The definition is false as hath been shewed and as the instance proveth else a man could not be said to love Learning Virtue or any quality but only to love the person that wanteth it or hath it But Love is a Complacency and benevolence is but its effect or antecedent 2. The unholy wish not good to God for they would all depose him from his Godhead They would not have him to be a hater of their sin nor to be their Holy and Righteous Governour and Judge Object 9. It is better to Be a man though a sinner and miserable in Hell than not to be at all Else God would never ordain cause or permit it Answ. 1. It is better to the highest ends Gods Glory and the Universal Order to be a punished man than to be nothing when God will have it so Because Punishment as to those highest ends is good Though it is not best for the poor miserable sinner But the same cannot be said of sin It is indeed better also to those highest ends to be a Man though a sinner while God continueth humanity But not to be a Man and a sinner For the latter implyeth some Good to be in the sin which hath no Good and therefore God neither causeth it nor willeth it though he permit it But though a sinful man is better than no man to Gods ends it followeth not that to be a man is better than to be a good man Object 10. If that be best and most amiable which is most to the glory of God then it is more amiable to be a sinner in Hell torment glorifying his Iustice than not to be at all or to be a bruit Answ. 1. It is neither of these that is offered to your Love and Choice but to be Holy All Good is not matter of Election But that Good which is in Hell is not the sin but the punishment For the sin doth reputatively and as much as in it lyeth rob God of his glory and punishment repaireth it Therefore love the punishment if you can and spare not so you love Holiness better For that would honour God more excellently and please him more Object 11. If I must love to be like God I must love to be Great and I must Love the Greatest as mâ—st like him Answ. You must love to be like him in those perfections which you are capable of and to the ends and uses of your proper nature Therefore you must be desirous to be like him in your measure even in such Power and Greatness as is suitable to the Nature and Ends of a Rational soul. Not in such strength as he giveth a Horse or such magnitude as he giveth a Mountain which is not to be most like him But in the vital activity and power of an Intellectual free-agent To be Powerful and great in Love to God and all his service and in all good works to be profitable to the world to be lively and ready in all obedience strong to suffer and to conquer sin and all temptations In a word to be Great and Powerful in Wisdom and true Goodness Thus seek even in Power to be like to God in your Capacities Object 12. God himself doth not love men only for their Goodness nor Love that best which is best For he loveth his Elect while enemies and ungodly and he telleth Israel he loved them because he would love them and not because they were better than others And in the womb he loved Jacob best when he was no better than Esau. Answ. 1. Distinguish between Gods Complacence and Benevolence 2 Between the good that is present and foreseen good with a present capacity for it 1. God had a greater Benevolence to Iacob than Esau and to the Israelites than to other Nations that were perhaps not much worse And it is not for our Goodness that God decreeth to make us good or to give us a double proportion of any of those mercies which he giveth not as Rector but as Dominus and Benefactor as an absolute Owner and free Benefactor And with this Love of Benevolence he loveth us when we are his enemies that is he purposeth to make us good But this benevolence is but a secundary Love and fruit of Complacency joyned with the free unequal distribution of his own 2. But for Complacency which is Love in the first and strictest sense God so loveth the wicked though Elect no farther than they are Good and Lovely that is 1. As they have the Natural Goodness of Rational Creatures 2. And as they are capable of all the future service they will do him and glory they will bring him 3. And as his Infinite Wisdom knoweth it fit to choose them to that service Or if the Benevolence of Election do go before his first Complacence in them above others as being before his foresight that they will serve and love him better yet still this proper Love called Complacence goeth not beyond the worth of the thing loved Object Doth God love us Complacentially in Christ beyond the Good that is in us Answ. Not beyond our Real and Relative Good as we are in our selves by his grace and as we are in Christ related to him and both wayes such as demonstrate the Divine perfections and shall Love and Glorifie and Please him for ever So much for the opening of the true Nature of LOVE to God our selves and others and of mans ultimate end and of the Nature of Holiness and Goodness and those Mysteries of Religion which are involved in these points CHAP. IV. Subordinate Directions against those Grand heart-sins which are directly contrary to the Life of Godliness and Christianity THE positive Directions to the Essential Duties of Godliness and Christianity have already given you Directions * The recital of such sins as the former Positive Directions do detect and afford help against against the contrary sins As in the first Grand Direction you have helps against direct Unbelief In the second you have Directions against Unbelief as it signifieth the not using and applying of Christ according to our various needs In the third you have Directions against †Of the sin against the Holy Ghost I have written a special Treatise in my Unreasonableness of Infidelity all resisting or neglecting the Holy Ghost Which were first because in Practice we must come by the Son and the Spirit to the saving Knowledge and Love of the Father In the fourth you have Directions * Since the writing of this I have published the same more at large in my Reasons of the Christian Religion and in my Life of Faith against Atheism Idolatry and Ungodliness In the fifth you have Directions against self-idolizing and self-dependance and unholiness in an alienating your selves from God In the sixth you are Directed against Rebellion and Disobedience against God In the seventh you have Directions against Unteachableness Ignorance and Error In the eighth you have Directions against Impenitency
heed of running from one extream into another p. 50 Direct 11. Be not too confident in your first apprehensions or opinions but modestly suspicious of them p. 51 Direct 12. What to do when Controversies divide the Church Of silencing truth p. 52 Direct 13. What Godliness is The best life on earth How Satan would make it seem troublesome and ungrateful 1. By difficulties 2. By various Sects 3. By scrupulosity 4. By your over-doing in your own inventions 5. By perplexing fears and sorrows 6. By unmortified lusts 7. By actual siâ—s 8. By ignorance of the Covenant of grace p. 54 Direct 14. Mortifie the flesh and rule the senses and the appetite p. 57 Direct 15. Be wary in choosing not only your Teachers but your Company also Their Characters p. 58 Direct 16. What Books to prefer and read and what to reject P. 60 Direct 17. Take not a Doctrine of Libertinism for Free Grace p. 61 Direct 18. Take heed lâ—st Grace degenerate into Counterfeits formality c. p. 63 Direct 19. Reckon not on prosperity or long life but live as dying p. 65 Direct 20. See that your Religion be purely Divine That God be your First and Last and All Man nothing p. 66 CHAP. III. The General Grand Directions for walking with God in a life of faith and Holiness Containing the Essentials of Godliness and Christianity p. 69 Gr. Dir. 1. Understand well the Nature Grounds Reason and Order of Faith and Godliness Propositions opening somewhat of them The Reader must note that here I blotted out the Method and Helps of Faith having fullier opened them in a Treatise called The Reasons of the Christian Religion and another of the Unreasonableness of Infidelity Gr. Dir. 2. How to live by Faith on Christ. How to make Use of Christ in twenty necessities p. 72 Gr. Dir. 3. How to Believe in the Holy Ghost and live by his Grace His Witness Seal Earnest c. Q. When good effects are from Means from our Endeavour and when from the Spirit p. 77 78 Gr. Dir. 4. For a True Orderly and Practical Knowledge of God A Scheme of his Attributes p. 81 82 Gr. Dir. 5. Of self resignation to God as our Owner Motives Marks Means p. 83 Gr. Dir. 6. Of subjection to God as our Soveraign King What it is How to bring the soul into subjection to God How to keep up a Ready and Constant Obedience to him p. 85 Gr. Dir. 7. To Learn of Christ as our Teacher How The Imitation of Christ. p. 90 Gr. Dr. 8. To obey Christ our Physicion or Saviour in his Repairing healing work p. 95 How each faculty is diseased or depraved The Intellect its acts and maladies The Wiâ—â— Q. Whether the Locomotive and sense can move us to sin without the Consent of the Will â—r Reason upon its bare Omission The sin of the Memory Imagination affections sensitive appetite exterior parts which need a Cure Forty intrinsecal evils in sin which make up its Malignity The common Aggravations of sin Special aggravations of the sins of the Regenerate Directions to get a hatred of sin How to cure it p. 95 Gr. Dir. 9. Of the Christian Warfare under Christ Who are our Enemies Of the Devil The state of the Armies and of the War between Christ and Satan The ends grounds advantages auxiliaries instruments and methods of the Tempter p. 104 How Satan keepeth off the forces of Christ and frustrateth all means Christs contrary Methods p. 109 Tit. 2. Temptations to particular sins with Directions for preservation and Remedy 1. How Satan prepareth his baits of Temptation p. 111 2. How he applyeth them p. 114 Tit. 3. Temptations to draw us off from duty p. 124 Tit. 4. Temptations to frustrate holy duties p. 126 Gr. Dir. 10. How to work as servants to Christ our Lord. The true doctrine of Good Works p. 128 Directions for our serving Christ in well doing p. 130. Where are many Rules to know what are good works and how to do them acceptably and successfully Q. Is doing good or avoiding sin to be most looked at in the choice of a Calling or Employment of life p. 133 Q. May one change his Calling for advantages to do good Q. Who are excused from living in a Calling or from Work p. 124 Q. Must I do a thing as a Good work while I doubt whether it be good indifferent or sin p. 134 Q. Is it not every mans duty to obey his Conscience p. 135 Q. Is it not a sin to go against Conscience Q. Whether the formal cause alone do constitute obedience Q. How sin must be avoided by one that hath an erroneus conscience Q. How can a man lawfully resist or strive against an erring conscience when he striveth against a supposed truth Q Is not going against conscience sinning against Knowledge p. 136 Q. When the information of conscience requireth a long time is it not a duty to obey it at the present Q. May one do a Great Good when it cannot be done but by a Little sin as a Lye Q Must I not forbear all Good Works which I cannot do without sin Q Must I forbear a certain great duty as preaching the Gospel for fear of a small uncertain sin Q. What shall a man do that is in doubt after all the means that he can use p. 137 Sixteen Rules to guide a doubting conscience and to know among many seeming duties which is the greatest and to be preferred p. 137 Gr. Dir. 11. To LOVE GOD as our Father and Felicity and End The Nature of holy Love God must be Loved as the Universal Infinite Good Whether Passionately What of God must be loved p. 141 What must be the Motive of our first Love Whether Gods special Love to us The sorts of holy Love Why Love is the highest Grace p. 143 The Contraries of holy Love How God is Hated The Counterfeits of Love p. 144 Directions how to excite and exercise Divine Love ibid. How to see God Signs of true Love p 154 Gr. Dir. 12. Absolutely to Trust God with Soul Body and all with full acquiâ—scence The Nature of Trust of which see more in my Life of Faith and Disp. of Saving Faith p. 157. The Contraries The Counterfeits Q. Of a particular faith The Uses of Trust. p. 158. Fifteen Directions for a quieting and comforting Trust in God p. 158 Gr. Dir. 13. That the temperament of our Religion may be a DELIGHT in God and Holiness Twenty Directions to procure it with the Reasons of it 162 Gr. Dir. 14. Of THANKFULNESS to God our grand Benefactor The signs of it Eighteen Directions how to obtain and exercise it 167 c. Gr. Dir. 15. For GLORIFYING God Ten Directions how the Mind must Glorifie God Ten Directions for Praising God or Glorifying him with our Tongues Where are the Reasons for Praising God Twelve Directions for Glorifying God by our Lives p. 172 Gr. Dir. 16. For Heavenly mindedness and Gr. Dir. 17. For Self-denyal
Only named as being formerly written of at large p. 180 An Appendix of the Reasons and measure of Divine and Self-love p. 182 CHAP. IV. Subordinate Directions against the Great sins most directly contrary to Godliness Part 1. Directions against Unbelief Q. Whether it be Unbelief not to believe that our own sins are pardoned and we elected Can a man be surer that he believeth than he is that the thing believed is true The Article of Remission of sin is to be believed applyingly p. 196. Thirty six Dir. or helps against Unbelief Q. Why the Prophets were to be believed Part 2. Directions against Hardness of Heart What it is The evil and danger of it p. 204 Part 3. Directions against Hypocrisie What it is and who are Hypocrites The Helps p. 210 Part 4. Directions against Inordinate Man-pleasing or Idolizing man or that over-valuing mans favour which is the fruit of Pride and Cause of Hypocrisie What the sin is and is not The difficulty of Man-pleasing Pleasing God is our business and End The Motives to it The signes of it p. 218 c. Part 5. Directions against Pride and for Humility What they are The Inward seemings of Pride that are not Pride The Outward seemings of Pride that are not it p. 229. The Counterfeits of Humility p. 232. Signes of the worst part of Pride against God p. 232. Signes of the next degrees of Pride against God p. 235. Signes of Pride in and about Religious duties p. 237. Signes of Pride in common converse p. 239. The dreadful consequents of Pride A summary of the signs of Humility p. 247 Many considerations and helps against pride Part 6. Directions against Covetousness Love of Riches and Worldly Cares p. 254. What Love of Riches is lawful what unlawful and what is Covetousness The malignity of it The signes of it Counterfeits or false signes of one not Covetous which deceive many False signes or appearances of Covetousness that cause many to be falsly accused Means to destroy it Part 7. Directions against the master sin Sensuality Fleshpleasing or Voluptuousness p. 264. The nature of Flesh-pleasing What meant by Flesh and what is mans Corruption What flesh-pleasing is unlawful and how far a sin The malignity of the sin The Plea or Excuses of Flesh-pleasers answered Counterfeits of Mortification or temperance which deceive many flesh-pleasers Seemings of sensuality which are not it The enmity of the flesh p. 264 CHAP. V. Further subordinate Directions for the next great duties of Religion necessary to the right performance of the Grand Duties p. 274. and first Directions for Redeeming or well improving Time What is time here and what are Opportunities What Redeeming it is To what uses and from what and by what Time must be Redeemed Directions Contemplative for improving Time p. 276. Directions contemplative for taking the due season p 283. Directions Practical for Improving Time p. 285. Rules to know what Time must he spent in Thieves or Time-wasters to be watcht against p. 288. 1. Sloth 2. Excess of sleep 3. Inordinate adorning of the body 4. Pomp and Curiosity in attendance house furniture provision entertainments Complement and servitude to the humour of Time-wasters 5. Needless Feasting gluttony and tipling 6. Idle talk 7. Vain and sinful company 8. Pastimes inordinate Recreations sports plays 9. Excess of worldly business and cares 10. Vain and sinful Thoughts 11. Reading vain books Romances Play books c. and vain studies 12. An ungodly heart which doth all things for a carnal end Eight sorts especially called to Redeem Time CHAP. VI. Directions for the Government of the Thoughts p. 294 Tit. 1. Directions against evil and idle Thoughts ibid. Tit. 2. Directions to furnish the Mind with good Thoughts Twenty great Subjects or Promptuaries affording abundant matter for Meditation p. 298 Tit. 3. Directions to make Good Thoughts Effectual 1. General Directions for Meditation or good Thoughts p. 304. 2. Particular Directions about the work of Meditation p. 306 Tit. 4. The difference between a contemplative and an Active Life Q. 1. What is a contemplative life Q. 2. Is every man bound to it Q. 3. Whose duty is it Q. 4. How far are all men bound to contemplation Answered in twelve Rules p. 309 Tit. 5. Directions to the Melancholy about their Thoughts Signes of Melancholy The Causes Directions for cure Special truths to be known for preventing causless troubles c. p. 312 c. Tit. 6. Twenty Directions for young Students for the most profitable ordering of their studying Thoughts p. 319. Twenty Instances of extreams to be avoided p. 323 CHAP. VII Directions for the Government of the Passions Tit. 1. Directions against all sinful Passions in general p. 327 Tit. 2. Directions against sinful Love of Creatures 1. Helps to discover sinful Love 2. Helps to mâ—rtisie sinful Love p. 329 Tit. 3. Directions against sinful Desires and Discontents p. 332 Tit. 4. Directions against sinful mirth and pleasure p. 335 Tit. 5. Directions against sinful Hopes p. 338 Tit. 6. Directions against sinful Hatred aversation or backwardness towards God and Godliness p. 339 Tit. 7. Directions against sinful Anger 1. Directions Meditative against it p. 341. Two Directions practical against it p. 342 Tit. 8. Directions against sinful fear 1. Of God p. 344. 2. Against sinful fear of the Devil p. 345. 3. Against the sinful fear of men and of sufferings by them p. 346 Tit 9. Directions against sinful Grief and trouble of mind When sinful p. 351 Tit. 10. Directions against sinful â—espair and doubting What it is When the day of Grace is past What sin is mortal and what is Infirmity c. p. 355 c. CHAP. VIII Directions for the Government of the senses Part 1. General Directions to Govern them all by faith p. 361. Deny not all our senses as the Papists p. 363 Part 2. Particular Directions for the Government of the Eyes p. 366 Part 3. Directions for the Government of the Ear. p. 368 Part 4. Directions for the Governing the Taste and Appetite p. 370 Tit. 1. Directions against Gluttony 1. What it is 2. What are its Causes 3. The greatness of the sin 4. Directions and Helps against it Rules for the Measure of Eating Tit. 2. Against excess of Drink and drunkenness 1. What it is The various degrees 2. The Causes 3. The greatness of the sin 4. The Excuses of it Q. May we drink when thirsty c. Q. May one drink healths 5. Twenty Questions for the conviction of drunkards Twelve Questions to prove that it 's their wilfulness and not meer disability to forbear Practical Directions against Tipling c. p. 381 Part 5. Tit. 1. Directions against Fornication and all uncleanness The Greatness of the sin Directions for the Cure p. 394 c. T it 2. Directions against Inward filthy Lusts. p. 400 Part 6. Directions against sinful excess of sleep 1. What is eâ—câ—ss 2 The Evil of it Q. Whether Love of sleep may be a
us Q. 9. May be pray for Grace who desireth it not Q. 10. May he pray that doubteth of his interest in God and dare not call him Father as his Child Q. 11. May a wicked man pray or is he ever accepted Q. 12. May a wicked man use the Lords Prayer Q. 13. Is it Idolatry or sin alwayes to pray to Saints or Angels Q. 14. Must the same man pray secretly that hath before prayed in his family Q. 15. Is it best to keep set hours for prayer Q 16. May we joyn in family prayers with ungodly persons Q. 17 What if the Master or speaker be ungodly or a Heretick Q. 18. May we pray absolutely for outward mercies or only conditionally Q. 19. May we pray for all that we may lawfully desire Q. 20. How may we pray for the salvation of all the world Q. 21. Or for the Conversion of all Nations Q. 22. Or that a whole Kingdom may be converted and saved Q. 23. Or for the destruction of the enemies of Christ or the Kingdom Q. 24. What is to be judged of a particular faith Q. 25. Is every lawful prayer accepted Q. 26. With what faith must I pray for the souls or bodies of others Q. 27. With what faith may we pray for the Continuance of the Church or Gospel Q. 28. How to know when our prayers are heard Q. 29. How to have fulness and constant supply of matter in our prayers Q 30. How to keep up fervency in prayer Q 31. May we look to speed ever the better for any thing in our selves or our prayers Or may we put any trust in them Q. 32. How must that person and prayer be qualified which God will accept to p. 598 Tit. 3. Special Directions for family prayer ibid. Tit. 4. Special Directions for secret prayer p. 599 CHAP XXIV Directions fâ—r families about the Sacrament of the Lords Supper p. 600 What are the Ends of the Sacrament What are the Parts of it Q. 1. Should not the Sacrament have â—â—â—â— preparation than the other parts of worship Q 2. How oft should it be administred Q. 3. Must all members of the visible Church communicate Q. 4. May any man receive it that knoweth himself unsanctified Q. 5. May an ungodly man receive it that knoweth not himself to be ungodly Q. 6. Must a Christian receive who doubteth of his sincerity Q. 7. What if Superiours compell a doubting Christian to receive it by excommunication or imprisonment What should be choose Q. 8. Is not the case of an hypocrite that knoweth not himself to be an hypocrite and of the sincere who knoweth not himself to be sincere all one as to communicating Q. 9. Wherein lyeth the sin of an ungâ—dly person if he receive Q. 10. Doth all unworthy receiving make one lyable to damnation or what Q 11. What is the particular preparation needful to a fit Communicant p. 653. Marks of sincerity ibid. Preparing duties Q 1. May we receive from an ungodly Minister Q 2. May we communicate with unworthy persons in an undisciplined Church Q. 3. What if I cannot communicate unless I conform to an imposed gesture as sitting standing or kneeling Q. 4. What if I cannot receive it but as administered by the Common Prayer Q. 5. If my conscience be not satisfied may I come doubting Obj. Is it not a duty to follow conscience as Gods Officer What to do in the time of administration 1. What Graces must be exercised 2. On what objects 3. The Season and Order of Sacramental duties ad p. 610 CHAP. XXV Directions for fearful troubled Christians who are perplexed with doubts of their sincerity and justification Causes and Cure p. 612 CHAP. XXVI Directions for declining back-sliding Christians about perseverance p. 616 The way of falling into Sects and Heresies and Errors And of declining in Heart and Life Signs of declining Signs of a graceless state Dangerous signs of impenitency False signs of declining Motives against declining Directions against it p. 616 Tit. 2. Directions for perseverance or to prevent back-sliding p. 618 Antidotes against those doctrines of presumption which would binder our perseverance p. 623 CHAP. XXVII Directions for the poor The Temptations of the poor The special Duties of the poor p. 627 CHAP. XXVIII Directions for the Rich. p. 632 CHAP. XXIX Directions for the weak and aged p. 634 CHAP. XXX Directions for the sick p. 637 Tit. 1. Directions for a safe death to secure salvation I. For the unconverted in their sickness A sad case 1. For Examination 2. For Repentance 3. For faith in Christ 4. For a new heart love to God and resolution for obedience Q. Will â—ate Repentance serve the turn in such a case II. Directions to the Gâ—dly for a safe departure Their Temptations to be resisted p. 637 Tit. 2. How to profit by our sickness p 642 Tit. 3. Directions for a comfortable or peaceable Death p. 644. Directions for resisting the Temptations of Satan in time of sickness p. 648 Tit. 4. Directions for doing good to others in our sickness p. 651 CHAP. XXXI Directions to the friends of the sick that are about them p. 653 Q. Can Physick lengthen mens lives Q. Is it meet to make known to the sick their danger of death Q Must we tell bad men of their sin and misery when it may exasperate the disease by troubling them Q. What can be done in so short a time Q. What to do in doubtful cases Q. What order should be observed in counselling the ignorant and ungodly when time is so short Helps against excessive sorrow for the death of friends Yea of the worst A Form of Exhortation to be read in Sickness to the Ungodly or those that we justly fear are such p. 657 A Form of Exhortation to the Godly in Sickness For their comfort Their dying groans and joyes p. 662 TOME III. Christian Ecclesiasticks PART I. CHAP. I. OF the Worship of God in General The Nature and Reasons of it and Directions for it How to know right Ends in worship c. p. 673 CHAP. II. Directions about the Manner of worship to avoid all corruptions and false unacceptable worshipping of God p. 680. The disadvantages of ungodly men in judging of holy worship Q. How far the Scriptures are the Rule or Law of Worship and Discipline and how far not Instances of things undetermined in Scripture What Commands of Scripture are not universal or perpetual May danger excuse from duty and when Rules for the right manner CHAP. III. Directions about the Christian Covenant with God and Baptism p. 688. The Covenant what The Parties Matter Terms Forms necessary Modes Fruits c. External Baptism what Compleat Baptism what Of Renewing the Covenant CHAP. IV. Directions about the Profession of our Religion to others The greatness of the duty of open Profession VVhen and how it must be made p. 692 CHAP. V. Directions about Vows and particular Covenants with God p. 694 VVhat a Vow is The sorts of
any such necessary p. 916 Q. 173. What particular Directions for Order of Studies and Books should be observed by young Students who intend the Sacred Ministry p. 917 Q. 174. What Books should a poor man choose that for want of money or Time can have or read but few There are three Catalogues set down but somewhat disorderly as they came into my memory 1. The smallest or Poorest Library 2. A poor Library that hath considerable Additions to the former 3. Some more Additions to them for them that can go higher With some additional Notes p. 921 TOME IV. Christian Politicks CHAP. I. GEneral Directions for an Upright Life p. 1 The most passed by on necessary reasons CHAP. II. A few brief Memoranda to Rulers for the interest of Christ the Church and mens salvation p. 5 CHAP. III. Directions to Subjects concerning their duty to Rulers p. 9. Of the Nature and Causes of Government Mr. Richard Hookers Ecclesiastical Policy as it is for Popularity examined and confuted Directions for obedience Duty to Rulers Q. Is the Magistrate Iudge in Controversies of faith or worship p. 20. Q. 2. May the Oath of Supremacy be lawfully taken in which the King is pronounced Supream Governour in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil p. 20. Q. 3. Doth not this give the Pastors power to the Magistrate Q. 4. Hath the King power of Church Discipline and Excommunication Q. 5. If Kings and Bishops differ which must be obeyed Q. Is he obliged to suffer who is not obliged to obey p. 25. Of admonition of Rulers Q. 1. Whether the sound Authors of Politicks be against Monarchy Q. 2. Whether Civilians be against it Q. 3. Are Historians against it Greek Roman or Christian Q. 4. Whether Athens Rome Aristotle Philosophers Academies be against it Q. 5. Are Divines and Church discipline against it Q. 6. Is Scripture and Christianity against it Objections answered Q. Are Papists Prelatists and Puritans against it Bilson and Andrews Vindication of the Puritans Christianity is the greatest help to Government Further Directions Tit. 2. Q. Whether mans Laws bind the Conscience Q. Is it a sin to break every Law of man More fully answered p. 36 37 CHAP. IV. Directions to Lawyers about their Duty to God p. 39 CHAP. V. The Duty of Physicions p. 43 CHAP. VI. Directions to Schâ—olmasters about their duties for Childrens souls p. 44 CHAP. VII Directions for Souldiers about their duty in point of Conscience Princes Nobles Iudges and Iustices are past by lest they take Counsel for injury p. 46 CHAP. VIII Advice against Murder p. 50. The Causes of it Wars Tyranny malignant persecuting fury Unrighteous judgement oppression and uncharitableness Robbery Wrath Guilt and Shame Malice and Revenge wicked Impatience Covetousness Ambition c. The Greatness of the sin The Consequents Tit. 2. Advice against Self-murder The Causes to be avoided Melancholy worldly trouble discontent passion c. p. 54. Besides Gluttony Tipling and Idleness the great Murderers CHHP. IX Directions for the forgiving of injuries and enemies Against wrath malice revenge and persecution Practical Directions Curing Considerations Twenty p. 56 CHAP. X. Cases resolved about forgiving wrongs and debts and about self defence and seeking â—ur Right by Law or otherwise p. 61 Q. What injuries are we bound to forgive Neg. and Affir resolved Q. 2. What is the meaning of Matth. 5. 38 c. Resist not evil but whosoever shall smite thee c. p. 63 Q. 3. Am I bound to forgive another if he ask me not forgiveness Luke 17. 3 c. p. 64 Q. 4. Is it lawful to sue another at Law 1 Cor. 6. 7. Q. 5. Is it lawful to defend our lives or estates against a Robber Murderer or unjust Invader by force of Arms Q. 6. Is it lawful to take away anothers life in defending my purse or estate only p. 65 Q. 7. May we kill or wound another in defence or vindication of our honour or good name p. 66 CHAP. XI Special Directions to escape the guilt of persecution Determining much of the Case about Liberty in matters of Religion p 67. What is persecution The several kinds of it The greatness of the sin Understand the Case of Christs interest in the world Q. Whether particular Churches should require more of their members as Conditions of Communion than the Catholick Church and What Penalties to be chosen that hinder the Gospel least More Directions to the number of forty one CHAP. XII Directions against Scandal as Given p. 80. What Scandal is and what not The sorts of scandalizing The Scripture sense of it Twenty Directions CHAP. XIII Directions against Scandal taken or an aptness to receive hurt by the words or deeds of others Especially quarrelling with Godliness p. 88. or taking encouragement to sin Practical Directions against taking hurt by others p. 90. CHAP. XIV Directions against soul-murder and partaking of other mens sins p. 92 The several wayes of destroying souls How we are not guilty of other mens sin and ruine CHAP. XV. General Directions for furthering the salvation of others p. 95 CHAP. XVI Special Directions for holy Conference Exhortation and Reproof Tit. 1. Motives to holy Conference and Exhortation p 97 Tit. 2. Directions to Christian edifying discourse p. 100 Tit. 3. Special Directions for Exhortations and Reproofs p. 101 CHAP. XVII Directions for keeping Peace with all men How the Proud do hinder Peace Many more Causes and Cures opened p. 103 CHAP. XVIII Directions against all Theft fraud or injurious getting keeping or desiring that which is anothers p. 107 Tit. 2. Cases of Conscience about Theft and such injuries Q. 1. Is it sin to steal to save ones life Q. 2. May I take that which another is bound to give me and will not Q. 3. May I take my own from an unjust borrower or possessor if I cannot otherwise get it Q. 4. May I recover my own by force from him that taketh it by force from me Q. 5. May we take from the Rich to relieve the poor Q. 6. If he have so much as that he will not miss it may I take some Q. 7. May not one pluck ears of Corn or an Apple from a Tree c. Q. 8. May a Wife Child or Servant take more than a Cruel Husband Parent or Master doth allâ—w May Children forsake their Parents for such Cruelty Q. 9. May I take what a man forfeiteth penally Q. 10. What if I resolve when I take a thing in necessity to make satisfaction if ever I be able Q. 11. What if I know not whether the Owner would consent Q. 12. May I take in jeast from a friend with a purpose to restore it Q 13. May I not take from another to prevent his hurting himself Q. 14. May I take away Cards Dice Play-books Papist-books by which he would hurt his soul. Q 15. May not a Magistrate take the Subjects goods when it is necessary to their own preservation Q 16. May I take from
p. 199 CHAP. XXXI Cases and Directions about Confessing sins and injuries to others Tit. 1. The Cases p. 201 Q. 1. When must we confess wrongs to those that we have wronged Q. 2. What will excuse us from such Confessions Q. 3. Must I confess a purpose of injury which was never executed Q. 4. When must sins against God be confessed to men Tit. 2. The Directions for just confessing sin to others p. 202 CHAP. XXXII Cases and Directions about satisfaction and Restitution p. 203 Tit. 1. The Cases Q. 1. What is Satisfaction what Restitution and when a duty Q. Why did they restore fourfold by the Law of Moses Q. 2. How far is Satisfaction and Restitution necessary Q. 3. Who are bound to make it Q. 4. To whom must it be made Q. 5. What Restitution is to be made for dishonouring Rulers or Parents Q. 6 How must Satisfaction be made for Slanders and Lyes Q. 7. And for tempting others to sin and hurting their souls Q. 8. And for Murder or Man-slaughter Q. 9. Iâ— a Murderer bound to offer himself to justice Q. 10. Or to do execution on himself Q. 11. What Satisfaction is to be made by a Fornicator or Adulterer Q. 12. In what cases is a man excused from Satisfaction and Restitution Q. 13. What if Restitution will cost the Restorer more than the thing is worth Q. 14. What if confessing a fault will turn the rage of the injured person against me to my ruine p. 203 Tit. 2. The Directions for Practice p. 206 CHAP. XXXIII Cases and Directions about our obtaining pardon from God p. 206 Tit. 1. The Cases Q 1. Is there Pardon to be had for all sin without exception Q. 2. What if one oft commit the same heinous sin Q. 3. Is the day of Grace and Pardon ever past in this life Q. 4. May we be sure that we are pardoned Q. 5. Can any man pardon sins against God and how far Q. 6. Is sin forgiven before it be committed Q. 7. Are the Elect Pardoned and Iustified before Repentance Q. 8. Is Pardon or Iustification perfect before Death Q. 9. Is our pardon perfect as to all sins past Q. 10. May Pardon or Iustification be lost or reversed Q. 11. Is the pardon of my own sin to be Believed â—ide Divina and is it the meaning of that Article of the Creed Q. 12. May one in any kind Trust to his own Faith and Repentance for his Pardon Q. 13. What are the Causes and Conditions of Pardon p. 208 Tit. 2. Directions for obtaining Pardon from God p. 209 CHAP. XXXIV Cases and Directions about self-judging p. 210 Tit. 1. The Cases Q. 1. What are the Reasons Vses and Motives of Self-judging Q. 2. What should ignorant persons do whose capacity will not reach to so high a work as true self-examination and self-judging Q. 3. How far may a weak Christian take the judgement of his Pastor or others about his sincerity and justification Tit. 2. Directions for judging of our Actions p. 211 Tit. 3. Directions for judging of our estates to know whether we are Iustified and in a state of life p. 212 c READER Thou art desired to mend the following Errata with thy Pen especially those markt with a Star Some more false Spellings false Pointings c. there are but too slight to give thee any trouble PAg. 26. l. antepen r. have lived p. 48. l. 7. r. if they p. 44. l. 20. r. once * listed p. 4â— l. 31. r. 〈◊〉 to p. 55. l. 30. r. in the practice p. 59. l. 13. del not l. 43. r. from them that p. 63. l. 46. del not p. 99. l. 50. r. â—ew reâ—â— not fit p. 105. Sect. 11. l. 2. r. â—â—â—â— serves v. 120 â—â— 12â— l. 36. r. * â—â—arl sâ—â—ss p. 150. l 29. r. * world 〈◊〉 p. 154. Sect. 37. l. anteâ— r. 2 * Chron. p. 165. l. 1. r. before them p. 180. l. 3. r. * that clearly p. 219. Sect. 11. l. 1. r. câ—â—jâ—â—es p. 233. Sect. 16. l. ult r. 〈◊〉 â—â—â—â— p. 238. Sect. 50. l. 3. r sound p. 244. l. 21. r. their shame p. 261. l 13. r. * a dâ—â—p p. 323. Sect. â—9 l. 6. r. i◠〈◊〉 p. 325. l. 5â— â— * Dury p. 33. Title r. sinful Desires p. 354. l. 33. r. love him p. 380. Sect. 63 l. 6. r. loath p. 384. l. 4â— r * senseless 〈◊〉 p 386. l. 6. r. * most defile p. 397 Sect. 14. l. 11. r. yet of p. 398. Sect. 19. l. 2. r. sights p. 404. Sect 3 l. 7. r. * present 〈◊〉 p. 410. l 9. r. * mod p. 433. l. 51. r. sermonum l. 53. r. * aftercations p. 437. l. 18. r. General to get p. 4â—â— l. antep r. their â—â—ot p. 442. l. 41. r. give thee p. 445. l. 7. r. contented l. 42. r. got p. 452. l. 26. r. * best employment l. 6. del best p. 460. Title r. â—â—â—â— Zeal Lust. r. in the world p. 461. Sect. 16. l. 2. r. unprofitable * prating p. 462. l. 37. r. 〈…〉 l. 4â— r. othâ—â—s l. 52. r. using them p. 495. l. 8. r. Gods p. 496. l. 45. r. Riâ—ht of propriety p. 500. l. 37. r. Psalms of praise p. 503. l. 33. r. 1 Câ—r l. â—4 r. 〈◊〉 â—oâ— tâ—â—ir house l. 35. r. thy house l. pen. r. Therefore p. 506. l. 56. r. the faith p. 507. l. 37. r. â—it to oâ—â— p. 523 l. â—2 del it ibid. r. this heat p. 536. l. 26. r. will do p. 550. l. ult r. heart-breaking p. 551. l. 39. r evâ—◠〈◊〉 p. 557. l. 46. r. hath * not given p. 599. l 30. r. shorter p. 625. l. â— r. * not wholly p. 635. l. 39. r. * not able p 641. l. 39. r. your 〈◊〉 p. 676. Sect. 19. l. 4. â— Your work p. 692. l. 17. r. himself p. 695. l. 1. r. arctius nobis p. 701. l. 24. r. wicked hands p. 705. Prop. 8. l. 5â—6 del half each line p. 711. l. 42. r. in force l. 58. r. needeth it * not p 713. l. 38. r. by a faâ—se p. 720. l. 3. r. Here note p. 722. l. 19. r. Sâ—â— p. 724. Sect. 3. l. 5. del you p. 727. Sect. 19. l. 10. r. ask p. 745. Sect. â—4 l. r. del of intrusions p. 756. l. antep r. would â—idâ— p. 757. l. 55. r. imitate them p. 759. l. 10. r. murder p. 771. l. ult r. to all p 798. l. 34. r. Oâ—â—â—â—ined as p. 812. Q. 36. l. 5. r. as such unknown p 844. l. 9. r. to * remove p 885. l. 12. r. * not to institute p 898 l. 10 11. r. Gomarus * Somnius p. 900. l. antep r. bare witness p 915. l. 17. r 2 Some things p. 919. l. antep r. see that * aptâ—ntâ—r p. 921. l. 22 r. 〈◊〉 * 〈◊〉 maâ—â— l. 39. r. after * the Scriptures which Paul is commonly supposed to mean and some of it after he â—ud so p. 922. l. 25. r. Hotâ—â—kis l. 46. r. * Sâ—ccaâ—i l.
47. r. Caranza's p. 923. l. 8. r. Magirus l. 18. r. * Schoâ—cri p. 924. l. 7. r. 〈◊〉 l. 20. r. Wâ—sâ—mâ—â—cius l. 23. r. Colonius l. 42. r. Croyus p. 925. l. 20. r. Polydo â— l. 28. r Meâ—apâ— * Exercitat p. 926. l. 2. r. Hiâ—oâ— of * Antinorians l. 5. r. * Poâ—â—lington l. 8. r. Gâ—rson Bucers p. 927. l. 32. 33. r. * Sâ—hoâ—tâ—ji l. 34. â— * Doâ—â—cerâ—lliuâ— l. 36. r. â—abritius Hildanus l. 42. r. Uâ—iâ— p. 928 l. 10. for Hood r. * Ford l. 15. r. Heb. The third Chapter is mis-titled from p. 72. to 127. Also p. 510 523 772 802 and in Part 4. p. 12 176. PART 4. Ep. to the Reader p. 2. l. 2. r. here say p. 11. l. 3. r. pars imâ—â—rans p. 16. Sect. 31. l. 8. r. very thing that p. 1â— l. 23. r. in a night p. 32. l. 18. r. â—us uâ—luâ— p. 33. Sect. 88. l. 7. r. tyrannicida p. 41. Sect. 7. l. 13. r. â—ontemnâ—râ—t p. 47. Sect. 4. l. 9. del theâ— of p. 50. Sect. 4. l. 20. r. Coâ—â—câ—â—nce from p. 80. Sect. 2. l. 1â— r. unnec ssary to oc asion p. 87. l. 10. r. yoâ—â—â—â—laiâ— p. 92. l. 11. r calleth p. 97. Sect. 4. l. 5. r. our own p. 99. Sect. 20. l. 6. r. Waâ—â— p. 106. l. 17. r. coâ—â—â—â—iâ—e for l. â—2 del But l. 46. r. your p. 118. Sect. 27. l. 5. del the Law of p. 120. l. 36. r. iâ— * ye â—â— p. 13â— l. 22. r. * lâ—ss 〈◊〉 p. 139. Sect. 15. l. 18. r. was taken p. 162. l. 12. r. Take heed that their p. 165. l. 20. for in hypothesi r. * sâ—pâ—ositively p. 170. l. 4. r. better than p. 178. l. 3. r. that is l. 16 17. r. â—amiliarity l. antep r. we all p. 182. l. 2. r. is thâ—â—â—â— l. 64. del you p. 197. l. 34. r. difficulty in the case whi h l. 58. r. me if I tell In the MARGIN p 4. l. ult r. dubitare p. 7. l. 54. r. * clamoribus l. 55. r. * perderet elementum p. 10. l. pen. r. Iâ—doâ—um p. 70. l. antep r. Velocissimum mens p. 143. r. nostra â—oeda l. pen. r. amando cum p 207. r. 〈◊〉 p. 211. l. 〈◊〉 r supposuit ibid. r. subito p. 227. r. * siâ— alia nihil ibid. r. cum * mâ—tis p. 231. r officiâ—s p. 307. l. 2. r. * f 〈…〉 p. 354. r. Nullane p. 306. l. antep r. Vidâ— p. 402 r. resistat ibid. r. viscera ibid. tâ—â—piorâ—s ibid. r. last bâ—iâ—g p. 〈◊〉 r. pâ—â—â—â—oâ—o habamur p. 371. â— dâ—sperare p. 587. r * gâ—mitibus p. 700. l. pen ult r. * Fundamentum p. 715. l. ult r. 〈◊〉 1â— Annot. b p. 745. l. antep r. binc atque inde l. pen. r. Nosse illum PART 4. p. 7. l. pen. r. regi poterit p. 8. l. 7. r. soâ—titi sunt p. 13. l. antep r. Quod miâ—imâ— p. 21 l. antep si inter A Christian Directory THE FIRST PART CHRISTIAN ETHICKS OR DIRECTIONS FOR THE Ordering of the Private Actions of our Hearts and Lives in the work of Holy Self-Government unto and under GOD. By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons at the Three Crowns near Holborn-Conduit 1672. A Christian Directory TOM I. Christian Ethicks The Introduction § 1. THE Eternal God having made Man an Intellectual and Free-agent able to understand and choose the good and refuse the evil to know Novâ—rint universi quod prâ—sens opusâ—ulum non aggredioâ— ut fidelium aâ—ribus prophanas aliquas vocum iâ—geram â—ovitates sed ut innocâ—ntâ—r sobrie de altâ—ssimo c. Ockam de Sacram. Alt. prolog In zâ—â—o domus domini nunc persolvo dâ—bitum vile quidem sed fidâ—le â—t puto amiâ—um quibusqueâ—gregiis Christi tyroâ—ibus grave vero importabile apostatis insipientibus quorum priores nâ— fallor cum lachrymis forte quae ex Dei charitate proâ—â—uunt alii cum tâ—istitia sed quae ex indignatione pusillanimitate deprehensae coâ—scientiae extorquetur illud excipient Gildas Prolog Excid Habet inquies Britanniâ— Rectores habet speculatores Quid tu nâ—gando mâ—tire disponis Habet inquam habet si non ultrâ— non citra numerun sed quia inclinati tanto pondere sunt pressi idâ—irco spatium respirandi non habent Praeoccupabant igitur se mutuo talibus objectionibus c. Gildas ibid. and love and serve his Maker and by adhering to Him in this life of tryal to attain to the blessed sight and Enjoyment of his Glory in the life to come hath not been wanting to furnish him with such Necessaries without which these ends could not succesfully be sought When we had lost our Moral capacity of pleasing him that we might enjoy him he restoreth us to it by the wonderful work of our Redemption In Christ he hath reconciled the world unto himself and hath given them a general Act of Oblivion contained in the Covenant of Grace which nothing but mens obstinate and final unwillingness can deprive them of To procure their Consent to this gracious Covenant he hath committed to his Ministers the Word of Reconciliation commanding us to beseech men as in the stead of Christ and as though God himself did beseech them by us to be reconciled unto God 2 Cor. 5. 18 19 20. and to shew them first their sin and misery and proclaim and offer the true Remedy and to let them know that All things are now ready and by pleading their duty their necessity and their commodity to compell them to come in Matth. 22. 4. Luke 11. 17 23. But so great is the Blindness and Obstinacy of men that the greatest part refuse Consent being deceived by the pleasures and profits and honours of this present world and make their pretended necessities or business the matter of their excuses and the unreasonable reasons of their refusal negligence and delayes till death surprize them and the door is shut and they knock and cry for Mercy and Admittance when it is too late Matth. 25. 10 11 12. § 2. Against this Wilful Negligence and Presumption which is the principal Cause of the damnation of the ungodly world I have written many Books already But because there are many that profess themselves unfeignedly willing not only to be saved but also to be Christs Disciples to learn of him to imitate him and be conformed to him and to do the will of God if they could but know it I have determined by God's assistance to write this Book for the Use of such and to give them from Gods Word those plain Directions which are suited to the several Duties of their lives and may Guide them safely in their Walk with God to Life Eternal Expect not here copious and earnest Exhortations for that work I have done already and have now to do with such as say they are made willing and desire help against their Ignorance that Skill and Will may concurr
the world Rom. 8. 1 5 6 7 8 10 13 14. Whether all that were baptized are such as these when they come to age judge you § 4. It is true also that if you truly Repent you are forgiven But it is as true that true Repentance is the very Conversion of the soul from sin to God and leaveth not any man in the power of sin It is not for a man when he hath had all the pleasure that sin will yield him to wish then that he had not committed it which he may do then at an easie rate and yet to keep the rest that are still pleasant and profitable to his flesh Like a man that casts away the bottle which he hath drunk empty but keeps that which is full Or as men sell off their barren Kine and buy milch ones in their stead This kind of Repentance is a mockery and not a cure for the soul. If thou have true Repentance it hath so far turned thy heart from sin that thou wouldst not commit it if it were to do ☞ again though thou hadst all the same temptations And it hath so far turned thy heart to God and Holiliness that thou wouldst live a holy life if it were all to do again though thou hadst the same temptations as afore against it Because thou hast not the same heart This is the nature of true Repentance such a Repentance indeed is never too late to save but I am sure it never comes too soon § 5. Mark now I beseech you what a state of sin and what a state of Holiness is He that is in a state of sin hath habitually and predominantly a greater love to some pleasures or profits or honours of this world than he hath to God and to the glory which he hath promised He preferreth and seeketh and holdeth if he can his fleshly prosperity in this world before the favour of God and the happiness of the world to come His heart is turned from God unto the creature and is principally set on things on earth Thus his sin is the blindness and madness and perfidiousness and Idolatry of his soul and his forsaking of God and his salvation for a thing of nought It is that to his soul which poyson and death and sickness and lameness and blindness are to his body It is such dealing with God as that man is guilty of to his dearest friend or Father who should hate him and his company and love the company of a Dog or a Toad much better than his and obey his enemy against him And it is like a mad mans dealing with his Physicion who seeks to kill him as his enemy because he crosseth his appetite or will to cure him Think of this well and then tell me whether this be a state to be continued in This state of sin is something worse than a meer inconsiderate act of sin in one that otherwise liveth an obedient holy life § 6. On the other side a state of Holiness is nothing else but the Habitual and predominant devotion Nulla Religio vera est nisi 〈◊〉 virâ—â—t justitiâ— constat Id. ibid. and dedication of soul and body and life and all that we have to God An esteeming and loving and serving and seeking him before all the pleasures and prosperity of the flesh Making his favour and everlasting Happiness in Heaven our End and Jesus Christ our way and referring all things in the world unto that end and making this the scope design and business of our lives It is a turning from a deceitful world to God and preferring the Creator before the creature and Heaven before Earth and Eternity before an inch of Time and our souls before our corruptible bodies and the authority and Laws of God the Universal Governour of the world before the word or will of any man how great soever and a subjecting our sensitive faculties to our Reason and advancing this Reason by Divine Revelation and living by faith and not by sight In a word it is a laying up our treasure in Heaven and setting our hearts there and living in a Heavenly conversation setting our affections on the things above and not on the things that are on earth and a rejoicing in hope of the glory to come when sensualists have nothing but transitory bruitish pleasures to rejoyce in This is a state and life of Holiness when we perswade you to be Holy we perswade you to no worse than this When we commend a life of Godliness to your Choice this is the life that we mean and that we commend to you And can you understand this well and yet be unwilling of it It cannot be Do but know well what Godliness and Ungodliness is what Grace and Sin are and the work is almost done Direction 3. TO know what a life of Holiness is believe the Word of God and those that have Direct 3. tryed it and believe not the slanders of the Devil and of ungodly men that never tryed or knew the things which they reproach § 1. Reason cannot question the reasonableness of this advice Who is wiser than God or who is to be believed before him And what men are liker to know what they talk of then such as speak from their own experience Nothing more familiar with wicked men than to slander and reproach the holy wayes and servants of the Lord. No wisdom no measure of Holiness or righteousness will exempt the Godly from their malice Otherwise Christ himself at least would have been exempted if not his Apostles or other Saints whom they have slandered and put to death Christ hath foretold us what to expect from them John 15. 18 19 20 21. If the world hate you ye know that it hated me before it hated you If you were of the world the world would love his own but because ye are not of the world but I have chosen you out of the world therefore the world hateth you Remember the word that I said unto you The servant is not greater than the Lord If they have persecuted me they will also persecute you if they have kept my sayings they will keep yours also § 2. The truth is wicked men are the seed and children of the Devil and have his image and obey him and think and speak and do as he would have them And the Godly are the seed and members of Christ and bear his Image and obey him And do you think that the Devil will bid Victor utic saith that the Arrian Goths tormented the devoted Virgins to force them to confess that their Pastors had committed fornication with them but no torment prevaâ—â—ed with them though manâ— were killed with it pag. 407 408. lib. 2. Terrent praecepâ—â—s â—â—ralibus ut in medio Vandalorum nostri nâ—llatâ—â—us respirarent Neâ— usâ— quaâ—â—e orandi aut immolandi conâ—edâ—retâ—r gâ—mâ—ntibus locus Nam diversae calumniae non dâ—erant quotidie etiam illis sacerdotibus qui in his
Murder Adultery c. It is in your hearts to do it when you have but temptation and opportunity and will be till you are renewed by sanctifying Grace § 9. 9. Till you are sanctified you are heirs of death and Hell even under the curse and condemned Unus gehennae ignis est in Inferno sed non uno modo omnes excruciat peccatores Uniuscujusque enim quantum exigit culpa tantum illic sentitur poena Nam sicut hic unus sol non omnia corpora aequaliâ—er caâ—eâ—acit ita illic unus ignis animas pro qualitate crimiâ—um dissimiliter exurit H go Etherianus de Aâ—im regres cap. 12. already in point of Law though judgement have not past the final sentence See Iohn 3. 18 19 36. And nothing is more certain than that you had been damned and undone for ever if you had dyed before you had been renewed by the Holy Ghost and that yet this will be your miserable portion if you should dye unsanctified Think then what a life you have lived until now And think what it is to live any longer in such a case in which if you dye you are certain to be damned Conversion may save you but unbelief and self-flattery will not save you from this endless misery Heb. 12. 14. Heb. 2. 3. Matth. 25. ult § 10. 10. As long as you are unsanctified you are hasting to this misery Sin is like to get more Idem undique in infernum descensus est saith Anaxagoras in Laert. to one that only lamented that he must die in a strange Countrey rooting and your hearts to be more hardened and at enmity with grace and God more provoked and the Spirit more grieved and you are every day nearer to your final doom when all these things will be more sensibly considered and better understood 2 Tim. 3. 13. 2 Pet. 2. 3. Thus I have given you a brief account of the case of unrenewed souls and but a brief one because I have done it before more largely Treat of Convers. Direction 10. WHen you have found out how sad a condition you are in consider what there is in Direct 10. sin to make you amends or repair your loss that should be any hinderance to your Conversion § 1. Certainly you will not continue for nothing if you know it to be nothing in so dangerous and doleful a case as this And yet you do it for that which is much worse than nothing not considering what you do Sit down sometimes and well bethink you what recompence the world or sin will make you for your God your souls your hopes and all when they are lost and past recovery Think what it will then avail or comfort you that once you were honoured and had a great estate that once you fared of the best and had your delicious cups and merry hours and sumptuous attire and all such pleasures Think whether this will abate the horrors of death or put by the wrath of God or the sentence of your condemnation or whether it will ease a tormented soul in Hell If not think how small and short and silly a commodity and pleasure it is that you buy so dear And what a wise man can see in it that should make it seem worth the Joyes of Heaven and worth your enduring everlasting torments What is it that is supposed worth all this Is it the snare of preferment Is it vexing riches Is it befooling honours Is it distracting cares Is it swinish luxury or lust Is it beastly pleasures Or what is it else that you will buy at so wonderful dear a rate O lamentable folly of ungodly men O foolish sinners Unworthy to see God! and worthy to be miserable O strangely corrupted heart of man that can fell his Maker his Redeemer and his salvation at so base a price Direction 11. ANd when you are casting up your account as you put all that sin and the world Direct 11. will do for you in the one end of the scales so put into the other the Comforts both of this life and of that to come which you must part with for your sins § 1. Search the Scriptures and consider how happy the Saints of God are there described Think what it is to have a purified cleansed soul to be free from the slavery of the flesh and it's concupiscence to have the sensitive appetite in subjection unto Reason and Reason illuminated and rectified by faith to be alive to God and disposed and enabled to love and serve him to have access to him in prayer with boldness and assurance to be heard to have a fealed pardon of all our sins and an interest in Christ who will answer for them all and justifie us to be the children of God and the heirs of Heaven to have peace of Conscience and the joyful hopes of endless joyes to have communion with the Father through the Son by the Spirit and to have that Spirit dwelling in us and working to our further holiness and joy to have communion with the Saints and the help and comfort of all Gods Ordinances and to be under his many precious promises and under his protection and provision in his family and to cast all our care upon him to delight our selves daily in the remembrance and renewed experiences of his love and in our too little knowledge of him and love to him and in the knowledge of his Son and of the Mysteries of the Gospel to have all things work together for our good and to be able with joy to welcome Death and to live as in Heaven in the foresight of our everlasting happiness I would have orderly here given you a particular account of the priviledges of renewed souls but that I have done so much in that already in my Treatise of Conversion and Saints Rest. This taste may help you to see what you lose while you abide in an unconverted state Direction 12. WHen you have thus considered of the condition you are in consider also whether Direct 12. it be a condition to be rested in one day § 1. If you die unconverted you are past all hope for out of Hell there is no redemption And Alienus est à â—ee qui ad â—â—â—â—ndam pâ—â—â—â—enâ—am tempuâ— expecâ—aâ—â—enecturis I◠〈◊〉 Pa â— in Aâ—â—ot 〈◊〉 12. Multos vitam differenteâ— morâ— incerta praeâ—â—nit Id. ib. ex Sâ—â—â—â— certain you are to dye ere long and uncertain whether it will be this night Luke 12. 20. You never lay down with assurance that you should rise again You never went out of doors with assurance to return You never heard a Sermon with assurance that you should hear another You never drew one breath with assurance that you should draw another A thousand accidents and diseases are ready to stop your breath and end your time when God will have it so And if you dye this night in an unregenerate state there is no more time or help or
hope And is this a case then for a wise man to continue in a day that can do any thing towards his own recovery Should you delay another day or hour before you fall down at the feet of Christ and cry for mercy and return to God and resolve upon a better course May I not well say to thee as the Angels unto Lot Gen. 19. 15 17 22. Arise lest thou be consumed Escape for thy life look not behind thee Direction 13. WHen thou art Resolved past thy waverings and delayes give up thy self entirely and Direct 13. unreservedly to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as thy Happiness thy Saviour and thy Sanctifier in an hearty Consent to the Covenant of Grace § 1. This is thy Christianity thy espousals with Christ It is Sacramentally done in Baptism But till it be personally owned and heartily renewed by men at age they have no reason to be numbered with adult believers nor to dream of a part in the blessings of the Covenant It 's pity it is not made a more serious solemn work for men thus to renew their Covenant with God For which I have written in a Treatise of Confirmation but hitherto in vain However do it seriously thy self It is the greatest and weightiest action of thy life § 2. To this end peruse well the Covenant of Grace which is offered thee in the Gospel Understand it well In it God offereth notwithstanding thy sins to be thy Reconciled God and Father in Christ and to accept thee as a Son and an heir of Heaven The Son offereth to be thy Saviour to justifie thee by his blood and grace and teach thee and govern thee as thy Head in order to thy everlasting happiness The Holy Spirit offereth to be thy Sanctifier Comforter and Guide to overcome all the enmity of the Devil the World and the Flesh in order to the full accomplishment of thy salvation Nothing is expected of thee in order to thy Title to the benefits of this Covenant but deliberately unfeignedly entirely to Consent to it and to continue that consent and perform what thou consentest to perform and that by the help of the grace which will be given thee See therefore that thou well deliberate of the matter but without delayes And count what thou shalt gain or lose by it And if thou find that thou art like to be a loser in the end and knowest of any better way even take it and boast of it when thou hast tryed the end But if thou art past doubt that there is no way but this despatch it resolutely and seriously § 3. And take heed of one thing lest thou say Why this is no more than every body knoweth and then I have done a hundred times to give up my self in Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Dost thou know it and yet hast thou not done it Or hast thou done it with thy lips and not unfeignedly with thy heart Lament it as one of thy greatest sins that thou hast thus provokingly dallied with God and admire his mercy that he will yet vouchsafe to enter into Covenant with one that hath hypocritically prophaned his Covenant If thou hadst ever seriously thus Covenanted and given up thy self to God thou wouldst not have neglected him by an ungodly life nor lived after to the Devil the world and the flesh which were renounced I tell you the making of this Christian Vow and Covenant with God in Christ is the act of greatest consequence of any in all thy life and to be done with the greatest judgement and reverence and sincerity and foresight and firm resolution of any thing that ever thou dost And if it were done sincerely by all that do it ignorantly for fashion only with the lips then all professed Christians would be saved whereas now the abusers of that holy Name and Covenant will have the deepest place in Hell Write it out on thy heart and put thy heart and hand to it resolvedly and stand to thy Consent and all is thine own Conversion is wrought when this is done Direction 14. IN present performance of thy Covenant with God away with thy former sinful life and Direct 14. see that thou sin wilfully no more but as far as thou art able avoid the temptations which have deceived thee § 1. God will never be reconciled to thy sins If he be reconciled to thy person it is as thou art justified by Christ and sanctified by the Spirit He entertaineth thee as one that turneth with repentance from sin to him If thou wilfully or negligently go on in thy former course of sin thou shewest that thou wast not sincerely resolved in thy Covenant with God § 2. I know infirmities and imperfections will not be so easily cast off but will cleave to thee in Nae illi falsi sunt qui diversissimas res pariter expectant voluptatem praemia virtutis Salust Tenebit te Diabolus sub specie libertatis addictum ut sit tibi liberum peccare non vivere Captivum te tenet author scelerum compedes tibi libidmis impoâ—uit undique te sepsit armata custodiâ Legem tibi dedit ut licitum putes omne quod non licet vivum te in aeternae mortis fovâ—am demersit Hâ—go Etherâ—anus de Aâ—imar regressa cap. 9. thy best obedience till the day of thy perfection come But I speak of gross and wilful sin such as thou canst forbear if thou be but sincerely though imperfectly willing Hast thou been a prophane Swearer or Curser or used to take Gods name in vain or used to backbiting slandering lying or to ribald filthy talk It is in thy power to forbear these sins if thou be but willing Say not I fall into them through custome before I am aware For that is a sign that thou art not sincerely willing to forsake them If thou were truly penitent and thy will sincerely opposite to these sins thou wouldst be more tender and fearful to offend and resolved against them and make a greater matter of them and abhor them and not commit them and say I did it before I was aware No more than thou wouldâ—t spit in the face of thy Father or curse thy Mother or slander thy dearest friend or speak Treason against the King and say I did it through custome before I was aware Sin will not be so played with by those that have been soundly humbled for it and resolved against it § 3. Hast thou been a Drunkard or Tipler spending thy precious hours in an Alehouse prating over a Pot in the company of foolish tempting sinners It is in thy power if thou be truly willing to do so no more If thou love and choose such company and places and actions and discourse how canst thou say thou art willing to forsake them or that thy heart is changed If thou do not love and choose them how canst thou commit them when none compells thee No one
as enough for you yea as All or else you take him not as your God Direction 18. IF you would prove true Converts come over to God as your Father and felicity with Direct 18. desire and delight and close with Christ as your only Saviour with thankfulness and joy and set upon the way of Godliness with pleasure and alacrity as your exceeding priviledge and the only way of profit honour and content and do it not as against your wills as those that had rather do otherwise if they durst and account the service of God an unsuitable and unpleasant thing § 1. You are never truly changed till your Hearts be changed And the Heart is not changed till Passibilis timor est irrationabilis ad irrationabiliâ— constitutâ—â— sed â—um praecipit qui cum disciplina recta ratione consistit cujus proprium est reverentia Qui enim propter Christum doctrinam â—jâ—s Deum timet cum reverentia ei subjectus est cum â—â—e qui per vâ—rbâ—â—a aliaque tormenta timer Deum passibilem timâ—rem habere videtur Dâ—dâ—rus Alâ—x 〈◊〉 Pâ—t 1. the Will or Love be changed Fear is not the man but usually is mixt with unwillingness and dislike and so is contrary to that which is indeed the Man Though fear may do much for you it will not do enough It is oft more sensible than Love even in the best as being more passionate and violent but yet there is no more Acceptableness in all than there is Will or Love God sent not Souldiers or Inquisitors or Persecutors to convert the world by working upon their Fear and driving them upon that which they take to be a mischief to them But he sent poor Preachers that had no matter of worldly fears or hopes to move their auditors with but had authority from Christ to offer them eternal life and who were to convert the world by proposing to them the best and most desirable condition and shewing them where is the true felicity and proving the certainty and excellency of it to them and working upon their Love Desire and Hope God will not be your God against your wills while you esteem him as the Devil that is only terrible and hurtful to you and take his service for a slavery and had rather be from him and serve the world and the flesh if it were not for fear of being damned He will be feared as Great and Holy and Iust but he will also be Loved as Good and Holy and Merciful and every way suited to be the felicity and Rest of souls If you take not God to be better than the Creature and better to you and Heaven to be better for you than earth and Holiness than Sin you are not converted But if you do then shew it by your willingness alacrity and delight Serve him with gladness and chearfulness of heart as one that hath found the way of life and never had cause of gladness until now If you see your servant do all his work with groans and tears and lamentations you will not think he is well pleased with his Master and his work Come to God willingly with your hearts or you come not to him indeed at all You must either make him and his service your delight or at least your Desire as apprehending him most fit to be your delight so far as you enjoy him Direction 19. REmember still that Conversion is the turning from your carnal selves to God and Direct 1â— therefore that it engageth you in a perpetual opposition to your own corrupt Conceits and Wills to mortifie and annihilate them and captivate them wholly to the holy Word and Will of God § 1. Think not that your Conversion dispatcheth all that is to be done in order to your salvation No it is but the beginning of your work that is of your delight and happiness You are but engaged by it to that which must be performed throughout all your lives It entereth you into the right way not to sit down there but to go on till you come to the desired end It entereth you into Christs Army that afterwards you may there win the Crown of life And the great Enemy that you engage against is your selves There will still be a Law in your members rebelling against the Law that the Holy Ghost hath put into your minds Your Own Conceits and your Own Wills are the great Rebels against Christ and enemies of your sanctification Therefore it must be your resolved daily work to mortifie them and bring them clean over to the Mind and Will of God which is their Rule and End If you feel any conceits arising in you that are contrary to the Scripture and quarrell with the Word of God suppress them as rebellious and give them not liberty to cavil with your Maker and malepertly dispute with your Governour and Judge but silence it and force it reverently to submit If you feel any Will in you contrary to your Creator's Will and that there is something which you would have or do which God is against and hath forbid you remember now how great a part of your work it is to fly for help to the Spirit of Grace and to destroy all such rebellious desires Think it not enough that you can bear the denyal of those desires but presently destroy the desires themselves For if you let alone the desires they may at last lay hold upon their prey before you are aware Or if you should be guilty of nothing but the Desires themselves it is no small iniquity being the corruption of the Heart and the Rebellion and Adultery of the principal faculty which should be kept loyal and chaste to God The crossness of thy Will to the Will of God is the summ of all the impiety and evil of the soul And the subjection and conformity of thy Will to his is the Heart of the New Creature and of thy Rectitude and Sanctification Favour not therefore any self-conceitedness or self-willedness nor any rebelliousness against the Mind and Will of God any more than you would bear with the dis-jointing of your bones which will be little for your ease or use till they are reduced to their proper place Direction 20. LAstly Be sure that you renounce all conceit of self-sufficiency or merit in any thing Direct 20. you do and wholly rely on the Lord Iesus Christ as your Head and Life and Saviour and Intercessor with the Father § 1. Remember that without him you can do nothing John 15. 5. Nor can any thing you do be acceptable to God any other way than in him the beloved Son in whom he is well pleased As your persons had never been accepted but in him no more can any of your services All your repentings if you had wept out your eyes for sin would not have satisfied the Justice of God nor procured you pardon and justification without the satisfaction and merit of Christ. If he
had not first taken away the sins of the world and reconciled them so far to God as to procure and tender them the pardon and salvation contained in his Covenant there had been no place for your Repentance nor faith nor prayers nor endeavours as to any hope of your salvation Your Believing would not have saved you nor indeed had any justifying object if he had not purchased you the promise and gift of pardon and salvation to all Believers § 2. Objection But perhaps you 'l say That if we had Loved God without a Saviour we should have been saved for God cannot hate and damn those that Love him To which I answer You could not have Loved God as God without a Saviour To have Loved him as the giver of your worldly prosperity with a Love subordinate to the Love of sin and your carnal selves and to Love him as one that you imagine so unholy and unjust as to give you leave to sin against him and prefer every Vanity before him this is not to Love God but to Love an Image of your own fantasie nor will it at all procure your salvation But to Love him as your God and Happiness with a superlative Love you could never have done without a Saviour For 1. Objectively God being not your Reconciled Father but your enemy engaged in Justice to damn you for ever you could not Love him as thus related to you because he could not seem amiable to you and therefore the damned hate him as their destroyer as the Thief or Murderer hates the Judge 2. And as to the Efficiency your blinded minds and depraved wills could never have been restored so far to their rectitude as to have Loved God as God without the teaching of Christ and the renewing sanctifying work of his Spirit And without a Saviour you could never have expected this gift of the Holy Ghost So that your supposition it self is groundless § 3. Indeed Conversion is your implanting into Christ and your uniting to him and marriage with him that he may be your life and help and hope He is the way the truth and the life and no man cometh to the Father but by him John 14. 6. God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his Son He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life 1 John 5. 11 12. He is the Vine and we are the branches As the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine so neither can we except we abide in him He that abideth not in Christ is cast forth as a branch and withered to be burned John 15. 4 5 6. All your life and help is in him and from him Without Christ you cannot Believe in the Father as in one that will shew you any saving Mercy but only as the Devils that believe him Just and tremble at his Justice without Christ you cannot Love God nor have any lively apprehensions of his Love Without Christ you can have no Hope of Heaven and therefore no endeavours for it Without him you cannot come near to God in prayer as having no confidence because no admittance acceptance or hope Without him how terrible are the thoughts of death which in him we may see as a conquered thing and when we remember that he was dead and is now alive and the Lord of life and hath the Keyes of Death and Hell with what boldness may we lay down this flesh and suffer death to undress our souls It is only in Christ that we can comfortably think of the world to come when we remember that he must be our Judge and that in our Nature glorified he is now in the Highest Lord of all and that he is preparing a place for us and will come again to take us to himself that where he is there we may be also John 14. 3. Alas without Christ we know not how to live an hour nor can have hope or peace in any thing we have or do nor look with comfort either upward or downward to God or the Creature nor think without terrors of our sins of God or of the life to come Resolve therefore that as true Converts you are wholly to Live upon Jesus Christ and to do all that you do by his Spirit and strength and to expect all your acceptance with God upon his account when other men are reputed Philosophers or Wise for some unsatisfactory knowledge of these transitory things do you desire to know nothing but a crucified and glorified Christ study him and take him objectively for your Wisdom When other men have confidence in the flesh and in their shew of Wisdom in Will-worship and Humility after the Commandments and Doctrines of men Col. 2. 20 21 22 23. and would establish their own righteousness do you rejoice in Christ your Righteousness And set continually before your eyes his Doctrine and Example as your Rule Look still to Iesus the Author and finisher of you faith who contemned all the Glory of the world and trampled upon its Vanity and subjected himself to a life of suffering and made himself of no reputation but for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and underwent the contradiction of sinners against himself Live so that you may truly say as Paul Gal. 2. 20. I am crucified with Christ Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me § 4. HAving given you these Directions I most earnestly beseech you to peruse and practise them that my labour may not rise up as a witness against you which I intend for your Conversion and Salvation Think on it Whether this be an Unreasonable course or an unpleasant life or a thing unnecessary and what is Reasonable necessary and pleasant if this be not And if you meet with any of those distracted sinners that would deride you from Christ and your Every one is not a Thief that a Dog barks at nor an hypocrite◠that hypocrites call so salvation and say this is the way to make men mad or this is more ado than needs I will not stand here to manifest their bruitishness and wickedness having largely done it already in my Book called A Saint or a Bruite and Now or Never and in the third Part of the Saints Rest But only I desire thee as a full defensative against all the pratings of the Enemies of a holy Heavenly life to take good notice but of these three things § 5. 1. Mark well the language of the holy Scriptures and see whether it speak not contrary to these men And bethink thee whether God or they be wiser and whether God or they must be thy Iudge § 6. 2. Mark whether these men do not change their minds and turn their tongues when they come to
In your Baptism you renounced the world with its pomps and vanity and now do you deifie what you then defied § 36. Temp. 18. Another Temptation is to draw on the sinner into such a custom in sin and long Tempt 18. neglect of the means of his Recovery till his Heart is utterly Hardened § 37. Direct 18. Against this read after Chap. 4. Part. 2. against Hardness of Heart Direct 18. Tempt 19. § 38. Temp. 19. Another Temptation is to Delay Repentance and purpose to do it hereafter § 39. Direct 19. Of this I entreat you to read the many Reasons which I have given to shame and Direct 19. waken delayers in my Book of Directions for a sound Conversion § 40. Tempt 20. The worst of all is to tempt them to flat unbelief of Scripture and the life Tempt 20. to come § 41. Direct 20. Against this read here Chap. 3. Dir. 1. Chap. 4. Part. 1. and my Treatise against Direct 20. Infidelity § 42. Temp. 21. If they will needs looks after Grace he will do all he can to deceive them with counterfeits Tempt 21. and make them take a seeming half conversion for a saving change § 43. Direct 21. Of this read my Directions for sound Conversion and the Formal Hypocrite and Direct 21. Saints Rest Part. 3. c. 10. § 44. Temp. 22. If he cannot make them flat Infidels he will tempt them to question and contradict Tempt 22. the sense of all those Texts of Scripture which are used to convince them and all those doctrines which grate most upon their galled consciences as of the Necessity of Regeneration the fewness of them that are saved the difficulty of salvation the torments of Hell the necessity of mortification and the sinfulness of all particular sins They will hearken what Cavillers can say for any sin and against any part of Godliness and with this they wilfully delude themselves § 45. Direct 22. But if men are resolved to joyn with the Devil and shut their eyes and â—avil Direct 22. against all that God speaketh to them to prevent their misery and know not because they will not know what remedy is left or who can save men against their wills This is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil He that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved John 3. 19 20. In Scripture some things are hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction 2 Pet. 3. 16. Of particulars read the end of my Treatise of Conversion § 46. Temp. 23. Yea Satan will do his worst to make them Hereticks and teach them some doctrine Tempt 23. of licentiousness suitable is their lusts It s hard being wicked still against Conscience in the open light This is kicking against the pricks too smarting work to be easily born Therefore the Devil will make them a Religion which shall please them and do their sins no haâ—m Either a Religion made up of loose Opinions like the Familists Ranters Libertines and Antinomians and the Jesuites too much or else made up of trifling formalities and a great deal of bodily exercise and Stage-actings and complement as much of the Popish devotion is And a little will draw a carnal heart to believe a carnal doctrine It s easier to get such a new Religion than a new heart And then the Devil tells them that now they are in the right way and therefore they shall be saved A great part of the world think their case is good because they are of such or such a Sect or Party and of that which they are told by their Leaders is the true Church and way § 47. Direct 23. But remember that what ever Law you make to your selves God will judge Direct 23. you by his own Law Falsifying the Kings Coyn is no good way to pay a debt but an addition of Treason to your former misery It is a new and a holy heart and life and not a new Creed or a new Church or Sect that is necessary to your salvation It will never save you to be in the soundest Church on earth if you be unsound in it your selves and are but the dust in the Temple that must be swept ouâ— Much less will it save you to make your selves a Rule because Gods Rule doth seem too strict § 48. Tempt 24. Another way of the Tempter is to draw men to take up with meer Convictions Tempt 24. instead of true Conversion when they have but learnt that it is Necessary to salvation to be Regenerate and have the Spirit of Christ they are as quiet as if this were indeed to be regenerate and to have the Spirit As some think they have attained to perfection when they have but received the opinion that perfection may here be had so abundance think they have sanctification and forgiveness because now they see that they must be had and without sanctification there is no salvation And thus the knowledge of all Grace and Duty shall go with them for the grace and duty it self and their judgement of the thing instead of the possession of it and instead of having grace they force themselves to believe that they have it § 49. Direct 24. But remember God will not be mocked He knoweth a convinced head from Direct 24. a holy heart To think you are Rich will not make you rich To believe that you are well or to know the remedy is not enough to make you well You may dream that you eat and yet awake hungry Isa. 29. 8. All the Land or money which you see is not therefore your own To know that you should be holy maketh your unholiness to have no excuse Ahab did not scape by believing that he should return in peace Self-flattery in so great and weighty a case is the greatest folly If you know these things happy are ye if you do them John 13. 17. § 50. Tempt 25. Another great Temptation is by hiding from men the intrinsick evil and odiousness Tempt 25. of â—in What harm saith the Drunkard and Adulterer and voluptuous Sensualists is there in all this that Preachers make so great ado against it What hurt is this to God or man that they would make us believe we must be damned for it and that Christ dyed for it and that the Holy Ghost must mortifie it Wherefore say the Iews Ier. 16. 10. hath God pronounced all this great evil against us or what is our iniquity or what is our sin that we have committed He that knoweth not God knoweth not what sin against God is especially when the Love of it and Delight in it blindeth them § 51. Direct 25. Against this I intreat you to ponder on those forty intrinsecal evils in sin which Direct 25. I have after
company or outward advantages to his Religion nor avoideth sin for want of a temptation but is Religious though against the stream and innocent when cast unwillingly upon temptations and is Godly where Godliness is accounted singularity hypocrisie faction humour disobedience or heresie and will rather let go the reputation of his honesty than his honesty it self Direct 2. TAke heed of being Religious only in Opinion without Zeal and holy practice or only in Direct 2. Zealous affection without a sound well grounded judgement But see that Iudgement Zeal and practice â—e conjunct § 1. Of the first part of this advice against a bare Opinionative Religion I have spoken already in my Directions for a Sound Conversion To change your Opinions is an easier matter than to change the Heart and Life A holding of the truth will save no man without a Love and practice of the truth This is the meaning of Iames 2. where he speaketh so much of the unprofitableness of a dead uneffectual belief that worketh not by love and commandeth not the soul to practice and obedience To believe that there is a God while you neglect him and disobey him is unlike to please him To believe that there is a Heaven while you neglect it and prefer the world before it will never bring you thither To believe your duty and not to perform it and to believe that sin is evil and yet to live in it is to sin with aggravation and have no excuse and not the way to be accepted or justified with God To be of the same Belief with holy men without the same hearts and conversations will never bring you to the same felicity He that knoweth his Masters will and doth it not shall be so far from being accepted for it that he shall be beaten with many stripes To believe that Holiness and Obedience is the best way will never save the disobedient and unholy § 2. And yet if Iudgement be not your Guide the most zealous affections will but precipitate you Scientiâ— quae est 〈…〉 ota à just 〈…〉 caâ—â—iditaâ— poâ—â—us quam sapientia 〈◊〉 est ◠〈◊〉 Of the necessity of Pâ—udence in Religious men â—ead 〈…〉 The unprudenciâ—s of welâ—-meaning men have done as much hurt to the Church sometimeâ— as the persecution of enemies e. g. When Coâ—stantine the Son of Constans was Emperour some busie men would prove from the Orthodoâ— Doctrine of the Trinity That his two Brethren Tibtrius and Heraclius should reign with him saying Si iâ— Trinitate creâ—iâ—â—is â—res etiam 〈…〉 which cost the chief of them a hanging Abbas Urspergens Edit Melancth p. 162. and make you run though quite out of the way like the Horses when they have cast the Coachman or the Riders To ride Post when you are quite out of the way is but laboriously to lose your time and to prepare for further labour The Jews that persecuted Christ and his Apostles had the testimony of Paul himself that they had a zeal of God but not according to knowledge And Paul saith of the deceivers and troublers of the Galathians whom he wisheth even cut off that they did zealously affect them but not well Rom. 10. 2. Gal. 4. 17. And he saith of himself while he persecuted Christians to prison and to death I was zealous towards God as ye are all this day Acts 22. 3 4. Was not the Papists Saint Dominick that stirred up the persecution against the Christians in France and Savoy to the murdering of many thousands of them a very zealous man And are not the Butchers of the inquisition zealous men And were not the Authors of the third Canon of the General Council at the Laterane under Pope Innocent the third very zealous men that decreed that the Pope should depose Temporal Lords and give away their Dominions and absolve their Subjects if they would not exterminate the godly called Hereticks Were not the Papists Powder-Plotters zealous men Hath not zeal caused many of later times to rise up against their lawful Governours and many to persecute the Church of God and depriue the people of their faithful Pastors without compassion on the peoples souls Doth not Christ say of such Zealots The time cometh when whosoever killeth you will think he doth God service John 16. 2. or offereth a service acceptable to God Therefore Paul saith It is good to be zealously affected alwayes in a good matter Gal. 4. 18. Shewing you that zeal indeed is good if sound judgement be its guide Your first question must be Whether you are in the right way and your second Whether you go apace It is sad to observe what odious actions are committed in all Ages of the world by the instigation of mis-guided zeal And what a shame an imprudent Zealot is to his profession while making himself ridiculous in the eyes of the adversaries he brings his prosession it self into contempt and maketh the ungodly think that the Religious are but a company of transported brain-sick Zealots And thus they are hardened to their perdition How many things doth unadvised affection provoke well-meaning people to that afterwards will be their shame and sorrow § 3. Labour therefore for knowledge and soundness of understanding that you may know truth from falshood good from evil and may walk confidently while you walk safely and that you become not a shame to your profession by a furious prosecution of that which you must afterwards confess to be an error by drawing others to that which you would after wish that you had never known your selves And yet see that all your knowledge have its efficacy upon your heart and life And take every truth as an instrument of God to reveal himself to you or to draw your heart to him and conform you to his holy will Direct 3. LAbour to understand the true Method of Divinity and see Truths in their several degrees Leg. Acost l. 4. c. 21. 22 de fructu catechizandi Et Li. 5. and order that you take not the last for the first nor the lesser for the greater Therefore see that you be well grounded in the Catechism and refuse not to learn some Catechism that is sound and full and keep it in memory while you live § 1. Method or right order exceedingly helpeth understanding memory and practice Truths Opas est imprimis duplici Catechismo Uno compendaâ—io brevi quem memoâ—iter addiscant ubi summa sit eorum omnium quae ad fidem mores Christiano sunt necessaria altero ubeâ—iore ubi eadem amplius dilucidiusque dicantur copiosius confirmentur Ut ille prioâ— discipulis potius hic posterior ipsâ— praeceptoribus usu sit Acosta l. 5. c. 14. p 490. have a dependance on each other The lesser branches spring out of the greater and those out of the stock and root Some duties are but means to other duties or subservient to them and to be measured accordingly And if it be not
your excellency The soul of Religion is departing from you and it is dying and returning to the dust And if once Man get the preheminence of God and be preferred and set above him in your hearts or lives and feared trusted and obeyed before him you are then dead to God and alive to the world and as Men are taken for your Gods you must take up with such a salvation as they can give you If your Alms and Prayers are done to be seen of men and to procure their good thoughts and words if you get them make your best of them For verily your Judge hath said unto you You have your reward Matth. 6. 1 2 3. Not that man is absolutely to be contemned or disregarded No under God your Superiours must Aâ—te 〈◊〉 sâ— voles aâ—â— haâ—e sedâ—m ae 〈…〉 am domum contuâ—â—t re 〈…〉 Sermoâ—â—bâ—s vuâ—gâ— dedeâ—â—s te nec in praeviâ—s humamanis â—pem posueris rerum tuarum suis te illecebrâ—s oportet ipsa viâ—tâ—s trahat ad verum dâ—â—uâ— Ciâ—râ— somâ— Sâ—â—p Cael stia sâ—mper â—pâ—â—tato â—â—â—â—a humana contemnito Id. Ibid. be obeyed you must do wrong to none and do good to all as far as in you lyeth you must avoid offence and give good example and under God have so much regard to men as to become all things to all men for their salvation But if once you set them above their rank and turn your selves to an inordinate dependance on them and make too great a matter of their opinion or words concerning you you are losing your godliness or divine disposition and turning it into man-pleasing and hypocrisie When man stands in competition with God for your first and chief regard or in opposition to him or as a sharer in co-ordination with him and not purely in subordination to him he is to be numbred with things to be forsaken Even good men whom you must love and honour and whose communion and help you must highly value yet may be made the object of your sin and may become your snare Your honouring of them or love to them must not entice you to desire inordinately to be honoured by them nor cause you to set too much by their approbation If you do you will find that while you are too much eying man you are losing God and corrupting your Religion at the very heart And you may fall among those that how Holy soever may have great mistakes in matters of Religion tending to much sin and may be somewhat censorious against those that are not of their mind and so the retaining of their esteem and the avoiding of their censures may become one of the greatest temptations of your lives And you will find that man-pleasing is a very difficult and yet unprofitable task Love Christ as he appeareth in any of his servants and be followers of them as they are followers of Christ and regard their approbation as it agreeth with Christs But O see that you are able to Live upon the favour of God alone and to be quietted in his acceptance though man despise you and to be Pleased so far as God is pleased though man be displeased with you and to rejoyce in his Justification though men condemn you with the odiousest slanders and the greatest infamy and cast out your names as evil doers See that God be taken as Enough for you or else you take him not as your God Even as Enough without man and Enough against man That you may be able to say If God be for us who can be against us Who is he that condemneth it is God that justifieth Rom. 8. 31 33 34. Do I seek to please men For if I yet pleased men I should not be a servant of Christ Gal. 1. 10. Jer. 17. 5. Thus saith the Lord Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and whose heart departeth from the Lord For he shall be like the Heath in the Desert and shall not see when good cometh Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is for he shall be as a Tree planted by the waters and that spreadeth out her roots by the Rivers and shall not see when heat cometh but her leaf shall be green and shall not be careful in the year of drought neither shall cease from yielding fruit Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils for wherein is be to be accounted of Isa. 2. 22. § 3. HAving given you these Directions I must tell you in the Conclusion that they are like foed that will not nourish you by standing on your Table or like Physick that will not cure you by standing in the Box They must be taken and digested or you will find none of the benefit It is not the Reading of them that will serve the turn to so great use as the safe proceeding and confirmation of beginners or Noâ—ices in Religion It will require humility to perceive the need of them and labour to learn digest and practise them Those slothful souls that will refuse the labour must bear the sad effects of their negligence There is not one of all these Directions as to the Matter of them which can be spared Study them Understand them and Remember them as things that must be done If either a senselesness of your necessity or a conceit that the Spirit must do it without so much labour and diligence of your own do prevail with you to put off all these with a meer approbation the consequent may be sadder than you can yet foresee Though I suppose you to have some beginnings of Grace I must tell you that it will be comparatively a sad kind of life to be erroneous and scandalous and troublesome to the Church or full of doubts and fears and passions and to be burdensome to others and your selves Yea it is reason that you be very suspicious of your Sincerity if you desire not to increase in grace and be not willing to use the means which are necessary to your encrease He is not sincere that desireth not to be perfect And he desireth not sincerely who is not willing to be at the labour and cost which is necessary to the obtaining of the thing desired I beseech you therefore as you love the happiness of prudent strong and comfortable Christians and would escape the misery of those grievous diseases which would turn your lives into languishing unserviceableness and pain that you seriously study these Directions and get them into your minds and memories and hearts and let the faithful practice of them be your greatest care and the constant employment of your lives CHAP. III. The General Grand Directions for Walking with God in a Life of Faith and Holiness Containing the Essentials of Godliness and Christianity I Am next to Direct you in that Exercise of Grace which is common to all Christians Habits are for Use Grace is given you not only that you may have it
but also that you may Use it And it is fit that we Direct you how to Use it before we direct you how to know that you have it because it is Grace in exercise that you must discern and Habits are not perceived in themselves but by their Acts And the more lively and powerful the exercise is the more easily is Grace perceived So that this is the nearest and surest way to a Certainty of our own sincerity He that Useth Grace most and best hath most Grace And he that hath most and useth it most may most easily be Assured that he hath it in sincerity and truth In these Directions I shall begin with those great internal duties in which the very Life of all Religion doth consist and the General Practice of these Principles and Graces and all these Generals shall be briefly set together for the easiness of Understanding and Remembring them And then I shall give you such Particular Directions as are needful in subordination to those Generals DIRECT I. Labour to understand well the Nature Grounds Reason and Order of Faith and Gr. Dir. 1. Godliness and to Believe upon such grounds so well understood as will not suffer For a well-grounded Faith you to stagger or entertain a contrary belief § 1. IGnorance and ungrounded or ill-grounded perswasions in matters of Religion are the cause that abundance of people delude themselves with the empty name and dead profession of a Faith and Religion which they never were indeed possessors of I know there are low degrees of knowledge comparatively in many that are true believers and that there may be much Love and Holiness where knowledge is very small or narrow as to the objective extent of it And that there is a knowledge that puffeth up while Charity edifieth And that in many that have the narrower knowledge there may be the fastest faith and adherence to the truth which will conquer in the time of tryal But yet I must tell you that the Religion which you profess is not indeed your own Religion if you know not what it is and know not in some measure the true Grounds and Reasons why you should be of that Religion If you have only learnt to say your Creed or repeat the words of Christian Doctrine while you do not truly understand the sense or if you have no better Reasons why you profess the Christian faith than the custom of the Countrey or the command of Princes or Governours or the Opinion of your Teachers or the example of your Parents friends or neighbours you are not Christians indeed You have a humane belief or opinion which objectively is true but subjectively in your selves you have no true divine belief I confess there may be some insufficient yea and erroneous Reasons which a true Believer may mistakingly make use of for the proof of certain fundamental truths But then that same man hath some other Reason for his reception of that truth which is more sound and his faith is sound because of those sound infallible principles though there be a mixture of some other Reasons that are unsound The true Believer buildeth on the Rock and giveth deep rooting to the holy seed Matth. 7. 24. 13. 5 8. Though some deluded men may tell you that Faith and Reason are such enemies that they exclude each other as to the same object and that the less Reason you have to prove the truth of the things believed the stronger and more laudable is your faith yet when it cometh to the tryal you will find that Faith is no unreasonable thing and that God requireth you to believe no more than you have sufficient reason for to warrant you aâ—â— bâ—â—r you out and that your faith can be no more than is your perception of the Reasons why you should believe and that God doth suppose Reason when he infuseth Faith and useth Reason in â—â—e usâ— of faith They that Believe and know not why or know no sufficient Reason to warâ—ant their Belief do take a fansie an Opinion or a dream for faith I know that many honest hearted Christians are unable to dispute for their Religion or to give to others a satisfactory account of the Reasons of their faith or hâ—pe But yet they have the true apprehension of some solid Reasons in themselves and they are not Christians they know not why And though their knowledge be small as to the number oâ— propositions known yet it doth alwayes extend to all that is essential to Christianity and Godliness and they do not believe they know not what And their knowledge is greater intensively and in its value and operation than the knowledge of the learnedst ungodly man in the world § 2. Though I may not here digress or stay so long as largely to open to you the Nature Grounds Reason and Method of Faith and Godliness which I am perswading you to understand yet I shall first â—â—y before you a few Propositions which will be useful to you when you are enquiring into these things and then a little open them unto you Prop. 1. A life of Godliness is our living unto God as God as being absolutely addicted to him 2. A life of Faith is a living upon the unseen everlasting Happiness as purchased for us by Christ with all the necessaries thereto and freely given us by God 3. The contrary life of sense and unbelief is a living in the prevalency of sense or flesh to this present world for want of such believing apprehensions of a better as should elevate the soul thereto and conquer the fleshly inclination to things present 4. Though man in innocency needing no Redeemer might live to God without faith in a Redeemer yet lapsed man is not only unable to Redeem himself but also unable to live to God without the grace of the Redeemer It was not only necessary that he satisfie Gods justice for us that he may pardon and save us without any wrong to his Holiness Wisdom or Government but also that he be our Teacher by his Doctrine and his Life and that he Reveal from Heaven the Fathers will and that Objectively in him we may see the wonderful condescending Love and Goodness of a Reconciled God and Father and that effectually â—e illuminate sanctifie and quicken us by the operations of his Word and Spirit and that he protect and govern justifie and glorifie us and be the Head of Restored Man as Adam was the Root of lapsed man and as the lapsed Spirits had their Head And therefore we must wholly Live upon him as the Mediator between God and man and the only Saviour by Merit and by â—fficacy 5. Faith is a knowledge by certain credible Testimony or Revelation from God by means supernatural or extraordinary 6. The knowledge of things naturally revealed as the cause by the effect c. is in order before the Knowledge or Belief of things revealed supernaturally 7. It is matter of natural Revelation
above in a Heavenly conversation and then your souls will be alwayes Direct 11. in the light and as in the sight of God and taken up with those businesses and delights which put them out of rellish with the baits of sin § 43. Direct 12. Let Christian watchfulness be your daily work And cherish a preserving though Direct 12. not a distracting and discouraging fear § 44. Direct 13. Take heed of the first approaches and beginnings of sin Oh how great a matter Direct 13. doth a little of this fire kindle And if you fall rise quickly by sound repentance whatever it may cost you § 45. Direct 14. Make Gods Word your only Rule and labour diligently to understand it Direct 14. § 46. Direct 15. In doubtful Cases do not easily depart from the unanimous judgement of the generality of the most wise and godly of all ages § 47. Direct 16. And in doubtful Cases be not passionate or rash but proceed deliberately and Direct 15. prove things well before you fasten on them § 48. Direct 17. Be acquainted with your bodily temperature and what sin it most enclineth you Direct 16. to and what sin also your Calling or converse doth lay you most open to that there your watch may be the stricter Of all which I shall speak more fully under the next Grand Direction § 49. Direct 18. Keep in a life of holy Order such as God hath appointed you to walk in For Direct 18. there is no preservation for straglers that keep not Rank and File but forsake the order which God commandeth them And this order lyeth principally in these points 1. That you keep in Union with the Universal Church Separate not from Christs body upon any pretence whatever With the Church as Regenerate hold spiritual communion in faith love and holiness with the Church as Congregate and Visible hold outward Communion in Profession and Worship 2. If you are not Teachers live under your particular faithful Pastors as obedient Disciples of Christ. 3. Let the most godly if possible be your familiars 4. Be laborious in an outward Calling § 50. Direct 19. Turn all Gods Providences whether of prosperity or adversity against your sins If Direct 19. he give you health and wealth remember he thereby obligeth you to obedience and calls for special service from you If he afflict you remember that it is sin that he is offended at and searcheth after and therefore take it as his Physick and see that you hinder not but help on its work that it may purge away your sin § 51. Direct 20. Wait patiently on Christ till he have finished the cure which will not be till this Direct â—â— trying life be finished Persevere in attendance on his Spirit and Means for he will come in season and will not tarry Hos. 6. 3. Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord His going forth is prepared as the morning and he shall come unto us as the rain as the later and former rain upon the earth Though you have oft said There is no healing Jer. 14. 19. He will heal your back-slidings and love you freely Hos. 14. 4. Unto you that fear his name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings Mal. 4. 2. And blessed are all they that wait for him Isa. 30. 18. Thus I have given such Directions as may help for Humiliation under sin or hatred of it and deliverance from it DIRECT IX Spend all your dayes in a skilful vigilant resolute and valiant War against the Flesh Gr. Dir. 9. Our Warfare under Christ against the Tempter the World and the Devil as those that have covenanted to follow Christ the Captain of your Salvation § 1. THe Flesh is the End of Temptation for all is to please it Rom. 13. 14. and therefore is Sâ—e my Trea 〈…〉 the greatest enemy The world is the Matter of Temptation And the Devil is the first mover or efficient of it and this is the Trinity of enemies to Christ and us which we renounce in Baptism and must constantly resist Of the world and flesh I shall speak Chap. 4. Here I shall open the Methods of the Devil And first I shall prepare your understanding by opening some presupposed truths § 2. 1. It is presupposed that there is a Devil He that believeth not this doth prove it to others by shewing how grosly the Devil can befool him Apparitions Witchcrafts and Temptations are full proofs of it to sense besides what Scripture saith § 3. 2. It is supposed that he is the deadly enemy of Christ and us He was once an Angel and â—f the Temptations to hinder Conversion see before Chap. 1. sell from his first estate by sin and a world of evil Spirits with him and it is probable his envy against mankind might be the greater as knowing that we were made to succeed him and his followers in their state of glory For Christ saith that we shall be equal with the Angels Luke 20. 36. He shewed his enmity to man in our innocency and by his temptation caused our fall and misery But aâ—ter the fall God put an enmity into the nature of man against Devils as a merciful preservative against temptation so that as the whole nature of man abhorreth the nature of Serpents so doth the soul abhor and dread the diabolical nature And therefore so far as the Devil is seen in a temptation now so far it is frustrated till the enmity in nature be overcome by his deceits And this help nature hath against temptation which it seems our nature had not before the fall as not knowing the malice of the Devil against us § 3. There is a Natural enmity to the Devil himself put into all the womans natural seed But the moral enmity against his sinful temptations and works is put only into the spiritual seed by the Holy Ghost except what remnants are in the light of Nature I will be brief of all this and the next having spoken of them more largely in my Treatise against Infidelity Part. 3. page 190. § 13 c. § 4. The Devils names do tell us what he is In the Old Testament he is called 1. The Serpent Gen. 3. 2. The Hebrew word translated Devils in Levit. 17. 7. and Isa. 13. 21. signifieth Viâ— Pools Sy 〈…〉 Levit. 1. 77 Iâ—â—hese later 〈…〉 th the 〈◊〉 disposition which Satan as a Tempter causeth and so he is known by it as his Off-spring â—â—iâ—y as Satyrs are described and sometime Hee-goats Because in such shapes he oft appeareth 3. He is called Satan Zech. 3. 1. 4. An evil Spirit 1 Sam. 18. 10. 5. A lying Spirit 1 Kings 22. 22. For he is a lyar and the Father of it John 8. 44. 6. His off-spring is called A Spirit of uncleanness Zech. 13. 2. 7. And he or his Spawn is called A Spirit of fornication Hos. 4. 12. that is
holy fetcht from Heaven § 19. Tempt 9. He would keep you in a lazy sluggish coldness to read and hear and pray as asleep Tempt 9. as if you did it not § 20. Direct 9. Awake your selves with the presence of God and the great concernment of what Direct 9. you are about and yield not to your sloth § 21. Tempt 10. He would make you bring a divided distracted heart to duty that is half about your Tempt 10. worldly business § 22. Direct 10. Remember God is jealous your business with him is great much lyeth on it Direct 10. call off your hearts and let them not stay behind all the powers of your souls are little enough in such a work Ezek. 33. 31. § 23. Tempt 11. Ignorance unskilfulness and unacquaintedness with duty is a great impediment Tempt 11. to most § 24. Direct 11. Learn by study joyned with practice Be not weary and difficulties will be Direct 11. overcome § 25. Tempt 12. Putting duty out of its place and neglecting the season that is fittest makes it oft Tempt 12. done slightly § 26. Direct 12. Redeem time and dispatch other business that idleness deprive you not of leisure Direct 12. and do all in order § 27. Tempt 13. Neglecting one duty is the Tempters snare to spoil another If he can keep you Tempt 13. from reading you will not understand well what you hear If he keep you from meditating you will not digest what you hear or read If he keep you from hearing you will want both matter and life for prayer and meditation and conference If he keep you from godly company you will be hindered in all and in the practice No one is omitted but you are disadvantaged by it in all the rest § 28. Direct 13. Observe how one duty helpeth another and take all together each one in its Direct 13. place § 29. Tempt 14. Sometime the Tempter doth call you off to other duty and puts in unseasonable Tempt 14. motions to that which in its time is good he interrupts prayer by meditation he sets seeming truth against Love and Peace and Concord § 30. Direct 14. Still know which duties are greatest and which is the due season for each and do Direct 14. all in order § 31. Tempt 15. He spoileth duty by causing you to do it only as a duty and not as a means for the Tempt 15. good of your own souls or only as a Means and not as a Duty If you do it only as a Duty then you will not be quickned to it by the ends and benefits nor carryed by Hope nor fit all to the end nor be so fervent or vigorous in it as the sense of your own good would make you be And if you do it only as a Means and not as a Duty then you will give over or faint when you want or question the success Whereas the sense of both would make you vigorous and constant § 32. Direct 15. Keep under the sense of Gods Authority that you may feel your selves bound Direct 15. to obey him whatever be the success and may resolve to wait in an obedient way And withall admire his wisdom in fitting all Duties to your Benefit and commanding you nothing but what is for your own or others good or to his honour And mark the Reason and tendency of all and your own Necessity § 33. Tempt 16. The Tempter hindereth you in duty as well as from duty by setting you a quarrelling Tempt 16. with the Minister the words the company the manner the circumstances that these things may divert your thoughts from the matter or distract your mind with causeless scruples § 34. Direct 16. Pray and labour for a clear judgement and an upright self-judging humble Direct 16. heart wihch dwelleth most at home and looketh most at the spiritual part and affecteth not singularity § 35. Tempt 17. The Tempter spoileth duty by your unconstancy While you read or pray so seldom Tempt 17. that you have lost the benefit of one duty before you come to another and cool by intermissions § 36. Direct 17. Remember that it is not your divertisement but your Calling and is to your Direct 17. soul as eating to your Bodies § 37. Tâ—mpt 18. Sometime Satan corrupteth Duty by mens private passions interest and opinions Tempt 1â— making men in preaching and praying to vent their own conceits and spleen and inveigh against those that diâ—â—er from them or ofâ—end them and prophane the name and work of God or proudly to seek the praise of men § 38. Direct 18. Remember that God is most jealous in his Worship and hateth hypocritical prophanâ—ss Tempt 18. above all prophaness Search your hearts and mortifie your passions and specially selfishness Remembring that it is a poysonous and insinuating sin and will easily hide it self with a Cloke of â—eal § 39. Tempt 19. False-hearted Reservedness is a most accursed corrupter of holy duty when the soul Tempt 19. is not wholy given up to God but sets upon duty from some common motive as because it is in credit or to pleasâ— sâ—me friend purposing to try it a while and leave it if they like it not § 40. Direct 19. Fâ—ar God thou Hypocrite and halt not between two opinions If the Lord be Direct 12. God â—bâ—y and sâ—rve him with all thy heart But if the Devil and the flesh be better Masters follow them and let him go § 41. Tempt 20. Lastly The Tempter hindereth holy duty much by wandring thoughts and melancholy Tempt 20. perplexities and a hurry of Temptations which torment and distract some Christians so that they â—ry out I cannot pray I cannot meditate and are weary of duty and even of their lives § 42. Direct 20. This sheweth the malice of the Tempter and thy weakness but if thou hadst Direct 20. rather be delivered from it it hindereth not thy acceptance with God Read for this what I have said Chap. 5. Part. 2. at large specially in my Directions to the Melancholy § 43. I have been forced to put off many things briefly here which deserved a larger handling and I must now omit the discovery of those Temptations by which Satan keepeth men in sin when he hath draâ—n them into it 2. And those by which he causeth declining in grace and Apâ—staâ—y 3. And those by which he discomforteth true Believers because else this Direction would swell to a Treatiâ—â— and most will think it too long and tedious already though the Brevity which I use to avoid prâ—liâ—ity doth wrong the matter through the whole Acquaintance with Temptations is needful to our overcoming them DIRECT X. Your lives must be laid out in doing God service and doing all the good you can in Gr. Dir. 10 â—â—â—â— sâ—rving Christ ouâ— Master in good works works of piety justice and charity with prudence fidelity industry
But the misery is that few of the ignorant and weak have knowledge and humility enough â—o pâ—rceive their ignorance and weakness but they think they speak as wisely as the best and are offended if their words be not reverenced accordingly As a Minister should study and labour for a skill and ability to preach because it is his work so every Christian should study for skill to discourse with wisdom and meet expressions about holy things because this is his work And as unfit expressions and behaviour in a Minister do cause contempt instead of edifying so do they in discourse § 31. Direct 10. When ever Gods holy Name or Word is blasphemed or used in levity or jeast Direct 10. or a holy life is made a scorn or God is notoriously abused or dishonoured be ready to reprove it with gravity where you can and where you cannot at least let your detestation of it be conveniently manifested Of Prayer I have spoken aâ—terwaâ—d Among those to whom you may freely speak lay open the greatness of their sin Or if you are unable for long or accurate discourse at least tell them who hath said Thou shalt Tom. 2. c. not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain And where your speech is unmeet as to some Superiours or is like to do more harm than good let your departing the room or your looks or rather your tears shew your dislike Directions for the glorifying God in our Lives § 32. Direct 1. Our Lives then glorifie God when they are such as his Excellencies most appear in Direct 1. And that is when they are most Divine or Holy when they are so managed that the world may see that Turâ—issimum est Philosopho secus docere quam viviâ— Paul Scaligâ—r p. 728. it is God that we have chiefly respect unto and that HOLINESS TO THE LORD is written upon all our faculties and affairs So much of GOD as appeareth in our lives so much they are truly venerable and advanced above the rank of fleshly worldly lives God only is the real glory of every person and every thing and every word or action of our lives And the natural conscience of the world which in despight of their Atheism is forced to confess and reverence a Deity will be forced even when they are hated and persecuted to reverence the appearance of God in his holy ones Let it appear therefore 1. That Gods Authority commandeth you above all the powers of the earth and against all the power of fleshly lusts 2. That it is the Glory and Nam illa quae de regno calorum commâ—mâ—rantur à nâ—bâ—â— dâ—que praesentâ—um reâ—um contâ—mpâ—u vel non caâ—â—unt vel non â—aâ—â—le sibi peâ—suadeâ—t cum sâ—rmo factis evertitur Interest of God that you live for and look after principally in the world and not your own carnal interest and glory And that it is his work that you are doing and not your own and his cause and not your own that you are engaged in 3. That it is his Word and Law that is your Rule 4. And the example of his Son that is your pattern 5. And that your hearts and lives are moved and acted in the world by motives fetcht from the Rewards which he hath promised and the punishments which he hath threatned in the world to come 6. And that it is a supernatural powerful principle sent from God into your hearts even the Holy Ghost by which you are inclined and actuated in the tenor of your lives 7. And that your daily converse is with God and that men and other creatures are comparatively nothing to you but are made to stand by while God is preferred and honoured and served by you and that all your business is with him or for him in the world Acâ—staâ—l 4. c. 18. p. 418. § 33. Direct 2. The more of Heaven appeareth in your Lives the more your Lives do glorifie God Worldly and carnal men are conscious that their glory is a vanishing glory and their pleasure but a transitory dream and that all their honour and wealth will shortly leave them in the dust And Direct 2. therefore they are forced in despight of their sensuality to bear some reverence to the life to come And though they have not hearts themselves to deny the pleasures and profits of the world and to spend their dayes in preparing for eternity and in laying up a treasure in Heaven yet they are convinced that those that do so are the best and wisest men and they could wish that they might dye the death of the righteous and that their last end might be like his As Heaven exceedeth Earth even in the reverent acknowledgement of the World though not in their practical esteem and choice so Heavenly Christians have a reverent acknowledgement from them when malice doth not hide their Heavenliness by slanders though they will not be such themselves Let it appear in your lives that really you seek a higher happiness than this world affordeth and that you verily look to live with Christ and that as Honour and Wealth and Pleasure command the lives of the ungodly so the hope of Heaven commandeth yours Let it appear that this is your design and business in the world and that your Hearts and conversation are above and that whatever you do or suffer is for this and not for any lower end and this is a life that God is glorified by § 34. Direct 3. It glorifieth God by shewing the excellency of faith when we contemn the riches Direct 3. and honours of the world and live above the worldlings life accounting that a despicable thing which he accounts his happiness and loseth his soul for As men despise the toyes of children so a believer must take the transitory vanities of this world for matters so inconsiderable as not to be worthy his regard save only as they are the matter of his duty to God or as they relate to him or the life to come Saith Paul 2 Cor. 4. 18. We look not at the things which are seen they are not worth our observing or looking at but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal The world is under a believers feet while his eye is fixed on the coelestial world He travelleth through it to his home and he will be thankful if his way be fair and if he have his daily bread but it is not his home nor doth he make any great matter whether his usage in it be kind or unkind or whether his Inn be well adorned or not He is almost indifferent whether for so short a time he be rich or poor in a high or in a low condition further than as it tendeth to his Masters service Let men see that you
20. Insomuch as it sâ—â—mâ—th one of the greatest impediments to the Conversion of the Heathen and Mahomâ—tan world and the chiefest means of confirming them in their Iâ—â—â—â—delity and making them hate and scorn Christianity that the Romish and the Eastern and Southern Churches within their view do worship God so dishonourably as they do as if our God were like a little Child that must have pretty toyes bought him in the Fair and brought home to please him Whereas it the unreformed Churches in the East West and South were Reformed and had a Learned Pious Able Ministry and clearly preached and seriously applyed the Word of God and worshipped God with understanding gravity reverence and serious spirituality and lived a holy heavenly mortified self-denying conversation this would be the way to propagate Christianity and win the Infidel world to Christ. § 43. Direct 12. If you will glorifie God in your lives you must be above a selfish private narrow Direct 12. mind and must be chiefly intent upon the publick good and the spreading of the Gospel through the world A selfish private narrow soul brings little honour to the cause of God It s alwayes taken up about it self or imprisoned in a corner in the dark to the interest of some Sect or Party and seeth not how things go in the world Its desires and prayers and endeavours go no further than they can see or travel But a larger soul beholdeth all the earth and is desirous to know how it goeth with the Cause and Servants of the Lord and how the Gospel gets ground upon the unbelieving Nations and such are affected with the state of the Church a thousand miles off almost as if it were at hand as being members of the whole body of Christ and not only of a Sect. They pray for the Hallowing of Gods Name and the coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his will throughout the Earth as it is in Heaven before they come to their own necessities at least in order of esteem and desire The prosperity of themselves or their Party or Countrey satisfieth them not while the Church abroad is in distress They live as those that know the Honour of God is more concerned in the welfare of the whole than in the success of any party against the rest They pray that the Gospel may have free course and be glorified abroad as it is with them and the Preachers of it be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men 2 Thess. 3. 1 2. The silencing the Ministers and suppressing the interest of Christ and souls is the most grievous tydings to them Therefore they pray for Kings and all in authority not for any carnal ends but that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty 1 Tim. 2. 1 2 3. Thus God must be glorified by our Lives DIRECT XVI Let your life on Earth be a conversation in Heaven by the constant work of Gr. Dir. 16. Faith and Love even such a faith as maketh things future as now present and the unseen world as if it were continually open to your sight and such a Love as makes you long to see the glorious face of God and the glory of your dear Redeemer and to be taken up with blessed Spirits in his perfect endless Love and Praise MY Treatise of The Life of Faith and the fourth Part of The Saints Rest being written wholly or mostly to this use I must refer the Reader to them and say no more of it in this Direction DIRECT XVII As the soul must be carried up to God and devoted to him according to all the Gr. Dir. 17. foregoing Directions so must it be delivered from carnal selfishness or flesh-pleasing I pass not this by as a small matter to be passed by also by the Reader For I take the Love of God kindled by Faith in Christ with the full Denyal of our carnal selves to be the sum of all Religion But because I would not injure so great a duty by saying but a little of it And therefore desire the Reader who studieth for Practice and needeth such helps to peruse the mentioned Books of Self-denyal and Crucifying the World which is the grand enemy to God and Godliness in the world and from the three great branches of this Idolatry viz. the Love of sensual pleasures the Love of worldly wealth and the proud desire and Love of worldly honour and esteem And the mortifying of these must be much of the labour of your lives OF this also I have written so much in a Treatise of Self-denyal and in another called The Crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ that I shall now pass by all save what will be more seasonable anon under the more Particular Directions in the fourth Tome when I come to speak of Selfishness as opposed to the Love of others I Have now given you the General Grand Directions containing the very Being and Life of Godliness and Christianity with those particular sub-directions which are needful to the performance of them And I must tell you that as your life and strength and comfort principally depend on these so doth your success in resisting all your particular sins And therefore if you first obey not these General Directions the more particular ones that follow will be almost useless to you even as branches cut off from the Stock of the Tree which are deprived thereby of their support and life But upon supposition that first you will maintain these Vital parts of your Religion I shall proceed to Direct you first in some particulars most nearly subordinate to the forementioned duties and then to the remoter branches APPENDIX The true Doctrine of LOVE to GOD to HOLINESS to OUR SELVES and to OTHERS opened in certain Propositions Especially for resolving the Questions what self-love is lawful What sinful Whether God must be loved above our own felicity And how Whether to Love our felicity more than God may stand with a state of saving grace Whether it be a middle state between sensuality and the Divine nature to Love God more for our selves than for Himself Whether to Love God for our selves be the state of a Believer as he is under the promise of the New Covenant And whether the spirit and sanctification promised to Believers be the Love of God for himself and so the Divine nature promised to him that chooseth Christ and God by him out of self-love for his own felicity How God supposeth and worketh on the principle of self-love in mans Conversion With many such like To avoid the tediousness of a distinct debating each Question THough these things principally belong to the Theorie and so to another Treatise in hand called Methodus Theologiae yet because they are also Practical and have a great influence upon the more Practical Directions and the right understanding of them may help the Reader himself to determine a multitude of Cases of Conscience the
this to encrease and multiply your pleasure Is not health and friends and food and convenient habitation much sweeter as the â—ruit of the Love of God and the fore-tastes of everlasting mercies and as our helps to Heaven and as the means to spiritual comfort than of themselves alone All your mercies are from God He would take nâ—ne from you but sanctifie theâ— and give you more § 26. Direct 5. See that Reason keep up its authority as the Governour of sense and appetite And Direct 5. so take an accounâ— whatâ—ver the Appetite would have of the Ends and Reasons of the thing and to what it doth câ—â—duce Take nothing and do nothing meerly because the sense or appetite would have it but because you have Reason so â—â— do and to gratifie the appetite Else you will deal as Brutes if Reason be laid by in humane acts § 27. Direct 6. Go to the Gâ—ave and see there the end of fleshly pleasure and what is all that it Direct 6. will do for you at the last One would think iâ— should cure the mad desire of plenty and pleasure to see where all our wealth and mirth and sport and pleasure must be buryed at last § 28. Direct 7. Lastly be still sensible that flesh is the grand Enemy of your souls and flesh-pleasing Direct 7. the greatest hinderance of your salvation The Devils enmity and the worlds are both but subordinate to this of the Flesh For its Pleasure is the End and the world and Satans temptations are both but the means to attain it Besides the malignity opened before consider 1. How contrary a voluptuous life is to the blessed example of our Lord and of his servant Paul The enmity of the Flesh. and all the Apostles Paul tamed his body and brought it into subjection left having preached to others himself should be a castaway 1 Cor. 9. 27. And all that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof Gal. 5. 24. This was signified in the antient manner of baptizing and so is still by Baptism it self when they went over head in the water and then rose out of it to signifie that they were dead and buried with Christ Rom. 6. 3 4. and rose with him to newness of life This is called our being Baptized into his death And seems the plain sense of 1 Cor. 15. 29. of being Baptized for the dead that is for dead or to shew that we are dead to the world and must dye in the world but shall rise again to the Kingdom of Christ both of Grace and Glory 2. Sensuality sheweth that there is no true belief of the life to come and proveth so far as it prevaileth the absence of all grace 3. It is a home-bred continual traytor to the soul A continual tempter and nurse of all sin The great withdrawer of the heart from God and the common cause of Apostacy it self It still fighteth against the Spirit Gal. 5. 17. And is seeking advantage from all our Liberties Gal. 5. 13. 2 Pet. 2. 10. 4. It turneth all our outward mercies into sin and strengthneth itself against God by his own benefits 5. It is the great cause of our afflictions For God will not spare that Idol which is set up against him Flesh rebelleth and flesh shall suffer 6. And when it hath brought affliction it is most impatient under it and maketh it seem intollerable A flesh-pleaser thinks he is undone when affliction depriveth him of his pleasure 7. Lastly It exceedingly unfitteth men for Death For then Flesh must be cast into the dust and all its pleasure be at an end O doleful day to those that had their good things here and their portion in this life When all is gone that ever they valued and sought and all the true felicity lost which they brutishly contemned If you would joyfully then bear the dissolution and ruine of your flesh O master it and mortifie it now Seek not the ease and pleasure of a little walking breathing clay when you should be seeking and fore-tasting the everlasting pleasure Here lyeth your danger and your work Strive more against your own flesh than against all your Enemies in Earth and Hell If you be saved from this you are saved from them all Christ suffered in the flesh to tell you that it is not pampering but suffering that your flesh must expect if you will reign with him CHAP. V. Further Subordinate Directions for the next great duties of Religion necessary See the Directions how to spend every day Tom. 2. Chap. 17. to the right performance of the former Directions for REDEEMING or well improving TIME § 1. TIME being Mans opportunity for all those works for which he liveth and which his Creator doth expect from him and on which his endless life dependeth the REDEEMING or well improving of it must needs be of most high importance to him And therefore it is well made by holy Paul the great mark to distinguish the Wise from fools Ephes. 5. 15 16. See then that ye walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise Redeeming the time So Col. 4. 5. I shall therefore give you special Directions for it when I have first opened the nature of the duty to you and told you what is meant by Time and what by Redeeming it § 2. Time in its most common acception is taken generally for all that space of this present life What 's meant by Time which is our opportunity for all the works of life and the measure of them Time is often taken more strictly for some special Opportunity which is fitted to a special work which we call the season or the fittest time In both these senses Time must be Redeemed § 3. As every work hath its season which must be taken Eccles. 3. 1. So have the greatest works What are the special seasons of duty assigned us for God and our souls some special seasons besides our common time 1. Some Times God hath fitted by Nature for his service So the Time of Youth and health and strength is specially fit for holy work 2. Some Time is made specially fit by Gods Institution As the Lords Day above all other dayes 3. Some Time is made fit by Governours appointment as the hour of publick Meeting for Gods Worship and Lecture-dayes and the hour for family-worship which every Master of a family may appoint to his own houshold 4. Some Time is made fit by the temper of mens Bodies The Morning hours are best to most and to some rather the Evening and to all the Time when the Body is freest from pain and disabling weaknesses 5. Some Time is made fit by the course of our necessary natural or civil business as the day is fitter than the sleeping time of the night and as that hour is the fittest wherein our other imployments will least disturb us 6. Some Time is made fit by a special showr of Mercy publick
interâ—ss him in all § 26. Direct 12. Let every meditation be undertaken in a humble sense of thy own insufficiency Direct 12. with a believing dependance on thy Head and Saviour to guide and quicken thee by his holy Spirit and to cover the infirmities of thy holiest thoughts Whatever good is written upon our hearts must be written by the Spirit of the living God and this trust we must have through Christ to Godward not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God 2 Cor. 3. 3 4 5. How heavily will all go on or rather how certainly shall we labour in vain and cast off all if Christ cast us off and leave us to our selves Think not that your life and strength is radically in your selves Go to him by renewed acts of faith by whom you must be quickned § 27. Direct 13. Let not your holy thoughts be so seldom as to keep you strange to the matter of Direct 13. your meditations nor so short as to be gone before you have made any thing of it Now and then a cursory thought will not acquaint the soul with God nor bring it to a habit and temperament of holiness Whereas that which you think on frequently and seriously as your business and delight will become the nutriment and nature of your souls As the air which we daily breathe in and the food which we daily live upon doth to our bodies And you will find that as use will breed skill and strength so it will cause such acquaintance and familiarity as will very much tend to the fruit and comfort of the work Whereas they that only cast now and then a look at God and holiness or are seldom and short in holy thoughts do lose so quickly the little which they get that it makes no great alteration on them § 28. Direct 14. Yet do not over-do in point of violence or length but carry on the work sincerely Direct 14. according to the abilities of your minds and bodies lest going beyond your strength you craze your brains and discompose your minds and disable your selves to do any thing at all Though we cannot estimatively love God too much yet is it possible to think of him with too much passion or too long at once Because it may be more than the Spirits and brain can bear And if once they be overstrained if they break not like a Lute-string screwed too high they will be like a legg that is out of joint that can pain you but not bear you While the soul â—ideth on so lame or dull a Horse as the body is it must not go the pace which it desireth but which the body can bear or else it may quickly be dismounted or like one that rideth on a tired Horse It is not the Horse that goeth at first with chafing heat and violence which will travel best But you must put on in the pace that you are able to hold out You little know how lamentable and distressed a case you will be in or how great an advantage the Tempter hath if once he do but tire you by over-doing § 29. Direct 15. Choâ—se not unnecessarily or ordinarily the bitterest or most unpleasant subjects for Direct 15. your meditation lest you make it grow a burden to you but dwell most on the sweet delightful thoughts of the infinite Love of God revealed by Christ and the eternal glory purchased by him and the wonderful helps and mercies in the way As it is the Gospel which Christs Ministers must preach to others so it is the Gospel which in your Meditations you must preach most to your selves It s Love and Pleasure which you must principally endeavour to excite And you must do it by contemplating amiableness and felicity the objects of love and pleasure For the thoughts of terror and wrath and misery are unfit to stir up these Though to the unconverted dull secure presumptuous or sensual sinner such thoughts are very necessary to awake him and prepare him for the thoughts of love and peace It is the principal part of this art to keep off loathing and aversness and to keep up readiness and delight § 30. Direct 16. When you are in company let out the fruit of your secret meditations in holy Direct 16. edifying discourse Gather not for your selves only but that you may communicate to others The good Scribe instructed to the Kingdom of God must bring forth out of his treasure things new and old Matth. 13. 52. That is Good which doth good God is communicative and the best men are likest to him Nay a fluent discourse sometimes is a great instructer to our selves and bringeth those things into our minds with clearness which long meditation would not have done For one thing leadeth in another and in a warm discourse the Spirits are excited and the understanding and memory are engaged to a close attention so that just in the speaking we have oft-times such a sudden appearance of some truth which before we took no notice of that we find it is no small addition to our knowledge which comes in this way As some find that vocal prayer doth more excite them and keep the mind from wandring than meer mental prayer doth so free discourse is but a vocal meditation And what mans thoughts are not more guilty of disorder vagaries and interruptions than his discourse is § 31. Direct 17. Obey all that God revealeth to you in your meditations and turn them all into Direct 17 faithful practice and make not thinking the end of thinking Else you will but do as the ungodly and disobedient in their prayers Eccles. 5. 1 2. who offer to God the Sacrifice of fools and consider not that they do evil Away with the sin and do the duty on which you think § 32. Direct 18. Think not that the same measure of contemplation and striving with their own affections Direct 18. is necessary to all but that an obediential active life may be as acceptable to God when he calleth men to it as a more contemplative life This leadeth me necessarily to give you some Directions about the difference of these wayes Tit. 4. The Difference between a Contemplative life and an obedient active life with Directions concerning them THis task will be best performed by answering those Questions which here need a Solution § 1. Quest. 1. What is a Contemplative Life and what is an Active obediential life Quest. 1. Answ. Every active Christian is bound to somewhat of contemplation and all contemplative persons What is a contemplative life are bound to Obedience to God and to so much of Action as may answer their abilities and opportunities But yet some are much more called to the one and some to the other And we denominate from that which is most eminent and the chief We call that a Contemplative life when a mans state and calling
moderation in the heart and cureth those bloodshotten eyes which are unable till cured to discern the truth It helpeth us to knowledge and to that which is more edifying and keepeth knowledge from puffing us up And experience will tell you at long running that among Antients and Moderns Greeks and Latines Papists and Protestants Lutherans and Calvinists Remonstrants and Contraremonstrants Prelatists Presbyterians Independents c. commonly the Moderaters are not only the best and most charitable but the wisest most judicious men § 61. Direct 19. With all your Readings still joyn the reading of the Scriptures and of the most Direct 19. holy and practical Divines not fantastical Enthusiastick counterfeits Paracelsian Divines but those that lead you up by the solid doctrine of faith and Love to true Devotion and Heavenly mindedness and conversation § 62. This must be your bread and drink your daily and substantial food without this you may soon be filled with air that cannot nourish you and prove in the end as sounding brass and tinkling Cymbals These will breed strength and peace and joy and help you in your Communion with God and hopes of Heaven and so promote the End of all your Studies There is more life and sweetness in these than in the things that are more remote from God and Heaven § 63. Direct 20. Lastly Do all as dying men promise not your selves long life lest it tempt you Direct 20. to waste your time on things least necessary and to loiter it away or lest you lose the quickning benefit which the sight of death and eternity would yield you in all your studies § 64. The nearer you apprehend your selves to death and Heaven the greater help you have to be mortisied and Heavenly This will make you serious and keep up right intentions and keep out wrong ones and powerfully help you against temptations that when you have studied to save others you may not be cast-awayes nor be cheated by the Devil with the shell and leaves and flowers while you go without the saving fruit § 65. I have spoken the more on this subject of Governing the Thoughts because it is so great and excellent a part of the work of man and God doth so much regard the heart and the Spirit of Christ and Satan so much strive for it and grace is so much employed about it and our Happiness or misery Joy or sorrow is greatly promoted by our Thoughts And more I would have said but that in the third Chapter and in my Treatise of the Divine Life there is much said already And for a Method and Directions for particular Meditations I have given it at large in the fourth Part of the Saints Rest from whence it may easily be taken and applyed to other subjects as it is there to Heaven It is easie to write and read Directions but I fear lest slothfulness through the difficulty of Practice will frustrate my Directions to the most But if any profit by them my labour is not lost CHAP. VII Directions for the Government of the Passions § 1. THE Passions are to be considered 1. As in themselves and the sin of them as respecting God and ourselves only And so I am to speak of them here 2. As they are a wrong to others and a breach of the commandments which require Love and duty towards our Neighbour And so I shall speak of them after § 2. Passions are not sinful in themselves for God hath given them to us for his service And there is none of them but may be sanctified and used for him But they are sinful 1. When they are misguided and placed on wrong objects 2. When they darken reason and delude the mind and keep out truth and seduce to error 3. When they rebel against the Government of the will and trouble it and hinder it in its choice or prosecution of good or urge it violently to follow their bruitish inclination 4. When they are unseasonable 5. Or immoderate and excessive in degree 6. Or of too long continuance 7. And when they tend to evil effects as to unseemly speeches or actions or to wrong another § 3. Passions are Holy when they are devoted to God and exercised upon him or for him They are Good when 1. They have right objects 2. And are guided by Reason 3. And are obedient to the well-guided will 4. And quicken and awake the Reason and the will to do their duty 5. And tend to good effects exciting all the other powers to their office 6. And exceed not in degree so as to disturb the brain or body Tit. 1. Directions against all sinful Passions in general § 4. Direct 1. TRust not to any present actual resistance without any due Habitual mortification of Direct 1. Passions and fortification of the soul against them Look most to the holy constitution of your mind and life and then sinful Passions will fall off like scabs from a healthful body when the blood is purified § 5. No wonder if an unholy soul be a slave to Passion when the Body is inclined to it For such a one is under the power of selfishness carnality and worldliness and from under the Government of Christ and his spirit and wanteth that life of Grace by which he should cure and subdue the corruptions of nature The way for such a one to master passion is not to strive by natural selfish principles and reasons which are partial poor and weak but to look first to the main and to seek with speed and earnestness for a New and sanctified heart and get Gods Image and his spirit and renewing quickning Grace This is the only effectual conqueror of Nature A dull and gentle disposition may seem without this to conquer that which never much assaulted it the tryal of such persons being some other way But none conquereth Satan indeed but the spirit of Christ. And if you should be free from passion and not be free from an unholy carnal worldly heart you must perish at last if you seemed the â—almest persons upon earth Begin therefore at the foundation and see that the Body of sin be mortified and that the whole tree be rooted up which beareth these evil bitter fruits and that the Holy victorious new-nature be within you and then you will resist sin with Light and Life which others resist but as in their sleep § 6. Direct 2. More particularly let your souls be still possessed with the fear of God and live as in Direct 12. his family under his eye and Government that his authority may be more powerful than temptations and your holy converse with him may make him still more regarded by you than men or any creatures And then this Sun will put out the lesser lights and the thunder of his voice will drown the whisperers that would provoke you and the humming of those wasps which make you so impatient God would make the creature nothing and then it would do
this comparison to presumption But I know also that a Christian may and must use it against Despair and not think of God and the Redeemer as if he would save so few as are next to none at all § 31. Direct 20. Remember that God commandeth faith and hope and forbiddeth unbelief and despair Direct 20. and that it is your sin And will you sin more when you have sinned so much already What if you Psal. 33 18. 42 5. 43 5. 147. 11. 71. 14. see no other reason why you should Hope and why you should not despair but Gods command Is not that enough I charge you in the name of God obey him and despair not Sin not wilfully thus against him Psal. 146. 5. 31. 24. Rom. 8. 24. 15. 4 13. Col. 1. 23. 1 Thes. 5. 8. Heb. 3. 6. 6. 11 18 19. Tit. 1. 2. Hope is your duty and dare you plead against duty Despair is your sin and will you justifie it Yea consider what a deal of comfort is in this For if there were no Hope of your salvation God would never have made it your Duty to hope nor forbidden you to despair He doth not bid the Devils nor the damned Hope as he doth you He forbiddeth not them to despair as he doth you There is cause for this He would have done it if your condition were as Hopeless as theirs is § 32. Direct 21. If God forbid you to despair it s certainly the Devil that biddeth it And will you Direct 21. knowingly obey the Devil What if the Devil perswaded you to it openly with his own mouth would you not know that it is bad which such an enemy draweth you to Methinks this should be a very great comfort to you to think that it is the Devil that perswadeth you to despair For that proveth that you should not despair and that proveth that your case is not desperate but hopeful § 33. Direct 22. Think whither it tendeth to despair is to give up all hopes of your salvation Direct 22. and when you have no hope you will use no means for to what purpose should a man seek for that which he hath no hopes to find And so when this weight is taken off all the wheels stand still The meaning of the Devil hath two parts the first is Do not hear nor read nor pray nor seek advise nor talk any more about it with good people for there is no hope And the next part is either make away thy self or else sin boldly and take the pleasure of sin while thou maist for there is no hope of any better And dost thou think that either of these is from God Or is it for thy good what is the meaning of all but cast away thy soul while thou Hopest thou wilt seek and use some means but to cast away hope is to cast away all And hast thou so far lost self-love as to be thy self the doer of such a deed § 34. Direct 23. Think what a wrong thou dost to the Father the Saviour and the Sanctifier of souls Direct 23. to think so poorly and despairingly of his grace as if it were not able to prevail against thy sin and to obscure thus the glory of his redemption and to believe the Devil in his slandering extenuating and dishonouring that in God which he will have most glorified by sinners § 35. Direct 24. Bethink thee what one person thou canst name in all the world that ever perished Direct 24. or was rejected that was willing in this life to be saved and sanctified by Christ and had rather have Christ and perfect holiness than the treasures or pleasures of the world Name me any one such person if thou canst but I am sure thou canst not And dost thou fear that which never was done to any one or think that Christ will begin with thee § 36. Direct 25. Up man and be doing and resolve in despight of the Devil that thou wilt wait on Direct 25. God in the use of means and cast thy self on Christ and if thou perish thou wilt perish there Do this and thou shalt never perish Thou canst not do worse than Despair and give up all nor canst thou please the Devil more nor displease God more nor wrong Christ and the spirit more Thou art certain that thou canst lose nothing by trusting thy soul on Christ and hoping in him and patiently using his means Do but this and hope shall save thee when Satan by despair would damn thee § 37. Direct 26. Understand in what time and order it is that that Christ giveth his grace and saveth Direct 26. his people from their sins that he doth it not all at once but by degrees and taketh all the time of this present life to do it in As able as your Physicion is he will not finish the cure till your life be finished The next life is the state of absolute perfection All things are imperfect here Despair not therefore of all that you have not yet attained Your sin may be more mortified yet and your grace yet more strengthened If it be done before you come to judgement it s well for you Do your part in daily diligence Do you plant and water and he will give the increase Read more of this bâ—forâ— Part 2. against Melancholy CHAP. VIII Directions for the Government of the Senses PART I. General Directions for the Government of the Senses by a Life of Faith § 1. THE most wise and gracious God having been pleased to constitute us of soul and body that our nobler part in its preparation and passage to a nobler state might have a companion and instrument suited to the lower place and employment through which it is to pass hath appointed our senses not only for the exercise and helps of life and the management of our inferiour actions and the communication of his inferiour mercies but also to be the common passage to the fantasie and so to the mind to be serviceable to our Rational powers and help in our service of our Maker and communion with him in his higher gifts To these ends all our senses should be used as being capable of being sanctified and serviceable to God But sin made its entrance by them and by sin they are now corrupted and vitiated with the body and are grown inordinate violent and unruly in their appetite and the rational powers having lost and forsaken God their proper End and chiefest Object have hired or captivated themselves to the sensitive appepetite to serve its Ends. And so the sensitive appetite is become the ruling faculty in the unsanctified and the senses the common entrance of sin and instruments of Satan And though the work of Grace be primarily in the Rational powers yet secondarily the lower powers themselves also are sanctified and brought under the Government of a renewed Mind and Will and so restored to their proper
be contemned Mark here the difference between the mentioning of good mens falls by the Godly and by the Ungodly The Godly mention them to make sin appear a thing more to be feared and watcht against and Holiness to appear more excellent and necessary But the ungodly mention them and read them in Scripture to make themselves believe that sin is not so bad and dangerous a thing as Preachers tell them and that Holiness doth but little differ from a fleshly life § 51. Direct 5. Iudge not of Gods servants barely by report without some considerable acquaintance Direct 5. with them I cannot remember one of a multitude of the enemies scorners and persecutors of Godliness great or small high or low but such as never had the happiness to be well acquainted with them by any familiarity or observation of the secret passages of their lives But usually they are such as know them but by report or by sight or small acquaintance And if they did but live with them in the same houses or were of their familiarity it were the likeliest way to change their minds and speeches unless their acquaintance were only with some of the more ignorant passionate or distempered sort of Christians § 52. Direct 6. Take heed of uncharitableness and malice against any but especially the servants of Direct 6. Christ. For this blinds the judgement and mads men with a venemous kind of passion and will make them scorn and rage against the most holy servants of the Lord. The least true Love to a Christian as a Christian would do much to the cure of all this sin § 53. Direct 7. Take heed of being engaged in a sect or faction and take heed of the carnal zeal of Direct 7. schism and of the spirit of faction which ordinarily makes men think it lawful if not necessary to scorn the persons that seem against them that so they may disable them from hindering the interest of their cause or party Thus Papists and thus the factious ones of every Party think that their revilings are but the necessary disarming of the enemies of God for such all must seem that differ from them And a stripping them of that honour by which they might do hurt Thus good is pretended for the most odious evil and God is set up against that Love which is the fullfilling of his Law and made the Prov 1. 2â— 27. Patron of the scorners of his children But surely he scorneth the scorners Prov. 3. 34. § 54. Direct 8. Take heed of error and infidelity For if the understanding be once deluded and Direct 8. take Religion it self to be but a deceit or fansie and Godliness to be but conceit and hypocrisie no wonder if it be made a scorn by such And such scorners will justifie themselves in it and think they do no harm So great a plague is a blinded mind I have said less against this Devillish sin than the nature of it requireth because I have already said so much especially in three Treatises viz. The Vain Religion of the formal Hypocrite That called Now or Never and a Saint or a Bruit I conclude with these earnest requests to the Godly 1. Give men no occasion of scorn by your imprudence scandal selfishness or passion as you tender the honour of God and mens Salvation As Chrysostom saith As he that beareth the Kings Standard in fight had need to be well guarded so he that carryeth the name and profession of God and Godliness 2. Be not discouraged by scorners These are but Socrates cum fuisset a quodam calce percussus admiramibus illius tolerantiam dixit Quid si me asinus calce impeâ—isset Num illi diem dixissem easie in comparison of what Christ suffered for you and what the scorners themselves must suffer CHAP. X. Directions for the Government of the Body PART 1. Directions about our Labour and Callings Tit. 1. Directions for the Right choice of our Calling and ordinary Labour I Have already spoken of Christian works and the duty of our Callings Chap. 3. Gr. Dir. 10. And am now only to subjoyn these few Directions for the right choosing of your Callings For of the Using of them I must speak more anon § 1. Direct 1. Understand how necessary a life of labour is and the reasons of the necessity Direct 1. Quest. 1. Is Labour necessary to all Or to whom if not to all Answ. It is necessary as a duty to Quest. 1. all that are Able to perform it But to the unable it is not necessary As to Infants and sick persons Is labour necessary to all or distracted persons that cannot do it or to prisoners or any that are restrained or hindered unavoidably by others or to people that are disabled by age or by any thing that maketh it naturally impossible § 2. Quest. 2. What Labour is it that is necessary Answ. Some labour that shall employ the faculties of Quest. 2. the soul and body and be profitable as far as may be to others and our selves But the same kind What labour iâ— necessary of Labour is not necessary for all In some Labours the mind is more employed than the body As in the labours of a Magistrate a Minister a Physicion a Lawyer c. Though some in these may have much bodily labour also The Labour of some is almost only of the mind As 1. Of Students in Divinity Philosophy Law Physick c. Who are but preparing themselves for a Calling 2. Of some Ministers or other godly persons who by the iniquity of the place or times where they live may for a season be disabled from appearing among men and labouring for any except by the mind being imprisoned or driven into solitude or otherwise made uncapable 3. Of men that have some extraordinary necessity for a season to converse with God and themselves alone As men that are near death and have need to lay by all other labours to prepare themselves Though usually even they that are near death should labour the good of others to the last and in so doing they profit and prepare themselves The Labour of some others is more of the Body than the mind As most Tradesemen and day-labourers And the Labour of some is equally of the body and mind as some painful Ministers and Physicions See 1 Cor 9 6. 2 Cor. 6. 1. 1 Cor. 16. 10. 2 Tim 2. 15. Scribes and Artificers of more ingenious professions as Watchmakers Printers Builders c. Some of these are fittest for one man and some for another § 3. Quest. 3. May not Religion excuse men from all other labour save prayer and contemplation Answ. Religion Quest. 3. is our obligation to obey God God bindeth us to do all the good we can to others Some men Will Religion excuse from labour See before Chap. 6. Tit. 4. of this And in my Treat of Divine Life Part 3. that have
and bad remember that there is Direct 4. the greater duty inâ—umbent on you to carry your self towards them in a vigilant convincing manner so as tendeth most to make them better Take them not as you buy a horse or an Ox with a purpose only to use them for your work But remember they have immortal souls which you take charge of PART II. Directions for the right choice of Masters SEeing the happiness of a servant the safety of his soul and the comfort of his life depend very much upon the family and place which he liveth in it much concerneth every prudent servant to be very careful in what place or family he take up his abode and to make the wisest choice he can § 1. Direct 1. Above all be sure that you choose not for meer fleshly ease and sensuality and take not Direct 1. that for the best place for you where you may have most of your own carnal will and pleasure I know that fleshly graceless servants will hear this Direction with as ill a will as a Dog when he is forbidden his meat or carrion I know I speak against their very nature and therefore against their very hearts and therefore they will think I speak against their interest and good And therefore I may perswade them to this course a hundred times before they will believe me or obey my counsel All ungodly fleshly servants do make these the only signs of a good place or desirable service for them 1. If they may do what work they will and avoid that which they dislike If they may do that which is easie and not that which is hard And that which is an honour to them and not that which seemeth inferior and base 2. If they may work when they will and give over when they will 3. If they may rise when they will and go to bed when they will 4. If they may eat and drink what they will and fare well to the pleasing of their appetites 5. If they may speak when they will and what they have a mind to speak 6. If they may have leave when they will to sport and play and be wanton and vain and wast their time which they call being merry 7 If they may wear the best apparel and go fine 8. If their Masters will be liberal to them to maintain all this and will give them what they would have 9. If their Masters and fellow servants carry it respectfully to themâ— and praise them and make somebody of them and do not dishonour them nor give them any displeasing words 10. And if they are not troubled with the precepts of Godliness nor set to learn the Scripture or Catechized nor called to account about the state of their souls or the ground of their hopes for the life to come nor troubled with much praying or repeating sermons or religious exercise or discourse or any thing that tendeth to their salvation Nor be restrained from any sin which they have a mind to nor reproved for it when they have done it These are an ungodly carnal persons conditions or signs of a good service Which is in a word to have their own wills and flâ—shly desires and not to be crossed by their Masters wills or the will of God Which in effect is to have the greatest helps to do the Devils will and to be damned § 2. Direct 2. See that it be your first and principal care to live in such a place where you have the Direct 2. greatest helps and smallest hinderances to the pleasing of God and the saving of your souls And in such a place where you shall have no liberty to sin nor have your fleshly will fullfilled but shall be best instructed to know and do the will of God and under him the will of your Superiors It is the mark of those that God forsaketh to be given up to their own wills or to their own hearts lusts to walk in their own counsels Psal. 81. 12. To live after the flesh is the certain way to enless misery Rom. 8. 8 13. To be most subject to the will of God with the greatest mortification and denial of our own wills is the mark of the most obedient holy soul. Seeing then that Holiness and self-denial the Loving of God and the mortifying of the flesh are the life of grace and the health and rectitude of the soul and the only way under Christ to our salvation you have great reason to think that place the best for you in which you have most helps for Holiness and self-denial And not only to bear patiently the strictness of your superiors and the labour which they put you upon for your souls but also to desire and seek after such helps as the greatest mercies upon earth First seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness Labour not first for the food that perisheth but for that which endureth to everlasting life Matth. 6. 33. John 6. 27. Take care first that your souls be provided for and take that for the best service which helpeth you most in the service of God to your salvation § 3. Direct 3. If it be possible live where there is a faithful powerful convincing Minister whose Direct 3. publick teaching and private counsel you may make vse of for your souls Live not if you can avoid it under an ignorant dead unprofitable teacher that will never afford you any considerable help to lift up your hearts to a heavenly conversation But seeing you must spend the six days in your labour â—â—ve where you have the best helps to spend the Lords-day for the quickning and comfort of your souls that in the strength of that holy food you may chearfully perform your sanctified labours on the week days following Be not like those bruitish persons that live as if there were no life but this and therefore take care to get a place where their bodies may be well fed and cloathed and may have case and pleasure and preferment for the world but care not much what Teacher there is to be their Guide to Heaven nor whether ever they be seriously foretold of the world to come or not § 4. Direct 4. Live if you can obtain so great a mercy with superiors that fear God and will have Direct 4. a care of your souls as well as of your bodies and will require you to do Gods service as well as their own and not with worldly ungodly Masters that will use you as they do their beasts to do their work and never take care to further your salvation For 1. The curse of God is in the families of the ungodly and who would willingly live in a house that God hath cursed any more than in an house that is haunted with evil spirits But God himself doth dwell with the godly and by many promises hath assured them of his love and blessing The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked but he
the greatest helps for Heaven and hath the fewest hindrances and in which you may be most serviceable to God before you dye If you will but practise these few Directions which your own hearts must say have no harm in any of them what happy persons will you be for ever CHAP. XIII The Duties of Servants to their Masters IF Servants would have comfortable lives they must approve themselves and their service unto God because from him they must have their comforts which may be done by following these Directions § 1. Direct 1. Reverence the providence of God which calleth you to a servants life and murmur Direct 1. not at your labour or your low condition but know your mercies and be thankful for them Though perhaps you have more labour than your Masters yet have you not less care than they Most servants may have quieter lives if it were not for their unthankful discontented hearts You are not troubled with the care of providing your Landlords rent or meat and drink and wages for your servants nor with the wants and desires of Wives and children nor with the faults and naughtiness of such as you must use or trust nor with the losses and crosses which your Masters are lyable to Be thankful to God who for a little bodily labour doth free you from the burden of all these cares § 2. Direct 2. Take your condition as chosen for you by God and take your selves as his servants Direct 2. and your work as his and do all as to the Lord and not only for man and expect from God your chief reward You will be else but eye-servants and hypocrites if the fear of God do not awe your consciences And if you were the best servants to your Masters in the world and did not all in obedience to God it were but a low unprofitable service If you believe that there is an infinite distance between God and man you may conceive what a difference there is between serving God and man Your wages is all your reward from man but eternal life is Gods reward And the very same work and labour which one man hath but his years wages for another hath everlasting life for though not of Merit yet of the bounty of our Lord Rom. 6. 23. Because he doth it in love and obedience to that God who hath promised this reward Col. 3. 22 23 24 25. Servants obey in all things your Masters according to the flesh not with eye-service as men-pleasers but in singleness of heart fearing God And whatsoever thing ye do do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance for ye serve the Lord Christ But he that doth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done and there is no respect of persons The like is in Ephes. 6. 5 6 7 8. So much doth God respect the heart that the very same action hath such different successes and rewards as it is done to different ends and from different principles your lowest service may be thus sanctified and acceptable to God § 3. Direct 3. Be consâ—ionable and faithful in performing all the labour and duty of a servant Direct 3. Neglect not such business as you are to do nor do it not lazily and deceitfully and by the halves As it is thiâ—very or deceit for a man in the Market to sell another the whole of his commodity and when he hath done to keep back and defraud him of a part So is it no less for a servant that selleth his time and labour to another to defraud him of part of that time and service which you sold him Think not therefore that it is no sin to idle away an hour which is not your own or to slabber over the work which you undertake to do Slothfulness and unconscionableness make servants deceitful Such care not how they do their work if they can but make their Masters believe that it is done well They are hypocrites in their service that take more care to seem painful trusty servants than to be so and to hide their faults and slothfulness than to avoid them As if it were as easie to hide them also from God who hath resolved to punish all the wrong they do their Masters Col. â— 25. If they can but loyter and take their â—ase and their Masters know it not they are never troubled at it as a sin against God Laziness and fleshly mindedness doth so blind them that they think it is no sin to take as much ease as they can so they carry it fair and smoothly with their Masters and to slubber over their business any how so that it will but serve the turn Whereas if their Masters should keep back any of their wages or put more work upon them than is meet they would easily be perswaded that this were a sin If your labour be such as would hurt your health as by wet or cold c. you may foresee it and avoid it in your choice of places but if it be only the Labour that you grudge at it is a sign of a fleshly and unfaithful person as long as it is not excessive to wrong your health nor hurt your souls by denying you leisure for your duty to God The Lord himself commandeth you to be obedient in singleness of heart as unto Christ not as eye-servants and whatever you do to do it heartily knowing that what ever good thing any man doth the same shall he receive of the Lord Eph. 6. 5 6 8. Col. 3. 23. § 4. Direct 4. Be more careful about your duty to your Masters than about their duty or carriage to Direct 4. you Be much more careful what to do than what to receive and to be good servants than to be used as good servants Not but you may modestly expect your due and to be used as servants should be used but your Duty is much more to be regarded For if your Master wrong you that is his sin and none of yours God will not be offended with you for anothers faults but for your own nor for being wronged but for doing wrong And its better suffer the greatest wrong than offend God by committing the smallest sin § 5. Direct 5. Be true and faithful in all that is committed to your trust Dispose not of any thing Direct 5. that is your Masters without his consent Though you may think it never so reasonable or well done yet remember that it is none of your own If you would relieve the poor or please a fellow-servant or do a kindness to a neighbour do it of your own and not of anothers unless you have his allowance Be as thristy for your Masters as you would be for your selves Waste no more of his goods than you would do if it were your own Say not as false servants do my Master is rich enough and it will do him no harm
will be but a temptation to waste your time and neglect greater duty and to make you grow customary and sensless of such sins and mercies when the same come to be recited over and over from day to day But let the common mercies be more generally recorded and the common sins generally confessed yet neither of them therefore slighted and let the extraordinary mercies and greater sins have a more particular observation And yet remember that sins and mercies which it is not fit that others be acquainted with are safelyer committed to memory than to writing And methinks a well humbled and a thankful heart should not easily let the memory of them slip § 20. Direct 20. When you compose your selves to sleep again commit your selves to God through Direct 20. Christ and crave his protection and close up the day with some holy exercise of Faith and Love And if you are persons that must needs lye waking in the night let your meditations be holy and exercised upon that subject that is profitablest to your souls But I cannot give this as an ordinary direction because that the body must have sleep or else it will be unfit for labour and all thoughts of holy things must be serious and all serious thoughts will hinder sleep and those that wake in the night do wake unwillingly and would not put themselves out of hopes of sleep which such serious meditations would do Nor can I advise you ordinarily to rise in the night to prayer as the Papists Votaries do For this is but to serve God with irrational and hurtful ceremony And it is a wonder how far such men will go in Ceremony that will not be drawn to a life of Love and spiritual Worship Unless men did irrationally place the service of God in praying this hour rather than another they might see how improvidently and sinfully they lose their time in twice dressing and undressing and in the intervals of their sleep when they might spare all that time by sitting up the longer or rising the earlier for the same employment Besides what tendency it hath to the destruction of health by cold and interruption of necessary rest when God approveth not of the disabling of the body or destroying our health or shortning life no more than of murder or cruelty to others but only calleth us to deny our unnecessary sensual delights and use the body so as it may be most serviceable to the soul and him I have briefly laid together these twenty Directions for the right spending of every day that those that need them and cannot remember the larger more particular Directions may at least get these few engraven on their minds and make them the daily practice of their lives which if you will sincerely do you cannot conceive how much it will conduce to the holiness fruitfulness and quietness of your lives and to your peaceful and comfortable death CHAP. XVIII Tit. 1. Directions for the holy spending of the Lords Day in Families § 1. Direct 1 BE well resolved against the Cavils of those carnal men that would make you believe Direct 1. that the holy spending of the Lords Day is a needless thing For the Name Since the writing of this I have published a Treatise of the Lords Day whether it shall be called The Christian Sabbath is not much worth contending about Undoubtedly the Name of The Lords Day is that which was given it by the Spirit of God Rev. 1. 10. and the antient Christians who sometime called it The Sabbath by allusion as they used the names Sacrifice and Altar The question is not so much of the Name as the Thing whether we ought to spend the day in holy exercises without unnecessary divertisements And to settle your consciences in this you have all these evidences at hand § 2. 1. By the confession of all you have the Law of Nature to tell you that God must be openly worshipped and that some set time should be appointed for his Worship And whether the fourth Commandment be formally in force or abrogated yet it is commonly agreed on that the parity of reason and general equity of it serveth to acquaint us that it is the will of God that one day in seven be the least that we destinate to this use this being then judged a meet proportion by God himself even from the Creation and on the account of commemorating the Creation and Christians being no less obliged to take as large a space of time who have both the Creation and Redemption to commemorate and a more excellent manner of Worship to perform § 3. 2. It is confessed by all Christians that Christ rose on the first day of the Week and appeared to his congregated Disciples on that day and powred out the Holy Ghost upon them on that day and that the Apostles appointed and the Christian Churches observed their assemblies and communion ordinarily on that day And that these Apostles were filled with the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost that they might infallibly acquaint the Church with the Doctrine and Will of Jesus Mar. 16. 2 9. Luke 24. 1. Christ and leave it on record for succeeding ages and so were entrusted by Office and enabled by gifts to settle the Orders of the Gospel-Church as Moses did the matters of the Tabernacle and Worship then and so that their Laws or Orders thus setled were the Laws or Orders of the Holy Ghost Iohn 20. 1 19 26. Acts 2. 1. Acts 20. 7. 1 Cor. 16. 1 2. Rev. 1. 10. Matth. 28. 19 20 Iohn 16. 13 14 15. Rom. 16. 16. 2 Thess. 2. 15. § 4. 3. It is also confessed that the Universal Church from the dayes of the Apostles down till now hath constantly kept holy the Lords Day in the memorial of Christs Resurrection and that as by the will of Christ delivered to them by or from the Apostles In so much that I remember not either any Orthodox Christian or Heretick that ever opposed questioned or scrupled it till of late ages And as a historical discovery of the matter of fact this is a good evidence that indeed it was settled by the Apostles and consequently by Christ who gave them their Commission and inspired them by the Holy Ghost § 5. 4. It is confessed that it is still the practice of the Universal Church And those that take it to be but of Ecclesiastical appointment â—â—me of them mean it of such extraordinary Ecclesiasticks as inspired Apostles and all of them take the appointment as obligatory to all the members of the Church § 6. 5. The Laws of the Land where we live command it and the King by Proclamation urgeth the execution and the Canons and Homilies and Liturgy shew that the holy observation of the Lords Day is the judgement and will of the Governours of the Church Read the Homilies for the Time and place of Worship Yea they require the people to say when the fourth Commandment is
that the Preacher would have marked and because the understanding of that will much help you to understand all the rest which dependeth on it and relateth to it § 6. Direct 6. Mark most those things which are of greatest weight and â—nâ—eâ—â—ent to your souls And Direct 6. do not â—ix upon some little sayings and by discourses or witty sentences like Children thâ—â— bring home some scraps and words which they do but play with § 7. Direct 7. Learn first your Catechisms at home and the great Essential points of Religion Direct 7. contained in the Creâ—d the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments And in your Hearing first labour to get a clearer understanding of these And then the lesser branches which grow out of these will be the better understood You can scarce bestow too much care and pains in learning these great essential points It is the fruitfullest of all your studies Two things further I here advise you to avoid 1. The hasly climbing up to smaller points which some call Higher before you have well received these and the receiving of those higher points independently without their due respect to these which they depend upon 2. The feeding upon dry and barren Controversies and delighting in the chaffe of â—ingling words and impertinent unedifying things or discourses about to â—â—aliâ—â—es and circumstances § 8. Direct 8. Meditate on what you hear when you come home till you better understand it Direct 8. Psal. 1. 2. § 9. Direct 9. Enquire where you doubt of those that can resolve and teach you It sheweth a Direct 9. careless mind and a contempt of the Word of God in most people and servants that never come to ask the resolution of one doubt from one weeks or years end to another though they have Passors or Masters that have ability and leisure and willingness to help them Matth. 13. Mark 4. 10. When Christ was alone they that were about him with the twelve asked him the meaning of his Parable § 10. Direct 10. Read much those holy Books which treat best of the doctrine which you would Direct 10. understand § 11. Direct 11. Pray earnestly for wisdom and the illumination of the spirit Ephes. 1. 18. Act. Direct 11. 26. 18. Jâ—m 1. 5. § 12. Direct 12. Conscionable Practising what you know is an excellent help to understanding Direct 12. Joh. 7. 17. Tit. 2. Directions for Remembering what you Hear THat want of Memory which cometh from Age and decay of Nature is not to be cured Nor should any servant of Christ be overmuch troubled at it Seeing Christ will no more cast off his servants for that than he will for age or any sickness But for that want of memory which is curable and is a fault I shall give you these Directions following § 1. Direct 1. It greatly helpeth Memory to have a full Understanding of the matter spoken which you would remember And ignorance is one of the greatest hinderances to Memory Common experience telleth you this how easily you can remember any discourse which you throughly understand For your very knowledge by invention will revive your memory And how hard it is to remember any words which are insignificant or which we understand not Therefore labour most for a clear understanding according to the last Directions § 2. Direct 2. A deep awakened affection iâ— a very powerful help to memory We easily remember any thing which our estates or lives lye on when trifles are neglected and soon forgotten Therefore labour to get all to your hearts according to the next following Directions § 3. Direct 3. Method is a very great help to memory Therefore be acquainted with the Preachers Method And then you are put into a path or tract which you cannot easily go out of And therefore it is that Ministers must not only be Methodical and avoid prolix confused and involved discourses and that malicious pride of hiding their Method but must be as oft in the use of the same method as the Subject will bear and choose that method which is most easie to the hearers to understand and remember and labour to make them perceive your tract § 4. Direct 4. Numbers are a great help to memory As if the Reasons the Uses the Motives the Signes the Directions be six or seven or eight when you know just the number it helpeth you much to remember which was the first second third c. § 5. Direct 5. Names also and signal words are a great help to memory He may remember one word that cannot remember all the sentence And that one word may help him to remember much of the rest Therefore Preachers should contrive the force of every Reason Use Direction c. as much as may be into some one emphatical word And some do very profitably contrive each of those words to begin with the same Letter which is good for memory so it be not too much strained and put them not upon greater inconveniences As if I were to direct you to the chiefest Helps to your salvation and should name 1. Powerful Preaching 2. Prayer 3. Prudence 4. Piety 5. Painfulness 6. Patience 7. Perseverance though I opened every one of these at large the very names would help the hearers memory It is this that maketh Ministers that care more for their peoples souls than the pleasing of curious ears to go in the common road of Doctrine Reason Uses Motives Helps c. and to give their Uses the same titles of Information Reproof Exhortation c. And yet when the Subject shall direct us to some other method the hearers must not be offended with us For one Method will not serve exactly for every Subject and we must be loth to wrong the Text or Matter § 6. Direct 6. It is a great help to memory often in the time of hearing to call over and repeat to your selves the names or heads which have been spoken The mind of man can do two things at once You may both hear what is said and recall and repeat to your selves what is past Not to stand long upon it but oft and quickly to name over e. g. the Reasons Uses Motives c. To me this hath been next to understanding and Affection the greatest help of any that I have used For otherwise to hear a Head but once and think of it no more till the Sermon is done would never serve my turn to keep it § 7. Direct 7. Grasp not at more than you are able to hold lest thereby you lose all If there be more particulars than you can possibly remember lay hold on some which most concern you and let go the rest Perhaps another may rather take up those which you leave behind Yet say not that it is the Preachers fault to name more than you can carry away For 1. Then he must leave out his enlargement much more and the most of his Sermon for it 's like you leave
§ 10. Direct 10. Make Conscience of Teaching and provoking others Pity the souls of the ignorant Direct 10. about you God often blesseth the grace that is most improved in doing him service and our stock is like the Womans Oyle which increased as long as she poured out and was gone when she stopped 1 King 17. 12 14 16. Doing good is the best way for receiving good He that in pity to a poor man that is almost starved will but fall to rubbing him shall get himself heat and both be gainers Tit. 4. Directions to bring what we Hear into Practice WIthout this the rest is vain or Counterfeit and therefore somewhat must be said to this § 1. Direct 1. Be acquainted with the failings of your hearts and lives and come on purpose to get Direct 1. directions and help against thâ—se particular failings You will not know what Medicine you need much less how to use it if you know not what aileth you Know what duties you omit or carelesly perform and know what sins you are most guilty of and say when you go out of doors I go to Christ for Physick for my own disease I hope to hear something before I come back which may help me more against this sin and fit me better for my duty or provoke me more effectually Are those men like to practise Christs directions that either know not their disease or love it and would not have it cured § 2. Direct 2. The three forementioned are still presupposed viz. that the word have first done its Direct 2. part upon your understandings memory and Hearts For that word cannot be practised which is not understood nor at all remembred nor hath not procured Resolutions and Affections It is the due work upon the Heart that must prevail for the reformation of the Life § 3. Direct 3. When you understand what it is in point of Practice that the Preacher driveth at Direct 3. observe especially the Uses and the Moving reasons and plead them with your own hearts and let Conscience be Preaching over all that the Minister Preacheth to you You take them to be soul-murderers that silence able faithful Preachers and also those Preachers that silence themselves and feed not the flock committed to their care And do you think it a small matter to silence your own Conscience which must be the Preacher that must set home all before it can come to Resolution or Practice Keep Conscience all the while at work preaching over all that to your hearts which you hear with your ears and urge your selves to a speedy Resolution Remember that the whole body of Divinity is practical in its end and tendency and therefore be not a meer notional hearer but consider of every word you hear what Practice it is that it tendeth to and place that deepest in your memory If you forget all the words of the Reasons and Motives which you hear be sure to remember what Practice they were brought to urge you to As if you heard a Sermon against uncharitableness censoriousness or hurting others though you should forget all the Reasons and Motives in particular yet still remember that you were convinced in the hearing that censâ—rious and hurtful uncharitableness is a great sin and that you heard Reason enough to make you resolve against it And let Conscience Preach out the Sermon to the end and not let it dye in bare conviction but Resolve and be past wavering before you stir And above all the Sermon remember the Directions and Helps for Practice with which the truest method usually shuts up the Sermon § 4. Direct 4. When you come home let Conscience in secret also repeat the Sermon to you Between Direct 4. God and your selves consider what there was delivered to you in the Lords message that your souls were most concerned in what sin reproved which you are guilty of what duty pressed which you omit And there meditate seriously on the weight and Reasons of the thing and resist not the light but yet bring all to a fixed Resolution if till then you were unresolved Not ensnaring your selves with dangerous Vows about things doubtful or peremptory Vows without dependance on Christ for strength But firmly Resolving and cautelously engaging your selves to duty not with carnal evasions and reserves but with humble dependance upon grace without which of your selves you are able to do nothing § 5. Direct 5. Hear the most Practical Preachers you can well get Not those that have the finest Direct 5. Notions or the cleanest stile or neatest words but those that are still urging you to Holiness of Heart and life and driving home every truth to Practice not that false doctrine will at all bear up a holy life but true doctrine must not be left in the pâ—rch or at the doors but be brought home and used to its proper end and seated in the heart and placed as the poise upon the Clock where it may set all the wheels in motion § 6. Direct 6. Take heed especially of two sorts of false Teachers ANTINOMIAN LIBERTINES Direct 6. and AUTONOMIAN PHARISEES The first would build their sins on Christ not pleading for sin it self but taking down many of the chief helpes against it and disarming us of the weapons by which it should be destroyed and reproaching the true Preachers of obedience as Legalists that preach up works and call men to Doing when they Preach up Obedience to Christ their King upon the terms and by the Motives which are used by Christ himself and his Apostles Not understanding aright the true doctrine of Faith in Christ and Iustification and free grace which they think none else understand but they they pervert it and make it an enemy to the Kingly office of Christ and to sanctification and the necessary duties of obedience The other sort do make void the Commandments of God by their Traditions and instead of the holy Practice of the Laws of Christ they would drive the world with fire and sword to practise all their superstitious sopperies so that the few plain and necessary precepts of the Law of the Universal King is drowned in the greater body of their Canon Law and the Ceremonies of the Popes imposing are so many in comparison of the Institutions of Christ that the worship of God and work of Christianity is corrupted by it and made as another thing The wheat is lost in a heap of Chaff by them that will be Lawgivers to themselves and all the Church of Christ. § 7. Direct 7. Associate your selves with the most holy serious practical Christians Not with the Direct 7. ungodly nor with barren opinionists that talk of nothing but their Controversies and the way or interest of their sects which they call the Church nor with outside formal Ceremonious Pharisees that are pleading for the washing of Cups and tithing of Mint and the tradition of their Fathers while they hate and persecute
Mr. Perkins and Mr. Boltons Works and many the like § 5 Direct 5. Next these read over those Books which are more suited to the state of young Christians for their growth in grace and for their exercise of Faith and Love and Obedience and for the mortifying of selfishness pride sensuality worldliness and other the most dangerous sins My own on this subject are my Directions for weak Christians my Saints Rest a Treatise of Self-denyal another of the Mischiefs of Self-ignorance Life of Faith of Crucifying the World the Unreasonableness of Infidelity of Right Rejoycing c. To this use these are excellent Mr. Hildershams Works Dr. Prestons Mr. Perkins Mr. Boltons Mr. Fenners Mr. Gurnalls Mr. Anthony Burgesses Sermons Mr. Lockier on the Colossiâ—ns with abundance more that God hath blest us with § 6. Direct 6. At the same time labour to methodize your knowledge and to that end read first and Direct 6. learn some short Catechism and then some larger as Mr. Balls or the Assemblies larger and next some Body of Divinity as Amesius his Marrow of Divinity and Cases of Conscience which are Englished And let the Catechisme be kept in memory while you live and the rest be throughly understood § 7. Direct 7. Next read to your selves or families the larger Expositions of the Creed Lords Direct 7. Prayer and Ten Commandments such as Perkins Bishop Andrews on the Commandments and Dod c. that your understanding may be more full particular and distinct and your families may not stop in Generals which are not understood § 8. Direct 8. Read much those Books which direct you in a course of daily communion with God and Direct 8. ordering all your conversations As Mr. Reyners Directions the Practice of Piety Mr. Palmers Mr. Scudders Mr. Boltons Directions and my Divine Life § 9. Direct 9. For Peace and Comfort and encrease of the Love of God read Mr. Symmonds Deserted Direct 9. Soul c. and his Life of Faith All Dr. Sibbs Works Mr. Harsnets Cordials Bishop Halls Works c. my Method for Peace and Saints Rest c. § 10. Direct 10. For the understanding of the Text of Scripture keep at hand either Deodates or Direct 10. the Assembly of Divines or the Dutch Annotations with Dr. Hammonds or Dicksons and Hutchinsons brief Observations § 11. Direct 11. For securing you against the Feavor of uncharitable Zeal and Schism and contentious Direct 11. wranglings and erâ—elties for Religion sake read diligently Bishop Halls Peacemaker and other of his Books Mr. Burroughs Irenicon Acontius Stratagems of Satan and my Catholick Unity Catholick Church Universal Concord c. § 12. Direct 12. For establishing you against Popery on the soundest grounds not running in the Direct 12. contrary extream read Dr. Challoners Credo Ecclesiam c. Chillingworth Dr. Field of the Church c. and my True Catholick and my Key for Catholicks and my Safe Religion and Winding-sheet for Popery and Disputation with Mr. Johnson § 13. Direct 13. For special preparation for affliction sufferings sickness death read Mr. Hughs Direct 13. Rod Mr. Lawrence Christs power over sicknesses Mr. S. Rutherfords Letters c. my Treatise of Self-denyal The Believers Last Work the Last Enemy Death and the fourth Part of my Saints Rest. I will add no more lest they seem too many CHAP. XXII Directions for the right Teaching of Children and Servants so as may be most likely to have success I Here suppose them utterly untaught that you have to do with and therefore shall direct you what to do from the very first beginning of your Teaching and their learning And I beseech you study this Chapter more than many of the rest for it is an unspeakable loss that befalls the Church and the souls of men for want of skill and will and diligence in Parents and Masters in this matter § 1 Direct 1. Cause your younger Children to learn the words though they be not yet capable of Direct 1. understanding the matter And do not think as some do that this is but to make them Hypocrites and to teach them to take Gods Name in vain For it is neither Vanity nor Hypocrisie to help them first to understand the words and signs in order to their early understanding of the matter and signification Otherwise no man might teach them any language nor teach them to read any words that be good because they must first understand the words before the meaning If a child learn to read in a Bible it is not taking Gods Name or Word in vain though he understand it not For it is in order to his learning to understand it And it is not vain which is to so good a Use If you leave them untaught till they come to be twenty years of age they must then learn the words before they can understand the matter Do not therefore leave them the children of darkness for fear of makeing them hypocrites It will be an excellent way to redeem their Time to teach them first that which they are capable of learning A child of five or six years old can learn the words of a Catechisme or Scripture before they are capable of understanding them And then when they come to years of understanding that part of their work is done and they have nothing to do but to study the meaning and use of those words which they have learnt already Whereas if you leave them utterly untaught till then they must then be wasting a long time to learn the same words which they might have learnt before And the loss of so much time is no small loss or sin § 2. Direct 2. The most natural way of teaching children the Meaning of Gods Word and the Direct 2. Matters of their salvation is by familiar talk with them suited to their capacities Begin this betimes with them while they are on their Mothers laps and use it frequently For they are quickly capable of some understanding about greater matters as well as about less And knowledge must come in by slow degrees Stay not till their minds are prepossest with vanity and toyes Prov. 22. 6. § 3. Direct 3. By all means let your children learn to read though you be never so poor whatever Direct 3. shift you make And if you have servants that cannot read let them learn yet at spare hours if they be of any capacity and willingness For it is a very great mercy to be able to read the holy Scripture and any good Books themselves and a very great misery to know nothing but what they hear from others They may read almost at any time when they cannot hear § 4. Direct 4. Let your children when they are little ones read much the History of the Scriptures Direct 4. For though this of it self is not sufficient to breed in them any saving knowledge yet it enticeth them to delight in reading the Bible and then they
§ 30. 1. Your duty with your hearts consisteth in these particulars 1. That you do your best in the close Examination of your hearts about your states and the sincerity of your Faith Repentance and Obedience To know whether your hearts are true to God in the Covenant which you are to renew and seal Which may be done by these enquiries and discerned by these signs 1. Whether Marks of Sincerity you truly lothe your selves for all the sins of your hearts and lives and are a greater offence and burden to your selves because of your imperfections and corruptions than all the world beside is ☜ Ezek. 6. 9. 20. 43. 36. 31. Rom. 7. 24. 2. Whether you have no sin but what you are truly desirous to know and no known sin but what you are truly desirous to be rid of and so desirous as that you had rather be perfectly freed from sin than from any affliction in the world Rom. 7. 22 18 24. 8. 18. 3. Whether you Love the searching and reforming light even the most searching parts of the Word of God and the most searching Books and searching Sermons that by them you may be brought to know your selves in order to your setled peace and reformation Iohn 3. 19 20 21. 4. Whether you truly love that degree of Holiness in others which you have not yet attained your selves and love Christ in his children with such an unseigned love as will cause you to relieve them according to your abilities and suffer for their sakes when it is your duty 1 Iohn 3. 14 16. 1 Pet. 1. 22. 3. 8. Iames 2. 12 13 14 15. Matth. 25. 40 c. 5. Whether you can truly say that there is no degree of Holiness so high but you desire it and had rather be perfect in the Love of God and the obedience of his Will than have all the riches and pleasures of this world Rom. 7. 18 21 24. Psal. 119. 5. Matth. 5. 6. and had rather be one of the Holiest Saints than of the most renowned prosperous Princes upon earth Psal. 15. 4. 16. 2. Psal. 84. 10. 65. 4. 6. Whether you have so far laid up your treasure and your hopes in Heaven as that you are resolved to take that only for your portion and that the hopes of Heaven and interest of your souls hath the preheminence in your hearts against all that stands in competition with it Col. 3. 1 3 4. Matth. 6. 20 21. 7. Whether the chiefest care of your hearts and endeavour of your lives be to serve and please God and to enjoy him for ever rather than for any worldly thing Matth. 6. 33. Iohn 5. 26. 2 Cor. 5. 1 6 7 8 9. 8. Whether it be your daily desire and endeavour to mortifie the flesh and master its rebellious opposition to the Spirit and you so far prevail as not to live and walk and be led by the flesh but that the course and drift of your life is spiritual Rom. 8. 1 6 7 8 9 10 13. Gal. 5. 17. 21 22. 9. Whether the world and all its honour wealth and pleasure appear to you so small and contemptible a thing as that you esteem it as dung and nothing in comparison of Christ and the Love of God and Glory and are Resolved that you will rather let go all than your part in Christ and which useth to carry it in the time of tryal in your deliberate choice Phil. 3. 7 8 9 13 14 18 19 20. 1 Iohn 2. 15. Luke 14. 26 30 33. Matth. 13. 19 21. 10. Whether you are resolved upon a course of holiness and obedience and to use those means which God doth make known to you to be the way to please him and to subdue your corruption and yet feeling the frailties of your hearts and the burden of your sins do trust in Christ as your Righteousness before God and in the Holy Ghost whose grace alone can illuminate sanctifie and confirm you Acts 11. 23. Psal. 119. 57 63 69 106. 1 Cor. 1. 30. Rom. 8. 9. Iohn 15. 5. 2 Cor. 12. 9. By these signs you may safely try your states § 31. 2. When this is done you are also to try the strength and measure of your grace that you may perceive your weakness and know for what help you should seek to Christ And to find out what inward Corruptions and sinful inclinations are yet strongest in you that you may know what to lament and to ask forgiveness of and help against My Book called Directions for weak Christians will give you fuller advice in this § 32. 3. You are also to take a strict account of your Lives and to look over your dealings with God and men in secret and publick especially of late since the last renewal of your Covenant with Psal. 4. 4 5 6. God and to hear what God and Conscience have to say about your sins and all their aggravations Psal. 139. 23. 1 Cor. 11. 28. § 33. 4. And you must labour to get your hearts affected with your condition as you do discover it To be humbled for what is sinful and to be desirous of help against your weakness and thankful for the Grace which you discern § 34. 5. Lastly you must consider of all the work that you go to do and all the mercies which you are going to receive and what Graces are necessary to all this and how they must be used and accordingly look up all those Graces and prepare them for the exercise to which they are to be called out I shall name you the particulars anon § 35. II. Your duty towards God in your Preparation for this Sacrament is 1. To cast down your selves before him in humble penitent confession and lamentation of all the sins which you discover And to beg his pardon in secret before you come to have it publickly sealed and delivered 2. To look up to him with that Thankfulness Love and Ioy as becomes one that is going to receive so great a mercy from him And humbly to beg that grace which may prepare you and quicken you to and in the work § 36. III. Your duty towards others in this your preparation is 1. To forgive those that have done you wrong and to confess your fault to those whom you have wronged and ask them forgiveness and make them amends and restitution so far as in your power and to be reconciled to those with whom you are fallen out and to see that you love your neighbours as is your selves Matth. 5. 23 24 25 26 44. Iames 5. 16. 2 That you seek advice of your Pastors or some fit persons in cases that are too hard for your selves to resolve and where you need their special help 3. That you lovingly admonish them that you know do intend to communicate unworthily and to come thither in their ungodliness and gross sin unrepented of that you shew not such hatred of your Brother as to suffer sin upon
of soul and Body have special need of help and counsel As 1. The Doubting troubled Christian. 2. The Declining or Backsliding Christian 3. The See Tom. 1. Ch. 7. Tit. 10. Of despair Poor 4. The Aged 5. The Sick 6. And those that are about the sick and dying Though these might seem to belong rather to the first Tome yet because I would have those Directions lye here together which the several sorts of persons in Families most need I have chosen to reserve them rather to this place The special duties of the Strong the Rich and the Youthful and Healthful I omi◠because I find the Book grow big and you may gather them from what is said before on several such subjects And the Directions which I shall first give to doubting Christians shall be but a few brief memorials because I have done that work already in my Directions or Method for Peace of Conscience and spiritual comfort And much is here said before in the Directions against Melancholy ☞ and Despair § 2. Direct 1. Find out the special cause of your doubts and troubles and bend most of your endeavours Direct 1. to remove that cause The same Cure will not serve for every doubting soul no nor for every one that hath the very same doubts For the Causes may be various though the doubts should be the same and the doubts will be continued while the cause remaineth § 3. 1. In some persons the chief cause is a timerous weak and passionate temper of body and mind which in some especially of the weaker Sex is so Natural a disease that there is no hope of a total cure Though yet we must direct and support such as well as we are able These persons have so weak a Head and such powerful passions that Passion is their life and according to Passion they judge of themselves and of all their duties They are ordinarily very high or very low full of joy or sinking in despair But usually Fear is their predominant Passion And what an enemy to quietness and peace strong fears are is easily observed in all that have them Assuring evidence will not quiet such fearful minds nor any Reason satisfie them The Directions for these persons must be the same which I have before given against Melancholy and Despair Especially that the Preaching and Books and means which they make use of be rather such as tend to inform the judgement and settle the will and guide the Life than such as by the greatest servency tend to awaken them to such passions or affections which they are unable to manage § 4. 2. With others the Cause of their Troubles is Melancholy which I have long observed to be the commonest cause with those godly people that remain in long and grievous doubts Where this is the cause till it be removed other remedies do but little But o◠this I have spoken at large before § 5. 3. In others the Cause is a habit of discontent and pievishness and impatiency because of some wants or crosses in the world Because they have not what they would have their Minds grow ulcerated like a Body that is sick or sore that carryeth about with them the pain and smart And they are still complaining of the pain which they feel but not of that which maketh the sore and causeth the pain The cure of these is either in Pleasing them that they may have their will in all things as you rock children and give them that which they cry for to quiet them 〈…〉 or rather to help to cure their impatiency and settle their minds against their childish sinful discontents of which before § 6. 4. In others the Cause is errour or great ignorance about the tenour of the Covenant of Grace and the Redemption wrought by Jesus Christ and the work of Sanctification and evidences thereof They know not on what terms Christ dealeth with sinners in the pardoning of sin nor what are the infallible signes of Sanctification It is sound Teaching and diligent learning that must be the cure of these § 7. 5. In others the cause is a careless life or frequent sinning and keeping the wounds of Conscience still bleeding They are still fretting the sore and will not suffer it to skin either they live in railing and contention or malice or some secret lust or fraud or some way stretch and wrong their Consciences And God will not give his peace and comfort to them till they reform It is a mercy that they are disquieted and not given over to a seared Conscience which is past feeling § 8. 6. In others the Cause of their doubts is Placing their Religion too much in humiliation and in a continual poreing on their hearts and overlooking or neglecting the high and chiefest parts of Religion even the daily studies of the Love of God and the riches of Grace in Iesus Christ and hereby stirring up the soul to Love and Delight in God When they make this more of their Religion and business it will bring their souls into a sweeter relish § 9. 7. In others the Cause is such weakness of parts and confusion of thoughts and darkness of mind that they are not able to examine themselves nor to know what is in them When they ask themselves any question about their Repentance or Love to God or any grace they are fain to answer like strangers and say they cannot tell whether they do it or not These persons must make more use than others of the judgement of some able faithful guide § 10. 8. But of all others the commonest cause of uncertainty is the weakness or littleness of Grace When it is so little as to be next to none at all no wonder if it be hardly and seldome discerned Therefore § 11. Direct 2. Be not neglecters of self-examination but labour for skill to manage aright so Direct 2. great a work But yet let your care and diligence be much greater to get grace and use it and increase it than to try whether you have it already or not For in examination when you have once taken a right course to be resolved and yet are in doubt as much as before your over-much poreing upon these trying questions will do you but little good and make you but little the better but the time and labour may be almost lost whereas all the labour which you bestow in Getting and Using and Increasing grace is bestowed profitably to good purpose and tendeth first to your safety and salvation and next that to your easier certainty and comfort There is no such way in the world to be certain that you have grace as to get so much as is easily discerned and will shew it self and to exercise it much that it may come forth into observation When you have a strong Belief you will easily be sure that you believe When you have a fervent Love to Christ and Holiness and to the word and wayes and servants
thing in it steal again into your hearts and seem Direct 7. too sweet to you If your friends or dwellings or lands and wealth or honours begin to grow too pleasant and be over-loved your thoughts will presently be carryed after them and turned away from God and all holy affection will be damped and decay and grace will fall into a consumption It is the Love of money that is the root of all evil and the love of this world which is the mortal enemy of the Love of God Keep the world from your hearts if you would keep your graces § 19. Direct 8. Keep a strict Government and watch over your fleshly appetite and sense For the Direct 8. loosing of the reins to carnal lusts and yielding to the importunity of sensual desires is the most ordinary Rom. 8. 13. Rom. 13. 13 14. way of wasting grace and falling off from God § 20. Direct 9. Keep as far as you can from Temptations and all occasions and opportunities of sinning Direct 9. Trust not to your own strength And be not so fool-hardy as to thrust your selves into needless danger No man is long safe that standeth at the brink of ruine If the fire and straw be long near together some spark is like to catch at last § 21. Direct 10. Incorporate your selves into the Communion of Saints and go along with Direct 10. them that go towards Heaven and engage your selves in the constant use of all those means which God hath appointed you to use for your perseverance Especially take heed of an idle slothful unprofitable life And keep your graces in the most lively exercise For the slothful is Brother to the waster And idleness consumeth or corrupteth our spiritual health and strength as well as our bodily Set your selves diligently to work while it is day and do all the good in your places that you are able For it is acts that preserve and increase the habits And a Religion which consisteth only in doing no hurt is so lifeless and corrupt that it will quickly perish § 22. Direct 11. Keep alwayes in thine eye the doleful case of a Backslider which I opened Direct 11. before O what horror is waiting to seize on their consciences How many of them have we known that on their death-beds have lain roaring in the anguish of their souls crying out I am utterly forsaken of God because I have forsaken him There is no mercy for such an apostate wretch O that I had never been born or had been any thing rather than a man Cursed be the day that ever I hearkned to the counsel of the wicked and that ever I pleased this corruptible flesh to the utter undoing of my soul O that it were all to do again Take warning by a mad besotted sinner that have lost my soul for that which I knew would never make me satisfaction and have turned from God when I had found him to be good â—nd gracious O prepare not for such pangs as these or worse than these in endless desperation § 23. Direct 12. Make not a small matter of the beginnings of your backsliding There are very Direct 12. few that fall quite away at once the misery creepeth on by insensible degrees You think it a small matter to cut short one duty and omit another and be negligent at another and to entertain some pleasing thoughts of the world or first to look on the forbidden fruit and then to touch it and then to taste it but these are the way to that which is not small A thought or a look or a taste or a delight hath begun that with many which never stopt till it had shamed them here and damned them for ever CHAP. XXVII Directions for the Poor THere is no condition of life so low or poor but may be sanctified and fruitful and comfortable to us if our own misunderstanding or sin and negligence do not pollute it or imbitter it to us If we do the Duty of our condition faithfully we shall have no cause to murmurr at it Therefore I shall here direct the Poor in the special Duties of their condition and if they will but conscionably perform them it will prove a greater kindness to them than if I could deliver them from their poverty and give them as much riches as they desire Though I doubt this would be more pleasing to the most and they would give me more thanks for money than for teaching them how to want it § 1. Direct 1. Understand first the use and estimate of all earthly things that they were never made Direct 1. to be your portion and felicity but your provision and helps in the way to Heaven And therefore they Prov. 28. 6. Jam. 2. 5. are neither to be estimated nor desired simply for themselves for so there is nothing good but God but only as they are Means to the Greatest Good Therefore neither Poverty nor Riches are simply to be rejoyced in for themselves as any part of our happiness But that condition is to be desired and rejoyced in which affordeth us the greatest helps for Heaven and that condition only is to be lamented and dislikt which hindereth us most from Heaven and from our duty § 2. Direct 2. See therefore that you really take all these things as matters in themselves indifferent Direct 2. and of small concernment to you and as not worthy of much love or care or sorrow further than they conduce to greater things We are like runners in a race and Heaven or Hell will be our End and therefore woe to us if by looking aside or turning back or stopping or trifling about these matters or burdening our selves with worldly trash we should lose the race and lose our souls O Sirs what greater matters than poverty or riches have we to mind Can those souls that muâ—â— shortly be in Heaven or Hell have time to bestow any serious thoughts upon these impertinencies Shall we so much as look at the temporal things which are seen instead of the things eternal that are unseen 2 Cor. 4. 18. Or shall we whine under those light afflictions which may be so improved as to work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory v. 17. Our present life is not in the abundance of the things which we possess Much less is our eternal life Luke 12. 15. § 3. Direct 3. Therefore take heed that you judge not of Gods Love or of your happiness or misery by Direct 3. your riches or poverty prosperity or adversity as knowing that they come alike to all and Love or hatred Eccles. 2. 14. 9. 2. 9. 3. is not to be discerned by them except only Gods Common Love as they are common mercies to the body If a Surgeon is not to be taken for a hater of you because he letteth you blood nor a Physicion because he purgeth his Patient nor a Father because he
much to care for and many persons to deal with and more vexations than you imagine 11. It is but the flesh that suffereth and it furthereth your mortification of it 12. You pray but for your daily bread and therefore should be contented with it 13. Is not God and Christ and Heaven enough for you Should that man be discontent that must live in Heaven 14. Is it not your lust rather than your well-in-formed Reason that repineth I do but name all these Reasons for brevity You may enlarge them in your Meditations CHAP. XXIII Directions for the Rich. I Have said so much of this already Tom. 1. about Covetousness or Worldliness and about Good See more in my Life of Faith Works and in my Book of Self-denyal and that of Crucifying the World that my Reason commandeth me brevity in this place Direct 1. Remember that Riches are no part of your Felicity or that if you have no better Direct 1. you are undone men Dare you say that they are fit to make you happy Dare you say that you will take them for your part and be content to be turned off when they forsake you They reconcile not God They save not from his wrath They heal not a wounded Conscience They may please your flesh and adorn your Funeral but they neither delay nor sanctifie nor sweeten death nor make you either better or happier than the poor Riches are nothing but plentiful provision for tempting corruptible flesh When the flesh is in the dust it is Rich no more All that abounded in wealth since Adams dayes till now are levelled with the lowest in the dust Direct 2. Yea remember that Riches are not the smallest Temptation and Danger to your souls Direct 2. Do they delight and please you By that way they may destroy you If they be but Loved above God and make Earth seem better for you than Heaven they have undone you and if God recover you not it had been better for you to have been Worms or Bruits than such deceived miserable souls It is not for nothing that Christ giveth you so many terrible warnings about Riches and so describeth the folly the danger and the misery of the worldly rich Luke 12. 17 18 19 20. 16 19 20 21 c. 18. 21 22 23 c. and telleth you how hardly the Rich are saved Fire burneth most when it hath most fewel And Riches are the fewel of worldly Love and fleshly Lust 1 Iohn 2. 15 16. Rom. 13. 13 14. Direct 3. Understand what it is to Love and Trust in worldly prosperity and wealth Many Direct 3. here deceive themselves to their destruction They perswade themselves that they desire and use their Riches but for necessity but that they do not Love them nor Trust in them because they can say that Heaven is better and Wealth will leave us to a grave But do you not Love that Ease that Greatness that Domination that Fulness that Satisfaction of your appetite eye and fancy which you cannot have without your wealth It is fleshly Lust and Will and Pleasure which carnal worldlings Love for it self and then they Love their wealth for these And to Trust in Riches is not to Trust that they will never leave you for every fool doth know the contrary But it is to Rest and Quiet and Comfort your minds in them as that which most pleaseth you and maketh you well or to be as as you would be Like him in Luke 12. 18 19. that said Soul take thy Ease Eat drink and be merry thou hast enough laid up for many years This is to Love and Trust in Riches Direct 4. Above all the deceits and dangers of this world take heed of a secret hypocritical hope Direct 4. of Reconciling the World to Heaven so as to make you a â—elicity of both and dreaming of a compounded Heb. 10. 34. Luke 18. 22. Matth. 13. 20 21 22. Acts 5. 1 c. Acts 2. 45. Luke 14. 33. portion or of serving God and Mammon The true state of the Hypocrites Heart and Hope is To Love his worldly prosperity best and desire to keep it as long as he can for the enjoyment of his fleshly pleasures and when he must leave this world against his will he hopeth then to have Heaven as a reserve because he thinketh it better than Hell and his Tongue can say It is better than Earth though his will and affections say the contrary If this be your case the Lord have mercy upon you and give you a more believing spiritual mind or else you are lost and you and your treasure will perish together Direct 5. Accordingly take heed lest when you seem to Resign your selves and all that you have to Direct 5. God there should be a secret purpose at the heart that you will never be undone in the world for Christ nor for the hopes of a better world A knowing hypocrite is not ignorant that the terms of Christ Luke 14. 26. 27 29 33. proposed in the Gospel are no lower than forsaking all and that in Baptism and our Covenant with Christ all must be resigned and devoted to him and the Cross taken up instead of all or else we are no Christians as being not in Covenant with Christ. But the hypocrites hope is that though Christ put him upon these promises he will never put him to the tryal for performance nor never call him to forsake all indeed And therefore if ever he be put to it he will not perform the promise which he hath made He is like a Patient that promiseth to be wholly ruled by his Physicion as hoping that he will put him upon nothing which he cannot bear But when the bitter Potion or the Vomit cometh he saith I cannot take it I had hoped you would have given me gentler Physick Direct 6. And accordingly take heed lest while you pretend to Live to God and to use all that Direct 6. you have as his Stewards for his service you should deceitfully put him off with the leavings of your lusts and give him only so much as your flesh can spare It is not likely that the damned Gentleman Luke 16. was never used to give any thing to the poor else what did beggars use his doors for When Christ promiseth to reward men for a cup of cold water the meaning is when they would give better if they had it There are few Rich men of all that go to Hell that were so void of humane compassion or of the sense of their own reputation as to give nothing at all to the poor But God will have all though not all for the poor yet all imployed as he commandeth and will not be put off with your tythes or scraps His Stewards confess that they have nothing of their own Direct 7. Let the use of your Riches in prosperity shew that you do not dissemble when you Direct 7. promise to
be proportionable to your possessions John 15. 5. Mar. 12. 41. Luke 12. 48. Do as much more good in the world than the poor as you are better furnished for it than they Let your servants have more time for the learning of Gods Word and let your families be the more religiously instructed and governed To whom God giveth much from them he doth expect much Direct 12. Direct 12. Do not only take occasions of doing good when they are thrust upon you but study how to do all the good you can as those that are zealous of good works Tit. 2. 14. Zeal of good Matth. 5. 16. Gal. 6. 7 8 9 10. 1 Pet. 2. 12. Heb. 10. 24. Tit. 3. 8 14. 2. 7. Ephes. 2. 10. 1 Tim. 2. 10. 5. 10. Acts 9. 36. works will make you 1. Plot and contrive for them 2. Consult and ask advice for them 3. It will make you glad when you meet with a hopeful opportunity 4. It will make you do it largely and not sparingly and by the halves 5. It will make you do it speedily without unwilling backwardness and delay 6. It will make you do it constantly to your lives end 7. It will make you pinch your own flesh and suffer somewhat your selves to do good to others 8. It will make you Labour in it as your Trade and not only consent that others do good at your charge 9. It will make you glad when good is done and not to grudge at what it cost you 10. In a word it will make your neighbours to be to you as your selves and the Pleasing of God to be above your selves and therefore to be as glad to do good as to receive it Direct 13. Do good both to mens souls and bodies but alwayes let bodily benefits be conferred in Direct 13. order to those of the soul and in due subordination and not for the body alone And observe the many other Rules of Good Works more largely laid down Tom. 1. Cap. 3. Direct 10. Direct 14. Ask your selves often How you shall wish at death and judgement your estates had been Direct 14. laid out and accordingly now use them Why should not a man of Reason do that which he knoweth before hand he shall vehemently wish that he had done Direct 15. As your care must be in a special manner for your children and families so take heed Direct 15. of the common error of worldlings who think their children must have so much as that God and their own souls have very little When selfish men can keep their wealth no longer to themselves they leave it to their children who are as their surviving selves And all is cast into this gulf except some inconsiderable parcels Direct 16. Direct 16. Keep daily account of your use and improvement of your Masters Talents Not that Mat. 25. 14 15 you should too much remember your own good works but remember to do them and therefore ask your selves What Good have I done with all that I have this Day or Week Direct 17. Look not for long life for then you will think that a long journey needeth great provisions Direct 17. But dye daily and live as those that are going to give up their account And then Conscience 1 Tim. 6. 18. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. Luke 16. 10. will force you to ask whether you have been faithful Stewards and to lay up a treasure in Heaven and to make you friends of the Mammon that others use to unrighteousness and to lay up a good foundation for the time to come and to be glad that God hath given you that the improvement of 1 Tim. 5. 25. which may further the good of others and your salvation Living and Dying let it be your care and business to Do Good CHAP. XXIX Directions for the Aged and weak HAving before opened the Duties of Children to God and to their Parents I shall give no other particular Directions to the Young but shall next open the special Duties of the Aged § 1. Direct 1. The old and weak have a lowder call from God than others to be accurate Direct 1. in examining the state of their souls and making their calling and election sure Whether they Iâ— Augustines speech to the people of Hippo for Fradius his succession he saith In Infantiâ spâ—raâ—ur pueritia in pueritia speratur adolescentia in adolescentià spâ—râ—â—ur juventuâ— in juventure speratur gravitas in gravitate speratur senectus Utrum contingat incertum est est tamen quod sperâ—tur Senâ—ctus autem alâ—am â—â—atem quam speret non habet Vid. Papâ—r Massoâ— in vita Coelâ—sti fol. 58. are yet Regenerate and Sanctified or not is a most important question for every man to get resolved but especially for them that are nearest to their end Ask counsel therefore of some able faithful Minister or friend and set your selves diligently to try your Title to eternal life and to cast up your accounts and see how all things stand between God and you And if you should find your selves in an unrenewed state as you love your souls delay no longer but presently be humbled for your so long and sotâ—ish neglect of so necessary and great a work Go open your case to some able minister and lament your sin and fly to Christ and set your hearts on God as your felicity and change your company and course and rest not any longer in so dangerous and miserable a case The more full Directions for your Conversion I have given before in the beginning of the Book and in divers others and therefore shall say no more to such it being others that I am here especially to Direct § 2. Direct 2. Cast back your eyes upon the sins of all your life that you may perceive how humble Direct 2. those souls should be that have sinned so long as you have done and may feel what need you have of Christ to pardon so long a life of sin Though you have repented and been justified long ago yet you have daily sinned since you were Justified And though all be forgiven that is repented of yet must it be still before your eyes both to keep you humble and continue the exercise of that Repentance and drive you to Christ and make you thankful Yea your forgiveness and Iustification are yet short of perfection whatever some may tell you to the contrary as well as your sanctification For 1. Your Justification is yet given you but conditionally as to its continuance even upon condition of your perseverance 2. And the temporal chastisement and the pains of death and the long absence of the body from Heaven and the present wants of grace and comfort and communion with God are punishments which are not yet forgiven executively 3. And the final sentence of Justification at the day of Judgement which is the perfectest sort is yet to come And therefore you have
XXX Directions for the Sick THough the chief part of our preparation for Death be in the time of Health and it is a work for which the longest life is not too long yet because the folly of unconverted sinners is so great as to forget what they were born for till they see Death at hand and because there is a special preparation necessary for the best I shall here lay down some Directions for the sick And I shall reduce them to these four heads 1. What must be done to make Death safe to us that it may be our passage to Heaven and not to Hell 2. What must be done to make sickness profitable to us 3. What must be done to make Death comfortable to us that we may Dye in Peace and Ioy 4. What must be done to make our Sickness Profitable to others about us Tit. 1. Directions for a safe Death to secure our Salvation THe Directions of this sort are especially necessary to the unconverted impenitent sinner yet needful also to the Godly themselves and therefore I shall distinctly speak to both 1. Directions for an uncoverted sinner in his sickness It is a very dreadful case to be found by sickness in an unconverted state There is so Great a work to be done and so little time to do it in and soul and body so unfit and undisposed for it and the misery so great even everlasting torment that will follow so certainly and so quickly if it be undone that one would think it should overwhelm the understanding and heart of any man with astonishment and horrour to foresee such a condition in the time of his health much more to find himself in it in his sickness And though one would think that the near approach of Death and the nearness of another world should be unresistibly powerful to convert a sinner so that few or none shold Die unconverted however they lived yet Scripture and sad experience declare the contrary that most men Die as well as live in an unsanctified and miserable state For 1. A life of sin doth usually settle a man in Ignorance or Unbelief or both so that sickness findeth him in such a dungeon of Darkness that he is but lost and confounded in his fears and knoweth not whither he is going nor what he hath to do 2. And also sin wofully Hardeneth the Heart and the long resisted spirit of God forsaketh them and giveth them over to themselves in sickness who would not be ruled and sanctified by him in their health And such remain like blocks or beasts even to the last 3. And the Nature of sickness and approaching death doth tend more to affright than to renew the soul and rather to breed fear and trouble than Love And though Grief and fear be good preparatives and helps yet it is the Love of God and Holiness in which the souls Regeneration and Renovation doth consist and there is no more Holiness than there is Love and Willingness And many a one that is affrighted into strong Repentings and cryes and prayers and promises and seem to themselves and others to be Converted do yet either Die in their sins and misery or return to their unholy lives when they recover being utter strangers to that true Repentance which reneweth the heart as sad experience doth too often testifie 4. And many poor sinners finding that they have so short a time do end it in meer amazement and terrour not knowing how to compose their thoughts to examine their hearts and lives nor to exercise faith in Christ nor to follow any Directions that are given them but lye in trembling and astonishment wholly taken up with the fears of Death much worse than a beast that is going to be butchered 5. And the very pains of the body do so divert or hinder the thoughts of many that they can scarce mind any spiritual things with such a composedness as is necessary to so great a work 6. And the greatest number being partly confounded in ignorance and partly withheld by backwardness and undisposedness and partly disheartned by thinking it impossible to become new-creatures and get a regenerate heavenly heart on such a sudden do force themselves to hope that they shall be saved without it and that though they are sinners yet that kind of Repentance which they have will serve the turn and be accepted and God will be more merciful than to damn them And this false Hope they think they are necessitated to take up For there is but two other wayes to be taken The one is utterly to Despair and both Scripture and Reason and Nature it self are against that The other way is to be truly converted and won to the Love of God and Heaven by a lively faith in Iesus Christ And they have no such faith and to this they are strange and undisposed and think it impossible to be done And if they must have no Hopes but upon such terms as these they think they shall have none at all Or else if they hear that there is no other Hope and that none but the holy can be saved they will force themselves to hope that they have all this and that they are truly converted and become new creatures and do Love God and holiness above all not because indeed it is so but because they would have it so for fear of being damned And instead of finding that they they are void of faith and Love and Holiness and labouring to get a renewed soul they think it a nearer way to make themselves believe that it is so already And thus in their presumption self-deceiving and false hopes they linger out that little time that is left them to be converted in till death open their eyes and hell do undeceive them 7. And the same Devil and wicked men his instruments that kept them in health from true Repentance will be as diligent to keep them from it in their sickness and will be loth to lose all at the last cast which they had been winning all the time before And if the Devil can but keep them in his power till sickness come and take them up with pain and fear he will hope to keep them a few dayes longer till he have finished that which he had begun and carryed on so far And if there be here and there one that will be held no longer by false hopes and presumption he will at last think to take them off by desperation and make them believe that there is no remedy § 4. And indeed it is a thing so difficult and unlikely to convert a sinner in all his pain and weakness at the last that even the Godly friends of such do many times even let them alone as thinking that there is little or no hope But this is a very sinful course As long as there is life there is some hope And as long as there is hope we must use the means A Physicion will try the best Remedies
Sacrifice for their sins and to make a promise of pardon and salvation to all that will accept him and his gift and he intreateth all that hear the Gospel to accept it And accordingly he will save all that consent unto his Covenant I am a sinful child of Adam and therefore am one that Christ became a Sacrifice for and I consent unto his Covenant and therefore I am one that Christ by that Covenant doth justifie and will save § 29. Tempt 6. Sometime the Tempter troubleth the soul with Temptations to Blasphemy and Tempt 6. Infidelity and asketh him How knowest thou that there is a God or a life to come or that souls are immortal or that the Scripture is true Of this I spake before To this we must then answer I abhor thy suggestions These things I have seen proved long ago and I will not so far gratifie thee in my weakness and extremity as to question and dispute these sealed fundamental truths no more than I will dispute whether there be a Sun or earth § 30. Tempt 7. Sometimes the Tempter will say At best thou hast no Assurance of salvation Tempt 7. and how canst thou choose but tremble to think of dying when thou knowest not whether thou shalt go to Heaven or Hell To this the soul that hath not Assurance must answer It is my own mistake or weakness that keepeth me unassured And I will neither take part with my infirmities nor increase them by their effects My hopes are such as should draw up my desires though I want full assurance The Child delighteth in the company of the Mother and every man of his friend though he is not certain that the Mother or friend will not hurt him or take away his life Why should I trouble my self with improbabilities Or fear that which I have no found reason to fear Rather I should be glad to dye that death may perfect my Assurance and put an end to all my doubts and fears § 31. Tempt 8. But saith the Tempter How strange art thou to God and the life to come Thou Tempt 8. never sawest it Is it not dreadful to enter upon an unchangeable life in a world which thou art so great a stranger to Answ. But Christ is not a stranger to it He seeth it for me and I will implicitely trust him where should my eyes be but in my head I shall never see it till I come thither When I have been there a while this darkness and fear and strangeness will be gone I was as strange to this world before I came into it and more And all those holy souls in Heaven were strange to it once as well as I I should therefore long to be with Christ that I may be strange to him no more § 32. Tempt 9. But saith the Tempter thy fears and unwillingness is a sign that thou hast no Tempt 9. Love to God nor heavenly mind and how then canst thou hope to come to Heaven Answ. My fears come from strangeness and weakness of faith and a natural enmity to death If I could come to Christ in joy and glory and be perfected in holiness without dying I should not be unwilling of it God looketh not that my Nature should be willing to dye but that Grace make me willing to be with Christ and patiently submit to so dark a passage Even Christ himself prayed that if it were possible that Cup might pass from him § 33. Tempt 10. But what will thy Wife and Children do when thou art gone Answ. God hath Tempt 10. more interest in them than I have He will look to his own without my care Doth all the world depend upon him and is he not to be trusted with my Wife and Children § 34. Tempt 11. But thou wilt never more be serviceable to the Church All thy work will for Tempt 11. euer â—e at an end And there are many things which thou mighâ—st have done before thou dyest which will all be lost Answ. 1. I shall have higher and holier and sweeter work whether it will any thing conduce to the good of those on earth I know not but I know it will more conduce to the highest most desirable ends 2. As my work will be done so my trouble and weariness and fears and sufferings from a malignant unthankful world will all be done 3. And when my work is done my Reward and Everlasting Rest begin 4. And God needeth not such a Worm as I The work is his and it is reason that he should choose his workmen § 35. Tempt 12. But when thou hast said all Death will be death the King of terrors Answ. And Tempt 19. when thou hast said all God will be God and Heaven will be Heaven and Christ will be Christ that Mat. 28. 19 20. John 17. 2. Rev. 1. 18. Rom. 10. 9 10 11 12. hath conquered death and hath the keyes or power of Death and Hell and the promise will be sure and those that trust on him shall never be ashamed or confounded And therefore the Spirit is willing though the flesh be weak Tit. 4. Directions for doing Good to others in our Sickness § â— THe whole life of a Christian should be a serving of his God And though his body in sickness seem to be unserviceable yet it is not the least or lowest of his services which he is then at last to do Partly by his holy example and partly by his speeches which are both more obsorved in dying men than in any others For now all suppose that if there were before any mask of hypocrisie it is laid aside and the soul that is going to the Barr of God will deal sincerely And now it is supposed that we are delivered much from all the befooling delusions of prosperity and therefore fitter to be Counsellors to others And every Christian should be very desirous to do good to the last and be found so doing § 2. Direct 1. Shew not a distempered impatient mind Though pain will be pain and flesh will Direct 1. he flesh yet shew men that you have also Reason and Spirit And that it calmeth your soul though Heb. 12. 7 8 9. Rom. 8. 28. it ease not your body Speak good of God as beseemeth one that indeed believeth that it is good for us when we are afflicted by him and that all shall work together for good to us Speak not a repining word against him Job 1. 22. In all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly And speak not too pievishly and impatiently to those about you Though weakness incline you to it yet let the power of grace appear § 3. Direct 2. Let those that are about yoâ— see that you take the life to come for a reality and that Direct 2. you verily expect to live with Christ in joyes for ever Let them see this in your holy joy and confidence and your thankfulness to God for the
what you are going to do that you miss not of the end for want of seeking it The Devil will give hypocritical worldlings leave to play them with the most excellent Ordinances if he can but keep God out of sight even as you will let your children play them with a box of Gold as long as it is shut and they see not what 's within § 25. Direct 11. Be laborious with your hearts in all Gods worship to keep them employed on their Direct 11. Eph. 6. 18. Luke 21. 36. Rev. 3. 3. Col. 4. 2. Matth. 26. 38 40 41. Mar. 13. 33. 34 35 37. duty and be watchful over them lest they slug or wander Remember that it is heart-work that you are principally about And therefore see that your hearts be all the while at work Take your selves as idle when your hearts are idle And if you take not pains with them how little pains will they take in duty If you watch them not how quickly will they lye down and forget what they are doing and fall asleep when you are in treaty with God How easily will they turn aside and be thinking of impertinent vanities Watch therefore unto prayer and every duty 1 Pet. 4. 7. 2 Tim. 4. 5. Direct 12. § 26. Direct 12. Look up to Heaven as that which all your duties tend to that from thence you may fetch your encouraging motives Do all as a means to life eternal separate no duty from its reward and end As the traveller remembreth whither he is going all the way and a desired end doth make the foulest steps seem tolerable so think in every prayer you put up and in every duty that it is all for Heaven § 27. Direct 13. Depend upon the Spirit of God for help You cannot seek God spiritually and acceptably Direct 13. without him Think not that you are sufficient to worship God aright without his help Where this is despised or neglected you see what lamentable work is made by blind corrupted nature in Gods service Sensual wretches that have not the Spirit are fitter for any thing than to Jude 19. worship God If he that hath not the Spirit of Christ be none of his Rom. 8. 9. then he that pretends to worship God without the Spirit of Christ can ill think to be heard for the sake of Christ. § 28. Direct 14. Look also to your tongues and the deportment of your bodies that the whole man Direct 14. may worship God in holiness as he requireth Pretend not your good meanings nor the spirituality of your worship to excuse you from worshipping also with your bodies Your Hearts must be first lookt to but your words and bodies must next be lookt to And if you regard not these it is hardly credible that you regard your hearts 1. Your words and gestures are the due expression of your hearts And the Heart will desire to express it self as it is Many would express their Hearts to be better than they are and therefore good expressions are oft to be suspected But few would express their hearts as worse than they are and therefore bad appearances do seldome lye 2. Your words and actions are needful to the due honouring of God As evil words and actions do dishonour him and the unseemly disorderly performance of his service is very injurious to such holy things so yourmeet and comely words and gestures are the external beauty of the worship which you perform And God should be served with the best 3. Your words and gestures reflect much on your own hearts As acts tend to the increase of the habits so the external expressions tend to increase the internal affections whether they be good or evil 4. Your words and gestures must be regarded for the good of others who see not your hearts but by these expressions And where many have communion in worshipping God such acts of communion are of great regard CHAP. II. Directions about the Manner of Worship to avoid all corruptions and false unacceptable Worshipping of God THe lamentable contentions that have arisen about the Manner of Gods worship and the cruelty and blood and divisions and uncharitable revilings which have thence followed and also the necessary regard that every Christian must have to worship God according to his Will do make it needful that I give you some Directions in this case § 1. Direct 1. Be sure that you seriously and faithfully practise that inward worship of God in which Direct 1. the life of Religion doth consist as to love him above all to fear him believe him trust him delight in him be zealous for him and that your Hearts be sanctified unto God and set upon Heaven and Holiness Read on this subject a small Book which I have written called Catholick Unity For this will be an unspeakable help to set you right in most controversies about the worshipping of God Nothing hath so much filled the Church with contentions and divisions and cruelties about Gods worship as the agitating of these controversies by unholy unexperienced persons when men that hate a holy life and holy persons and the Holiness of God himself must be they that dispute what manner of worship must be offered to God by themselves and others and when the controversies about Gods service are fallen into the hands of those that hate all serious serving of him you may easily know what work they will make of it As if sick men were to determine or dispute what meat and drink themselves and all other men must live upon and none must eat but by their prescripts most healthful men would think it hard to live in such a Countrey As men are within so will they incline to worship God without Outward worship is but the expression of inward worship He that hath a heart replenished with the Love and Fear of God will be apt to express it by such manner of worship as doth most lively and seriously express the love and fear of God If the heart be a stranger or an enemy to God no marvel if such worship him accordingly O could we but help all contenders about worship to the inward light and life and love and experience of holy serious Christians they would find enough in themselves and their experiences to decide abundance of controversies of this kind Though still there will be some that require also other helps to decide them It is very observable in all times of the Church how in Controversies about Gods worship the generality of the godly serious people and the generality of the ungodly and ludicrous worshippers are ordinarily of differing judgements and what a stroke the temper of the soul hath in the determination of such cases § 2. Direct 2. Be serious and diligent also in all those parts of the outward worship of God that all sober Direct 2. Christians are agreed in For if you be negligent and false in so much as you confess your
think their own understanding and stability is sufficient to preserve them do shew by their pride that they are near a fall 1 Cor. 10. 2. The company of sensual persons at Stage-playes Gaming inordinate playes and wanton dalliance For this is to bring your Tinder and Gunpowder to the fire And the less you fear it the greater is your danger § 24. Direct 7. Look more at the good that is in others than at their faults and falls The Flye Direct 7. that will fall on none but the galled ulcerous place doth feed accordingly Is a professor of Religion Covetous Drunk or other wayes scandalous Remember that it is his Covetousness or drunkenness that is bad Reprove that and fly from it and spare not But Religion is good Let that therefore be commended and imitated Leave the Carrion to Dogs and Crows to feast upon But do you choose out the things that are commendable and mind and mention and imitate those § 25. Direct 8. Lastly Think and speak as much against the sin and danger of taking-scandal as Direct 8. against the sin and danger of giving it When others cry out These are your religious people Do you cry out as much against their malignity and madness who will dislike or reproach Religion for mens sins Which is to blame the the Law-makers or Laws because they are broken or to fall out with Health because many that once were in health fall sick or to find fault with eating because some are lean or with clothing because some are cold Open to your selves and others what a wicked and perillous thing this is to fall out with Godliness because some are ungodly that seemed godly Many cry out against Scandal Scandal that never think what a heinous sin it is to be scandalized or to suffer mens sins to be a scandal to you and to be the worse because that others are so bad No one must differ from them in an opinion or a fashion of apparel or in a mode or form of Worship but some are presently scandalized Not knowing that it is a greater sin in them to be scandalized than in the other by such means supposing them to be faulty to give them the occasion Do you know what it is to be scandalized or offended in the Scripture sense It is not meerly to be displeased or to dislike anothers actions as is before said But it is to be drawn into some sin or hindered from some duty or stopt in the course of Religion or to think the worse of truth or duty or a godly life because of other mens words or actions And do you think him a good Christian and a faithful or constant friend to godliness who is so easily brought to quarrel with it Or is so easily turned from it or hindered in it Some pievish childish persons are like sick stomachs that no meat can please you cannot dress it so curiously but they complain that it is naught or this ayleth it or that ayleth it when the fault is in themselves Or like children or sick persons that can scarce be toucht but they are hurt Do you think that this sickliness or curiosity in Religion is a credit to you This is not the tenderness of Conscience which God requireth to be easily hurt by other mens differences or faults As it is the shame of many Ladies and Gentlewomen to be so curious and troublesomely neat that no servant knoweth how to please them so is it in Religion a sign of your childish folly and worse to be guilty of such proud curiosity that none can please you who are not exactly of your mind and way All men must follow your humours in gestures fashions opinions formalities and modes or else you are troubled and offended and scandalized As if all the world were made to please and humour you Or you were wise enough and great and good enough to be the rule of all about you Desire and spare not that your selves and all men should please God as exactly as is possible But if the want of that exactness in doubtful things or a difference in things disputable and doubtful among true Christians do thereupon abate or hinder your Love or estimation of your brethren or communion with them or any other Christian duty or tempt you into censoriousness or contempt of your brethren or to Schism Persecution or any other sin it is you that are the great offenders and you that are like to be the sufferers and have cause to lament that sinful aptness to be thus scandalized CHAP. XIV Directions against soul-murder and partaking of other mens sins THE special Directions given Part 3. Ch. 22. to Parents and Masters will in this case be of great use to all others But because it is here seasonable to speak of it further under the sixth Commandment and the matter is of greatest consequence I shall 1. Tell you how men are guilty of soul-murder 2. And then give you some General Directions for the furthering of mens salvation 3. And next give you some special Directions for Christian Exhortation and Reproofs § 1. 1. Men are guilty of soul-murder by all these wayes 1. By preaching false soul-murdering doctrine such as denyeth any necessary point of faith or holy living such as is opposite to a holy life or to any particular necessary duty such as maketh sin to be no sin which call good evil and evil good wich putteth darkness for light and light for darkness § 2. 2. By false application of true doctrine indirectly reflecting upon and disgracing that holiness of life which in terms they preach for By prevarication undermining that cause which their office is appointed to promote As they do who purposely so describe any vice that the hearers may be drawn to think that strict and Godly practices are either that sin it self or but a Cloak to hide it § 3. 3. By bringing the persons of the most religious into hatred by such false applications reflections or secret insinuations or open calumnies Making men believe that they are all but Hypocrites or Schismaticks or seditious or fanatical self-conceited persons Which is usually done either by impudent slanders raised against some particular men and so reflected on the rest or by the advantage of factions controversies or Civil Wars or by the falls of any professours or the crimes of Hypocrites whereupon they would make the World believe that they are all alike As if all Christs family were to be judged of by Peters fall or Iudas falshood And the odious representation of Godly men doth greatly prevail to keep others from Godliness and is one of the Devils most successful means for the damnation of multitudes of souls § 4. 4. The disgrace of the persons of the Preachers of the Gospel doth greatly further mens damnation For when the people think their Teachers to be Hypocrites Covetous Proud and secretly as bad as others they are very like to think accordingly of their doctrine
man is bound to punish himself As when the Law against Swearing Cursing or the like doth give the poor a certain mulct which is the penalty He ought to give that money himself And in cases where it is a necessary cure to himself And in any case where the publick good requireth it As if a Magistrate offend whom none else will punish or who is the Judge in his own cause he should so far punish himself as is necessary to the suppression of sin and to the preserving of the honour of the Laws As I have heard of a Justice that swore twenty Oaths and paid his twenty shillings for it 2. A man may be bound in such a Divine Vengeance or Judgement as seeketh after his particular sin to offer himself to be a sacrifice to Justice to stop the Judgement As Ionah and Achan did 3. A man may be bound to confess his guilt and offer himself to Justice to save the innocent who is falsly accused and condemned for his crime 4. But in ordinary cases a man is not bound to be his own publick accuser or executioner Quest. 10. May a Witness voluntarily speak that truth which he knoweth will further an unrighteous Quest. 10. cause and be made use of to oppress the innocent Answ. He may never do it as a confederate in that intention Nor may he do it when he knoweth that it will tend to such an event though threatned or commanded except when some weightier accident doth preponderate for the doing it As the avoiding of a greater hurt to others than it will bring on the oppressed c. Quest. 11. May a witness conceal some part of the truth Quest. 11. Answ. Not when he sweaâ—â—â—â—h to deliver the whole truth Nor when a good cause is like to suffer or a bad cause to be furâ—â—â—â—ered by the concealment Nor when he is under any other obligation to reveal the whole Quest. 12. Must a Iudge and Iury proceed secundum allegata probata according to evidence and Quest. 12. proof when they know the witness to be false and the truth to be contrary to the testimony but are not able to evince it Answ. Distinguish between the Negative and the Positive part of the Verdict or Sentence In the Negative they must go according to the evidence and testimonies unless the Law of the Land leave the case to their private knowledge As for example They must not sentence a Thief or Murderer to be punished upon their secret unproved knowledge They must not adjudge either Moneys or Lands to the true Owner from another without sufficient evidence and proof They must forbear doing Iustice because they are not called to it nor enabled But Positively they may do no Injustice upon any evidence or witness against their own knowledge of the truth As they may not upon known false witness give away any mans Lands or Money or condemn the innocent But must in such a case renounce the Office The Judge must come off the Bench and the Jury protest that they will not meddle or give any Verdict what ever come of it Because God and the Law of Nature prohibit their injustice Object It is the Law that doth it and not we Answ. It is the Law and you And the Law cannot justifie your agency in any unrighteous sentenâ—e The case is plain and past dispute Tit. 2. Directions against Contentious Suits False Witnessing and Oppressive Iudgements § 1. Direct 1. THe first Cure for all these sins is to know the intrinsick evil of them Good Direct 1. thoughts of sin are its life and strength When it is well known it will be hated and when it is hated it is so far cured § 2. I. The Evil of Contentious and unjust Law-Suits 1. Such contentious Suits do shew the power of selfishness in the sinner How much self-interest is inordinately esteemed 2. They shew the excessive love of the world How much men over-value the things which they contend for 3. They shew mens want of Love to their neighbours How little they regard another mans interest in comparison of their own 4. They shew how little such mens care for the publick good which is maintained by the concord and love of neighbours 5. Such contentions are powerful Engines of the Devil to destroy all Christian Love on both sides and to stir up mutual enmity and wrath and so to involve men in a course of sin by further uncharitableness and injuries both in heart and word and deed 6. Poor men are hereby robbed of their necessary maintenance and their innocent families subjected to distress 7. Unconscionable Lawyers and Court-Officers who live upon the peoples sins are hereby maintained encouraged and kept up 8. Laws and Courts of Justice are perverted to do men wrong which were made to right them 9. And the offender declareth how little sense he hath of the authority or Love of God and how little sense of the grace of our Redeemer And how far he is from being himself forgiven through the blood of Christ who can no better forgive another § 3. II. The Evil of False Witness 1. By False Witness the innocent are injured Robbery and Murder are committed under pretence of truth and justice 2. The Name of God is horribly abused by the crying sin of Perjury of which before 3 The Presence and Justice of God are contemned When sinners dare in his sight and hearing appeal to his Tribunal in the attesting of a lye 4. Vengeance is begged or consented to by the sinner who bringeth Gods curse upon himself and as it were desireth God to plague or damn him if he lye 5. Satan the Prince of malice and injustice and the Father of lyes and murders and oppression is hereby gratified and eminently served 6. God himself is openly injured who is the Father and Patron of the innocent and the cause of every righteous prson is more the cause of God than of man 7. All Government is frustrated and Laws abused and all mens security for their reputations or estates or lives is overthrown by false witnesses And consequently humane converse is made undesirable and unsafe What good can Law or right or innocency or the honesty of the Judge do any man where false-witnesses combine against him What security hath the most innocent or worthy person for his fame or liberty or estate or life if false witnesses conspire to defame him or destroy him And then how shall men endure to converse with one another Either the innocent must seek out a Wilderness and flye from the face of men as we do from Lyons and Tygers or else Peace will be worse than War For in War a ma 〈…〉 ay fight for his life but against false witnesses he hath no defence But God is the avenger of the innocent and above most other sins doth seldome suffer this to go unpunished even in this present world but often beginneth their Hell on Earth to such perjured
not every one that committeth a sin after admonition who is here to be understood but such as are impenitent in some mortal or ruling sin For some may sin oft in a small and controverted point for want of ability to discern the truth and some may live in daily infirmities as the best men do which they condemn themselves and desire to be delivered from And even the most impenitent mans sins must not be medled with by every one at his pleasure but only when you have just cause Quest. 9. What if it be one whom I cannot speak to face to face Quest. 9. Answ. You must let him alone till you have just cause to speak of him Quest. 10. When hath a man a just cause and call to open anothers faults Quest. 10. Answ. Negatively 1. Not to fill up the time with other idle chatt or table-talk 2. Not to second any man how good soever who backbiteth others no though he pretend to do it to make the sin more odious or to exercise godly sorrow for other mens sin 3. Not when ever interest passion faction or company seemeth to require it But Affirmatively 1. When we may speak it to his face in love and privacy in due manner and circumstances as is most hopeful to conduce to his amendment 2. When after due admonition we take two or three and after that tell the Church in a case that requireth it 3. When we have a sufficient cause to accuse him to the Magistrate 4. When the Magistrate or the Pastors of the Church reprove or punish him 5. When it is necessary to the preservation of another As if I see my friend in danger of marrying with a wicked person or takeing a false servant or trading and bargaining with one that is like to over-reach him or going among cheaters or going to hear or converse with a dangerous Heretick or Seducer I must open the faults of those that they are in danger of so far as their safety and my charity require 6. When it is any treason or conspiracy against the King or Common-wealth where my concealment may be an injury to the King or damage or danger to the Kingdom 7. When the person himself doth by his self-justification force me to it 8. When his reputation is so built upon the injury of others and slanders of the just that the justifying of him is the condemning of the innocent we may then indirectly condemn him by vindicating the just As if it be in a case of contention between two if we cannot justifie the right without dishonour to the injurious there is no remedy but he must bear his blame 9. When a mans notorious wickedness hath set him up as a spectacle of warning and lamentation so that his crimes cannot be hid and he hath forfeited his reputation we must give others warning by his fall As an excommunicate person or malefactor at the Gallows c. 10. When we have just occasion to make a bare narrative of some publick matters of fact as of the sentence of a Judge or punishment of offenders c. 11. When the crime is so heinous as that all good persons are obliged to joyn to make it odious as Phinehas was to execute judgement As in cases of open Rebellion Treason Blasphemy Atheism Idolatry Murders Perjury Cruelty Such as the French Massacre the Irish far greater Massacre the Murdering of Kings the Powder Plot the Burning of London c. Crimes notorious should not go about in the mouths or ears of men but with just detestation 12. When any persons false reputation is a seducement to mens souls and made by himself or others the instrument of Gods dishonour and the injury of the Church or State or others though we may do no unjust thing to blast his reputation we may tell the truth so far as justice or mercy or piety requireth it Quest. 11. What if I hear dawbers applauding wicked men and speaking well of them and extenuating Quest. 12. their crimes and praising them for evil doing Answ. You must on all just occasions speak evil of sin But when that is enough you need not meddle with the sinner no not though other men applaud him and you know it to be false For you are not bound to contradict every falshood which you hear But if in any of the twelve fore-mentioned cases you have a call to do it as for the preservation of the hearers from a snare thereby as if men commend a Traytor or a wicked man to draw another to like his way in such cases you may contradict the false report Quest. 12. Are we bound to reprove every backbiter in this age when honest people are grown to Quest. 12. make little conscience of it but think it their duty to divulge mens faults Answ. Most of all that you may stop the stream of this common sin Ordinarily when ever we can do it without doing greater hurt we should rebuke the tongue that reporteth evil of other men causelesly behind their backs For our silence is their encouragement in sin Tit. 2. Directions against Backbiting Slandering and Evil Speaking Direct 1. MAintain the life of brotherly Love Love your neighbour as your self Direct 1. Direct 2. Watch narrowly lest interest or passion should prevail upon you For Direct 2. where these prevail the tongue is set on fire of Hell and will set on fire the course of nature Iam. 2. Selfishness and passion will not only prompt you to speak evil but also to justifie it and think you do well yea and to be angry with those that will not hearken to you and believe you Direct 3. Especially involve not your selves in any faction Religious or Secular I do not mean Direct 3. that you should not love and imitate the best and hold most intimate communion with them But that you abhor unlawful divisions and sidings and when error or uncharitableness or carnal interest hath broken the Church into pieces where you live and one is of Paul and another of Apollo and another of Cephas one of this party and another of that take heed of espousing the interest of any party as it stands cross to the interest of the whole It would have been hardly credible if sad experience had not proved it how commonly and heinously almost every Sect of Christians do sin in this point against each other And how far the interest of their Sect which they account the interest of Christ will prevail with multitudes even of zealous people to belye calumniate backbite and reproach those that are against their opinion and their party Yea how easily will they proceed beyond reproaches to bloody persecutions He that thinketh that he doth God service by killing Christ or his Disciples will think that he doth him service by calling him a deceiver and one that hath a Devil a blasphemer and an enemy to Caesar and calling his Disciples pestilent fellows and movers of
God hath gone before him by any particular prescript and tyed him to one certain way of giving and where God hath only given him some general Direction and left him to discern his Duty in particulars by that general Rule and the further direction of objects and providence And in this enquiry he will find 1. That God hath first prescribed to him in Nature the necessary sustentation of his own life And 2. The necessary maintenance of his children and family 3. The necessary maintenance of the Preachers of the Gospel for the Worship of God and the salvation of men 1 Cor. 9. Phil. 4. 10 11 14 17 18. Luke 10. 7. 1 Tim. 5. 17 18. 4. The necessary maintenance of the Common-wealth and paying tribute to the higher powers who are the Ministers of God to us for good attending continually upon this very thing Rom. 13. 4 6. 5. The saving of the lives of those that are in apparent danger of famine or perishing within our sight or reach 1 Iohn 3. 17. Luke 10. 33. Thus far God hath prescribed to us how he would have us use our estates in an ordinary way In many other things he hath left us to more General Directions 3. To know among good works which is to be preferred it principally concerneth Us next to know what works do most contribute to our chiefest ends which God is most honoured by which tend to the greatest good And here we shall find that caeteris paribus 1. The Souls of men are to be preferred before their Bodies in estimation and intention But in time the Body is oft to be preferred before the Soul because if the Body be suffered to perish the helping of the Soul will be past our power 2. And so the Church is finally and estimatively to be preferred before the Common-wealth but the Common-wealth must be first served in time when it is necessary to the Churches support and welfare For the Church will else perish with the Common-wealth 3. The good of many is to be preferred before the Good of few and publick good to be valued above private Rom. 9. 3. 4. A continued good is greater than a short and transitory good And so necessary is it to have chief respect in all our works to our chiefest end the greatest good that even when God seemeth to have prescribed to us the way of our expences yet that is but as to our ordinary course for if in an extraordinary case it fall out that another way is more to Gods glory and the common good it must be then preferred For all means are to be judged of by the end and chosen and used for it For example if the good of Church and Common-wealth or of the souls of many do stand up against our corporal provision of our children or families it is to be preferred which is easily proved a fortiore because it is to be preferred before our own good even the saving of our lives A good subject will lose his life to save the life of his King and a good Souldier will dye to save his General or the Army And a useless member of the Church should be content to dye if it be necessary to save the life of a Pastor that is greatly useful If a poor ordinary Christian then had been so put to it that either Paul or He must famish no doubt but his ultimate end would have commanded him to prefer the Apostle before himself So that in extraordinary cases the end and greatest good must be our guide 4. Though I may ordinarily prefer my own life â—efore anothers yet I must not prefer my meer delight nor health before anothers life And though men must provide for the lives of their children before the lives of others yet the life of a poor neighbour caeteris paribus must be preferred and provided for before the portions of your own children and before the supply of their tollerable wants So that as long as there are poor about you that are in necessity of food to save their lives the portions or comliest clothing of your children must rather be neglected than the poor be suffered to perish How else do I love my neighbour as my self if I make so great a difference between my self and him 5. Even the food and rayment and other necessaries which a Christian useth himself he must use for God and not for his carnal self at all not taking it as his own which he may use at and for his own pleasure but as part of his Masters goods which are all to be used only for his service As a steward that when he giveth every servant his part and taketh his own part it is not as if it were primarily his own but as a servant on the same account with the rest So when I devote all that I have to God I am so far from excepting my own part even my food and rayment that I do more confidently intend the serving of God with that than with the rest because it is more in my power and there is in it more of my duty The same I may say of that which is given to our children and other relations 6. Therefore when more of the service and interest of God lyeth upon your own or your childrens using of his talents than upon other mens you are bound for God and not for your selves to retain so much the more to your selves and children It is a fond conceit that a man is bound to give all to others rather than to himself or children when it is most probable that those others would do God less service with it than himself or his children would do As suppose such a man as Mr. Elliot in New England that devoteth himself to the Conversion of the Indians had riches when some neighbour Ministers were poor that are engaged in no such work He that knoweth that God hath given him a heart and an opportunity to do him more service with it than another would do is not bound to put it out of his own hands into anothers that is less like to be a faithful improver of it If you have a Son of your own that is a Preacher of the Gospel and is more able and serviceable than other Ministers in equal want no doubt you have then a double obligation to relieve your own Son before another as he is your Son and as he is more serviceable to God If other men are bound to supply your want for the work and interest of the Gospel you are not bound to give away your own supplyes to the disabling you from your work unless when you see a greater work or the present absolute necessity of others doth require it 7. It is imprudent and unsafe and therefore unlawful ordinarily to tye your self unchangably for continuance to any one particular way of using your estates for God As to vow that you will give it to Ministers or to the poor or to Schools
your sins and to that life of Holiness Righteousness Love and Sobriety which is contrary to them Otherwise your Repentance is fraudulent and insufficient These means and no less than all these must be used by him that will make sure of the pardon of his sins from God And he that thinketh all these too much must look for pardon some other way than from the mercy of God or the Grace of Christ For Gods pardon is not to be had upon any other terms than those of Gods appointment He that will make new Conditions of his own must pardon himself if he can on those conditions For God will not be tyed to the Laws of sinners CHAP. XXXIV Cases and Directions about Self-judging Tit. 1. Cases of Conscience about Self-judging BEcause I have said so much of this subject in the third Part of my Saints Rest and in a Treatise of Self-acquaintance and in my Directions for Peace of Conscience and before in this Book I shall be here the briefer in it Quest. 1. What are the uses and reasons of self-judging which should move us to it Quest. 1. Answ. In the three foresaid Treatises I have opened them at large In a word without it we shall be strangers to our selves we can have no well grounded comfort no true repentance and humiliation no just estimation of Christ and Grace no just observance of the motions of Gods Spirit no true application of the Promises or Threatnings of the Scripture yea we shall pervert them all to our own destruction no true understanding of the Providence of God in prosperity or adversity no just acquaintance with our duty A man that knoweth not himself can know neither God nor any thing aright nor do any thing aright he can neither live reasonably honestly safely nor comfortably nor suffer or dye with solid peace Quest. 2. What should ignorant persons do whose natural capacity will not reach to so high a work as Quest. 2. to try and judge themselves in matters so sublime Answ. 1. There is no one who hath reason and parts sufficient to Love God and hate sin and live a holy life and believe in Christ but he hath reason and parts sufficient to know by the use of just means whether he do these things indeed or not 2. He that cannot reach assurance must take up with the lower degrees of comfort of which I shall speak in the Directions Quest. 3. How far may a weak Christian take the judgement of others whether his Pastor or judicious Quest. 3. acquaintance about his justification and sincerity Answ. 1. No mans judgement must be taken as infallible about the sincerity of another nor must it be so far rested on as to neglect your fullest search your self And for the matter of fact what you have done or what is in you no man can be so well acquainted with it as your selves 2. But in judging whether those acts of Grace which you describe be such as God hath promised salvation to and in directing you in your self-judging and in conjecturing at your sincerity by your expressions and your lives a faithful friend or Pastor may do that which may much support you and relieve you against inordinate doubts and fears and shew you that your sincerity is very probable Especially if you are assured that you tell him nothing but the truth your selves and if he be one that is acquainted with you and your life and hath known you in temptations and one that is skilful in the matters of God and conscience and one that is truly judicious experienced and faithful and is not byassed by interest or affection and especially when he is not singular in his judgement but the generality of judicious persons who know you are of the same mind In this case you may take much comfort in his judgement of your justification though it cannot give you any proper certainty nor is to be absolutely rested in Tit. 2. Directions for Self-judging as to our Actions Direct 1. LEt watchfulness over your hearts and lives be your continual work Never grow Direct 1. careless or neglective of your selves Keep your hearts with all diligence As an unfaithful servant may deceive you if you look after him but now and then So may a deceitful heart Let it be continually under your eye Object Then I must neglect my Calling and do nothing else Answ. It need not be any hinderance to you at all As every man that followeth his Trade and labour doth still take heed that he do all things right and every Traveller taketh heed of falling and he that eateth taketh heed of poysoning or choking himself without any hinderance but to the furtherance of that which he is about So is it with a Christian about his heart Vigilant heedfulness must never be laid by what ever you are doing Direct 2. Live in the light as much as is possible I mean under a judicious faithful Pastor Direct 2. and amongst understanding exemplary Christians For they will be still acquainting you with what you should be and do and your errors will be easily detected and in the light you are not so like to be deceived Direct 3. Discourage not those that would admonish or reprove you nor neglect not their opinion Direct 3. of you No not the railings of an enemy For they may tell you that in anger much more in fidelity which it may concern you much to hear and think of and may give you some light in judging of your selves Direct 4. If you have so happy an opportunity engage some faithful bosome friend to watch over you Direct 4. and tell you plainly of all that they see amiss in you But deal not so hypocritically as to do this in the general and then be angry when he performeth his trust and discourage him by your proud impatience Direct 5. Put your selves in anothers case and be impartial When you cannot easily see the Direct 5. faults of others enquire then whether your own be not as visible if you were as ready to observe and aggravate them And surely none more concern you than your own nor should be so odious and grievous to you nor are so if you are truly penitent Direct 6. Understand your natural temper and inclination and suspect those sins which you are naturally Direct 6. most inclined to and there keep up the strictest watch Direct 7. Understand what temptations your Place and Calling and Relations and Company do most Direct 7. subject you to and there be most suspicious of your selves Direct 8. Mark your selves well in the hour of temptation For then it is that the vices will appear Direct 8. which before lay covered and unknown Direct 9. Suspect your selves most heedfully of the most common and most dangerous sins Especially Direct 9. Unbelief and want of Love to God and a secret preferring of earthly hopes before the hopes of the life to come and
some notable yea or ordinary providence which did lately occurr 5. Or of some examples of good or evil that are fresh before you 6. Or of the right doing of the duty that you are about or any such like helps Direct 5. § 7. Direct 5. Talk not of vain unprofitable controversies nor often of small circumstantial matters that make but little to edification For there may be idle talking about matters of Religion as well as about other smaller things Especially see that the quarrells of the times engage not your thoughts and speeches too far into a course of unprofitableness or contention § 8. Direct 6. Furnish your selves before hand with matter for the most edifying discourse and never Direct 7. go abroad empty And let the matter be usually 1. Things of weight and not small matters 2. Things of certainty and not uncertain things Particularly the fittest subjects for your ordinary discourse are these 1. God himself with his Attributes Relations and Works 2. The great mysterie of mans Redemption by Christ His person office sufferings doctrine example and work His resurrection ascension glory intercession and all the priviledges of his Saints 3. The Covenant of Grace the promises the duties the conditions and the threatnings 4. The workings of the Spirit of Christ upon the soul and every grace of the Spirit in us with all the signs and helps and hinderances of it 5. The wayes and wiles of Satan and all our spiritual enemies the particular temptations which we are in danger of what they are and how to avoid them and what are the most powerful helps against them 6. The corruption and deceitfulness of the heart The nature and workings effects and signs of ignorance unbelief hypocrisie pride sensuality worldliness impiety injustice intemperance uncharitableness and every other sin with all the helps against them all 7. The many duties to God and man which we have to perform both internal and external and how to do them and what are the chiefest hindrances and helps As in reading hearing meditating prayer giving alms c. And the duties of our Relations and several places with the contrary sins 8. The Vanity of the world and deceitfulness of all earthly things 9. The powerful Reasons used by Christ to draw us to holiness and the unreasonable madness of all that is brought against it by the Devil or by wicked men 9. Of the sufferings which we must expect and be prepared for 10. O◠death and the preparations that will then be found necessary and how to make ready for so great a change 11. Of the day of judgement and who will be then justified and who condemned 12. Of the joyes of Heaven the employment the company the nature and duration 13. Of the miseries of the damned and the thoughts that then they will have of their former life on earth 14. Of the state of the Church on earth and what we ought to do in our places for its welfare Is there not matter enough in all these great and weighty points for your hourly meditation and conference § 9. Direct 7. Take heed of proud self-conceitedness in your conference Speak not with supercilious Direct 7. censorious confidence Let not the weak take on them to be wiser than they are Be readier to speak by way of Question as Learners than as Teachers of others unless you are sure that they have much more need to be taught by you than you by them It 's ordinary for novices in Religion to cast all their discourse into a Teaching strain or to make themselves Preachers before they understand It is a most loathsome and pitiful hearing and yet too ordinary to hear a raw self-conceited ungrounded unexperienced person to prate magisterially and censure confidently the doctrine or practices or persons of those that are much better and wiser than themselves If you meet with this proud censorious spirit rebuke it first and read to them Iam. 3. and if they go on turn away from them and avoid them for they know not what manner of spirit they are of they serve not the Lord Jesus whatever they pretend or think themselves but are proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and making divisions in the Church of God and ready to fall into the condemnation of the Devil 1 Tim. 3. 6. 6. 3 4 5 Rom. 16. 17. Luk. 9. 55. Direct 8. § 10. Direct 8. Let the wisest in the company and not the weakest have most of the discourse But yet if any one that is of an abler tongue than the rest do make any determinations in doubtful controverted points take heed of a hasty receiving his judgement let his reasons seem never so plausible or probable but put down all such opinions as doubts and move them to your Teachers or some other impartial able men before you entertain them Otherwise he that hath most wit and tongue in the company might carry away all the rest into what errour or heresie he please and subvert their faith when he stops their mouths § 11. Direct 9. Let the matter of your speech be suitable to your end even to the good of your Direct 9. selves or others which you seek The same subject that is fit for one company is very unfit for others Learned men and ignorant men pious men and prophane men are not fit for the same kind of discourse The medicine must be carefully fitted to the disease § 12. Direct 10. Let your speech be seasonable when prudence telleth you it is not like to do more Direct 10. harm than good There is a season for the prudent to be silent and refrain even from good talk Amos 5. 17. Psal. 39. 1 2. Cast not Pearls before Swine and give not holy things to Dogs that you know will turn again and rend you Matth. 7. 6. Yea and among good people themselves there is a time to speak and a time to be silent Eccles. 3. 7. There may possibly be such excess as tendeth to the tiring of the hearers and more may be cram'd in than they can digest and surfetting may make them loath it afterwards You must give none more than they can bear And also the matters of your business and callings must be talkt of in their time and place § 13. Direct 11. Let all your speech of holy things be with the greatest seriousness and reverence Direct 11. that you are able Let the words be never so good yet levity and rudeness may make them to be prophane God and holy things should not be talkt of in a common manner But the gravity of your speech should tell the hearers that you take them not for small or common matters If servants and others that live near together would converse and speak as the Oracles of God how holy and heavenly and happy would such families or societies be CHAP. XVII Directions for each particular member of the Family how to spend every ordinary day of
the week IT somewhat tendeth to make a holy life more easie to us when we know the ordinary course and method of our duties and every thing falleth into its proper place As it helpeth the Husbandman or Tradesman to know the ordinary course of his work that he need not go out of it unless in extraordinary cases Therefore I shall here give you some brief Directions for the holy spending of every day § 1. Direct 1. Proportion the time of your sleep aright if it be in your power that you waste Direct 1. not your pretious morning hours sluggishly in your bed Let the time of your sleep be rationally fitted to your health and labour and not sensually to your slothful pleasure About six hours is meet for healthful people and seven hours for the less healthful and eight for the more weak and aged ordinarily The morning hours are to most the preitousest of all the day for all our duties especially servants that are scanted of time must take it then for prayer if possible leâ—t they have none at all § 2. Direct 2. Let God have your first awaking thoughts Lift up your hearts to him reverently Direct 2. and thankfully for the rest of the night past and briefly cast your selves upon him for the following day and use your selves so constantly to this that your consciences may check you when common thoughts shall first intrude And if you have a Bed-fellow to speak to let your first speech be agreeable to your thoughts It will be a great help against the temptations that may else surprize you and a holy engagement of your hearts to God for all the day § 3. Direct 3. Resolve that pride and the fashions of the times shall never tempt you into such a Direct 3. garb of attire as will make you long in dressing you in the morning but wear such cloathing as is soon put on It 's dear-bought bravery or decency as they will needs call it which must cost every day an hours or a quarter of an hours time extraordinary I had rather go as the wilde Indians than have those morning hours to answer for as too many Ladies and other gallants have § 4. Direct 4. If you are persons of quality you may employ a child or servant to read a Chapter Direct 4. in the Bible while you are dressing you and eating your breakfast if you eat any Else you may employ that time in some fruitful meditation or conference with those about you as far as your necessary occasions do give leave As to think or speak of the mercy of a nights rest and of your renewed time and how many spent that night in hell and how many in prison and how many in a colder harder lodging and how many in grievous pain and sickness aweary of their beds and of their lives and how many in distracting terrours of their minds and how many souls that night were called from their bodies to appear before the dreadful God And think how fast days and nights â—oul on and how speedily your last night and day will come And observe what is wanting in the readiness of your soul for such a time and seek it presently without delay § 5. Direct 5. If more necessary duties call you not away let secret prayer by your self alone or Direct 5. with your chamber-fellow or both go before the common prayers of the family and delay it not causlesly but if it may be let it be first before any other work of the day Yet be not formal and superstitious to your hours as if God had absolutely tyed you to such a time nor think it not your duty to pray once in secret and once with your chamber-fellow and once with the family every morning when more necessary duties call you off That hour is best for one which is worst for another To most private prayer is most seasonable as soon as they are up and cloathed To others some other hour may be more free and fit And those persons that have not more necessary duties may do well to pray at all the opportunities before-mentioned But reading and meditation must be allowed their time also And the labours of your callings must be painfully followed And servants and poor people that are not at liberty or that have a necessity of providing for their families may not lawfully take so much time for prayer as some others may especially the aged and weak that cannot follow a calling may take longer time And Ministers that have many souls to look after and publick work to do must take heed of neglecting any of this that they may be longer and oftener in private prayer Allwayes remember that when two duties are at once before you and one must be omitted that you prefer that which all things considered is the greatest And understand what maketh a duty greatest Usually that is greatest which tendeth to the greatest good yet sometime that is greatest at that time which cannot be done at another time when others may Praying in it self considered is better than Plowing or Marketting or Conference And yet these may be greater than it in their proper seasons because prayer may be done at another time when these cannot § 6. Direct 6. Let family-worship be performed constantly and seasonably twice a day at that hour Direct 6. which is freest in regard of interruptions not delaying it without just cause But whenever it is performed be sure it be reverently seriously and spiritually done If greater duty hinder not begin with a brief invocation of Gods name and craving of his help and blessing through Christ and then read some part of the holy Scripture in order and either help the hearers to understand it and apply it or if you are unable for that then read some profitable Book to them for such ends and sing a Psalm if there be enough to do it fitly and earnestly pour out your souls in Prayer But if unavoidable occasions will not give way to all this do what you can especially in prayer and do the rest another time but pretend not necessity against any duty when it is but unwillingness or negligence The lively performance of Family-duties is a principal means to keep up the power and interest of Godliness in the world which all decays when these grow dead and slight and formal § 7. Direct 7. Renew the actual intention and remembrance of your ultimate end when you set your Direct 7. selves to your days work or set upon any notable business in the world Let HOLINESS TO THE LORD be written upon your hearts in all that you do Do no work which you cannot entitle God to and truly say he set you about And do nothing in the world for any other ultimate end than to Please and Glorifie and Enjoy him And remember that whatever you do must be done as a means to these and as by one that is that way going