THE VAIN RELIGION OF THE Formal Hypocrite And the mischief of an unbridled Tongue as against Religion Rulers or Dissenters described in several Sermons Preached at the Abby in Westminster before many Members of the Honourable House of Commons 1660. AND The Fools Prosperity The occasion of his destruction A Sermon Preached at Coven-Garden Both published to heal the effects of some Hearers misunderstandings and misreports By Richard Baxter London Printed by R. â— for F. Tyâ—oâ— at the three daggers in Fleet-street and Novel Sâ—mâ—n â—ookseller at Kedenmaster 1660. At â—â—boâ—nd TO THE READER THough God be not the Author of sin he knows why he permitteth tin the world He will be no loser and Satan shall be no gainer by it in the end The malice of the Devil wicked men is ordinarily the destruction of the cause which they most desire to promote and an advantage by accident to the cause and persons which they would root out from the earth Were there no more to prove this than the Instances of Josephs brethren of Pharaoh and the murderers of our Lord it were enough We usually lose more by the flatteries of Satan and the world than by their violence If these hasty course unpolished Sermons shall prove beneficial to the souls of any this also may come in among the lower rank of Instances If the Devil had let me alone they 〈◊〉 have been cast aside and no further molested him or his Kingdom for ought I know than they did upon the Preaching of them But seeing he will needs by malicious misreports and slanders kindle suspicion and raise offence against them and the Author let him take what he gets by it He hath never yet got much from me by violence or by his foulmouthed slanderous instruments No not when the impudence or multitude of their slanders have forced me to be silent lest I trouble the Reader or misspend my time The first of these Discourses being intended to undeceive the Formal Hypocrite and to call men from a Vain to a Saving serious Religion and to acquaint them that cry out against Hypocrisie where the Hypocrite is to be found it seems provoked the Ignorant or the Guilty in so much that the cry went that I Preacht down all Forms of Prayer and all Government and Order in the Church when there is not a Syllable that hath any such sense But it seems what I spoke against the Carkass was interpreted to be spoken against the Body of Religion The words of Mr. Bolton and other Divines which I have cited against the Reproachers of serious piety are added since the Preaching of the rest as being more fit to be presented here to the eye than in the Pulpit to the ear The petulancy of men on both extreams constrained me to add The Bridle for their tongues The second Discourse I understand offended some few of the Gallants that thought they were too roughly handled let them here peruse it and better concoct it if they please I only add this Observation to the Heirs of Heaven that are above this world and live by Faith Few rich men are truly Religious It is as hard for them to be saved as for a Camel to go through a needles eye Yet rich men will every where be the Rulers of the world and so as to outward protection or opposition the Judges in matters of Religion Judge therefore whether Dominion and earthly raign be the portion of the Saints as Jewishly some of late imagine and what usage we must ordinarily expect on earth and what condition the Church of Christ is like to be in to the end As his Kingdom so ours is not of this world A low despised suffering state is it that Behevers must ordinarily expect and prepare for and study to be serviceable in If better may I call it better come take it as a Feast and grudge not when the table is withdrawn and look not it should be our every dayes fare But yet value the more highly those few of the Rich and Great and Rulers that are above this world and devote their power and riches to the Lord and are Holy and Heavenly in the midst of so great temptations and impediments The Lord teach us to use this transitory world as not overusing it that we may never hear Remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things Luke 16. 25. How shortly will they find themselves everlastingly undone that made not sure of a more enduring portion Reader that thou mayst savingly remember these common but necessary though much neglected truths is the end of these endeavours and shall be the matter of my hearts desire and prayers while the Lord continneth me His servant for the promoting the increase and edification of his Church Nov. 15. 1660 R. Baxter Postscript REaders meeting in his consideration of the Liturgy with these following words of Reverend D. Gauden I cannot but commend the Candor Justice and Integrity of M. Baxter who lately professed to me that he saw nothing in the Liturgy which might not well bear a good construction if men looked upon it as became Christians with eyes of Charity I was sensible of the great respects of this Learned and Reverend man but lest you misunderstand both him and me I think it best to tell you more fully what were my words Speaking for reformation of the Common prayer Book and an addition of other forms in Scripture phrase with liberty of choice c. I said That for the Doctrine of the Common prayer Book though I had read exceptions against divers passages I remembred not any thing that might not receive a good construction if it were read with the same candour and allowance as we read the writings of other men So that it was only the Truth of the Doctrine that I spoke of against which I hate to be peevishly quarrelsome when God hath blest this Church so wonderfully with a moderate and cautelous yet effectual Reformation in matter of Doctrine The more pitty is it that the very modes of Worship and Discipline should be the matter of such sharp and uncharitable discords which must one day prove the grief of those that are found to have been the causes of it and of the sufferings of the Church on that occasion The Contents THe Introduction Page 1. c. Dict There is a seeming Religiousness which is but self-deceiving and will prove in Vain Ten particulars that constitute the Hypocrites Vain Religion 11. to 20. Ten things that are yet wanting to the Hypocrite that prove his Religion Vain 20. to 34. By what means and method the Hypocrite makes shift to deceive himself by his Religion 34. to 49. What moveth the Hypocrite to this self-deceit and what are the reasons and uses of his Vain Religion 49. In what respects the Hypocrites religion is not Vain 80 In what respects his religion is Vain 92 Use 1. Why a seeming outside Hypocritical religion is so common in
their reason in sensuality and are fed as for the slaughter and think not seriously whether they are going till prosperity hath ceased to deceive them and Satan is content to let them see â—hat they have lost and he hath wâ—n the game They are of the Religion described by the Apostle 1 Tim. 6. 5. that taketh gain for godliness But if godliness must go for gain they will have none To oppress their tenants and devour widdows houses and cloak it with a long pharisaical lip-service or wipe their mouths with some customary complemental prayers and offer God to be a sharer in the prey this is the commonest Religion of the rich But they cannot endure to be so pure as to devote themselves to God in that pure and undefiled Religion which visiteth the fatherless and widdows in their affliction and keepeth men unspotted from the world Jam. 1. 27. What houses or company can you go into where Religion is more bitterly derided more proudly vilified more slanderously reproached or more ingeniously abused and opposed then among the rich and full-fed worldlings And if there be here and there a person fearing God among them he passeth for a rarity or wonder And a little Religion goes a great way and is applauded and admired as eminent sanctity in persons of the higher rank If a poor man or woman dwell as it were in heaven and walk with God and think and speak and live by rule it s scarce regarded poverty or want of a voluble tongue or the mixtures of unavoidable frailties or some imprudent passages that come from the want of a more polishing culture and education doth make their piety but matter of jeasting and reproach to the Dives'es of the world But if a Lord or Knight or Lady have but half their piety humility and obedience to God how excellent are they in their Orbs Nay if they do but countenance Religion and befriend the servants of the Lord and observe a course of cold performances with the mixture of such sins for which a poor man should be almost excommunicate what excellent religious persons are they esteemed 2. What families are worse ordered and have less of serious piety then the rich If our splendid gallants should be desired to call their families constantly to prayer to instruct them all in the matters of salvation to teach them the Word of God with that diligence as is commanded Deut. 6. and 11. and to help them all in their preparations for death and judgement to catechise them and take an account of their proficiency to curb profaneness and excess and to say with Joshua 24. 15. As for me and my house we will serve the Lord how strange and precise a course would it seem to them should they purge their families of ungodly servants and imitate David Psal 101. that would not let the wicked dwell in his sight should they spend the Lords dayes in as serious endeavours for the spiritual benefit of their families and themselves as poor men do that fear the Lord what wonders of piety would they seem 3. In their entertainments visitations and converse how rare is serious holy confereâ—ce among them How seldome do you hear them remembering their guests and companions of the presence of the holy God of the necessity of renewing confirming and assisting grace of the riches of Christ revealed in the Gospel of the endless life of joy or misery which is at hand How seldome do you hear them seriously assisting each other in the examining of their hearts and making their calling and election sure and preparing for the day of death and judgement A word or two in private with some zealous Minister or friend is almost all the pious conference that shall be heard from some of the better sort of them Should they dâ—scourse as seriously of the life to come and the preparation necessary thereto as they do about the matters of this life they would marâ— the mirth and damp the pleasure of the company and be taken for self-conceited hypocrites or men of an unnecessary strictness and austerity inconsistent with the jocund lepidity and sensual kind of delight wherewith they expect to be entertained The honest heart-warming heavenly discourse that is usual among poor serious Christians would seem at the tables of most of our great ones but an unseasonable interruption of their more natural and acceptable kind of converse 4. What men do more carelesly cast away their precious time then these Dives'es do They think they have a license to be idle and unprofitable because they are rich that is to abuse or hide their talents because they have more then other men Forgetting that to whom much is given of them shall much be required Because they have no poverty or family-necessities to constrain them to a laborious life they think they may lawfully take their ease and live as droans on other mens labours as if they owed nothing to God or the Common wealth but all to their own flesh Their morning hours which are most seasonable for meditation and holy addresses unto God and the works of their calling are perhaps consumed in excess of sleep The next are wasted in long attiring and curious adorning of their flesh from thence they pass to vain discourse to needless-recreations to eating and drinking and so to their vain talk and recreations again and thence to the replenishing of their bellies and so to sleep And thus the words of the fool that Christ describeth in Luke 12. 19. are turned by them into deeds and it is the language of their sensual lives Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and be merry Sleeping and sporting and jeasting and idle talking and eating and drinking and dressing and undressing with worldly cares and passions intermixt are the very business and employment of their lives Thus contemptuously do they waste their precious hours while God stands by and time makes haste and death draws near and their miserable souls are unprepared and heaven or hell are hard at hand and this is all the time of preparation that ever shall be allowed them O do but look on these distracted piteous souls that have but a short uncertain life to provide for a life that hath no end and see how they forget or senslesly remember the matters of infinite concernment see how they trifle away that time that never will return how they sport and prate away those hours which shortly they would recall were it possible with the lowdest cryes or recover with the dearest price When they know not but in a laughter-or a merry jeast their breath may be stopped by an arrest from heaven or justice may surprize their miserable unready souls with the cards in their hands or the cup at their mouths when they have not the least assurance of being out of hell an hour and yet can sell this time for nothing and basely cast it away on toyes which
is the strait gate and narrow way that few men find Here he must be excused God is no God for him upon these terms And he cannot and will not be his God on any other terms Christ is no Christ for him unless he will excuse him from this trouble and bear with him in his carnal course that is unless he will be indeed no Christ to him Heaven is no heaven for him unless he may pass to it through prosperity and sin and unless he may have it without the trouble of a holy life that is unless God will be unjust or false and heaven cease to be heaven and God cease to be God But yet these men are convinced that God is their rightful Governour and that indeed they should love him and serve him with all their heart and might and that without true Religion and godliness there is no salvation To be irreligious and prophane they know is a state that can afford no comfort or shelter from the wrath of God and therefore some Religion they must have They are not able to endure the thoughts of lying under the curse of God To conclude themselves to be utterly graceless and the children of the Devil and in a state of condemnation is so terrible that they are not able to endure it Then every Sermon they hear would torment them and every Chapter they read would torment them and their pleasures would all be imbittered to them and nothing that they enjoy in all the world would quiet and content them No nor shall do long And therefore they must needs take up some Religion to quiet them for a little while and to make them hope that for all their sins they are not so bad nor in so dangerous a case as Preachers tell them some Religion they must needs have for fear of being damned A sound and serious Religion they will not have because they love the world and sin which it would deprive them of And therefore they patch up a Vain Religion composed of so much truth and duty as will stand with their prosperity and beloved pleasures which will not save them but sufficeth to deceive them Two parts make up this self deceiving frame as consistent with their sins The one is the formal outward easie cheap part of duty to God and man in their practise leaving out the spiritual inward difficult dear self-denying part The other is the strictest parts of Religion in bare opinion and notion while they shut it out of their hearts and lives For both these may stand with a sensual worldly selfish life He may read or say his prayers and be a worldling still He may come to Church and with the greatest ceremony and seeming reverence receive the Sacrament and bow before the Lord his Maker and yet be sensual or a worldling still And he may be of the strictest party or opinion and notionally condemn all sin and justifie the most holy life and yet be sensual and worldly still And therefore this much he may be perswaded to take up to save himself from the lashes of his conscience And so the use of the Hypocrites Religion is to be a skreen betwixt him and the flames of wrath that would scorch him too soon if he were of no Religion and to be to him as a tent or pentise to keep off the storms that would fall upon him while he is trading for the world and working for the flesh His Religion is but the sheath of his guilty conscience to keep it from wounding him and cutting his fingers while they are busie in the brutish service of his lusts It is but as a glove to save his skin when he hath to do with the nettles and thorns of the threatenings of God and the thoughts of vengeance that else would rack his guilty soul It is but as his upper garment to save him from a storm and then to be laid by as an unnecessary burden when he is at home The Hypocrites Religion is but as his shooe he can tread it in the dirt so it will but save his foot from galling As a man that hath an unquiet scolding wife is fain to speak her fair by flatteries lest he should have no rest at home or as a thief is fain to cast a crust to the dog that barketh at him to stop his mouth so is an ungodly sensual person fain to flatter his conscience with some kind of Religiousness and to stop its mouth with some kind of devotion and seeming righteousness that may deceive him into a belief that he is the child of God Religion is the Soveraign in a gracious soul and the Master in an upright conscience and ruleth above all worldly interests But with the unregenerate it is but an underling and servant that must do no more then the flesh and the world will give consent to and is regarded no further then for meer necessity and when it hath done the work which the Hypocrite appointed it it is dismissed and turned out of doors God is acknowledged and loved by the Hypocrite but not as God Christ is believed in and accepted but not as Christ but as an underling to the world and a journy-man to do some job of work for a distressed wrangling conscience or as an unwelcome Physician to give them a Vomit when they have taken some extraordinary surfeit of sensual delights When they have faln into great affliction or into any foul disgraceful sin then perhaps they take up their prayer books or call upon Christ and seem devout and very penitent But their piety is blown over with the storm The effect ceaseth with the cause It was not the Love of God or of his holy wayes and service that set them upon their devotions but some tempest of adversity or shipwrack of their estates or friends or consciences and when the winds are laid and the waves are still their devotion ceaseth with their danger 3. Add hereunto to shew you the reason of the Hypocrites self-deceit that he is one that never practically saw the amiableness of holiness in it self and never had a heart that was touched with the love of it by the Spirit of holiness and therefore he taketh it but for meer necessity and therefore he taketh up no more then he thinks is of necessity to save him from damnation when he can live in the pleasures of the world no longer God never had his heart He had rather be about his sports or worldly business if he durst and thought he could be so excused He loveth a pair of Cards or Dice or a Harlot or his ambitious designs and honours better then he loveth the holy Scriptures and the heavenly discourse or contemplation of the life to come And therefore he will have no more Religion then needs he must because he taketh it not for love but need The matters of the world and the flesh are his dyet and his extraordinary successes and prosperity are his feast
must needs tell you that are true Believe's you are much to be blamed that you look not on them with more compassion and weep not for them as for men that are within a 〈◊〉 of Heâ—â— when you hear them rail at the Laws or servants of the Lord. I mean those of whom the Apostle saith For many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are the enemies of the Cross of Christ that is to the self-denying mortified state of Christians and following him even through sufferings whose end is destruction whose God is their belly and whose glory is in their shame who mind earthly things Phil. 3. 18 19. that not only do wickedly but teach men so to do Matth. 5. 19. and have pleasure in them that do it Rom. 1. 32. and think it strange that we run not with them to the same excess of ryot speaking evil of us who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead 1 Pet. 4. 4 5 2. Thou bearest most eminently the image of the Devil and most expresly speakest his mind and art most openly employed in his works What is the Devil but an apostate spirit filled with enmity against God and his servants and hating Holiness the malicious Accuser of the Brethren slandering and reproaching them and seeking their destruction And shall a malicious lying sinner live that imitateth Satan in his enmity to God! O that thou knewest whom thou servest and that thou knewest whom thou speakest against Wo be to him that striveth with his Maker Isa 45. 9. It s hard for thee to kick against the pricks Acts 9. 5. Who ever hardened himself against him and hath prospered Job 9. 4. If Satan were to speak with open face what would he say but as the tongues of the malicious enemies of holiness do even to speak evil of the wayes and servants of the Lord Might he appear and speak himself in the Assemblies and Councils of the great ones of the earth he would speak against the same men and to the same purpose as those that I have described Your tongues are his instruments You speak what he secretly suggesteth as verily as if he had written you your instructions and you had read it in his words He hateth holiness and therefore he tempteth you to hate it He would bring it into hatred in the world and therefore he speaks disgracefully of it by your tongues His will is your will And your words are his words and the pleasant'st musick that you could make him O how it pleaseth him to make a reasonable creature reproach the Word and waies of his Creatour How eager was he to have got Job to have spoken evil of God! 3. Be it known to thee thou reviler that if ever thou be saved thy self it must be in that way that thou revilest Thy hope lyeth in it As sure as thou livest there is no other way to life eternal Without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Matth. 5. 8. When thou hast all done thou must come â—ack and go that way thy self or burn for ever Either thou must be such as those that thou dost speak against or thou art everlastingly undone And if thou think to be such a one thy self and to come to heaven by the very way that now thou dost revile canst thou yet revile it And if thou perish in hell for want of holiness thou shalt then have enough of thy rebellion Then thou shalt cry out against thy own malicious reproaches a thousand times more then ever thou didst against the servants of the Lord. Though the very distinction between the Godly and Vngodly be now thy scorn yet I shall be bold to tell thee in the words of Henoch yea of God Jud. 14. 15. Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints to execute judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodlily committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him Now you have your day and judgement must begin at the house of God! and if it first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God! and if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear 1 Pet. 4. 17 18. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly nor standeth in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful But his delight is in the Law of the Lord and in his Law doth he meditate day and night The ungodly are not so but like the chaffe which the wind driveth away therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgement nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous but the way of the ungodly shall perish Psal 1. This is Scripture distinction which God will make good I make no question but the worst of-you will put by all this in your self-deceit and say It is not holiness that we speak against but its Hypocrisie or Schisme or some such accusation that malice shall suggest will be your mask But will you answer me these few Questions Quest 1. Why then do you not imitate them so far as they do well why are you not as much in works of holiness as they in reading and meditating on the Word of God in holy conference and secret prayer and instructing your families c and then leave them and spare not where they do amiss Quest 2. Why do you not hate as much the sins of the notoriously ungodly who shew them without shame Nay why do you make such men your companions Quest 3. Why go you to the heart that is unseen and arrogate the prerogative of God to censure men of Hypocrisie and such secret sins that are out of your discerning If you know your heart by outward actions insist upon your proofes Quest 4. Why speak you not of their good as well as of the supposed evil why are you not more in speaking well of what is well then in speaking ill of what is ill Quest 5. Why is it that you speak of men that you know not and of others that are innocent for the sakes of those that you imagine to be guilty and why do you so greedily snatch at any matter of reproach and take it by hearsay from the most ignorant rash or malicious mouths Quest 6. If it be Hypocrisie or other vice that you so hate why do you not hate them in your selves why live you so viciously while you profess obedience to the Lord and why do you take on you to believe a heaven and hell hereafter and to give up your selves in Covenant to God and live so contrary to that profest belief and Covenant Quest 7. Do you not feel that
say that there is none of them all but when they shall come unto their beds of death and are to grapple immediately with the painful terrours of the King of fears and to stand or fall to the dreadful tribunal of the living God then except the Lord suffer them to fall into the fiery lake with senseless hearts and seared consciences would give ten thousand worlds were they all turned into gold pleasures and imperial crowns to change their former courses of vanity c. into a life of holy preciseness strictness sincerity and salvation Oh! when the heavens shall shrivel together like a scroll and the whole frame of nature flame about their ears when the great and mighty hills shall start out of their places like frighted men and the fearful reprobate cry and call upon this mountain and that rock to fall upon him when as no Dromedary of Egypt nor wings of the morning shall be able to carry them out of the reach of Gods revenging hand no top of Carmel no depth of sea or bottom of hell to hide them from the presence of him that sits upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb no rock nor mountain nor the great body of the whole earth to cover them from that unresistible power that laid the foundations of them no arm of flesh or armies of Angels to protect them from those infinite rivers of brimstone which shall be kept in everlasting flames by the anger of God when their poor and woeful souls shall infinitely desire rather to return into the loathed darkness of not being and to be hid for ever in the most abhorred state of annihilation then now to become the everliving objects of that unquenchable wrath which they shall never be able to avoid or to abide and to be chained up by the omnipotent band of God among the damned spirits in a place of flames and perpetual darkness where is torment without end and past imagination I say at that dreadful day and that day will come what do you think would they give for part in that Purity which now they persecute and for the comforts of true-hearted holiness that now they hate and yet without which as it will clearly appear when matters are brought before that high and everlasting Judge non shall ever see the Lord or dwell in the joyes of eternity Nay I verily think there are no desperate despisers of godliness or formal opposites to grace which do now hold Holiness to be Hypocrisie Sanctification singularity practice of sincerity too much preciseness but when the pit of dâ—struction hath once shut her mouth upon them and they are sunk irrecoverably into that dungeon of fire would be content with all their hearts to live a million of years as precisely as ever Saint did upon earth to redeem but one moment of that torment so p. 159. The common conceit of these men is that civil honest men are in the state of grace and that formal professors are very forward and without exception but true Christians indeed are Puritans Irregularists exorbitants transcendents to that ordinary pitch of formal piety which in their carnal comprehensions they hold high enough for heaven They either conceit them to be Hypocrites and so the only objects for the exercise of their Ministerial severity and the terrours of God or else though the Lord may at last pardon perhaps their singularities and excesses of zeal yet in the mean time they dissweeten and vex the comforts and glory of this life with much unnecessary strictness and abridgement Now of all others such Prophets as these are the only men with the Formal Hypocrite exactly fitted and suitable to his humour for however they may sometime declaim boysterously N. B. against gross and visible abominations and that is well yet they are no searchers into nor censurers of the state of Formality and therefore do rather secretly and silently encourage him to sit faster upon that sandy foundation then help to draw him forward to more forwardness c. See also his description of a Puritan p. 132. So in his Direct for walking with God p. 172. Good-fellow meetings and Ale-house revellings are the drunkards delight but all the while he sits at it he is perhaps in a bodily fear of the Puritan Constable Many such Passages tell you how the word Puritan was commonly interpreted in Oxford Northamptonshire and whereever Learned and Holy Mr. Bolton was acquainted And having mentioned his testimony of the use of that word I shall add somewhat of his discovery of this spirit of malignity and detraction that worketh in the Antipuritans In his Disc of Hap. p. 190 191. he saith The reverence and respectful carriage to godly Ministers which may sometimes be found in the Formal Hypocrite doth grow towards distast and disaffection when they press them by the powerful sense and piercing application of some quickning Scriptures to a fervency in spirit purity of heart preciseness in their walking supernatural singularity above ordinary and moral perfections excellency of zeal and a sacred violence in pursuit of the Crown of life to an holy strictness extraordinary striving to enter in at the strait gate and transcendent eminency over the formal righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees to a nearer familiarity with God by prayer daily examination of conscience private humiliations meditation upon the endless duration in a second life to a narrow watch over the stirrings and imaginations of the heart and expression of holiness in all the passages of both their callings c. Points and ponderations of which nature are ordinarily to him so many secret seeds of indignation and many times breed in his formal heart and cold affection exasperation and estrangement if not meditations of persecution and revenge Sanctification preciseness purity holiness zeal strictness power of godliness spiritual men holy brethren Saints in Christ Communion of Christians godly conferences conceived prayers sanctifying the Sabbath family exercises exercise of fasting and mortifying humiliations and such like are commonly to men of thus temporising temper and lukewarm constitution terms of secret terrour and open taunting And sometimes they villanously sport themselves with them and make them the matter of their hateful and accursed jeasts that so they may keep under as much as they can in disestimation and contempt the faithful Professors and Practisers thereof whom naturally they heartily hate and also seem thereby to bear out the heartless stourishes of their own formality with greater bravery Hereupon it is that if they take a child of God but tripping in the least infirmity against which too perhaps he strives and prayes with many tears c. slipping only in some unadvised precipitant passage of his negotiations c. they take on unmeasurably then they cry out These are your men of the spirit these are the holy brethren these are your precise fellows these are they which make such shew of Purity and forwardness you see now what they are
his administrations so much less must we accuse God of negligence or injustice by stepping into his throne And though the Railers of these times excuse their sin with the name of Justice they must shew their Commissions for the executing of that Justice before it will pass in heaven for an excuse Is not God severe enough will not his judgement be terrible enough would you wish men to suffer more then he will inflict on the impenitent what more then hell and will it not be soon enough are you so hasty for so dreadful a revenge can you not stay when the Judge is at the door Mark both the usage and remedy of believers in Jam. 5. 5 6 7 8. To the rich and great ones of the world he saith Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter Ye have condemned and killed the just and he doth not resist you There 's your usage Be patient therefore brethren unto the coming of the Lord There 's the remedy But must we stay so long he thus repeateth his advice Be ye also patient stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh Let your moderation be known to all men the Lord is at hand Phil. 4. 5. Shall not God avenge his own elect that cry day and night unto him though he bear long with them I tell you that he will avenge them speedily Luke 18. 7 8. There 's no contradiction between crying long and avenging speedily 5. Consider what compassion rather then reproach you owe to those by whom you suffer They do themselves much more hurt then they do you Are they great they have the more to answer for and their fall will be the greater Jam. 5. 1 2 3. If you are your selves believers go into the Sanctuary and ask the Scriptures what will be their end and then deny them compassion if you can Alas consider they are at the worst but such as you were formerly your selves as to the main Paul makes a sad confession of his own persecution of the Church when he was before Agrippa and doth not complain that he was himself so hardly used I verily thought saith he with my self that I ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Jesus 〈◊〉 of the Saints I shut up in prison little thinking that they were Saints I gave my voice against them I punished them oft in every Synagogue And being exceedingly mad against them I persecuted them Acts 26. 9 10 11 12. He would not tell Agrippa that he was mad but he might speak more freely of himself O sirs pitty poor men that have the temptations of worldly greatness and prosperity and must go through a Camels eye if they will come to heaven who stand so high that sun and wind have the greatest force upon them Who see so much vanity and little serious exemplary piety who hear so much flattery and falshood and so little necessary truth saith Seneca Divites cum omnia habeant unum illis deest scilicet qui verum dicat si enim in clientâ—â—am falicis hominis potentumque perveneris veneris aut veritas aut amicitia perdenda est If you were in their places you know not how far you might be prevailed against your selves If little temptations can make you miscarry in your places so oft and foully as you do what would you do if you had the strongest baits of the world and allurements of the flesh and the most dangerous temptations that Satan could assault you with Have you not seen of late before your eyes how low some have fallen from high professions and how shamefully the most promising persons have miscarried tha were lifted up and put to the tryal of such temptations of prosperity as they had never been used to before O pitty those that have such dangerous tryals to pass through and be thankful that you stand on safer ground and do not cruelty envy them their perils nor reproach them for their falls but pray and daily pray for their recovery 6. Consider this speaking evil of those by whom you suffer hath too much of selfishness and corrupted nature in it to be good If another suffered as you do and you were advanced as another is would you not speak more mildly then Or if not so yet the proneness of nature to break out into reviling words though it were for Religion and for God doth intimate to you that it hath a suspicious root Do you find it as easie to be meek and patient and forgive a wrong and love an enemy Take heed lest you serve Satan in vindicating the cause of God It s an unfit way of serving God to do it by breaking his Commands Read seriously the description of a contentious hurtful soul-tongued zeal in Jam. 3. and then tell me what thanks Christ will give you for it The two great Disciples James and John thought it would have notably honoured Christ and curbed the raging Spirit of the ungodly if he would have let them call for fire from heaven to consume a Town that refused to receive him But doth Christ encourage their destroying zeal No but he tells them Ye know not what spirit ye are of They little knew how unlike to the tender merciful healing Spirit of Christ that fiery hurting spirit was that provoked them to that desire nor how unpleasing their temper was to Christ This is the very case of many thousand Christians that are yet young and green and harsh and have not attained to that mellowness and sweetness and measure of charity that is in grown experienced Christians They think their passions and desires of some plagues on the contemners of the Gospel are acceptable to God and blame the charitable as too cold when they little know what spirit it is that raiseth that storm in them and how unlike and unacceptable it is to Christ Were you as zealous to serve all others in love and to stoop to their feet for their salvation and to become all things lawful to all men that you may win some this saving zeal would be pleasing to your Lord who comes to do the work of a Physician and not of the Souldier to save and not to destroy and therefore most approves of those that serve him most diligently in his saving work 7. Lastly consider your passions and evil speakings will but increase your suffering and make it seem just if otherwise it were unjust If you are not meek you have not the promise of inheriting the earth Matth. 5. 5 If you honour not your Parents or superiours you have not the promise that your daies shall be long in the land And your evil speaking will make men conclude that you would do evil if you could and durst As it s said to be Zoilus answer when he was askt why he spoke evil of Plato and such worthy men Quoniam malum facere cum velim non passum
spare not But if you are unsanctified sensual worldly men lay by your mirth till you are fitter for it and take your portion from the Apostle James 5. 1 2 3 5. Go to now ye rich men weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you Your riches are corrupted and your garments moth-eaten your gold and silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire ye have heaped treasure together for the last dayes Ye have lived in pleasure on earth and been wanton ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter What pitty is it to see men destroy themselves with the mercies of the Lord what pitty is it to see them so eager for prosperity and so regardless of the proper use and benefit of it O be not like the Bee that is drowned in her own honey And do not so greedily desire a greater burden then you can bear and to have more to answer for when you have been so unfaithful in a little And if you believe Christ that tells you how hardly rich men come to heaven and how few of them are saved long not for your danger and grudge not if you have not these exceeding difficulties to overcome You would be afraid to dwell in that air where few men scape infection or to feed on that dyet that most are killed by It s evident by the effects that prosperity befooleth and undoeth the most we find you on your sick beds in a more tractable frame 1. Then a man may speak to you about the case of your immortal souls with less contempt then now we meet with You look not then for laced speeches but will more patiently hear our plain discourses of eternal life 2. Then you will seem serious your selves and speak almost like those that you called Prâ—cisians and Puritans for remembring you of these things in your prosperity 3. Then you have some better relish of truth and duty and judge better of the matter and manner of exhortation and prayer then you do now 4. Then you have more charity and 〈◊〉 to others and are 〈◊〉 engaged to the destroying of those that are not of your opinions in all your formalities 5. You would then shake the head at him that should offer you cards or dice or fleshly vanities and you would tell others that its wiser to be delighted in the Law of God and meditate in it day and night 6. Then you will speak as contemptuously of the honour and pleasures and profits of the world and of pleasing men before the Lord as we do now 7. And then you will confess the preciousness of time the folly of mispending it and that one thing is necessary for which we can never regularly do too much And why are you not now of the mind that you will be at death or judgement but that your solly doth turn your prosperity to your bane Once more I beseech you for the Lords sake retire from the deceiving world to God And if you care where you live to all eternity choose your abode and now set your heart upon it and seek it as your happiness If all these warnings are refused conscience shall tell you when you would not hear it that you were warned HAd time allowed it I should next have delivered my message to the humble upright souls All you that hearken to the Lord shall dwell in safety and be quiet from the feâ—r of evil Isa 3. 10. Say to the righteous it shall be well with him Wo to the wicked it shall be ill with him Eccles 8. 12. Though a sinner dâ— evil an hundred times and his dayes be prolonged yet surely I know it shall be well with them that fear God Psal 73. 1. Truly God is good to Israel even to such as are of a clean heart Psal 37. 5 28 34 37. Commit thy way unto the Lord trust in him and he shall bring it to pass For the Lord loveth judgement and forsaketh not his Saints they are preserved for ever wait on the Lord and keep his way and when the wicked are cut off thou shalt see it Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace If you say How are they safe that are so tossed by sufferings I answer 1. Is he not safe that hath the promise of God for his security and is related to him as his child and hath Christ for his Head and Saviour 2. Is he not safe that is delivered from the wrath of God and the flames of hell and dare look before him to eternity with hope and comfort and shall live with Christ in joy for ever 3. Is he not safe that hath no enemy but what is in his Fathers power 4. And that hath no hurt but what shall certainly procure his good 5. Nor any but what he may rejoyce in and is sure shall be the matter of his thanks when it is past that shall lose nothing but what he hath already forsaken and esteemeth but as dross and dung How oft have we told God in our prayers that we had rather have the light of his countenance in adversity then be strange to him in prosperity and that we would not refuse that state of suffering that should be blest to the destruction of our sins and the furthering our communion with God and our assurance of salvation and in which we might most serve and honour him in the world Did we live by sense we should mis-judge of our estate but seeing we live by faith and in the way can see the end we can say we are safe in the thickest of our enemies and will not fear what man can do while the Almighty is our rock and fort ress well may we be quiet from the fear of evil when we are saved from the great everlasting evil No evil shall follow us into heaven no malice shall there defame us nor virulent tongue blaspheme our holy profession or our Lord for the mists of hellish blasphemies shall never ascend to blot the glory of Christ or of his Saints Who then shall take us out of his hands who shall condemn us it is he that justifieth us not only against the calumnies of malice but also against the accusations of Satan for our sin How saie and quiet are those millions of souls that are now with Christ How little are they annoyed or their joy or melody interrupted by all the race of earth or hell The glory of the sun may sooner be darkened or bleâ—ished by obloquy then their celestial glory For they are glorified with the glory of their Lord and rejoyce with his joy and live because he liveth Be of good chear Christians the haven is within the sight of faith we are almost there Adversity is our speediest and surest passage And then let sin and rage and malice do their worst FINIS