as much as to give cold water to a man in a Feaver you may ease him at the present but it afterward inflames him What thanks will he give you hereafter if you settle him upon his former hopes again Did you never read Prov. 24.24 He that saith to the wicked Thou art righteous him shall the people curse Nations shall abhorre him If you were faithful friends indeed you should rather say thus to him Friend if you perceive the soundness of your hopes for Heaven to be doubtful O do not smother those doubts but go and open them to your Minister or some able friend and try them throughly in time and hold no more of them now then will hold good at Judgment It is better they break while they may be built more surely then when the discovery will be your torment but not your remedy This were friendly faithful counsel indeed The Proverb is If it were not for hope the heart would break And Scripture tels us that the heart must break that Christ will save How can it be bound up till it be broken first So that the hope which keeps their hearts from breaking doth keep them also from healing and saving Well if these unwise men who are as we say penny wise and pound foolish who are wise to keep off the smart of a short conditional necessary curable despaire but not wise to prevent an eternal absolute tormenting uncurable despair do not change their condition speedily these Hopes will leave them which they would not leave and then they that were now resolved to hold fast their Hopes let all the Preachers in the world say what they would shall let them go whether they will or no. Then let them hope for heaven if they can So that you see it will aggravate the misery of the damned that with the loss of heaven they shall lose all that hope of it which now supporteth them SECT IV. THirdly Another Additional loss will be this They will lose-all that false peace of Conscience which maketh their present life so easie The loss of this must necessarily follow the loss of the former When Presumption and Hope are gone Peace cannot tarry Who would think now that sees how quietly the multitude of the ungodly live that they must very shortly lye roaring in everlasting flames They lye down and rise and sleep as quietly they eat and drink as quietly they go about their work as cheerfully they talk as pleasantly as if nothing ailed them or as if they were as far out of danger as an obedient Believer like a man that hath the Falling-sickness you would little think while he is labouring as strongly and talking as heartily as another man how he will presently fall down and lye gasping and foaming and beating his brest in torment So it is with these men They are as free from the fears of Hell as others as free from any vexing sorrows not so much as troubled with any cares for the state of their souls nor with any sad or serious thoughts of what shall become of them in another world yea and for the most part they have less doubts or disquiet of minde then those who shall be saved O happy men if it would be always thus and if this peace would prove a lasting peace But alas there 's the misery it will not They are now in their own Element as the Fish in the water but little knows that silly creature when he is most fearlesly and delightfully swallowing down the Baite how suddenly he shall be snatched out and lye dead upon the Bank And as little think these careless sinners what a change they are near The Sheep or the Ox is driven quietly to the slaughter because he knows not whither he goes if he knew it were to his death you could not drive him so easily How contented is the Swine when the Butchers Knife is shaving his throat little thinking that it is to prepare for his death Why it is even so with these sensual careless men they fear the mischief least when they are nearest to it because they feel it not or see it not with their eyes As in the dayes of Noah saith Christ they were eating
fighting and bloodshed to get a step higher in the world then their brethren while they neglect the Kingly dignity of the Saints what insatiable pursuit of fleshly pleasures whilest they look upon the Praises of God which is the joy of Angels as a tiring burden what unwearied diligence there is in raising their posterity in enlarging their possessions in gathering a little silver or gold yea perhaps for a poor living from hand to mouth while in the mean time their Judgment is drawing neer and yet how it shall go with them then or how they shall live eternally did never put them to the trouble of ones hours sober consideration what rising early and sitting up late and labouring and caring year after year to maintain themselves and their children in credit till they dye but what shall follow after that they never think on as if it were onely their work to provide for their bodies and onely Gods work to provide for their souls whereas God hath promised more to provide for their bodies without their care then for their souls though indeed they must painfully serve his Providence for both and yet these men can cry to us May not a man be saved without so much ado And may we not say with more reason to them May not a man have a little Air or Earth a little credit or wealth without so much ado or at least may not a man have enough to bring him to his grave without so much ado O how early do they rowse up their servants to their labour up come away to work we have this to do or that to do but how seldom do they call them Up you have your souls to look to you have Everlasting to provide for up to prayer to reading of the Scripture Alas how rare is this language what a gadding up and down the world is here like a company of Ants upon a Hillock taking uncessant pains to gather a treasure which death as the next passenger that comes by will spurn abroad as if it were such an excellent thing to dye in the midst of wealth and honors or as if it would be such a comfort to a man at death or in another world to think that he was a Lord or a Knight or a Gentleman or a Rich man on earth For my part whatever these men may profess or say to the contrary I cannot but strongly suspect that in heart they are flat Pagans and do not believe that there is an eternal glory and misery nor what the Scripture speaks of the way of obtaining it or at least that they do but a little believe it by the halves and therefore think to make sure of Earth lest there be no such thing as Heaven to be had and to hold fast that which they have in hand lest if they let go that in hope of better in another world they should play the fools and lose all I fear though the Christian Faith be in their mouths lest that this be the faith which is next their hearts or else the lust of their Senses doth overcome and suspend their Reason and prevail with their Wils against the last practical conclusion of their Understanding What is the excellency of this Earth that it hath so many Suiters and Admirers what hath this World done for its Lovers and Friends that it is so eagerly followed and painfully sought after while Christ and Heaven stand by and few regard them or what will the world do for them for the time to come The common entrance into it is through anguish and sorrow The passage through it is with continual care and labor and grief the passage out of it is with the greatest sharpness and sadness of all What then doth cause men so much to follow affect it O sinful unreasonable bewitched men Will mirth and pleasure stick close to you Will gold and worldly glory prove fast friends to you in the time of your greatest need will they hear your cries in the day of your calamity If a man should say to you at the hour of your death as Elias did to Baals Priests Cry aloud c. O Riches or Honor now help us will they either answer or relieve you will they go along with you to another world and bribe the Judg and bring you off clear or purchase you a room among the blessed why then did so rich a man want a drop of water for his tongue or are the sweet morsels of present delight and honor of more worth then the eternal Rest and will they recompense the loss of that enduring Treasure Can there be the least hope of any of these why what then is the matter Is it onely a room for our dead bodies that we are so much beholden to the world for why this is the last and longest courtesie that we shal receive from it But we shal have this whether we serve it or no and even that homely dusty dwelling it will not afford us alwayes neither It shall possess our dust but till the great Resurrection day Why how then doth the world deserve so well at mens hands that they should part with Christ and their salvation to be its followers Ah vile deceitful world How oft have we heard thy faithfullest servants at last complaining Oh the world hath deceived me and undone me It flattered me in my prosperity but now it turns me off at death in my necessity Ah if I had as faithfully served Christ as I have served it He would not thus have cast me off nor have left me thus comfortless and hopeless in the depth of misery Thus do the dearest friends and favorites of the world complain at last of its deceit or rather of their own selfâ—deluding folly and yet succeeding sinners will take no warning So this is the first sort of neglecters of Heaven which fall under this Reproof SECT III. 2. THe second sort to be here reproved are the prophane ungodly presumptuous multitude who will not be perswaded to be at so much pains for salvation as to perform the common outward duties of Religion Yea though they are convinced that these duties are commanded by God and see it before their eyes in the Scripture yet wil they not be brought to the constant practice of them If they have the Gospel preached in the town where they dwell it may be they will give the hearing to it one part of the day and stay at home the other or if the master come to the congregation yet part of his family must stay at home If they want the plain and powerful preaching of the Gospel how few are there in a whole Town that will either be at cost or pains to procure a Minister or travell a mile or two to hear abroad Though they will go many miles to the market for provision for their bodies The Queen of the South shall rise up in Judgment with this generation and condemn them for
she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold a greater then Solomon doth by his messengers preach to them The King of Nineve shall rise up in Judgment with them and shall condemn them for he repented at the preaching of Jonas but when Jesus Christ sendeth his Embassadors to these men they will sarce go to hear them Mat. 12.41 42. And though they know that the Scripture is the very Law of God by which they must live and by which they must be acquit or condemned in Judgment and that it is the property of every blessed man to delight in this law and to meditate in it day and night Psal. 1.2 Yet will they not be at the pains to read a chapter once in a day nor to acquaint their families with this doctrine of Salvation But if they carry a Bible to Church and let it lye by them all the week this is the most use that they make of it And though they are commanded to pray without ceasing 1 Thes. 5.17 And to pray alwayes and not waxe faint Luk. 18.1 2 3 c. to continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving Col. 4.2 Yet will they not be brought to pray constantly with their families or in secret Though Daniel would rather be cast to the Lyons then he would forbear for a while praying openly in his house where his enemies might hear him three times a day yet these men will rather venture to be an eternal prey to that roaring Lyon that seeks to devour them then they will be at the pains thus to seek their safety You may hear in their houses two oathes for one prayer Or if they do any thing this way it is usually but the running over a few formal words which they have got on their tongues end as if they came on purpose to make a jest of prayer and to mock God and their own souls If they be in distress or want any thing for their bodies they want no words to make known their mind but to a Physitian when they are sick to a griping Landlord when they are oppressed to a wealthy friend when they are in want they can lay open their case in sad complaints and have words at will to press home their requests Yea every beggar at their door can crave relief and make it their daily practice and hold on with importunity and take no denyal necessity filleth their mouthes with words and teacheth them the most natural prevailing Rhetorike These beggars will rise up Judgment against them and condemn them Doubtless if they felt but the misery and necessities of their souls they would be as forward to beg relief of God and as frequent as fervent as importunate and as constant till they were past their streights But alas he that only reades in a book that he is miserable and what his soul stands in need of but never felt himself miserable nor felt particularly his several wants no wonder if he must also fetch his prayer from his book only or at furthest from the strength of his invention or memory Solomons request to God was That what prayer or Supplication soever should be made by any man or by all the people when every man shall know his own sore and his own grief and shall spread forth his hands before God that God would then hear and forgive c. 2 Chron. 6.29 30. If these men did thus know and feel every one the sore and the grief of his own soul we should neither need so much to urge them to prayer nor to teach them how to perform it and what to say Whereas now they do invite God to be backward in giving by their backwardness in asking and to be weary of relieving them by their own being weary in begging relief and to be seldome and short in his favors as they are in their prayers and to give them but common and outward favors as they put up but common and outside requests Yea their cold and heartless prayers do invite God to a flat denial for among men it is taken for granted that he who askes but slieghtly seldom cares not much for that he askes Do not these men judge themselves unworthy of Heaven who think it not worth their more constant and earnest requests If it be not worth asking for it is worth nothing And yet if you should go from house to house through Town and Parish and enquire at every house as you go whether they do morning and evening call their family together and earnestly and reverently seek the Lord in prayer how few would you finde that constantly and conscionably practice this duty If every door were marked where they do not thus call upon the name of God that his wrath might be powred out upon that family our towns would be as places overthrown by the plague the people being dead within and the marke of judgment on the door without I fear where one house would escape ther 's ten would be marked out for death and then they might teach their doors to pray Lord have mercy on us because the people would not pray themselves But especially if you could see what men do in their secret chambers how few should you finde in a whole Town that spend one quarter of an hour morning and night in earnest supplication to God for their souls O how little do these men set by this eternall Rest Thus do they slothfully neglect all endeavors for their one welfare except some publike duty in the congregation which custom or credit doth engage them to Perswade them to read good books and they will not be at so much pains perswade them to learn the grounds of Religion in some Catechisme and they think it a toilsome slavery fitter for Schoolboyes or little children then for them Perswade them to Sanctifie the Lords day in holy exercises and to spend it wholly in hearing the word and repeating it with their families and prayer and meditation c. and to forbear all their worldly thoughts and speeches And what a tedious life do they take this to be and how long may you preach to them before they will be brought to it as if they thought that heaven were not worth all this ado Christ hath been pleading with England these fourscore yeers and more by the word of his Gospel for his worship and for his Sabbaths and yet the inhabitants are not perswaded Nay he hath been pleading these six yeers by threatnings and fire and sword and yet can prevaile but with very few And though these bloody arguments have been spread abroad and brought home to people from Parish to Parish almost as far as the word hath gone so that there is scarce a Parish in many counties where blood hath not been shed the bodies of the slain have not been left yet the generality of England is no more perswaded then they were the first day
delight in God and heavenly Things it would rectifie their judgments better then all the arguments in the world Lose this delight once and you will begin to quarrel with the Ordinances and Ways of God and to be more offended at the Preachers imperfections then profited by the Doctrine Sixthly And it is the want of these Heavenly Delights in God that makes men so entertain the delights of the flesh This is the cause of most mens voluptuousness and flesh-pleasing The Soul will not rest without some kinde of delights If it had nothing to delight in either in hand or in hope it would be in a kinde of Hell on Earth vexing it self with continual sorrow and despair If a Dog have lost his Master he will follow somebody else Men must have their sweet Cups or delicious Fare or gay Apparel or Cards or Dice or Fleshly Lasts to make up their want of delight in God How well these will serve in stead of God our fleshly youths will be better able to tell me when we meet at Judgment If men were acquainted with this Heavenly Life there would need no Laws against Sabbath breaking and riotousness nor would men need to go for mirth to an Alehouse or a Tavern They would have a far sweeter pastime and recreation neerer hand Seventhly also This want of Heavenly Delights will leave men under the power of every Affliction they will have nothing to comfort them and ease them in their sufferings but the empty uneffectual pleasures of the flesh and when that is gone where then is their delight Eighthly Also it will make men fearful and unwilling to die For who would go to a God or a place that he hath no delight in or who would leave his pleasure here except it were to go to better O if the people of God would learn once this Heavenly Life and take up their delights in God whilest they live they would not tremble and be disconsolate at the tidings of death Ninthly Yea this want of Heavenly Delight doth lay men open to the power of every Temptation A little thing will tice a man from that which he hath no pleasure in Tenthly Yea it is a dangerous preparative to total Apostacy A man will hardly long hold on in a way that he hath no delight in nor use the means if he have no delight in the end But as a Beast if you drive him a way that he would not go will be turning out at every gap If you be Religious in your actions and become over to God in your outward Conversaâ—ion and not in your delight you will shortly be gone if your trial be strong How many young people have we known who by good education or the perswasion of friends or for fear of Hell have been a while kept up among Prayers and Sermons and good company as a Bird in a Cage when if they durst they had rather have been in an Alehouse or at their sports and at last they have broke loose when their restraint was taken off and have forsaken the way that they never took pleasure in You see then that it is not a matter of indifferency whether you entertain these Heavenly Delights or not nor is the loss of your present comfort all the inconvenience that follows the neglect And now Christian Friends I have here lined you out a Heavenly precious Work would you but do it it would make you men indeed To delight in God is the work of Angels and the contrary is the work of devils If God would perswade you now to make conscience of this duty and help you in it by the blessed influence of his Spirit you would not change your lives with the greatest Prince on the Earth But I am afraid if I may judg of your hearts by the backwardness of my own that it will prove a hard thing to perswade you to the work and that much of this my labor will be lost Pardon my jealousie it is raised upon too many and sad experiments What say you Do you resolve on this Heavenly course or no Will you let go all your sinful fleshly pleasures and daily seek after these higher delights I pray thee hear shut the Book and consider of it and resolve on the duty before thou go further Let thy Family perceive let thy Neighbors perceive let thy Conscience perceive yea let God perceive it that thou art a man that hast thy daily Conversation in Heaven God hath now offered to be thy daily delight Thy neglect is thy refusal What Refuse delight and such a Delight If I had propounded you onely a course of Melancholy and Fear and Sorrow you might better have demur'd on it Take heed what thou dost Refuse this and refuse all Thou must have Heavenly Delights or none that are lasting God is willing that thou shouldst daily walk with him and fetch in consolations from the Everlasting Fountain if thou be unwilling even bear thy loss And one of these days when thou liest dying then seek for comfort where thou canst get it and make what shift for contentment thou canst Then see whether thy fleshly delights will stick to thee or give thee the slip and then Conscience in despight of thee shall make thee remember That thou wast once perswaded to a way for more excellent pleasures that would have followed thee through death and have lasted thee to Everlasting What man will go in rags that may be clothed with the best or feed on pulse that may feed of the best or accompany with the vilest that may be a companion to the best and admitted into the presence and favor of the greatest And shall we delight so much in our clothing of flesh and feed so much on the vain pleasures of Earth and accompany so much with sin and sinners When Heaven is set open as it were to our daily view and God doth offer us daily admittance into his presence O how is the unseen God neglected and the unseen Glory forgotten and made light of and all because they are unseen and for want of that Faith which is the Substance of things hoped for and the Evidence of things that are not seen But for you sincere Beleevers whose hearts God hath weaned from all things here below I hope you will value this Heavenly Life and fetch one walk daily in the New Jerusalem I know God is your Love and your desire and I know you would fain be more acquainted with your Saviour and I know it is your grief that your hearts are not more neer him and that they do no more feelingly and passionately love him and delight in him As ever you would have all this mended and enjoy your desires O try this Life of Meditation on your Everlasting Rest Here is the Mount Ararat where the fluctuated Ark of your Souls must Rest. O let the World see by your Heavenly Lives That Religion lieth in something more then Opinions and Disputes and a