of God is eternall life both these are given to the man not to the soule The body is copartner in the sin it must therefore share in the torment it must therefore be raysed that it may be punished Eternity of joy or paine is awarded to the just or to the sinner how can the body be capable of either if it should finally perish in the dust How can it stand with the infinite mercy of God who hath given his Sonne intirely for the ransome of the whole man and by him salvation to every beleever that he should shrink in his gracious performances making good onely one part of his eternall word to the spirituall halfe leaving the bodily part utterly forlorne to an absolute corruption Know then O thou wicked one that when all the rabble of thine Athenian scoffers and Atheous Sadduces and carnall Epicureans shall have mis-spent all their spleene my faith shall triumph over all their sensuall reason and shall afford me sound comfort against all the terrors of death frō the firme assurance of my resurrection and shall confidently take up those precious words which the mirror of patience wished to be written in a book and graven with an iron pen in the rock for ever I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God and my soule shall set up her rest in that triumphant conclusion of the blessed Apostle This corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortall must put on immortality So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortall shall have put on immortality then shall be brought to passe the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory The sting of death is sin the strength of sin is the Law But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ VI. TEMPTATION If the soule must live and the body shall rise yet what needest thou to affright thy selfe with the terrours of an universall judgement Credulous soule when shall these things be Thou talkest of an awfull Judge but where is the promise of his comming These sixteene hundred yeares hath he beene lookt for and yet he is not come and when will he Repelled THy damned scoffers were betimes foreseene to move this question even by that blessed Apostle whose eyes saw his Saviour ascending up to his glory and who then heard the Angell say Ye men of Galilee why stand ye gazing up into heaven This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven What dost thou and they but make good that sacred truth which was delivered before so many hundred generations Dissemble how thou wilt That there shall be a generall assise of the world thou knowest and tremblest to know what other couldst thou meane when thou askedst my Saviour that question of horror Art thou come to torment us before the time That time thou knowest to be the day in which God will judge the world in righteousnesse by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance to all men in that he hath raised him from the dead How clear attestation have the inspired Prophets of God given of old to this truth The ancientest Prophet that ever was Henoch the seventh from Adam in the time of the old world foretels of this dreadful day Behold the Lord commeth with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him From the old world is this verity deduced to the new and through the succession of those holy Seers derived to the blessed Apostles and from them to the present generation Yea the sacred mouth of him who shall come down and sit as Judge in this awfull tribunall hath fully laid forth not the truth onely but the manner of this universall judicature The Sonne of man shall come in his glory and all the holy Angels with him Then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory And before him shall be gathered all nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepheard divideth his sheep And if this most sure word of the Prophets Apostles yea and of the eternall son of God be not enough conviction to thee yet to my soul they are an abundant confirmation of this main point of my Christian faith that from heaven he shall come to judge both the quick and the dead Indeed thus it must be How many condemned innocents have in the bitternesse of their souls appealed from that unrighteous bar of men to the supreame Judge that shall come those appeals are entred in heaven and sued out how can it stand with divine Justice that they should not have a day of hearing As for mean oppressors there are good laws to meet with them and there are higher then the highest to give life of execution to those lawes but if the greatest among men offend if there were not an higher then they what right would at last be done Those that have the most power and will to doe the greatest mischiefe would escape the fairest And though there be a privy Sessions in heaven upon every guilty soule immediatly upon the dissolution yet the same justice which will not admit publique offences to be passed over with a private satisfaction thinks fit to exhibite a publique declaration of his righteous vengeance upon notorious sinners before men and Angels So as those very bodies which have been ingaged in their wickednesse shall be in the view of the whole world sent downe to take part of their torment and indeed wherefore should those bodies be raised if not with the intent of a further disposition either to joy or paine Contrarily how can it consist with the praise of that infinite justice that those poore Saints of his which have been vilified and condemned at every barre persecuted afflicted tormented and have passed through all manner of painful ignominious deaths should not at the last be gloriously righted in the face of their cruell enemies Surely faith the Apostle it is a righteous thing 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 What is it O thou wicked spirit whereto thou art reserved in chaines of darknesse Is it not the judgement of the great day what is it whereto the manifestation of all hidden truthes and the accomplishment of all Gods gracious promises are referred Is it
it were not a spirit How evidently then doth the present estate of my soul convince thee of the future Al operations proceed from the formes of things and every thing works as it is Canst thou now denye that my soule whiles it is within me can and doth produce such actions as have no derivation from the body no dependence on the body for however in matter of sensation it sees by the eyes and heares by the eares and imagines by those fantasmes that are represented unto it yet when it comes to the higher works of intellectuall elevations how doth it leave the body below it raising to it selfe such notions as wherein the body can challenge no interest how can it now denude and abstract the thing conceived from all consideration of quantity quality place and so work upon its owne object as becomes an active spirit Thou canst not be so impudent as to say the body doth these things by the soule or that the soule doth them by the ayd concurrence of the body and if the soule doth them alone whiles it is thus clogged how much more operative shall it be when it is alone separated from this earthen lump And if the very voice of nature did not so sufficiently confute thee that even thine owne most eminent heathens have herein taken part against thee living and dying strong assertors of the soules Immortality how fully might thine accursed mouth be stopped by the most sure words of divine truth Yea wert thou disposed to play at some smaller game and by thy damnable clients to plead not so much for the utter extinction as for the dormition of the soule those oracles of God have enough to charme thee and them and can with one blow cut the throat of both those blasphemies That penitent theefe whose soule thou madest full account of when he was led to his execution which yet my dying Saviour snatcht out of thy hands could hear comfortably from those blessed lips This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise shal we think this malefactor in any other in any better conditiō then the rest of Gods Saints Doth not the chosen vessel tel us that upon the dissolution of our earthly house of this Tabernacle we have a building of God not made with hands eternal in the heavens Presently therfore after our flitting hence we have a being that glorious who can think of a being in heaven without a ful sense of joy Doth not our Saviour tell us that the soul of poor Lazarus was immediately carried by Angels into Abrahams boome The damned glutton knew so wel that he was not layd there to sleep that he sues to have him sēt on the message of his refrigeration Did not the beloved disciple when he was in Pathmos upon the opening of the fifth feale see under the altar the Soules of them that were slaine for the word of God and for the testimony which they held Did he not heare them cry How long Lord holy and true What Shall wee think they cryed in their sleep Did he not see and heare the hundred forty four thousand Saints before the throne harping and singing a new song to the praise of their God Canst thou perswade us they made this heavenly musick in their sleep Doth he not tell us most plainely from the mouth of one of the heavenly Elders that those which stood before the throne the Lamb cloathed with white robes and palmes in their hands were they that came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb therefore are they before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple and he that sitteth on the throne shal dwell among them They shall hunger no more neither thirst any more neither shall the Sun light on them nor any heat For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountaines and God shall wipe away all teares from their eyes This service both day and night and 〈◊〉 leading forth can suppose nothing lesse then a perpetuall waking Neither is this the happy condition of holy Martyrs and Confessors only but is common to all the Saints of God in what ever profession Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord How should the dead be blessed if they did not live to know themselves blessed What blessednesse can be incident into those that either are not at all or are senselesse They rest but sleepe not they rest from their labours not from the improvement of their glorified faculties Their works followthē yea and overtake them in heaven to what purpose should their works follow the if they lived not to injoy the comfort of their works This is the estate of all good soules in despight of all thine infernall powers and what becomes of the wicked ones thou too well knowest Dissemble thou how thou wilt those torments and hide the sight of that pit of horrour from the eyes ofthy sinfull followers He that hath the keyes of hell and of death hath given us intimation enough Feare not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soule but rather feare him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell Neither is he more able out of his omnipotence then willing out of his justice to execute this righteous vengeance on the impenitent and unbeleevers Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evill In vaine therefore dost thou seek to delude me with these pretences of indemnity and annihilation since it cannot but stand with the mercy and justice of the Almighty to dispose of every soule according to what they have beene and what they have done To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternall life But unto them that are contentious and doe not obey the truth but obey unrighteousnesse indignation and wrath shortly after all thy devillish suggestions on the one part The soules of the righteous are in the hand of God and there shall no torment touch them On the other In flaming fire shal vengeance be taken on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospell 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 V. TEMPTATION Put case that the soule after the departure from the body may live but art thou so foolishly credulous as to beleeve that thy body after it is moldred into dust and resolved into all its elements having passed through al the degrees of putrefaction and annihilation shall at last returne to it selfe againe and recover the former shape and substance Dost thou not apprehend the impossibility of this so absurd assertion Repelled NO Tempter it is true and holy faith which thou reproachest
for fond credulity Had I to doe with no greater power then thine or then any Angels in heaven that is meerely finite I might well be censured for too light beleefe in giving my assent to so difficult a truth but now that I have to doe with omnipotence it is no lesse then blasphemie in thee to talk of impossibility Doe not thy very Mahumetan vassals tell thee that the same power which made man can as well restore him and canst thou be other then apposed with the question of that Jew who asked whether it were more possible to make a mans body of water or of earth All things are alike easie to an infinite power It is true The resuscitation of the body from its dust is a supernaturall work yet such as whereof God hath beene pleased to give us many images and prefigurations even in nature it selfe In the face of the earth doe we not see the image of death in winter season and in the spring of a cheerfull resurrection Is not the life of all herbs flowers trees buried in the earth during that whole dead season and doth it not rise up againe with the approching Sun into stemmes and branches and send forth blossomes leaves fruits in all beautifull variety What need we any other then the Apostles instance Thou foole that which thou sowest is not quickned except it die And that which thou sowest thou sowest not that body that shall be but bare graine it may chance of wheat or of some other graine but God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him and to every seed his own body Lo it must be rottenesse and corruption that must make way for a flourishing increase If I should come to a man that is ignorant of these fruitfull productions of the earth and shewing him a little naked grayne should tell him This which thou seest shall rot in the ground and after that shall rise up a yard high into divers stalkes and every stalk shall beare an eare and every eare shall yeild twenty or thirty such graines as it selfe is or shewing him an akorne should say this shal be buried in the earth and after that shall rise up twenty or thirty foot high and shall spread so far as to give comfortable shade to an hundred persons Surely I should not win beleefe from him yet our experience daily makes good these ordinary proofes of the wonderful providence of the Almighty Or should I shew a man that is unacquainted with these great marvells of nature the small seed of the Silk-worme lying scattered upon a paper and seemingly dead all winter long and should tell him these little atomes so soon as the mulberry tree puts forth will yeild a worme which shall work it selfe into so rich a house as the great Princes of the earth shall be glad to shelter themselvs with after that shall turn to a large flye and in that shape shall live to generate then speedily die I should seem to tell incredible things yet this is so familiar to the experieÌ„ced that they cease t owoÌ„der at it If from these vegetables we shall cast our eyes upon some sensitive creatures Do we not see snayles and flyes some birds lye as senslesse and livelesse all the winter time yet when the spring comes they recover their wonted vivacity Besides these resemblances have we not many clear instances and examples of our resurrection Did not the touch of Elishaes bones raise up the partner of his grave Was not Lazarus called up out of his sepulcher after four daies possessâ—ion and many noysome degrees of rottenesse Were not the graves opened of many bodies of the Saints W ch slept Did not they arise and come out of their graves after my Saviours resurrection and go into the holy city and appeare unto many Besides examples have we not an all sufficient pledg of our certaine rising againe in the victorious refurrection of the Lord of life Is not he our head Are not we his members Is not he the first fruits of them that slept Did not he conquer death for us Can the head be alive and glorious whiles the limmes doe utterly perish in a finall corruption Certainely then if we beleeve that Iesus dyed rose again even so them also which sleep in Iesus wil God bring with him And if there were no more that one argument wherewith my Saviour of old confounded thy Sadduces lives still to confound thee God is the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob But God is not the God of the dead but of the living The soule alone is not Abraham whole Abraham lives not if the body were not to be joyned to that soule Neither is it onely certain that the resurrection will be but also necessary that it must be neither can the contrary consist with the infinite wisdome goodnesse justice mercy of the Almighty For first how can it stand with the infinite goodnesse of the all-wise God that the creature which he esteemes dearest and loves best should be the most miserable of all other man is doubtlesse the best piece of his earthly workmanship holy men are the best of men Were there no resurrection surely no creature under heaven were so miserable as the holiest man The basest of brute creatures find a kind of contentment in their being and were it not for the tyranny of man would live and dye at ease And others of them in what jollity and pleasure do they wear out their time As for wicked men who let the reynes loose to their licentious appetite how doe they place their heaven here below and glory in this that they are yet somewhere happy But for the mortifyed christian were it not for the comfort and amends of a resurrection who can expresse the miserie of his condition He beates down his body in the willing exercises of sharp austerity and as he would use some sturdy slave keeps it under holding short the appetite oftentimes even from lawfull desires so as his whole life is little other then a perpetuall penance And as for his measure from others how open doth he ly to the indignities oppressions persecutions of men how is he trampled upon by scornful malignity how is he reputed the off-scouring of the world how is he made a gazing stock of reproch to the world to Angels and to men Did there not therefore abide for them the recompence of a better estate in another world the earth could afford no match to them in perfect wretchednesse which how far it abhorreth from that goodnesse which made all the world for his elect and so loves them that he gave his owne Son for their redemption let any enemy besides thine accursed selfe judge How can it stand with the infinite justice of God who dispenseth due rewards to good and evill to retribute them by halves The wages of sin is death the gift
not the great day of the Lord shall the all-wise and righteous Arbiter of the world decree and reverse Hath he not from eternity determined and set this day Wherein we must all appear before the judgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or evill That there is therefore such a day of the Lord in the which the heavens shall passe away with a great noyse and the Elements shall melt with fervent heate the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up wherein the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and with the trump of God is no lesse certaine then that there is an heaven from whence he shall descend All thy cavill is concerning the time Thou and thine are ready to say with the evill servant in the Gospell my Master defers his comming And was not this wicked suggestion of thine foretold many hundred yeares agoe by the prime Apostle and by the same pen answered Hath he not told thee that our computations of time are nothing to the infinite That one day with the Lord is as a thousand yeares and a thousand yeares as one day Hath he not told us that this mis-construed slacknesse is in mans vaine opinion not in Gods performance He is slack to man that coms not when he is lookt for he is really slack that comes not when he hath appointed to come Had the Lord broken the day which he hath set in his everlasting counsel thou mightst have some pretence to cavill at his delay but now that he onely overstayes the time of our misgrounded expectation â—he doth not slacken his pace but correct our errour It is true that Christians began to look for their Saviour betimes insomuch as the blessed Apostles were fayne to perswade their eyes not to make such haste putting them in mind of those great occurrences of remarkable change that must befall the Church of God in a generall apostasie the revelation of the great Antichrist before that great day of his appearance And the prime Apostle sends them to the last dayes which are ours for those scoffers which shall say Where is the promise of his comming If they lookt for him too soon we cannot expect him too late He that is Amen will be sure to be within his owne time when that comes he that should come will come and not tarry In the meane while not onely in the just observation of his owne eternall decree but in much mercy doth he prolong his returne mercy to his elect whose conversion he waits for with infinite patience it is for their sake that the world stands The Angel that was sent to destroy Sodom could tell Lot that he could doe nothing till that righteous man were removed no sooner was Lot entred into Zoar then Sodome is on a flame mercy even to the wicked that they may have ample leisure of repentance Neither is it any small respect that the wise and holy God hath to the exercise of the faith and hope and patience of his deare servants upon earth faith in his promises hope of his performances and patience under his delayes whereof there could be no use in a speedy retribution In vaine therefore dost thou who fearest this glorious Judge will come too soone go about to perswade me that he will not come at all I beleeve and know by all the foregoing signes of his appearance that he is now even at the threshold Lo he commeth he commeth for the consummation of thy torment and my joy I expect him as my Saviour tremble thou at him as thy Judge who shall fully repay to thee al those blasphemies which thine accursed mouth hath dared to utter against him VII TEMPTATION If there must be a resurrection and a judgment yet God is not so rigid an exactor as to call thee to account for every petty sin those great Sessions are for hainous malefactors God is too mercifull to condemn thee for small offences be not thou too rigorous to thy self in denying to thy selfe the pleasure of some harmelesse sinnes Repelled FAlse tempter there is not the least of those harmelesse sinnes which thou wilt not be ready to aggravate against me one day before the dreadfull tribunall of that infinite justice those that are now small will be then hainous and hardly capable of remission thy suggestions are no meet measures of the degrees of sin It is true that there are some sinnes more grievous then others there are faults there are crimes there are flagitious wickednesses If some offences be foule others are horrible and some others irremissible but that holy God against whose onely majesty sin can be committed hath taught me to call no sin small The violation of that Law which is the rule of good cannot but be evill and betwixt good and evill there can be no lesse then an in finite disproportion It is no smal proofe of thy cunning that thou hast suborned some of thy religious panders to proclaime some sinnes veniall and such as in their very nature merit pardon Neither thou nor they shall be Casuists for me who have heard my God say Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the booke of the Law to doe them Sin must be greater or lesse according to the value of the command against which it is committed there is as my Saviour hath rated it a least Commandement and there are mo points then one in that least Command now the Spirit of truth hath told me that whosoever shall keepe the whole Law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all And shall he that is guilty of the breach of the whole Law escape with such ease I am sure a greater Saint then I can ever hope to be hath said If I sin thou markest me and wilt not acquit me from mine iniquity and old Eli as indulgent as he was to his wicked sonnes could tell them If one man sin against another the Judge shall judg him but if a man sin against the Lord who shall intreat for him What need is there thou sayest of any intreaty Gods mercy is such that he will pardon thy sinnes unasked neither will he ever stick at small faults Malignant spirit how fain wouldst thou have Gods mercy and justice clash together but thou shalt as soon wind thy selfe out of the power of that justice and put thy selfe into the capacity of that mercy as thou shalt set the least jarre between that infinite justice and mercy It is true it were wide with my soule if there were any limits to that mercy That mercy can doe any thing but be unjust it can forgive a sinner it cannot incourage him forgive him upon his penitence when he hath sinned not incourage him
satisfaction It is true were we strangers to a Saviour his righteousnesse could have no relation to us but now that wee are incorporated into him by a lively faith his graces his merits are so ours that all thy malice cannot sever them I even I who sinned in the first Adam have satisfied in the second The first Adams sinne was mine The second Adam was made sin for me I made my selfe sinfull in the first Adam and in my selfe My Christ is made to me of God righteousnesse and redemption The curse was my inheritance Christ hath redeemed me from the curse of the Law being made a curse for me that I might be made the righteousnesse of God in him It is thy deep envy thus to grudg unto man the mercy of that redemption which was not extended to thy self but in despight of all thy snarling and repining wee are safe Being justified by faith wee have peace with God through our Lord Iesus Christ IX TEMPTATION How confidently thou buildest upon a promise and if thou have but a word for it mak'st thy selfe sure of any blessing whereas thou maist know that many of those promises which thou accountest sacred and divine have shrunk in the performance How hath God promised deliverance to those that trust in him yet how many of his faithfullest servants have miscarried what liberall promises hath he made of provision for those that wait upon him yet how many of them have miserably perished in want Repelled BLasphemous spirit that which is thine own guise thou art ever apt to impute unto the holy one of Israel It is indeed thy manner to draw on thy clients with golden promises of life wealth honour and to say as once to my Saviour All these will I give thee when thou neither mean'st nor canst give any thing but misery and torment As for my God whom thou wickedly slanderest his just title is Holy and true his promises are Amen as himself Thy Balaam could let fall so much truth that God is not a man that he should lie nor the sonne of man that he should repent Hath he said and shall he not do it or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good Cast thine eyes back upon his dealings with his Israel a people unthankfull enough and deny if thou canst how punctuall he was in all his proceedings with them Heare old Joshua now towards his parting professe Behold this day I am going the way of all flesh ye know in your hearts in all your souls that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you all are come to passe unto you and not one thing hath failed therof Heare the same truth attested many ages after by the wifest King Blessed be the Lord saith he that hath given rest unto his people Israel according to all that he promised There hath not failed one word of all his good promise which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant And lest thou shouldst cavil that perhaps God takes greater liberty to himself in matter of his promises under the Gospel then he formerly did under the Law Let me challenge thy malice to instance in any one absolute promise which God hath made since the beginning of the world unto this day which he hath failed to performe It is not I grant uneasie to name divers conditionate ingagements both of favours and judgements wherein God hath been pleased to vary from his former intimations and such alteration doth ful-well consist with the infinite wisdome mercy and justice of the Almighty for where the condition required is not performed by man how just is it with God either to with-hold a favour or to inflict a judgement or where he sees that an outward blessing promised such a disposition of the soul as it may meet withall may turn to our prejudice and to our spirituall losse how is it other then mercy to withdraw it and in stead thereof to gratifie us with a greater blessing undesired In all which even our own reason is able to justifie the Almighty for can we think God should be so obliged to us as to force favours upon us when we will needs render our selves uncapable of them or so tied up to the punctuality of a promise as that he may not exchange it for a better The former was Eli's case who received this message from the man of God sent to him for that purpose The Lord God of Israel saith I said indeed that thy house and the house of thy father should walk before me for ever but now the Lord saith Be it far from me for them that honour me I will honour and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed God meant the honour of the Priesthood to the family of Eli but what was it in so absolute termes that how ever they dishonored God yet God was bound to honour them All these promises of outward favours do never other then suppose an answerable capacity in the receiver like as the menaces of judgement how ever they sound do still intend the favourable exception of a timely prevention by a serious repentance And though there be no expresse mention of such condition in the promises and threatnings of the Almighty yet it is enough that he hath once for all made knowne his holy intentions to this purpose by his Prophet At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdome to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it If that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evill I will repent of the evill that I thought to do unto them And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build and to plant it If it do evill in my sight that it obey not my voice then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them The message of Hezekiah's death and Niniveh's destruction was in the letter absolute but in the sense and intention conditionate with such holy and just reservations are all the promises and threats of the Almighty in these temporall regards whiles they alter therefore he changeth not but for his spirituall ingagements that word of his shall stand everlastingly I will not suffer my faithfulnesse to faile My covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that is gone out of my mouth Indeed this is the Tentation wherewith thou hast formerly set some prime Saints of God very hard How doth the holy Psalmist hereupon break out into a dangerous passion Will the Lord cast off for ever and will be favorable no more Is his mercy clean gone for ever doth his promise faile for evermore hath God forgotten to be gracious hath he shut up his tender mercies in displeasure Lo the man was even falling yet happily recovers his feet And I said this is
hands of God he only knows that shall judge this I am sure of that without this Saviour there can be no salvation That in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousnesse is accepted with him That he that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life As therefore we do justly abhor that wild scope of all religions which thou suggestest so we do willingly admit a large scope in one true religion so large as the author of it hath thought good to allow For we have not to do with a God that stands upon curiosities of beliefe or that upon pain of damnation requires of every believer an exquisite perfection of judgment concerning every capillar veyne of Theologicall truth it is enough for him if we be right for the main substance of the body He doth not call rigorously for every stone in the battlements it sufficeth for the capacity of our salvation if the foundation be hold in tire It is thy sclander therefore that wee confine Truth and blessednesse to a corner of Reformed Christians no wee seek and find it every where where God hath a Church and Gods Church we know to be Universall Let them be Abassines Cophties Armeniant Georgians Jacobites or what ever names either sclander or distinction hath put upon them if they hold the foundation firme howsoever disgracefully built upon with wood hay stubble wee hold them Christs we hold them ours Hence it is that the new Jerusalem is for her beauty and uniformity set forth with 12 precious gates though for use and substance one for that from all coasts of heaven there is free accesse to the Church of Christ and in him to life and glory He who is the Truth and the life hath said This is eternall life to know thee and him whom thou hast sent This knowledge which is our way to life is not alike at tained of all fome have greater light and deeper insight into it then others That mercy which accepts of the least degree or the true apprehension of Christ hath not promised to dispense with the wilfull neglect of those who might know him more clearly more exactly Let those carelesse soules therefore which stand indifferent betwixt life and death upon thy perswasion content themselves with good meanings and generalities of beliefe but for me I shall labour to furnish my self with all requisite truths and above all shall aspire towards the excellency of the knowledge of my Lord Jesus Christ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings TEMPTATIONS REPELLED The second Decade Temptations of Discouragement II. DECADE I. TEMPTATION Were it for some few sins of ignorance or infirmity thou might'st hope to find place for mercy but thy sins are as for multitude innumerable so for quality haynous presumptuous unpardonable with what face canst thou look up to heaven and expect remission from a just God Repelled EVen with the face of an humble penitent justly confounded in himself in the sense of his owne vilenesse but awfully confident in a promised mercy Malicious tempter how like thou art to thy selfe when thou wouldst draw me on to my sins then how small sleight harmlesse plausible they were now thou hast fetch 't me in to the guilt of those foule offences they are no lesse then deadly and irremissible May I but keep within the verge of mercy thou canst not more aggravate my wickednesse against me thē I do against my selfe thou canst not be more ready to accuse then I to judge and condemn my selfe Oh me the wretchedest of all creatures how do I hate my selfe for mine abominable sins done with so high a hand against such a Majesty after such light of knowledge such enforcements of warning such indearments of mercy such reluctations of spirit such check of conscience what lesse then hell have I deserved from that infinite justice Thou canst not write more bitter things against me then I can plead against my owne soule But when thou hast cast up all thy venome and when I have passed the heaviest sentence against my selfe I who am in my selfe utterly lost and forfeited to eternall death in despight of the gates of hell shall live and am safe in my Almighty and ever-blessed Saviour who hath conquered Death and hell for me Set thou me against my selfe I shall set my Saviour against thee urge thou my debts I show his full acquittance Sue thou my bonds I shall exhibit them cancell'd and nayled to his crosse presse thou my horrible crimes I plead a pardon sealed in heaven Thou tell'st me of the multitude and hainousnesse of my sins I tell thee of an infinite mercy and what are numbers and magnitudes to the infinite To an illimited power what difference is there betwixt a mountaine and an ant-heape betwixt one and a million were my sins a thousand times more and worse then they are there is worth abundantly enough in every drop of that precious blood which was shed for my redemption to expiate them Know O tempter that I have to doe with a mercy which can die my scarlet sins white as snow make my crimson as wooll whose grace is so boundlesse that if thou thy selfe hadst upon thy fall been capable of repentance thou hadst not everlastingly perished The Lord is gracious and full of compassion slow to anger and of great mercy The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works And if there be a sin of man unpardonable it is not for the insufficiency of grace to forgive it but for the incapacity of the subject that should receive remissision Thou feel'st to thy paine and losse wherefore it was that the eternall sonne of God Jesus Christ came into the world Even to save sinners and if my owne heart shall conspire with thee to accuse me as the chiefe of those sinners my repentance gives me so much the more claim and interest in his blessed redemption Let me be the most laden with the chaines of my captivity so I may have the greatest share in that all-sufficient ransome And if thou who art the true fiery serpent in this miserable wildernesse hast by sin stung my soul to death let me as I do with penitent and faithfull eyes but look up to that brazen serpent which is lift up far above all heavens thy poyson cannot kill cannot hurt me It is the word of eternall truth which cannot faile us If we confesse our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse Lo here not mercy only but justice on my side The spirit of God saith not only if we confesse our sins he is mercifull to forgive our sins as he elswhere speaks by the pen of Salomon but more he is faithfull and just to forgive our sins Our weaknesse and ignorance is wont to flie
with a deniall of lawfull contentments have I not thereupon tasked my selfe with the harder duties of obedience and doe I not now resolve and carefully indeavour to walke conscionably in all the wayes of God Maligne therefore how thou wilt my repentance stands firme against all thy detractions and is not more impugned by thee on earth then it is accepted in heaven III. TEMPTATION Thou hast small reason to bear thy self upon thy repentance it is too slight seconded with too many relapses too late to yeild any true comfort to thy soule Repelled NOr thus can I be discouraged by thee malicious spirit The mercy of my God hath not â—et any stint to the allowed measure of repentance Where hath he ever said Thus farre shall thy penitence come else it shall not be accepted It is truth that he calls for not measure That happy thief whom my dying Saviour rescued out of thy hands gave no other proofe of his repentance but We are justly here and receive due reward of our deeds yet was admitted to attend his Redeemer from his Crosse to his Paradise Neither do we heare any words from penitent David after his foule crimes but I have sinned Not that any true penitent can be afraid of too much compunction of heart and is ready to dry up his teares too soone rather pleasing himselfe with the continuance and paine of his own smart but that our indulgent father who takes no pleasure in our misery is apt to wipe away the teares from our eyes contenting himself only w th the syncernesse not the extremity of our contrition Thy malice is altogether for extreams either a wild security or an utter desperation that holy and mercifull Spirit who is a professed lover of mankind is ever for the meane so hating our carelesnesse that he will not suffer us to want the exercises of a due humiliation so abhorring despaire that he abides not to have us driven to the brinke of that fearfull precipice As for my repentance therefore it is enough for me that it is sound and serious for the substance yet withall thanks be to that good Spirit that wrought it it is graciously approveable even for the measure I have heartily mourned for my sinnes though I pined not away with sorrow I have broken my sleep for them though I have not watered my couch with my teares and next to thy selfe I have hated them most I have beaten my brest though I have not rent my heart and what would I not have done or given that I had not sinned Tell not me that some worldly crosses have gone nearer to my heart then my sins and that I have spent more teares upon the losse of a sonne then the displeasure of my heavenly father The father of mercies will not measure our repentance by these crooked lines of thine he knows the flesh and bloud we are made of and therefore expects not we should have so quick a sense of our spirituall as of our bodily affliction it contents him that we set a valuation of his favour above all earthly things and esteeme his offence the greatest of all evils that can befall us and of this judgement and affection it is not in thy power to bereave my soule As for my relapses I confesse them with sorrow and shame I know their danger and had I not to do with an infinite mercy their deadlinesse Yet after all my confusion of face and thine enforcement of justice my soul is safe for upon those perilous recidivations my hearty repentance hath made my peace The long-suffering God whom I have offended hath set no limits to his remission After ten miraculous signes in Egypt his Israel tempted him no lesse then ten times in the wildernesse yet his mercy forbore them not rewarding their reiterated sin with deserved vengeance Hath not that gracious Saviour of mankind charged us to forgive our offending brother no lesse then seventy times seven times and what proportion is there between our mercy and his Could'st thou charge mee with incouraging my selfe to continue my sin upon this presumption of pardon thou hadst cause to boast of the advantage but now that my remorse hath been syncere and my falls weak my God will not with-hold mercy from his penitent that hath not only confessed but forsaken his sin As for the late season of my repentance I confesse I have highly wronged and hazarded my soule in the delay of so often required and so often purposed a worke and given thee faire advantages against my selfe by so dangerous a neglect but blessed be my God that he suffer'd not these advantages to be taken I had been utterly lost if thou hadst surprized me in my impenitence but now I can look back upon my perill well passed and defie thy malice No time can be prejudiciall to the king of heaven no season can be any barre either to our conversion or his mercifull acceptance It is true that latenesse gives shrewd suspitions of the truth of repentance but where our repentance is true it cannot come too late Object this to some formall soules that having lavisht out the whole course of their lives in wilfull sensuality profanenesse thinke to make an abundant amends for all on their death-beds with a fashionable Lord have mercy These whom thou hast mockt and drawn on with a stupid security all their days may well be upbraided by thee with the irrecoverable delay of what they have not grace to seek but that soule which is truly touched with the sense of his sin and in an humble contrition makes his addresse to God and interposes Christ betwixt God and it selfe is in vain scarred with delay and finds that his God makes no difference of houres Do I not see the Prodigall in the Gospel after he had run himselfe quite out of breath means yet at the last cast returning and accepted I do not hear his father austerely say Nay unthrift hadst thou come whiles thou hadst some bags left I should have welcomed thy returne as an argument of some grace and love but now that thou hast spent all and necessity not affection drives thee home keep off and starve but the good old man runs and meets him and falls on his neck and kisses him and calls for the best robe and the fatted calfe Thus thus deals our heavenly Father with us wretched sinners if after all refuges vainly sought and all gracious opportunities carelesly neglected we shall yet have sincere recourse to his infinite mercy the best things in heaven shall not be too good for us IV. TEMPTATION Tush What doest thou please thy selfe with these vaine thoughts if God cared for thee couldst thou be thus miserable Repelled AWay thou lying Spirit I am afflicted but it is not in thy power to make me miserable And did I yet smart much more wouldst thou perswade me to measure the favour of my God by these outward events Hath not the