have a false imperfect notion of God and Holiness as being the felicity of man and though not to deny yet to leave out the essential superlative notion of the Deity And it is more common to confess all this of God and Holiness notionally as was aforesaid and practically to take in no more of God and Holiness but that they are better for us than temporary pleasures And some go further and take them as better for them than any though perpetual meer sensual delights And so make the perfection of mans highest faculties practically to be their ultimate end And desire or Love God and Holiness defectively and falsly apprehended for themselves or their own felicity and not Themselves and their felicity and Holiness ultimately for God Which sheweth that though these men have somewhat overcome the sensual concupiscence or flesh yet have they not sufficiently overcome the SELFISH disposition nor yet known and Loved God as God nor Good as Good 75. Yet is it not a sin to Love God for our selves and our own felicity so be it we make him not a meer Means to that felicity as our absolutely ultimate End For as God indeed is 1. The efficient of all our Good 2. The Dirigent Cause that leadeth us to it 3. The End in which our felicity truly consisteth so is he to be Loved on all these accounts 76. If God were not thus to be Loved for our selves subordinated to him Thankfulness would not be a Christian duty 77. Our Love to God is a Love of Friendship and a desire of a kind of Union Communion or Adherence But not such as is between creatures where there is some sort of equality But as between them that are totally unequal the one infinitely below the other and absolutely subject and subordinate to him 78. Therefore though in Love of Friendship a Union of both parties and consequently a conjunct interest of both and not one alone do make up the ultimate End of Love yet here it should be with an utter disproportion we being obliged to know God as Infinitely Better than our selves and therefore to Love him incomparably more though yet it will be but according to the proportion of the faculties of the Lover 79. The purest process of Love therefore is first thankfully to perceive the Divine Efficiencies and to Love God as communicative of what we and all things are and have and shall receive and therein to see his perfect Goodness in Himself and to Love him as God for that Goodness wherein is nothing but the final Act which is our Love and the Final Object which is the Infinite Good so that the Act is mans from God but nothing is to be joyned with God as the absolutely final Object For that were to joyn somewhat with God as God 80. And though it be most true that this Act may be made the object of another Act and as Amesius saith Omnium gentium consensu dicimus Volo Velle so we may and must say Amo Amare I Love to Love God and the very exercise of my own Love is my Delight and so is my Felicity in the very Essential Nature of it being a complacency and being on the highest objective Good And also this same Love is my Holiness and so It and I are Pleasing unto God yet these are all consequential to the true notion of the final Act and circularly lead to the same again We must Love our Felicity and Holiness which consisteth in our Love to God but as that which subordinately relateth to God in which he is first glorified and then finally pleased and so from his Will which we delight to please we ascend to his total perfect Being to which we adhere by perfect Love In a word our Ultimate End of Acquisition and Gods own so far as he may be said to have an End is the pleasing of the Divine Will in his Glorification And our ultimate End of Complacency objectively is the Infinite Goodness of the Divine Will and Nature 81. There is therefore place for the Question Whether I must Love God or my self more or better as it is resolved But there is no place for the Question Whether I must Love God or my self Because God alloweth me not ever to separate them Though there is a degree of just self-lothing or self-hatred in deep Repentance Nor yet for the Question Whether I must seek Gods glory and pleasure or my own felicity for I must ever seek them both though not with the same esteem Yea I may be said to seek them both with the same Diligence because by the same Endeavour and act that I seek one I seek the other and I cannot possibly do any thing for one that doth not equally promote the other if I do them rightly preferring God before my self in my inward Estimation Love and Intention 82 Though it be essential to Divine Love and consequently to true Holiness to Love God for Himself and as Better than our selves or else we Love him not as God as is before said yet this is hardly and seldom perceived in the beginning in him that hath it Because the Love of our self is more Passionate and raiseth in us more subordinate passions of fear of punishment and desires of felicity and sorrow for hurt and misery c. Whereas God being Immaterial and Invisible is not at all an object of our sense but only of our Reason and our Wills and therefore not directly of sensitive Passionate Love Though consequently while the soul is united to the body its acting even on Immaterial objects moveth the lower sensitive faculties and the corporeal spirits Also God needeth nothing for us to desire for him nor suffereth nothing for us to grieve for though we must grieve for injuring him and being displeasing to his Will 83. I cannot say nor believe though till it be searched the opinion hath an enticing aspect that the Gospel faith which hath the promise of Iustification and of the Spirit is only a Believing in Christ as the Means of our felicity by Redemption and Salvation out of the principle of self-love alone and for no higher end than our said Felicity Because he is not believed in as Christ if he be not taken as a Reconciler to bring us home to God And we take him not to bring us to God as God if it be not to bring us to God as the Beginning and End of all things and as infinitely more Lovely than our selves And our Repentance for not Loving God accordingly above our selves must go along with our first justifying faith Therefore though we are Learners before we are Lovers and our Assent goeth before the Wills Consent yet our Assent that God is God and better than our selves must go together with our Assent that Christ is the Mediator to save us by bringing us to him And so must our Assent that this is salvation even to Love God above our selves and as better than our selves And
ridiculous to ask whether we may give Gods proper Worship to a creature And so I answer 1. By way of distinction 2. Of solution 1. We must distinguish between the honour or worshiping acts of the mind and of the Body 2. Between Idolatry as against the first Commandment and Idolatry or scandal as against the second Af. Prop. 1. There is due to every creature a true estimation of it according to the degree of its dignity or goodness And a Love proportionable As also a Belief a Trust a Fear proportionable to every mans credibility fidelity power c. 2. There is an eminent degree therefore of estimation reverence and Love and trust due to Good men above bad and to those in Heaven above those on earth And a peculiar honour to Rulers as such Psal. 15. 4. which is not due to their inferiours 3. This is to be expressed by the Body by convenient actions 4. The highest honour which we owe to any is for the Image of God in them viz. 1. His Natural Image as men 2. His moral Image as Saints 3. His Relative Image of supereminency as superiours And so it is God in them first and they next as the Images of God who are to be honoured 5. There is no honour to be given to any Creature but that of which God himself is the End viz. as it referreth to his Glory 6. Therefore all honour given to men must be thus far Religious honour or worship For as all 1 Tim. 4. 5. Tiâ— 1. 15. 1 Cor. 10. 14. 1 Pet. 4. 3. 1 Cor. 6. 9. 10. 17. Rev. 21. 8. 2â— 15 Act. 17. 16. Gal. 5. 20. 2 Commandment Rev. 22. 8 9. Rev. 2. 14 20. 1 Cor. 8. 10. 19 28. 1 Joh. 5. 21. Dan. 3. things are sanctified to and by Saints so all things that Religious men do must be Religiously done 7. As Persons so places books words utensils times c. must be honoured for Gods sake as they are Related to God with such estimations and expressions as are suitable to their Relations Neg. 1. No Creature must be esteemed to be a God nor any of Gods proper attributes or honour given to any Creature whatsoever 2. No Creature must be esteemed better or greater or wiser than it is As far as we have means to know it 3. Whatsoever outward expressions of honour by word or deed are appropriated to the true God 1. By Divine Institution 2. Or by nature 3. Or by received usage that expression of honour ought not to be used to a creature were the heart never so free from honouring it 1. Because it is bodily Idolatry 2. And scandal as being Idolatry interpretatively in the just sense of others 4. Whatsoever outward expressions of honour Idolaters have used and do use to signifie their inward Idolatry or taking a Creature or a fiction to be God and so make it a tessara or symbol or Professing sign of that their Idolatry if those actions are so used or esteemed among us or within the notice of our actions It is unlawful for us to use the like to any Creature Because the use of their expression maketh it to be a Profession of Idolatry by us and so to be interpretative Idolatry and scandal For to use Professing symbols is to profess Except when there is some notorious reason to use the same words or actions to another lawful signification which is of greater weight than the scandal And we make it as publick to obviate the scandal that we do it not to the Idolaters intents For example If the Mâ—hometans make it a symbole of their Religion to say God is but one upon a false supposition that the Christians make more Gods than one yet it is lawful for us to use that symbolical word to a better end But if they add to their symbol And Mahomet is his Prophet we may not use that because it 's 1. Symbolical of a false Religion 2. And a falshood of it self So if they make it a distinctive note of their religious meetings to congregate the people by Voice and not by Bells when it will be taken for a professing their Religion to do the same we must avoid it But not when there is great cause for it as if we have no other means and the reason against it or scandal may be well avoided 5. Image Worship or bowing or otherwise worshipping towards an Image as an object in the time of Divine worship or when we otherwise pretend to be worshiping God is so gross an appearance of inward Idolatry either as visibly describing God to be like a Creature or else as seeming to mean what Idolaters did by that action that God hath thought meet to forbid it to all mankind by a special Rom. 11. 4. 1 King 19. 18. Rev. 22. 8 9. Jos. 23. 7. 2 King 17. 35. Exod. 20. 5. Law Command 2. 6. The scandal of seeming Idolatry is a heynous sin and not to be excused by the contrary meaning of the heart no more than lying Idolatrous professions are Because to blaspheam God as if he were like a Creature or to tell the World by our actions that a creature is God are both very heynous And so is it to murder our brethrens souls by tempting them to the like 7. It is no appearance of Idolatry to kneel to a King or a Father or Superiour when we are professing Gen. 27. 29. 32. 10. 44. 8. Exod. 11. 8. â—2 King 5. 18. Gen. 41. 43. Ruth 2. 10. 1 Sam. 25. 23 41. nothing but to Honour them with due honour But when the Church assembleth professedly to Worship God if then they mix expressions of veneration to Angels and Saints in Heaven or to a King or any Creature in their Worshipping of God without a very notorious signification of sufficient difference it will seem a joyning them in part of the same Divine honour 8. So we may put off our hats to the Chair of state or Kings Image yea and kneel towards it as to him if he command it in due time and place when it is humane Worship only which we profess But to kneel or bow as an act of honour towards the Image of King Saints or Angel in the time of our professed Worshipping of God is scandalous and an appearance that we give them a part of that which we are giving to God 9. Yet it is not unlawful even in the sacred Assemblies to bow to our Superiour at our entrance or going out or in the intervals of Gods Worship because the time and custome and manner may sufficiently notifie the distinction and prevent the scandal 10. If any presumptuous Clergy men on pretence of their Authority will bring Images into the Churches and set them before us in Divine Worship as objects only of Remembrance and means of exciting our affections to God that they may shew quam proxime se accedere posse ad peccatum sine peccato how neer
and Expectation To an object nearest and attained it is called Fruition or Delight or Delighting Love To an object which by means must be attained it is called seeking love as it exciteth to the use of those means And to an object missed it is by accident Mourning Love But still Love it self in its essential act is one and the same As it respecteth an object which wanteth something to make it perfect and desireth the supply of that want it is called Love of Benevolence denominated from this occasion as it desireth to do good to him that is loved And it is a Love of the same nature which we exercise towards God who needeth nothing as we rejoyce in that perfection and happiness which he hath though it be not to be called properly by the same name Goodness being the true object of Love is the true measure of it And therefore God who is infinitely and primitively good is the prime and only simple object of our absolute total Love And therefore those who understand no Goodness in any being but as profitable to them or to some other creature do know no God nor Love God as God nor have any Love but selfish and Idolatrous By this you may perceive the nature of Love Quest. 3. But may none be loved above the measure of his Goodness How then did God love us Quest. 3. when we were not or were his enemies And how must we love the wicked And how must an ungodly person love himself Answ. If only Good as such be the object of Love then certainly none should be loved but in proportion to his Goodness But you must distinguish between meer natural and sensitive Love or appetite and Rational Love and between Love and the Effects of Love and between Natural Goodness in the object and Moral Goodness And so I further answer 1. There is in every man a natural and sensitive love of himself and his own pleasure and felicity and an averseness to death and pain and sorrow as there is in every Bruit And this God hath planted there for the preservation of the creature This falleth not under commands or prohibitions directly because it is not free but necessary as no man is commanded or forbidden to be hungry or thirsty or weary or the like It is not this Love which is meant when we are commanded to Love our neighbour as our selves For I am not commanded to feel hunger and thirst nor to desire meat or drink by the sensitive appetite for my neighbour Nor sensitively to feel his pain or pleasure nor to have that natural aversation from death and pain nor sensitive desire of life and pleasure for him as for my self But the Love here spoken of is that Volition with the due affection conjunct which is our Rational Love as being the act of our highest faculty and falling under Gods command As to the sensitive Love it proceedeth not upon the sense or estimate of Goodness in the person who loveth himself or any other as Beasts love their young ones without respect to their excellency But it is Rational Love which is proportioned to the estimated Goodness of the thing beloved 2. Physical Goodness may be in an object which hath no Moral Goodness and this may contain a capacity of moral goodness And each of them is amiable according to its nature and degree 3. Beneficence is sometimes an effect of Love and sometime an effect of wisdome only as to the object and of Love to something else but it is never Love it self Usually benevolence is an act of Love and beneficence an effect but not alwayes I may do good to another without any love to him for some ends of my own or for the sake of another And a man may be obliged to greater beneficence where he is not obliged to greater Love And now to the instances I further answer 1. When we had no being God did not properly love us in esse reali unless you will go to our co-existence in eternity For we were not in esse reali But only as we were in esse cognito which is but to love the Idea in himself But he purposed to make us and to make us lovely and to do us good and so he had that which is called Amor benevolentiae to us which properly was not Love to us but a Love to himself and the Idea in his own eternal mind which is called a Loving us in esse cognito and a purpose to make us good and lovely That which is not Lovely is not an object of Love Man was not Lovely indeed when he was not Therefore he was not an object of Love but in esse cognito The same we say of Gods loving us when we were enemies He really loved us with complacency so far as our Physical goodness made us lovely And as morally lovely he did not love us otherwise than in esse cognito But he purposed to make us morally lovely and gave us his mercies to that end and so loved us with a Love of benevolence as it is called which signifieth no more than out of a complacence or Love Apology against Dr. Kendall to himself and to us as Physically good to purpose to make us morally good and happy As to the incident difficulty of Love beginning de novo in God I have fully resolved it elsewhere 2. So also we must Love a wicked man with a Love of benevolence which properly is but to love him in his physical worth and his capacity of moral goodness and happiness and thereupon but especially through the Love of God to desire his happiness 3. And as to the loving of our selves Besides the sensitive Love before mentioned which respecteth self as self and not as Good a wicked man may rationally love himself according to his physical goodness as a man which containeth his capacity of moral goodness and so of being holy and serviceable to God and to good men and happy in the fruition of God But beyond all such Goodness which only is amiableness no man may rationally love himself or any other with the true formal act of Love which is complacence Though he may wish good to himself or another beyond the present goodness which is in them nay he wisheth them good not because they have it but because they have it not And he may be bound to do good not because they are good but because they want good And though some define Loving to be bene velle alicui ut illi bene sit to desire anothers welfare But if any be resolved to call meer benevolence by the name of Love I will not contend about a name yet indeed this may be without any true formal Love at all As I may desire the welfare of my Horse without any proper love to him even for my self and use When God from eternity willeth to make Paul and to convert and save him ut illi bene sit it is
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
thus you must do The eye maketh an easier and deeper impression on the imagination and mind than the ear doth Therefore Christs example should be much preached and studied It will be a very great help to us to have still upon our minds the Image of the Holy Life of Christ that we be affected as if we always saw him doing the holy actions which once he did Paul calls the Galathians foolish and bewitched that obeyed not the truth when Christ had been set forth as crucified among them evidently before their eyes Gal. 3. 1. Papists think that Images serve well for this turn But the Records of Scripture and the living Images of Christ whom they persecute and kill are farr more useful How much example is more operative than doctrine alone you may perceive by the enemies of Christ who can bear his holy doctrine when they cannot bear his holy Servants that practise that doctrine before their eyes And that which most stirs up their enmity hath the advantage for exciting the believers piety Let the Image of Christ in all his holy examples be allways lively written upon your minds 1. Let the great ones of the world remember that their Lord was not born of such as bore rule or were in worldly pomp and dignity but of persons that lived but meanly in the world however they were of the royal line How he was not born in a pallace but a stable and laid in a manger without the attendance or accommodations of the rich 2. Remember how he subjected himself unto his reputed Father and his Mother to teach all Children Luke â— 51. subjection and obedience 3. And how he condescended to labour at a Trade and mean imployment in the world to teach us that our Bodies as well as our Minds must express their obedience and have their ordinary imployment and to teach men to labour and live in a calling and to comfort poor labourers with assurance that God accepteth them in the meanest work and that Christ himself lived so before them and chose their kind of life and not the life of Princes and Nobles that live in Pomp and Ease and Pleasure 4. Remember how he refused not to submit to all the ordinances of God and to fullfil all righteousness and to be initiated into the solemn administration of his office by the Baptism of Iohn Mat. 3. 15 1â— 17. which God appoved by sending down upon him the Holy Ghost To teach us all to expect his Spirit in the use of his ordinances 5. Remember how he voluntarily begun his work with an encounter with the Tempter in the Wilderness upon his fasting and suffered the Tempter to proceed till he moved him to the most odious sin even to worship the Devil himself To teach us that God loveth tryed Servants and expecteth that we be not turned from him by temptations especially those that enter upon a publick ministry must be tryed men that have overcome the Tempter and to comfort tempted Christians who may remember that their Saviour himself was most blasphemously tempted to as odious sins as ever they were and that to be greatly tempted without consenting or yielding to the sin is so farr from being a sin in it self that it is the greatest honour of our obedience and that the Devil who molesteth and haunteth us with his temptations is a conquered enemy whom our Lord in person hath overcome 6. Remember how earnestly and constantly he preached not stories or jingles or subtile controversies but Repentance and faith and self-denial and obedience So great was his Love to souls that when he had auditors he preached not only in the Temple and Synagogues but in mountains and in a ship and any other convenient place and no fury of the Rulers or Pharises could silence him till his hour was come having his Fathers Commission And even to particular persons he vouchsafed by conference to open the Mysteries of Salvation To teach us to love and attend to John 3. 4. the plain and powerful preaching of the Gospel and not to forbear any necessary means for the honour of God and the saving of souls because of the enmity or opposition of malitious men but to work while it is day seeing the night is coming when none can work John 9. 4. 7. Remember how compassionate he was to mens bodys as well as to their souls going up and down with unwearied diligence doing good healing the blind and lame and deaf and sick and possessed and how all his miracles were done in charity to do good and none of them to do hurt So that he was but living walking LOVE and MERCY To teach us to know God in his Love and Mercy and to abound in Love and Mercy to our brethren and to hate the spirit of hurtfulness persecution and uncharitableness and to lay out our selves in doing good and to exercise our compassion to the bodys of men as well as to their souls according to our power 8. Remember how his Zeal and Love endured the reproach and resisted the opposition of his friends who went to lay hold on him as if he had been besides himself And â—ow he bid Peter Get Mat 3. 20 21 Mat. 16. 22 23. behind me Satan thou art an offence unto me for thou savourest not the things of God but those of men when in caâ—nal Love and wisdom he rebuked him for resolving to lay down his life saying Be it farr from thee this shall not be unto thee To teach us to expect that carnal Love and Wisdom in our nearest friends will rise up against us in the work of God to discourage us both from duty and from sufferings and that all are to be shaken off and counted as the instruments of Satan that would tempt us to be unfaithful to our trust and duty and to savour our selves by a sinâ—ul avoiding of the sufferings which God doth call us to undergo 9. Remember how through all his life he despised the Riches of the world and chose a life of poverty and was a companion of the meanest neither possessing nor seeking sumptuous houses or great attendance or spacious lands or a large estate He lived in a visible contempt of all the wealth and splendor and greatness of the world To teach us how little these little things are to be esteemed â—nd that they are none of the treasure and portion of a Saint and what a folly it is to be fond of â—â—â—â—h snares and diversions and temptations which make the way to Heaven to be to us as a needlâ—â—s â—yâ— 10. Observe how little he regarded the honour and applause of men how he made himself of no 〈…〉 6. 15 refutation 〈◊〉 took upon him the form of a Servant refusing to be made a King or to have a Kingdom of this â—â—â—â—ld Though he told malignant Blasphemers how greatly they sinned in dishonouring him yet did he not seek the honour of the world To teach
to fight against his cause and work which is by fighting against the World and the Flesh and for the glory of God § 13. In opening to you this holy War I shall 1. Shew you what we must do on the Offensive part The Mâ—â—â—â—d 2. What on the Defensive part And here I shall shew you I. What it is that the Tempter aimeth at as his End II. What matter or ground he worketh upon III. What are his Succours and Assistants IV. What kind of Officers and Instruments he useth V. What are his Methods and actual Temptations 1. To actual sin 2. Against our duty to God § 14. 1. Our offensive arms are to be used 1. Against the power of sin within us and all its advantages and helps For while Satan ruleth and possesseth us within we shall never well oppose him without 2. Against sin in others as far as we have opportunity 3. Against the credit and honour of sin in the world As the Devils Servants would bring Light and Holiness into disgrace so Christs Servants must câ—si disgrace and shame upon sin and darkness 4. Against all the Reasonings of sinners and their subtile fallacies whereby they would deceive 5. Against the passions and violent lusts which are the causes of mens other sins 6. Against the holds and helps of sin as false Teachers prophane Râ—vilers ignorance and dâ—câ—it Only take heed that on this pretence we step not out of our ranks and places to pull down the powers of the world by rebellions For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal 2 Cor. 10. 4. § 15. 2. As to our Defence I. The ends of the Tempter which must be perceived are these 1. In general his aâ—m is at our utter ruine and damnation and to draw us here to dishonour God as much as he can But especially his aim is to strengthen the great heart-sins which are most mortal and are the root and life and spawners of the rest Especially these 1. Ignorance which is the friend and cloke to all the rest 2. Error which will justific them 3. Unbelief which keeps off all that should oppose them 4. Atheism prophaneness unhâ—liness which are the defiance of God and all his Armies 5. Presumption which emboldneth them and hides the danger 6. Hardness of heart which fortifieth them against all the batteries of Grace 7. Hypocrisie which maketh them serve him as Spies and Intelligencers in the Army of Christ. 8. Disaffection to God and his wayes and servants which is the Devils colours 9. Unthankfulness which tends to make them unreconcileable and unrecoverable 10. Pride which commandeth many Regiments of lesser sins 11. Worldliness or love of money and wealth which keepeth his Armies in pay 12. Sensuality Voluptuousness or flesh-pleasing Animi molles aetate fluxâ— doâ—â—s hâ—ud dâ—fficulter câ—pâ—untur which is the great Commander of all the rest For selfishness is the Devils Lieutenant General which consisteth chiefly in the three last named but especially in Pride and Sensuality Some think that it is outward sins that bring all the danger but these twelve heart-sins which I have named to you are the twelve Gates of the infernal City which Satan loveth above all the rest § 16. II. The Matter and Grounds of his Temptations are these 1. The Devil first worketh upon the outward sense and so upon the sensitive appetite He sheweth the Cup to the Drunkards eye and the bait of filthy lust to the fornicator and the riches and pomp of the world to the covetous and proud The Glutton tasteth the sweetness of the dish which he loveth Stage-playes and tempting sports and proud attire and sumptuous buildings and all such sensual things are the baits by which the Devil angleth for souls Thus Eve first saw the fruit and then tasted and then did eat Thus Noah and Lot and David sinned Thus Achan saith Josh. 7. 21. I saw the Garments Silver and Gold I coveted them and I took them The sense is the door of sin § 17. 2. The Tempter next worketh on the Fantasie or Imagination and prints upon it the loveliest image of his bait that possibly he can and engageth the sinner to Think on it and to rowl it over and over in his mind even as God commandeth us to Meditate on his Precepts § 18. 3. Next he worketh by these upon the Passions or affections which fantasie having enflamed they violently urge the Will and Reason and this according to the nature of the passion whether fear or hope sorrow or joy love or hatred desire or aversation but by none doth he work so dangerously as by Delight and Love and Desire of things sensual § 19. 4. Hence he proceedeth to infect the Will upon the simple apprehension of the understanding to make it inordinately cleave to the temporal good and to neglect its duty in commanding the understanding to meditate on preserving objects and to call off the Thoughts from the forbidden thing It neglecteth to rule the Thoughts and Passions according to its office and natural power § 20. 5. And so he corrupteth the understanding it self first to omit its duty and then to entertain deceit and to approve of evil And so the servant is put into the Government and the commanding powers do but serve it Reason is blinded by sensuality and passion and becomes their servant and pleads their cause § 21. By all this it appeareth 1. That Satans first bait is ordinarily some sensible or imaginary good set up against true spiritual good 2. That his first assault of the Reason and Will is to tempt them into a sluggish neglect and neutrality to omit that restraint of Sense Thought and Passion which was their duty 3. And that lastly he tempteth them into actual complyance and committing of the sin And herein 1. The bait which he useth with the understanding is still some seeming Truth And therefore his art and work is to colour falshood and make it seem Truth For this is the deceiving of the mind And therefore for a sinner to plead his mistake for his excuse and say I thought it had been so or so I thought it had been no sin or no duty this is but to confess and not to excuse It is but as much as to say my Understanding sinned with my Will and was deceived by the Tempter and overcome 2. And the bait which he useth with the Will is alwayes some appearing good And self-love and love of good is the principle which he abuseth and maketh his ground to work upon as God also useth it in drawing us to good § 22. III. The Succours and Auxiliaries of the Devil and his principal means are these 1. He doth what he can to get an ill tempered Body on his side For as sin did let in bodily distempers so do they much befriend the sin that caused them A cholerick temper will much help him to draw men to passion malice murder cruelty and revenge A sanguine and bilious
refuse to be converted to him notwithstanding all the arguments of Love that can be used to allure them Displicency Nâ—litiâ—n and Aversation are Hatred § 13. If you think it impossible that men can Hate God whom they confess to be infinitely good Consider for the true understanding of this Hatred 1. That it is not as good that they hate him 2. And it is not God simply in himself considered 3. And therefore it is not all in God 4. And it is not the name of God 5. But it is 1. God as he seemeth unsuitable to them and unfit for their delight and Love which seeming is caused by their carnal inclination to things of another nature and the sinful perverting of their appetites and the blindness and error of their minds 2. And it is God as he is an enemy to their carnal concupiscence whose Holy nature is against their unholiness and hateth their sin and his Laws forbid them the things which they most love and take delight in And so they hate God as a mad man hateth his Keeper and Physicion and takes them for his enemies and as a hungry Dog doth hate him that keepeth him from the meat which he loveth or would take it out of his mouth 3. And they hate God as one that by his Holiness Iustice and Truth is engaged to condemn them for their sin and so consequently to their sin is their enemy that will destroy them unless they forsake it when their Wills are enslaved to their sins and they cannot endure to be forbidden them and yet see that God will damn them in Hell fire if they cast them not away this filleth them with displicency against God as Holy and Just. 4. And then consequently they hate him in the rest of his Attributes As his Omniscience that he alway seeth them His Omnipresence that he is alwayes with them His Omnipotency that he is unresistible and able to punish them His very mercy as expressed to others when they must have no part in it yea his very immutability eternity and being as he is to continue an avenger of their iniquity so that the wicked in despair do wish that there were no God and in prosperity they wish he were not their Governour and Judge or were unholy and unjust allowing them to do what they list without account or punishment Thus God is hated by the wicked according to the measure of their wickedness and carnal interest and concupiscence which he is against Where you may note 1. That the Hatred of God beginneth at the sensual Love of things temporal which he forbiddeth 2. That the wicked great ones of the world and those that have the strongest concupiscence are usually the greatest haters of God as having the greatest adverse interest and being most in love with the things which he prohibiteth and will condemn § 14. V. The Counterfeit of Love to God is something that seemeth like it and yet is consistent with prevalent hatred or privation of true Love and maketh self-deceiving Hypocrites 1. One is when so much of God is Loved as men think hath no opposition to their lusts and carnal interest as his mercy and readiness to forgive and then they think that they truly Love God though they hate his Holiness and other attributes 2. Another Counterfeit is to Love God upon mistakes imagining that he is of the sinners mind and will bear with him and not condemn him though he continue sensual and ungodly This is not indeed to Love God but something contrary to God If mens fantasies will take God to be like the Devil a friend to sin and no friend to holiness and false in his threatnings c. and thus will Love him this is so far from being indeed the Love of God that it is an odious blaspheming of him 3. Another counterfeit is to Love God only for his temporal mercies as because he preserveth and maintaineth them when yet he is resisted when he would give them things spiritual 4. Another is when the opinionative approbation of the mind and honouring God with the lips and knee is mistaken for true Love In a word whatever Love of God respecteth him not as God indeed and is not superlative but is subservient to creature Love is but a counterfeit § 15. VI. The Directions for the exercise of the Love of God are these Direct 1. Direct 1. Consider well that the Love of our Creator Redeemer and Regenerater is the very end for which we are Created Redeemed and Regenerate and how just it is that God should have the end of such excellent works and that by neglecting or opposing the Love of God which is the end we neglect or oppose the works of Creation Redemption and Regeneration themselves Let us plead these Works of God with our hearts and say 1. O sluggish soul dost thou forget the use for which thou wast created and for which thou wast indued with Rational faculties Dost thou repent that thou art a man and refuse the employment of a man What is the means or instrument good for but its proper End and Use and action God made the Sun to shine and it shineth He made the Earth to support us and bear fruit and it doth accordingly And he made thee to Love him and wilt thou refuse and disobey How noble and excellent is thy employment in comparison of theirs Is the fruit of the earth or the labour of thy Beast or the service of any inferiour creature so sweet and honourable a work as thine to KNOW and LOVE thy Bountiful Glorious Creator How happy is thy Lot How blessed is thy portion in comparison of theirs And dost thou forsake thy place and descend to more ignoble objects as if thou hadst rather have been some silly fordid animal If thou hadst not rather be a Beast than a Man why choosest thou the love and pleasures of a Beast and refusest the love and pleasures of a man Is Creation and the Image of God in a Rational free soul a thing to be thus contemned for nothing What is the Sun good for if it should yield no light or heat And what art thou good for more than the beasts that perish if thou KNOW not and LOVE not thy Creator If God should offer to unman thee and turn thee into a Horse or Dog thou wouldst think he thrust thee into misery And yet thou canst voluntarily and wilfully unman thy self and take it as thy ease and pleasure If death came this night to dissolve thy nature it would not please thee And yet thou canst daily destroy thy nature as to its Use and End and not lament it It were better I had never been a man nor never had a Heart or Love within me it I use it not in the holy Love of my Creator It is true I have a Body that is made to eat and drink and sleep But all this is but to serve my soul in the Love of him
thy most comprehensive odious sin and observe this as the life of all thy particular sins and hate it above all the rest This is the very death and greatest deformity of the soul the absence of Gods Image and Spirit and objectively of himself I never lothe my heart so much as when I observe how little it loveth the Lord. Methinks all the sins that ever I committed are not so lothsome to me as this want of Love to God And it is this that is the venom and malignity of every particular sin I never so much hate my self as when I observe how little of God is within me and how far my heart is estranged from him I never do so fully approve of the Justice of God if he should condemn me and thrust me for ever from his presence as when I observe how far I have thrust him from my heart If there were any sin which proceeded not from a want of Love to God I could easilier pardon it to my self as knowing that God would easilier pardon it But not to Love the God of Love the Fountain of Love the felicity of souls is a sin unfit to be pardoned to any till it be repented of and partly cured Christ will forgive it to none that keep it And when it is uncurable it is the special sin of Hell the badge of Devils and damned souls If God will not give me a heart to Love him I would I had never had a heart If he will give me this he giveth me all Happy are the poor the despised and the persecuted that can but live in the Love of God O miserable Emperours Kings and Lords that are strangers to this Heavenly Love and love their lusts above their Maker Might I but live in the fervent Love of God what matter is it in what Countrey or what Cottage or what Prison I live If I live not in the Love of God my Countrey would be worse than banishment a Palace would be a Prison a Crown would be a miserable comfort to one that hath cast away his comfort and is going to everlasting shame and woe Were we but duly sensible of the worth of Love and the odiousness and malignity that is in the want of it it would keep us from being quiet in the daily neglect of it and would quicken us to seek it and to stir it up § 23. Direct 6. Improve the principle of self-love to the promoting of the Love of God by considering Direct 6. what he hath done for thee and what he is and would be to thee I mean not carnal inordinate self-self-love which is the chiefest enemy of the Love of God But I mean that rational Love of Happiness and self-preservation which God did put into innocent Adam and hath planted in mans nature as necessary to his Government This natural innocent self-love is that remaining principle in the Heart of man which God himself doth still presuppose in all his Laws and Exhortations and which he taketh advantage of in his works and word for the conversion of the wicked and the perswading of his servants themselves to their obedience This is the common principle in which we are agreed with all the wicked of the world that all men should desire and seek to be happy and choose and do that which is best for themselves or else it were in vain for Ministers to preach to them if we were agreed in nothing and we had not this ground in them to cast our seed into and to work upon And if self-love be but informed and guided by understanding it will compell you to Love God and tell you that nothing should be so much Loved Every one that is a man must Love himself We will not intreat him nor be beholden to him for this And every one that Loveth himself will Love that which he judgeth Best for himself And every wise man must know that he never had nor can have any good at all but what he had from God Why do men Love lust or wealth or honour but because they think that these are good for them And would they not Love God if they practically knew that he is the Best of all for them and instead of all Unnatural unthankful heart Canst thou Love thy self and not Love him that gave thee thy self and gives thee all things Nature teacheth all men to love their most entire and necessary friends Do we deserve a reward by loving those that love us when Publicans will do the like Matth. 5. 46. Art thou not bound to love them that hate thee and curse and persecute thee ver 44 45. What reward then is due to thy unnatural ingratitude that canst not love thy chiefest friend All the friends that ever were kind to thee and did thee good were but his messengers to deliver what he sent thee And canst thou love the bearer and not the giver He made thee a man and not a beast He cast thy lot in his visible Church and not among deluded Infidels or miserable Heathens that never heard unless in scorn of the Redeemers name He brought thee forth in a Land of light In a Reformed Church where Knowledge and Holiness have as great advantage as any where in all the world and not among deluded ignorant Papists where ambition must have been thy Governour and Pride and Tyranny have given thee Laws and a formal Ceremonious Image of Piety must have been thy Religion He gave thee Parents that educated thee in his fear and not such as were prophane and ignorant and would have restrained and persecuted thee from a holy life He spoke to thy Conscience early in thy childhood and prevented the gross abominations which else thou hadst committed He bore with the folly and frailties of thy youth He seasonably gave thee those Books and Teachers and company and helps which were fittest for thee and blest them to the further awakening and instructing of thee when he past by others and left them in their sins He taught thee to pray and heard thy prayer He turned all thy fears and groans to thy spiritual good He pardoned all thy grievous sins and since that how much hath he endured and forgiven He gave thee seasonable and necessary stripes and brought thee up in the School of affliction so moderating them that they might not disable or discourage thee but only correct thee and keep thee from security wantonness stupidity and contempt of holy things and might spoil all temptations to ambition worldliness voluptuousness and fleshly lust By the threatnings of great calamities and death he hath frequently awakened thee to cry to Heaven and by as frequent and wonderful deliverances he hath answered thy prayers and encouraged thee still to wait upon him He hath given thee the hearty prayers of many hundreds of his faithful servants and heard them for thee in many a distress He hath strangely preserved thee in manifold dangers He hath not made thee of the
me Denyal of our grace may seem to be humility but it tendeth to extinguish Love and Gratitude § 57. But you 'l say I must avoid soul-delusion and Pharisaical ostentation on the other side and few reach assurance how then should we keep up the Love of God Answ. 1. Though I am not come to the point of Trying and Discerning Grace I shall give you this much help in the way because it is so useful to the exercises of Love 1. If you have not Enjoying delighting Love yet try whether you have not Desiring seeking Love Love appeareth as truly in deâ—iâ—â—ng and seeking Good as in delighting in it Poor men shew their Love of the world by Desiring and seeking it as much as rich men do in delighting in it What is it that you most desire and seek 2. Or if this be so weak that you scarce discern it do you not find a mourning and lamenting Love You shew that you loved your money by mourning when you lose it and that you loved your friend by grieving for his death as well as by delighting in him while he lived If you heartily lament it as your greatest unhappiness and loss when you think that God doth cast you off and that you are void of Gracâ— and cannot serve and honour him as you would this shews you are not void of Love 3. If you feel not that you Love him do you feel that you would fain Love him and that you Love to Love him If you do so it is a sign that you do Love him When you do not only desire to find such an Evidence of salvation in you but when you desire Love it self and Love to Love God Had you not rather have a heart to Love him perfectly than to have all the riches in the world Had you not rather live in the Love of God if you could reach it than to live in any earthly pleasure If so be sure he hath your hearts The Will is the Love and the Heart If God have your Will he hath your Heart and Love 4. What hath your Hearts if he have them not Is there any thing that you prefer and seek before him and that you had rather have than him Can you be content without him and let him go in exchange for any earthly pleasure If not it is a sign he hath your Hearts You love him saâ—ingly if you set more by nothing else than by him 5. Do you love his holy Image in his word Do you delight and meditate in his Law Psalm 1. 2. Is it in your hearts Psalm 40. 8. Or do you pray Incline my heart unto thy Testimonies Psalm 119. 36. If you love Gods Image in his word the wisdom and holiness of it you love God 6. Do you love his Image on his Children If you Love them for their heavenly wisdom and holiness you so far Love God He that loveth the Candle for its light doth love the light it self and the sun He that loveth the wise and holy for their wisdom and holiness doth love wisdom and holiness it self The word and the saints being more in the reach of our sensible apprehensions than God himself is we ordinarily feel our Love to them more sensibly than our Love to God when indeed it is God in his word and servants that we love 1 Iohn 3. 14. Psalm 15. 4. 7. Though for want of Assurance you feel not the delights of Love have you not a heart that would delight in it more than in all the riches of the world if you could but get assurance of your interest Would it not comfort you more than any thing if you could be sure he Loveth you and could perfectly Love him and obey him If so it is not for want of Love that you delight not in him but for want of Assurance So that if God have thy heart either in a delighting Love or a seeking and desiring or a lamenting mourning Love he will not despise it or reject it He is â—igh to them that be of a broken heart Psalm 34. 18. A broken and contrite heart is his sacrifice which he will not despise Psalm 51. 17. The good Lord will have mercy on every one that prepareth their hearts to seek him though they do it not according to the preparation of the sanctuary 2 Cor. 30. 18 19. By these Evidences you may discern the sincerity of Love in small degrees and so you may make Love the occasion of more Love by discerning that Goodness of God which is manifested to you in the least § 38. 2. But suppose you cannot yet attain assurance Neglect not to improve that Goodness and Mercy of God which he revealeth to you in the state that you are in Love him but as Infinite Goodness should be loved who so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3. 16. Love him as the most blessed merciful God who made you and all things and hath given to the world an universal pardon on condition of their penitent acceptance and offereth them everlasting life and all this purchased by the blood of Christ Love him as one that offereth you reconciliation and intreateth you to be saved and as one that delighteth not in the death of the wicked but rather that they turn and live and as one that would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth though he will save none but the penitent that do acknowledge the truth And when you love him sincerely on these accounts you will have the evidence of his special Love to you § 39. Direct 16. Improve thy sense of natural and friendly love to raise thee to the Love of God Direct 16. When thou seest or feelest what Love a parent hath to children and a Husband to a wife or a Wife to a Husband or faithful friends to one another think then What Love do I owe to God O how inconsiderable is the Loveliness of a child a wife a friend the best of Creatures in comparison of the Loveliness of God Unworthy soul Canst thou love a drop of Goodness in thy friend And canst thou not Love the Ocean of Goodness in thy God Is a spark in the creature more amiable than the fire that kindled it Thou canst Love thy friend for all his blemishes his ignorance his passions and manifold imperfections And canst thou not love thy God who hath none of these nor any thing to discourage or damp thy love Thou lovest and deservedly lovest thy friend because he loveth thee and deals friendly with thee But O how much greater is the Love of God Did ever friend Love thee as he hath loved thee Did ever friend do for thee as he hath done He gave thee thy being thy daily safety and all the mercies of thy life He gave thee his Son his Spirit and his Grace He pardoned thy sins and
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
particular discussion and decision of which would too much increase this Volumn which is so big already I shall here explain them in such brief Propositions as yet shall give light to one another and I hope contain much of the true nature of Love which is the mysterie of the Christian Religion Propos. 1. The formal Act of LOVE is COMPLACENCIE expressed by a Placet which Augustine so oft calleth Delectation 2. Benevolence or desiring the Good of those we Love is but a secondary act of Love or an effect of the prime formal Act. For to wish one well is not to Love him formally but we wish him well because we Love him and therefore first in order Love him 3. Their definition of Love is therefore inept and but from an Effect who say it is Alicui bene velle ut ipsi bene sit 4. Love is either meerly sensitive and Passionate which is the sensible Act and Passion of the sensitive and phantastical Appetite Or it is Rational which is the Act of the Rational appetite or will The first is called sensitive in a double respect 1. Because it followeth the Apprehension of the Senses or Phantasie Loving that which they apprehend as Good 2. And because it is exercised passionately and feelingly by the sensitive Appetite And the other is called Rational 1. Because it is the Love of that which Reason apprehendeth as Good and 2. Because it is the complacency of that will which is a higher faculty than the sensitive Appetite 5. Sensitive Love is oft without Rational Allwaies in bruits But Rational Love is never totally without sensitive at least in this life whether it be because that the sensitive and Rational â—e faculties of the same soul or because they are so nearly connexed as that one cannot here move or act without the other 6. But yet one is predominant in some persons and the other in others 7. Love is the Complacencie of the Appetite in apprehended Good Good is the formal Object of Love Sensitive Love is the complacencie of the sensitive appetite in sensible Good or in that which the Sence and Imagination apprehendeth as Good Rational Love is the Complacencie of the Rational Appetite in that which Reason apprehendeth Good The same thing with Primary Volition 8. Good is not only a mans own Felicity and the means thereto called mihi bonum Good to me either as profitable pleasant or honourable as some think that have unmanned themselves But there is extrinsick Good which is such in it self in others or for others which yet is the natural object of mans Love so far as nature is sound As the Learning and Wisdom and Justice and Charity and all other perfections of a man at the antipodes whom I never saw nor hope to see or to receive any benefit by is yet amiable to every man that hath not unman'd himself So also is the Good of Pâ—â—â—â—â—ity of Countries of Kingdoms of the Church of the World apprehended as future when we are dead and gone yea it we should be annihilated desirable and therefore amiable to us When yet it could be no benefit to us 9. SELF-LOVE is Sensitive or Rational Sensitive as such is necessary and not free And it is purposely by the Most Wise and Blessed Creator planted in Man and Bruits as a Principle useful to preserve the world and to engage the Creature in the use of the means of its own preservation and so to bring it to perfection and to endue it with those fears and hopes which make us subjects capable of Moral Government 10. The Rational or Higher Appetite also hath a Natural Inclination to self-preservation perfection and felicity But as ordinable and ordinate to higher ends 11. The Rational Powers cannot nullifie the sensitive nor directly or totally hinder the Action of them But they may and must indirectly hinder the Act by avoiding the objects and temptations by diverting the thoughts to higher things c. And may hinder the effects by Governing the Locomotive power 12. Sensitive self-love containeth in it 1. A Love of Life and that is of Individual self-existence 2 And a Love of all sensitive Pleasures of Life and 3. Consequently a Love of the Means of Life and Pleasure 13. In sensitive self-love therefore SELF that is Life is both the Material and Formal object We love our selves even because we are ourselves We love this individual person and loath annihilation or dissolution 14. Though the will or higher faculties are Naturally inclined also to Love our selves and our own felicity yet they exercise this inclination with a certain Liberty And though the Act of simple Complacencie or Volition towards our own Being and Felicity be so Free as yet to be Necessary yet the Comparate Act by which comparing several Goods we choose one and refuse another may be so Free as not to be necessary that is A man may will his own Annihilation rather than some greater evil of which anon Not as good in it self and therefore not willed for it self but as a Means to a greater good and so he may Less Nill it than a greater evil 15. Also a tolerable Pain may on the same account be willed or less nilled and so consented to for the avoiding of a greater evil But Intollerable pain cannot possibly be willed or consented to or not nilled because it taketh away the exercise of Reason and Free-will But what is to be called Intollerable I determine not it being variously measurable according to the patients strength 16. The soul as Intellectual by its Rational appetite hath also a Natural Inclination to Intellectual Operations to Know and Love and to Intellectual Objects as such and to Intellectual Perfections in it self Yet so that though it necessarily though freely Loveth the said Acts and Perfections while it hath a being yet doth it not necessarily Love all the said Objects nor necessarily Choose the continuance of its own Being but in some cases as aforesaid can yield or consent to an Annihilation as a lesser evil 17. The Rational soul being not of it self nor for it self alone or chiefly is naturally inclined not only to Love it self and that which is for it self but also to Love extrinsick good as was aforesaid And accordingly it should Love that Best which is Best For a quatenus ad omne ad gradum valet argumentum If we must Love any thing or person because it is good as the formal reason then we should Love all that is Good and Love that best wich is best if so discerned 18. Though I must Love greater simple extrinsick Good above my self with that Love which is purely Rational yet it cannot ordinarily be done with a more sensitive and passionate Love 19. I am not allwaies bound to do most good to him that I love better than others and ought so to love nor to him that I must wish most good to Because there are other particular Laws to regulate my
Actions divers from that which commandeth my affections As those that put children relations families neighbours under our especiall charge and care though often others must be more loved 20. That Good which is the object of Love is not a meer Universal or General notion but is allwaies some particular or singular being in esse reali vel in esse cognito As there is no such thing in rerum natura as Good in a meer General which is neither the Good of natural existence or of moral perfection or of Pleasure Profit Honour c. Yea which is not in this or in that singular subject or so conceived so there is no such thing as Love which hath not some such singular object As Rada and other Scotists have made plain 21. All Good is either GOD or a CREATURE or a Creatures Act or Work 22. GOD is GOOD Infinitely Eternally Primitively Independently Immutably Communicatively of whom and by whom and to whom are all things The Beginning or first efficient the Dirigent and ultimately ultimate cause of all created Good As Making and Directing All things For Himself 23. Therefore it is the duty of the Intellectual Creature to Love God Totally without any exceptions or restrictions with all the Power Mind and Will not only in degree above our selves and all the world But also as GOD with a Love in kind transcending the Love of every Creature 24. All the Goodness of the Creature doth formally consist in its threefold Relation to GOD viz. 1. In the Impresses of God as its first Efficient or Creator as it is his Image or the effect and demonstration of his perfections viz. his Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness 2 In its Conformity to his Directions or Governing Laws and so in its Order and Obedience 3. And in its Aptitude and Tendency to God as its final cause even to the demonstration of his Glory and the Complacency of his Will 25. All Created Good is therefore Derivative Dependant Contingent Finite Secondary From God By God and To God receiving its Form and Measure from its respect to Him 26. Yet as it may be subordinately From man as the Principle of his own Actions and By man as a subordinate Ruler of himself or others and To man as a subordinate End so there is accordingly a subordinate sort of Goodness which is so denominated from these respects unto the Creature that is himself Good subordinately 27. But all this subordinate Goodness Bonum à nobis Bonum per nos Bonum nobis is but Analogically so and dependantly on the former sort of Goodness and is something in due subordination to it and against it nothing that is not properly Good 28. The best and excellentest Creatures in the foresaid Goodness-related to God are most to be loved and all according to the Degree of their Goodness more than as Good in relation to our selves 29. But seeing their Goodness is formally their Relation unto God it followeth that they are Loved 〈◊〉 only for his sake and consequently Gods Image or Glory in them is first Loved and so the true Love of any Creature is but a secondary sort of the Love of God 30. The best being next to God is the universe or whole Creation and therefore next him most to be loved by us 31. The next in Amiableness is the whole coelestial society Christ Angels and Saints 32. The next when we come to distinguish them is Christs own Created Glorified Nature in the Person of the Mediator Because Gods Glory or Image is most upon him 33. The next in Amiableness is the whole Angelical society or the orders of Intellectual Spirits above man 34. The next is the spirits of the Just made perfect or the Triumphant Church of Saints in Heaven 35. The next is all this lower world 36. The next is the Church in the world or militant on earth 37. The next are the particular Kingdoms and Societies of the world and so the Churches according to their various degrees 38. The next under societies and multitudes are those individual persons who are Best in the three fore-mentioned respects Whether our selves or others And thus by the objects should our Love that is Rational be diversified in Degree and that be Loved best that is best 39. The Amiable Image of God in man is as hath oft been said 1. Our Natural Image of God or the Image of his three Essential properties as such that is Our Vital Active Power our Intellect and our will 2. Our Moral Image or the Image of his said properties in their perfections viz. Our Holiness that is Our Holy Life or spiritual vivacity and Active Power Our Holy Light or Wisdom our Holy Wills or Love 3. Our Relative Image of God or the Image of his Supereminencie Dominion or Majesty which is 1. Common to Man in respect to the Inferiour Creatures that we are their Owners Governâ—rs and End and Benefactors 2. Eminently in Rulers of Men Parents and Princes who are Analogically sub-owners sub-rulers and sub-benefactors to their inferiors in various degrees By which it is discernable what it is that we are to Love in man and with what variety of kinds and degrees of Love as the Kinds and degrees of amiableness in the objects differ 40. Even the Sun and Moon and frame of Nature the Inanimates and Bruits must be Loved in that Degree Compared to Man and to one another as their Goodness before described that is the Impressions of the Divine perfections do more or less Gloriously appear in them and as they are adapted to him the ultimate end 41. As God is in this life seen but darkly and as in a Glass so also proportionably to be Loved For our Love cannot exceed our Knowledge 42. Yet it followeth not that we must Love him only as he appareth in his works which demonstrate him as effects do their cause For both by the said works improved by Reason and by his word we know that he is before his works and above them and so distinct from them as to transcend and comprehend and cause them all by a continual causality And therefore he must accordingly be Loved 43. It greatly hindereth our Love to God when we overlook all the intermediate excellencies between Him and us which are much better and therefore more amiable than our selves such as are before recited 44. The Love of the universe as bearing the liveliest Image or impress of their Cause is an eminent secondary Love of God and a great help to our Primary or Immediate Love of him Could we comprehend the Glorious excellency of the universal Creation in its matter form parts order and uses we should see so Glorious an Image of God as would unspeakably promote the work of Love 45. Whether the GLORY of God in HEAVEN which will for ever beatifie the beholders and possessors be the Divine Essence which is every where or a Created Glory purposely there placed for the felicity of holy spirits and
what that Glory is are questions fittest for the beholders and possessors to resolve 46. But if it be no more than the Universal existent frame of Nature Containing all the Creatures of God beheld uno intuitu in the Nature order and use of all the parts it would be an unconceivable felicity to the beholders as being an unconceivable Glorious Demonstation of the Deity 47. It is lawful and a needful duty to labour by the means of such excellencies as we now know which Heaven is resembled to in Scripture to imprint upon our Imaginations themselves such an image of the GLORY of the Heavenly Society CHRIST ANGELS SAINTS and the HEAVENLY PLACE and STATE as shall help our Intellectual apprehensions of the Spiritual Excellencies which transcend imagination And the neglect of Loving God as foreseen in the Demonstration of the Heavenly GLORY doth greatly hinder our Love to him immediately as in himself considered 48. The LORD JESUS CHRIST in his Glorified Created Nature is Crowned with the highest excellency of any particular Creature that he might be the MEDIATOR OF OUR LOVE to God and in him seen by faith we might see the GLORY of the Deity And as in Heaven we shall have spiritual Glorified Bodies as well as Souls so the Glorified Created Nature of Christ will be an Objective Glory fit for our Bodies at least to behold in order to their Glory as the Divine Nature as it pleaseth God in Glory revealed will be to the soul. 49. The exercise of our Love upon God as now appearing to the glorified in the glorious created nature of CHRIST beheld by us by faith is a great part of our present exercise of Divine Love And we extinguish our Love to GOD by beholding so little by faith our glorified Mediator 50. We owe greater Love to ANGELS than to Men because they are Better nearer God and liker to him and more demonstrate his Glory and indeed also Love us better and do more for us than we can do for one another And the neglect of our due Love and Gratitude to Angels and forgetting our relation to them and receivings by them and communion with them and living as if we had little to do with them is a culpable overlooking God as he appeareth in his most noble creatures and is a neglect of our Love to God in them and a great hinderance to our higher more immediate Love Therefore by Faith and Love we should exercise a daily converse with Angels as part of our heavenly conversation Phil. 3. 20 21. Heb. 12. 22. and use our selves to Love God in them Though not to pray to them or give them Divine Worship 51. We must Love the glorified Saints more than the inhabitants of this lower world because they are far better and liker to God and nearer to him and more demonstrate his holiness and glory And our neglect of conversing with them by faith and of Loving them above our selves and things on earth is a neglect of our Love to God in them and a hinderance of our more immediate Love And a Loving Conversation with them by faith would greatly help our higher Love to God 52. Our neglect of Love to the Church on earth and to the Kingdoms and publick Societies of mankind is a sinful neglect of our Love to God in them and a hinderance of our higher Love to him And the true use of such a Publick Love would greatly further our higher Love 53. If those Heathens who laid down their Lives for their Countreys had neither done this for fame nor meerly as esteeming the temporal good of their Countrey above their own temporal good and lives but for the true excellency of Many above One and for Gods greater Interest in them they had done a most noble holy work 54. Our adherence to our carnal selves first and then to our carnal interests and friends and neglecting the Love of the highest excellencies in the servants of God and not Loving men according to the measure of the Image of God on them and their Relation to him is a great neglect of our Love of God in them and a hinderance of our higher immediate Love And to use our selves to Love men as God appeareth in them would much promote our higher Love And so we should Love the best of men above our selves 55. The Loving of our selves sensually preferring our present Life and earthly Pleasure before our higher spiritual felicity in Heaven and our neglecting to Love Holiness and seek it for our selves and then to Love God in our selves is a neglect and hinderance of the Love of God 56. Man hath not lost so much of the knowledge and Love of God as appearing in his Greatness and Wisdom and Natural Goodness in the frame of Nature as he is the Author of the creatures natural goodness as he hath of the knowledge and Love of his Holiness as he is the Holy Ruler Sanctifier and End of souls 57. The sensitive faculty and sensitive Interest are still predominant in a carnal or sensual man And his Reason is voluntarily enslaved to his sense so that even the Intellectual Appetite contrary to its primitive and sound nature Loveth chiefly the sensitive Life and Pleasure 58. It is therefore exceeding hard in this depraved state of nature to Love God or any thing better than our selves because we Love more by Sense than by Reason and Reason is weak and serveth the interest of Sense 59. Yet the same man who is prevalently sensual may know that he hath a rational immortal soul and that Knowledge and Rectitude are the Felicity of this soul and that it is the Knowledge and Love of and Delight in God the highest Good that can make him perpetually happy And therefore as these are apprehended as a means of his own Felicity he may have some kind of Love or Will unto them all 60. The thing therefore that every carnal man would have is an everlasting perfect sensual pleasure And he apprehendeth the state of his souls perfection mostly as consisting in this kind of felicity And even the Knowledge and Love of God which he taketh for part of his felicity is principally apprehended but as a speculative gratifying of the imagination as carnal men now desire knowledge Or if there be a righter notion of God and Holiness to be Loved for themselves even ultimately above our sensual pleasure and our selves yet this is but an uneffectual dreaming Knowledge producing but an answerable lazy wish And it will not here prevail against the stronger Love of sensuality and phantastical pleasure nor against inordinate self-love And it is a sensual Heaven under a spiritual Name which the carnal hope for 61. This carnal man may Love God as a Means to this Felicity so dreamed of as knowing that without him it cannot be had and tasting corporal comforts from him here And he may Love Holiness as it removeth his contrary calamities and as he thinks it is crowned with
therefore good in himself it can hardly be conceived but that in all this there is some kind of secret love to God as better than my self 87. In all this note that it is one thing to Love God under the notion of the Infinite Good better than my self and all things and another thing for the will to Love him more as that notion obligeth 88. And the reason why these are often separated is because besides a slight intellectual apprehension there is necessary to the Wills just determination a clear and deep apprehension with a right disposition of the Will and a suscitation of the Active Power 89. Yea and every slight Volition or Velleity will not conquer opposing Concupiscence and Volitions nor is every Will effectual to command the life and prevail against its contrary 90. Therefore I conceive that in our first believing in Christ even to Justification though our Reason tell us that he is more Amiable than our selves and we are desirous so to Love him for the future and have an obscure weak beginning of Love to God as God or as so conceived yet 1. The strength of sensitive self-love maketh our Love to our selves more passionately strong 2. And that Reason at least in its Degree of Apprehension is too Intense in apprehending our self-interest and too remiss in apprehending the Amiableness of God as God And so far even our Rational Love is yet greater to our selves though as to the Notion God hath the preheminence 3. And that in this whole affair of our Baptismal Covenanting Consent or Christianity our Love to our own felicity as such is more Powerful and effectual in moving the soul and prevailing for our resolution for a new life than is our Love to God as for himself and as God 91. And therefore it is that Fear hath so great a hand in our first Change For all that such Fear doth it doth as moved by self-love I mean the fear of suffering and damnation And yet experience telleth us that Conversion commonly beginneth in Fear And though where self-love and fear are alone without the Love of God as Good in and for himself there is no true grace yet I conceive that there is true grace initial in those weak Christians that have more Fear and self-love in the passionate and powerful part than Love to God so be it they have not more love to sin and to any thing that stands in competition with God 92. Therefore he that hath a Carnal self-love or inordinate inclining him to the creature which is stronger in him than the Love of God is Graceless Because it will turn his heart and life from God But he that hath only a necessary self-love even a love to his own spiritual eternal felicity operating by strong desire and fear conjunct with a weaker degree of Love to God as Good in himself I think hath grace and may so be saved Because here is but an unequal motion to the same End and not a competition 93. If any dislike any of this decision I only desire him to remember that on both hands there are apparent Rocks to be avoided First It is a dangerous thing to say that a man is in a state of grace and salvation who loveth not God as God that is better than himself And on the other hand the experience of most Christians in the world saith that at their first believing if not long after they Loved God more for themselves than for Himself and Loved themselves more than God though they knew that God was better and more amiable and that the fear of misery and the desire of their own salvation was more effectual and prevalent with them than that Love of God for himself And I doubt that not very many have this at all in so high a degree as to be clear and certain of it And if we shall make that necessary to salvation which few of the best Christians find in themselves we either condemn allmost all professed Christians or at least leave them under uncertainty and terrors Therefore Gods Interest speaking so lowd on one hand and mans experience on the other I think we have need to cut by a thred and walk by line with greatest accurateness 94. By this time we may see that as Christ is the way to the Father and the Saviour and recoverer of lapsed man from Himself to God so â—aith in Christ as such is a Mediate and Medicinal Grace and work And that faith is but the bellows of Love And that our first Believing in Christ though it be the regenerating work which generateth Love yet is but a middle state between an unregenerate and a regenerate Not as a third state specifically distinct from both but the initium of the latter or as the embrio or state of Conception in the womb is as to a man and no man Faith containeth Love in fieri 95. As the Love of our selves doth most powerfully though not only move us to close with Christ as our Saviour so while hereby we are united unto Him we have a double assistance or influx from him for the production of the purer Love of God The one is Objective in all the Divine demonstrations of Gods Love in his Incarnation Life Death Resurrection in his Doctrine Example Intercession and in all his benefits given us in our pardon adoption and the promises of future Glory The other is in the secret operations of the Holy Spirit which he giveth us to concur with these means and make them all effectual 96. The true state of sanctification as different from meer vocation and faith consisteth in this pure Love of God and Holiness and that more for himself and his Infinite Goodness than for our selves and as our felicity 97. Therefore when we are Promised the spirit to be given to us if we Believe in Christ and sanctification is promised us with Justification on this condition of faith this is part of the meaning of that promise that if we truly take Christ for our Saviour to bring us to the Love of God though at present we are most moved with the Love of our selves to accept him he will by his word works and spirit bring us to it initially here and perfectly in Heaven even to be perfectly Pleased in God for his own perfect Goodness and so to be fully Pleasant to him And thus besides the extraordinary gifts to a few the spirit of holiness or Love which is the spirit of Adoption is promised by Covenant to all Believers 98. Accordingly this promise is so fulfilled that in the first instant of time we have a Relative Right to Christ as our Head and the sender of the spirit and to the Holy Spirit himself as our sanctifier by undertaking according to the terms of the Covenant But this doth not produce allwaies a sensible or effectual Love of God above our selves in us at the very first but by degrees as we follow the work of faith
thoughts a world of work If God be not in all the thoughts of the ungodly Psal. 10. 4. it is because he is not in his heart He may be nigh their mouths but is far from their reins Jer. 12. 2. Do those men believe themselves or would they be believed by any one that is wise who say they Love God above all and yet neither think of him nor love to think of him but are unwearied in thinking of their wealth and honours and the pleasures of their flesh Consider this ye that forget God lest he tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver you Psal. 50. 22. § 5. Direct 5. Soundly understand the wonderful mysterie of mans Redemption and know Iesus Direct 5. Christ and you need not want employment for your thoughts For in him are hid all the Treasures of 5. Jesus Christ and all the work of Redemption wisdom and knowledge Col. 2. 3. He is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1. 24. If the study of Aristotle Plato Plotinus and their numerous followers and Commentators can find work for the thoughts of men that would know the works of God or would be accounted good Philosophers even for many years together or a great part of their lives what work then may a Christian find for his thoughts in Jesus Christ who of God is made to us wisdom and righteousness and sanâ—â—â—â—fication and redemption 1 Cor. 1. 30. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell Col. 1. 19. And therefore in him there is fulness of matter for our meditations As Paul determined to know nothing or make ostentation of no other knowledge but Christ crucified 1 Cor. 2. 2. So if your thoughts had nothing to work upon many years together but Christ crucified they need not stand still a moment for want of most suitable and delightful matter The mysterie of the Incarnation alone may find you work to search and admire many ages But if thence you proceed to that world of wonderful matter which you may find in his Doctrine Miracles example sufferings temptations victories resurrection ascension and in his Kingly Prophetical and Priestly Offices and in all the benefits which he hath purchased for his stock O what full and pleasant work is here for the daily thoughts of a believer The soul may dwell here with continual delight till it say with 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 Therefore daily bow your knees to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ of whâ—m the whole family in Heaven and earth is named that he will grant you according to the Riches of his Glory to be strengthned with might by his Spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that being rooted and grounded in Love you may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God Ephes. 3. 14. to 20. § 6. Direct 6. Search the holy Scriptures and acquaint your selves well with the Oracles of God Direct 6. which are able to make you wise unto salvation and you will find abundant matter for your thoughts If you cannot find work enough for your minds among all those heights and depths those excellencies and difficulties it is because you never understood them or never set your hearts to search them What mysterious Doctrines how sublime and heavenly are there for you to meditate on as long as you live What a perfect Law a system of precepts most spiritual and pure What terrible threatnings against offenders are there to be matter of your meditations What wonderful histories of Love and Mercy What holy examples What a treasury of precious promises on which lyeth our hope of life eternal What full and free expressions of grace What a joyful act of pardon and oblivion to penitent believing sinners In a word the character of our inheritance and the Law which we must be governed and judged by is there before us for our daily Meditation David that had much less of it than we saith O how I love thy Law it is my meditation all the day Psal. 119. 97. And God said to Ioshua 1. 8. This Book of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou maist observe to do according to all that is written therein And Moses commanded the Israelites that these words should be in their hearts and that they teach them diligently to their children and talk of them when they sate in their houses and when they walked by the way and when they lay down and when they rose up and to write them on the posts of their houses and on their gates c. that they might be sure to remember them Deut. 6. 7. § 7. Direct 7. Know thy self well as thou art the work of God and in thy self thou wilt find Direct 7. abundant matter for thy meditations There thou hast the natural Image of God to mediate on and 7. Our 〈…〉 as we are Gods wâ—â—k admire even the noble faculties of thy understanding and free will and executive power And thou hâ—st his Moral or Spiritual Image to meditate on if thou be not unregenerate even thy holy Wisdom Will and Power or thy holy Light and Love and Power with promptitude for holy practice and all in the Unity of holy Life And there thou hast his Relative Image to meditate See my Book of the 〈…〉 on even thy being 1. The Lord or Owner 2. The Ruler 3. The Benefactor to the inferiour creatures and their End O the world of mysteries which thou carriest continually about thee in that little room What abundance of wonders are in thy body which is fearfully and wonderfully made And the greater wonders in thy soul Thou art thy self the clearest glass that God is to be seen in under Heaven as thou art a man and a Saint And therefore the worthiest matter for thy own Meditations except that holy Word which is thy Rule and the Holy Church which is but a coalition of many such What a shame is it that almost all men do Live and dye such strangers to themselves as to be utterly unacquainted with the innumerable excellencies and mysteries which God hath laid up in them and yet to let their thoughts run out upon vanities and toyes and complain of their barrenness and want of matter to feed their better Meditations § 8. Direct 8. Be not a stranger to the many sins and wants and weaknesses of thy soul and thou Direct 8. never needest to be empty of matter for
that you behaved not your selves like such as Loved them It doth not deserve the name of Love which can leave a soul to endless misery § 12. What then shall we say of them that do not only deny their help but are hinderers of the 1 King 11. 4. Act. 5. 2. â—â—â—â—â—s Adams tempter Job 2. 9. holiness and salvation of each other And yet the Lord have mercy on the poor miserable world how common a thing is this among us If the wife be ignorant and ungodly she will do her worst to make or keep her husband such as she is her self And if God put any holy inclinations into his heart she will be to it as water to the fire to quench it or to keep it under And if he will not be as sinful and miserable as her self he shall have little quietness or rest And if God open the eyes of the wife of a bad man and shew her the amiableness and necessity of a holy life and she do but resolve to obey the Lord and save her soul what an enemy and tyrant will her husband prove to her if God restrain him not so that the Devil himself doth scarce do more against the saving of their souls than ungodly Husbands and Wives do against each other § 13. 2. Consider also that you live not up to the Ends of Marriage nor of humanity if you are not helpers to each others souls To help each other only for your bellies is to live together but like beasts You are appointed to live together as heirs of the grace of life 1 Pet. 3. 7. And husbands must love their Wives as Christ loved his Church who gave himself for it that he might sanctifie it and cleanse it that he might present it to himself a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle holy and without blemish Eph. 5. 25 26 27. That which is the end of your very life and being must be the end of your relations and your daily converse § 14. 3. Consider also if you neglect each others souls what enemies you are to one another and how you prepare for your everlasting sorrows When you should be preparing for your joyful meeting in Heaven you are laying up for your selves everlasting horrour What a dreadful meeting and greeting will you have at the bar of Christ or in the flames of hell when you shall find there how perversly you have done Is it not better to be praising God together in Glory than to be rageing 1 Thes. 5. 11. Heb. 12. 15. Col 2. 19. Eph. 4. 16. 1 Cor. 7. 5. Gen. 35. 2 4. Lev. 19. 17. against each other in the horrour of your Consciences and flying in the faces of one another with such accusations as these O cruel Husband O merciless deceitful Wife It was long of you that I came to this miserable woful End I might have lived with Christ and his Saints in Joy and now I am tormented in these flames in desperation You were commanded by God to have given me warning and told me of my sin and misery and never to let me rest in it but to have instructed and intreated me till I had come home by Christ that I might not have come to this place of torment But you never so much as spake to me of God and my salvation unless it were lightly in jeast or in your common talk If the house had been on fire you would have been more earnest to have quenched it than you were to save my soul from hell You never told me seriously of the misery of a natural unrenewed state nor of the great necessity of regeneration and a holy life nor never talkt to me of Heaven and Hell as matters of such consequence should have been mentioned But morning and night your talk was nothing but about the world and the things of the world your idle talk and jesting and froward and carnal and unprofitable discourse was it that filled up all Numb 16. 27 32. the time and we had not one sober word of our salvation You never seriously foretold me of this day You never prayed with me nor read the Scripture and good Books to me You took no pains to help me to knowledge nor to humble my hardened heart for my sins nor to save me from them nor to draw me to the Love of God and holiness by faith in Christ You did not go before me with the good example of a holy and heavenly conversation but with the evil example of an ungodly fleshly worldly life You neither cared for your own soul nor mine nor I for yours or mine own and now we are justly condemned together that would not live in Holiness together O foolish miserable souls that by your ungodliness and negligence in this life will prepare each other for such a life of endless wo and horror O therefore resolve without delay to live together as the heirs of Heaven and to be helpers to Directions to help each other to salvation each others souls To which end I will give you these following Sub-directions which if you will faithfully practise may make you to be special blessings to each other § 15. Direct 1. If you would help to save each others souls you must each of you be sure that Subdirect 1. you have a care of your own and retain a deep and lively apprehension of those great and everlasting matters of which you are to speak to others It cannot be reasonably expected that he should have Gen. 2. 18. a due compassion to anothers soul that hath none to his own and that he should be at the pains that is needful to help another to salvation that setteth so little by his own as to sell it for the base and momentany ease and pleasure of the flesh Nor is it to be expected that a man should speak with any suitable weight and seriousness about those matters whose weight his heart did never feel and about which he was never serious himself First see that you feel throughly that which you would speak profitably and that you be what you perswade another to be and that all your counsel may be perceived to arise from the bottom of your hearts and that you speak of things which by experience you are well acquainted with § 16. Direct 2. Take those opportunities which your ordinary nearness and familiarity affordeth Subdirect 2. you to be speaking seriously to each other about the matters of God and your salvation When you lye down and rise together let not your worldly business have all your talk but let God and your souls have the first and the last and at least the freest and sweetest of your speech if not the most When you have said so much of your common business as the nature and dispatch of it requireth â—ay it by and talk together of the state and duty of your souls towards God and of your hopes of Heaven as those that
and run greedily after the the errours of Balaam And 2 Pet. 2. 3 14 15. Through Covetousness they make mer handize of you An heart they have exercised with covetous practices Cursed Children or Children of a Curse which have for saken the right way and are gone astray following the way of Balaam the Son of Bosor who loved the wages of unrighteousness but was rebuked for his iniquity the duâ—b Asse speaking with mans voice forbad the madness of the Prophet When you shall every one hear Thou foâ—l this night shall thy soul be required of thee and then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided Luke 12. 19 20 21. will it not then cut deep in your perpetual torments to remember that you got that little pelf by betraying so many souls to hell What men in the World doth Iames speaks to if not to you Jam. 5. 1 2 3 4. Go to now ye Rich men weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you your riches are corrupted and your garments are 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 Behold the hire of the labourers which have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud cryeth and the cryes of them which have reaped have entred into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath How much more the cry of betrayed souls And here we may seasonably answer these cases Quest. 1. Is it lawful for a Christian to buy and use a man as a slave Quest. 2. Is it lawful to use a Christian as a slave Quest. 3. What difference must we make between a free servant and a slave To Quest. 1. I answer There is a slavery to which some men may be Lawfully put and there is a slavery to which none may be put And there is a slavery to which only the criminal may be put by way of penalty 1. No man may be put to such a slavery as under the first Direction is denyed that is such as shall injure Gods interest and service or the mans salvation 2. No man but as a just punishment for his crimes may be so enslaved as to be deprived of those liberties benefits and comforts which brotherly love obligeth every man to grant to another for his good as far as is within our power all things considered That is the same man is a servant and a brother and therefore must at once be used as both 3. Though poverty or necessity do make a man consent to sell himself to a life of lesser misery to escape a greater or death it self yet is it not lawful for any other so to take advantage by his necessity as to bring him into a condition that shall make him miserable or in which we shâ—â— not exercise so much love as may tend to his sanctification comfort and salvation Because no Iustice is beseeming a Christian or a Man which is not conjoyned with a due measure of Charity But 1. He that deserveth it by way of penalty may be penally used 2. He that stole and cannot restore may be forced to work it out as a servant And in both these cases more may be done against anothers ease or liberty than by meer contract or consent He that may hang a flagitious offender doth him no wrong if he put him to a slavery which is less penal than death 3. More also may be done against Enemies taken in a lawful War than could be done against the innocent by necessitated consent 4. A certain degree of servitude or slavery is lawful by the necessitated consent of the innocent That is so much 1. As wrongeth no interest of God 2. Nor of mankind by breaking the Law of Nations 3. Nor the person himself by hindering his salvation or the needful means thereof nor those comforts of life which nature giveth to man as man 4. Nor the Common-wealth or society where we live Quest. 2. To the 2 Quest. I answer 1. As men must be variously Loved according to the various Quest. 2. degrees of amiableness in them so various degrees of Love must be exercised towards them Therefore good and real Christians must be used with more Love and brotherly tenderness than others 2. It is meet also that infidels have so much mercy shewed them in order to the saving of their souls as that they should be invited to Christianity by fit encouragements And so that they should know that if they will turn Christians they shall have more priviledges and emoluments than the enemies of truth and piety shall have It is therefore well done of Princes who make Laws that Infidel slaves shall be free men when they are duly Christened 3. But yet a nominal Christian who by wickedness forfeiteth his Life or freedom may penally be made a slave as well as Infidels 4. And a poor and needy Christian may sell himself into a harder state of servitude than he would choose or we could otherwise put him into But 5. To go as Pirats and catch up poor Negro's or people of another Land that never forfeited Life or Liberty and to make them slaves and sell them is one of the worst kinds of Thievery in the world and such persons are to be taken for the common enemies of mankind And they that buy them and use them as beasts for their meer commodity and betray or destroy or neglect their souls are fitter to be called incarnate Devils than Christians though they be no Christians whom they so abuse Quest. 3. To the 3 Quest. I answer That the solution of this case is to be gathered from what Quest. 3. is said already A Servant and a Voluntary slave were both free men till they sold or hired themselves And a criminal person was a freeman till he forfeited his life or liberty But afterward the difference is this that 1. A free servant is my servant no further than his own Covenant made him so Which is supposed to be 1. To a certain kind and measure of labour according to the meaning of his contract 2. For a limited time expressed in the contract whether a year or two or three or seven 2. A Slave by meer Contract is one that 1. Usually selleth himself absolutely to the will of another as to his labour both for kind and measure where yet the limitations of God and nature after and before named are supposed among Christians to take place 2. He is one that selleth himself to such labour during life 3. A Slave by just penalty is lyable to so much servitude as the Magistrate doth judge him to which may be 1. Not only such labour as aforesaid as pleaseth his master to impose 2. And that for life 3. But it may be also to stripes and severities which might not lawfully be inflicted on another 1. The Limitations of a
will be often at it when they love it so that all these benefits will follow 1. It will make them Love the Book though it be but with a common Love 2. It will make them spend their time in it when else they would rather be at play 3. It will acquaint them with Scripture-History which will afterwards be very useful to them 4. It will lead them up by degrees to the knowledge of the doctrine which is all along interwoven with the History § 5. Direct 5 Take heed that you turn not all your family instructions into a customary formal Direct 5. course by bare readings and repeating Sermons from day to day without familiar personal application For it is ordinarily seen that they will grow as sleepy and senseless and customary under such a dull and distant course of duty though the matter be good almost as if you had said nothing to them Your business therefore must be to get within them and awaken their consciences to know that the matter doth most nearly concern them and to force them to make application of it to themselves § 6. Direct 6. Let none affect a formal Preaching way to their families except they be Preachers Direct 6. themselves or men that are able for the Ministry But rather spend the time in Reading to them the pâ—â—e fullest Books and speaking to them more familiarly about the state and matters of their souls Not that I think it unlawful for a man to preach to his family in the same Method that a Minister doth to his people For no doubt but he may teach them in the profitablest manner he can And that which is the best Method for a set speech in the Pulpit is usually the best Method in a family But my reasons against this Preaching-way ordinarily are these 1. Because it is very few Masters of families that are able for it even among them that think they are And then they ignorantly abuse the Scripture so as tends much to Gods dishonour 2. Because there is scarce any of them all but may read at the same time such lively profitable Books to their Families as handle those things which they have most need to hear of in a far more edifying manner than they themselves are able except they be so poor that they can get no such Books 3. Because the familiar way is most edifying And to talk seriously with Children and Servants about the great concernments of their souls doth commonly more move them than Sermons or set speeches Yet because there is a season for both you may sometimes read some powerful Books to them and sometimes talk familiarly to them 4. Because it often comes from Pride when men put their speech into a Preaching method to shew their parts and as often nourisheth pride § 7. Direct 7. Let the manner of your teaching them be very often interlâ—cutory or by way of Direct 7. Questions Though when you have so many or such persons present as that such familiarity is not seasonable then Reading repeating or set speeches may do best But at other times when the number or quality of the company hindereth not you will find that Questions and familiar discourse is best For 1. It keepeth them awake and attentive when they know they must make some answer to your Questions which set speeches with the dull and sluggish will hardly do 2. And it mightily helpeth them in the application so that they much more easily take it home and perceive themselves concerned in it § 8. Direct 8. Yet prudently take heed that you speak nothing to any in the presence of others that Direct 8. tends to open their ignorance or sin or the secrets of their hearts or that any way tendeth to shame them except in the necessary reproof of the obstinate If it be their common ignorance that will be opened by questioning them you may do it before your servants or Children themselves that are familiar with each other but not when any strangers are present But if it be about the secret state of their souls that you examine them you must do it singly when the person is alone Lâ—st shaming and troubling them make them haâ—e instruction and deprive them of all the benefit of it § 9. Direct 9. When you come to teach them the Doctrine of Religion begin with the Baptismal Direct 9. Covenant as the summ of all that is essential to Christianity And here teach them briefly all the substance of this at once For though such General knowledge will be obscure and not distinct and satisfactory yet it is necessary at first because they must see Truths set together For they will understand nothing truly if they understand it but independantly by broken parts Therefore open to them the summ of the Covenant or Christian Religion all at once though you say but little at first of the several parts Help them to understand what it is to be baptized into the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And here you must open it to them in this order You must help them to know who are the Covenanters GOD and MAN and first the nature of man is to be opened because he is first known and God in him who is his Image Familiarly tell them that man is not like a beast that hath no Reason nor free will nor any knowledge of another World nor any other life to live but this But he hath an understanding to know God and a will to choose good and refuse evil and an immortal soul that must live for ever and that all inferiour Creatures were made for his service as he was made for the service of his Creator Tell them that neither man nor any thing that we see could make it self but God is the Maker preserver and disposer of all the world That this God is infinite in Power and Wisdom and Goodness and is the Owner and Ruler and Benefactor Felicity and End of man That man was made to be wholly devoted and resigned to God as his Owner and to be wholly Ruled by him as his Governour and to be wholly given up to his Love and Praise as his Father his Felicity and End That the Tempter having drawn man from this blessed state of life in Adam's fall the world fell under the wrath of God and had been lost for ever but that God of his mercy provided us a Redeemer even the Eternal Son of God who being One with the Father was pleased to take the nature of man and so is both God and man in one person who being born of a Virgin lived among men and fulfilled the Law of God and overcame the Tempter and the World and dyed as a Sacrifice for our sins to reconcile us unto God that all men being born with corrupted natures and living in sin till Christ recover them there is now no hope of salvation but by him that he hath paid our debt and made
it self But tristes non eloquentes Symmach Epist. 31. l. 1. ad Aâ—so â— sunt maxime si ad aegritudinem animi accedat corporis aegritudo Hieron Epist. 31. ad Theoph. Alexand. Sad men are seldome eloquent especially if the body be sick as well as the mind 12. Let the Image of a Praying and a bleeding Christ and of his praying Saints be not on a wall before your eyes but engraven on your minds Is it not desirable to be conformed to them Had they more need to pray importunately than you 13. Be very cautelous in the use of forms lest you grow dull and customary and before you are aware your tongues use to go without your hearts The heart is apt to take its ease when it feeleth not some urgent instigation And though the presence of God should serve turn without the regard of man yet with imperfect men the heart is best held to its duty when both concurr And therefore most are more cautelous of their words than of their thoughts As children will learn their Lesson better when they know their Masters will hear them it than when they think he will not Now in the use of a form of Prayer a sleepy heart is not at all discerned by man but by God only For the words are all brought to your hand and may be said by the most dull and careless mind But when you are put to express your own desire without such helps you are necessitated to be so mindful of what you do as to form your desires into apt expressions or else your dulness or inattentiveness will be observed even by men and you will be like one that hath his Coach or Horse or Crutches taken off him that if he have legs must use them or else lye still And to them that are able it is often a great benefit to be necessitated to use the ability they have Though to others it is a loss to be deprived of their helps See Mr. Mayo's Directions on this â—aâ—e I speak not this against the lawfulness of a form of prayer but to warn you of the temptations which are in that way 14. Joyn oft with the most serious servent Christians For their servour will help your hearts to burn and carry you along with them 15. Destroy not fervency by adulterating it and turning it into an affected earnestness of speech and lowdness of voice when it is but an hypocritical cover for a frozen empty heart § 32. Quest. 32. May we look to speed ever the better for any thing in our selves or in our prayers Quest. 32. Is not that to trust in them when we should trust on Christ alone Answ. We must not trust in them for any thing that is Christs part and not theirs But for their own part it is a duty to trust in them however quarrelsome persons may abuse or cavil at the words And he that distrusteth Prayer in that which is its proper office will pray to little purpose And he that thinks that faithful servent importunate understanding prayer is no more effectual with God for mercy than the babling of the hypocrite or the ignorant careless unbelieving sleepy prayers of the negligent will either not care how he prayeth or whether he prayeth at all or not Though our persons and prayers have nothing that is meritorious with God in point of Commutative Iustice nor as is co-ordinate with the merits of Christ yet have they conditions without which God will not accept them and are meritorious in subordination to the Merit of Christ in point of paternal Governing Iustice according to the Covenant of Grace as an obedient child deserveth more Love See my Consession of this at large and Praise and Reward from his Father than the disobedient as the antient Fathers commonly used the word Merit § 33. Quest. 33. How must that person and prayer be qualified that shall be accepted of God Quest. 33. Answ. There are several degrees of Gods acceptance I. That which is but from common grace may be accepted as better than none at all II. That which hath a promise of some success especially as to pardon and salvation must be 1. From a penitent believing holy person 2. It must proceed from true Desire and be sincere and have renewed faith and repentance in some measure 3. It must be put up in confidence on the merit and intercession of Christ. 4. It must be only for things lawful 5. And to a lawful end III. That which is extraordinarily accepted and successful must be extraordinary in all these respects in the persons holiness and in renewed faith and fervent importunity and holy Love Tit. 3. Special Directions for Family-Prayer § 1. Direct 1. LEt it be done rather by the Master of the family himself than any other if Direct 1. he be competently able though others be more able But if be be utterly unfit let it rather be done by another than not at all And by such a one as is most acceptable to the rest and like to do most good § 2. Direct 2. Let prayer be suited to the case of those that joyn in it and to the condition of the Direct 2. family And not a few general words spoken by rote that serve all times and persons alike § 3. Direct 3. Let it neither be so short as to end before their hearts can be warm and their wants Direct 3. expressed as if you had an unwilling task to slubber over and would fain have done nor yet so tedious as to make it an ungrateful burden to the family § 4. Direct 4. Let not the coldness and dulness of the speaker rock the family sleep But keep Direct 4. waken your own heart that you may keep the rest awake and force them to attention § 5. Direct 5. Pray at such hours as the family may be least distracted sleepy tired or out of Direct 5. the way § 6. Direct 6. Let other duties concurr as oft as may be to assist in prayer as Reading and Direct 6. Singing Psalms § 7. Direct 7. Do all with the greatest reverence of God that possibly you can Not seeming Direct 7. Reverence but Real that so more of God than of Man may appear in every word you speak § 8. Direct 8. The more the bearers are concerned in it the more regard you must have to the Direct 8. fitness of your expressions For before others words must be regarded lest they be scandalized and God and Prayer be dishonoured And if you cannot do it competently without use a well composed form § 9. Direct 9. Let not family Prayer be used at the time of publick prayer in the Church nor Direct 9. preferred before it but prefer publick prayer though the manner were more imperfect than your own § 10. Direct 10. Teach your Children and Servants how to pray themselves that they may not Direct 10. be prayerless when they come
5. 9 10. Rev. 4. 11 8. Rev. 15. 3. Heb. 12. 9. Matth. 6. 13. thâ—u not said Behold I come quickly Even so Come Lord and let the great Marriage day of the Lamb make haste when thy Spouse shall be presented spotless unblamable and glorious and the glory of God in the New Jerusalem shall be Revealed to all his holy ones to delight and glorifie them for ever In the mean time Remember Lord thy promise Because I live therefore shall ye live also And let the dead that dye in thee be blessed And thou that art made a quickning Spirit and art the Lord and Prince of life and hast said that not a hair of our heads shall perish Gather our departing souls unto thy self into the Heavenly Jerusalem and Mount Zion the City of the living God and to the Myriads of holy Angels and to the general Assembly and Church of the first born and to the perfected Spirits of the just where thou wilt make us Kings and Priests to God whom we shall See and Love and Praise for ever For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things and for his pleasure they are and were created And O thou the blessed God of Love the Father of Spirits and King of Saints receive this unworthy Member of thy Son into the heavenly Chore which sing thy Praise who rest not saying night and day Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty who Is and Was and Is to Come For Thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen The End of the Second TOME A Christian Directory The Third Part. Christian Ecclesiasticks OR DIRECTIONS TO PASTORS PEOPLE About Sacred Doctrine Worship and Discipline and their mutual Duties With the Solution of a multitude of Church-Controversies and Cases of Conscience By RICHARD BAXTER 1 Cor. 12. 25 27 28. That there should be no Schism in the body but the Members should have the same care one for another Now ye are the Body of Christ and Members in particular And God hath set some in the Church first Apostles c. Eph. 4. 3 4 12 c. Endeavouring to keep the Unity of the SPIRIT in the bond of Peace There is one Body one Spirit one Hope one Lord one Faith one Baptism Not One Ministerial Head one God * And he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ Till we all come into the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ That we henceforth be no more Children tossed to and fro and carryed about with every wind of doctrine by the cogging or sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive But keeping the Truth in Love may grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ From whom the whole body compacted and cemented together by every joynt of supply according to its power in proportion of each part worketh increase of the body to the edifying of it self in Love 1 Tim. 3. 15. That thou maist know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the House of God which is the Church of the living God as A pillar and basis of the truth 1 Thess. 5. 12 13. We beseech you brethren to know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love for their work sake and be at peace among your selves LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons at the Sign of the Princes-Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard 1673. Reader THat this part and the next are Imperfect and so much only is written as I might and not as I would I need not excuse to thee if thou know me and where and when I live But some of that which is wanting if thou desire thou maist find 1. In my Universal Concord 2. In my Christian Concord 3. In our Agreement for Catechising and my Reformed Pastor 4. In the Reformed Lyturgie offered to the Commissioned Bishops at the Savoy Farewel A Christian Directory TOM III. Christian Ecclesiasticks CHAP. I. Of the Worship of God in general § 1. THAT God is to be Worshipped solemnly by man is confessed by Qui totos dies precabantur immolabant ut sui liberi sibi superstites essent Superstitiosi sunt appellati quod nomen paâ—uit postea latius Qui autem omnia quae ad cultum Deorum pertinerent diligenter pertractarent tanquam relegerent sunt dicti Religiosi ex relegendo ut elegantes ex eligendo à diligendo diligentes ex intelligendo intelligentes Superstitiosi Religiosi alterum vitii nomen alterum laudis Cicer. nat Deor. lib. 2. pag. 73 74. all that acknowledge that there is a God But about the Matter and Manner of his Worship there are no small dissensions and contentions in the world I am not now attempting a reconciliation of these contenders The sickness of mens minds and wills doth make that impossible to any but God which else were not only possible but easie the terms of reconciliation being in themselves so plain and obvious as they are But it is Directions to those that are willing to worship God aright which I am now to give § 2. Direct 1. Understand what it is to worship God aright lest you offer him Vanity and sin for Direct 1. Worship The worshipping of God is the direct acknowledging of his Being and Perfections to his honour Indirectly or consequentially he is acknowledged in every obediential act by those that truly obey and serve him And this is indirectly and participatively to worship him And therefore all things are Holy to the Holy because they are Holy in the use of all and Holiness to the Lord is as it were written upon all that they possess or do as they are Holy But this is not the worship which we are here to speak of but that which is Primarily and Directly done to glorifie him by the acknowledgement of his excellencies Thus God is worshipped either inwardly by the soul alone or also outwardly by the body expressing the worship of the soul. For that which is done by the Body alone without the concurrence of the Heart is not true worship but an Hypocritical Image or shew of it equivocally called Worship The inward worship of the Heart alone I have spoken If they that serve their God with meer word and ceremony and mimâ—ca actions were so served themselves they might be â—ilâ—â—ced with Aristâ—ppâ—â— his defence of his gallantry and sumptuâ—uâ— fare Si vituâ—â—randum ait hoc essâ—t in celebritatibus deorum profectò non fieret Laert. iâ— Aristip. So Plato allowed drunkenness only in the Feasts oâ— Baâ—châ—s of in the former Tome The outward or expressive worship
Offer of pardon to all that it is revealed to But it is an Actual Pardon to those that come in and conferreth on them the benefits of the Act as if they were named in it and is their very Title to their pardon of which their Consent is the Condition and the Condition being performed the Pardon or Collation of the benefit becometh particular and actual without any new act it being the sense of the Law it self or Conditional Grant that so it should do So as to the reality of the Internal Covenant-interest and benefits Iustification and Adoption it is ours by vertue of this Universal Conditional Covenant when we perform the condition But as to our Title in foro Ecclesiae and the due solemnization and Investiture it is made ours when Gods Minister applyeth it to us in Baptism by his Commission As the Rebel that was fundamentally pardoned by the Act of Oblivion must yet have his personal pardon delivered him by the Lord Chancellor under the Great Seal In this sense Ministers are the instruments of God not only in declaring us to de pardoned but in Delivering to us the pardon of our sins and solemnly investing us therein As an Attorney delivereth possession to one that before had his fundamental Title Thus God entreth into Covenant with man § 10. VI. The Qualifications of absolute Necessity to the Validity of our Covenant with God in Quis vero non doleat Baptismo plerosque adultos initio passim nostro tempore non raro ante persundi quam Christianam Catechesin vel mediocriter tenâ—ant neque an flagitiosae superstitiosae vitae poenitenâ—ia tangantur neque vero id ipsum quod accipiunt an velint accipere satis constet Acosta l. 6. c. 2. p. 520. Nisi peâ—ant instent Christianae vitae professione donandi non sunt Idem p. 521. And again While ignorant or wicked men do hasten any how by right or wrong by guile or force to make the barbarous people Christians they do nothing else but make the Gospel a scorn and certainly destroy the deserters of a rashly undertaken faith Id. ibid. p. 522. foro interiore are these 1. That we understand what we do as to all the Essentials of the Covenant For ignorantis non est consensâ—s 2. That it be our own act performed by our Natural or Legal selves that is some one that hath power so far to dispose of us as Parents have of their children 3. That it be Deliberate sober and rationall done by one that is compos mentis in his wits and not in Drunkenness madness or incogitancy 4. That it be seriously done with a real intention of doing the thing and not histrionically ludicrously or in jeast 5. That it be done entirely as to all essential parts for if we leave out any essential part of the Covenant it is no sufficient consent As to consent that Christ shall be our Iustifier but not the Holy Ghost our Sanctifier 6. That it be a Present consent to be presently in Covenant with God For to Consent that you will be his servants to morrow or hereafter but not yet is but to purpose to be in Covenant with him hereafter and is no present covenanting with him 7. Lastly It must be a Resolved and Absolute Consent without any open or secret Exceptions or Reserves § 11. VII The Fruits of the Covenant which God reapeth though he need nothing is the Pleasing of his Good and Gracious Will in the exercise of his Love and Mercy and the Praise and Glory of his Grace in his peoples Love and Happiness for ever The fruits or Benefits which accrew to man are unspeakable and would require a Volume competently to open them Especially that God is our God and Christ our Saviour Head Intercessor and Teacher and the Holy Ghost is our Sanctifier and that God will regard us as his own and will protect us preserve us and provide for us and will govern us and be our God and Joy for ever that he will Pardon us Justifie and Adopt us and Glorifie us with his Son in Heaven § 12. Direct 2. When you thus understand well the Nature of the Covenant labour to understand the special Reasons of it The Reasons of the Matter of the Covenant you may see in the fruits and benefits now mentioned But I now speak of the Reason of it as a Covenant in genere and such a Covenant in specie 1. In General God will have man to receive Life or Death as an Accepter and Keeper or a Refuser or Breaker of his Covenant because he will do it not only as a Benefactor or Absolute Lord but also as a Governour and will make his Covenant to be also his Law and his Promise and Benefits to promote obedience And because he will deal with man as with a free agent and not as with a bruit that hath no choosing and refusing power conducted by Reason Mans life and death shall be in his own hands and still depend upon his own will though God will secure his own Dominion interest and ends and put nothing out of his own power by putting it into mans nor have ever the less his own will by leaving man to his own will God will at last as a Righteous Judge determine all the world to their final Joy or Punishment according to their own choice while they were in the flesh and according to what they have done in the Body whether it be good or evil Matth. 25. Therefore he will deal with us on Covenant-terms § 13. 2. And he hath chosen to Rule and Judge men according to a Covenant of Grace by a Redeemer and not according to a rigorus Law of works that his Goodness and Mercy may be the fullâ—er manifested to the sons of men and that it may be easier for man to Love him when they have so wonderful demonstrations of his Love And so that their service here and their work and happiness hereafter may consist of Love to the Glory of his Goodness and the Pleasure of his Love for ever § 14. Direct 3. Next understand rightly the nature use and ends of Baptism Baptism is to the Direct 3. mutual Covenant between God and man what the solemnization of Marriage is to them that do before Consent or what the Listing a Souldier by giving him Colours and writing his name is to one that Consented before to be a Souldier In my Universal Concord p. 29 30. I have thus described it See the Râ—formed â—â—yturgiâ— pag. 68. External Baptism what Baptism is a holy Sacrament instituted by Christ in which a person professing the Christian faith or the Infant of such is Baptized in water into the Name of the Father the Son and Holy Ghost in signification and solemnization of the holy Covenant in which as a Penitent Believer or the seed of such he giveth up himself or is by the Parent given up to God the Father Son and Holy
Tim. 1. 4. James 3. 1 Cor. 3. 3. For ye are yet carnal for whereas there is among you envying zeal and strife and divisions or parties or factions are ye not carnal and walk as men For while one saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos are ye not carnal Phil. 2. 1 2 3 4. If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any bowels and mercies fulfill ye my joy that ye be like minded having the same Love of one accord of one mind Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves Rom. 16 17 18. Now I beseech you brethren mark them which cause divisions or parties and offences or scandals contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them Abundance more such Texts may be recited § 49. II. The great Benefits of the Concord of Christians are these following 1. It is necessary The Benefits of Concord to the very Life of the Church and its several members that they be all One Body As their Union with Christ the Head and Principle of their life is principally necessary so Unity among themselves is secondarily necessary for the conveyance and reception of that Life which floweth to all from Christ. For though the Head be the Fountain of Life yet the nerves and other parts must convey that life unto the members And if any member be cut off or separated from the Body it is separated also from the Head and perisheth Mark well those words of the Apostle Ephes. 4. 3. to 16. Endeavouring to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace There is one Body and one Spirit even as ye are called in one Hope of your calling One Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all But unto every one of us is given Grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. And be gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangeliâ—ts and some Pastors and Teachers For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the Edifying of the Body of Christ till we all come in the Unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ that speaking the truth in Love we may grow up into him in all things which is the Head even Christ From whom the whole Body fitly joyned together and compacted by every joynt of supply according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the Body to the edifying of it self in Love See here how the Churches Unity is necessary to its life and increase and to the due nutrition of all the parts § 50. 2. The Unity of the Church and the Concord of Believers is necessary to its strength and safety for Christ also strengtheneth as well as quickneth them by suitable means Wo to him that is alone But in the Army of the Lord of Hosts we may safely march on when straglers are catcht up or killed by the weakest enemy A threefold cord is not easily broken Enemies both spiritual and corporal are deterred from assaulting the Church or any of its members while they see us walk in our Military Unity and Order In this posture every man is a blessing and defence unto his neighbour As every Souldier hath the Benefit of all the conduct wisdom and valour of the whole Army while he keepeth in his place so every weak Christian hath the use and benefit of all the Learning the Wisdom and Gifts of the Church while he keepeth his station and walketh orderly in the Church The hand the eye the ear the foot and every member of the Body is as ready to help or serve the whole and every other particular member as it self But if it be cut off it is neither helpful nor to be helped O what a mercy is it for every Christian that is unable to help himself to have the help of all the Church of God their directions their exhortations their Love their prayers their liberality and compassion according to their several abilities and opportunities As infants and sick persons have the help of all the rest of the family that are in health § 51. 3. Unity and Concord as it proceedeth from Love so it greatly cherisheth and increaseth Peace containeth infinite blessings I strengtheneth faith It kindleth Charity The outward peace of the Church distilleth into peace of conscience and it turneth the writing and reading of Controversies into treatises of Mortification and Devotion Id. ibid. Against procuring Unity by sanguinaâ—y persecutions see Lord Bacon Essay 3. Surely there is no better way to stop the rising of new Sects and Schisms than to reform abuses to compound the smaller differences to proceed mildly and not with sanguinaâ—y persecutions and rather to take off the principal authors by winning and advancing them than to â—nrage them by violence and bitterness Lord Bacon in his Essay 58. Ita hominis non implet justitiam Dei And it was a notable observation of a wise Father that those which held and persuaded pressure of Consciences were commonly interessed there in themselves for their own ends Id. Ess. 3. p. 19. Love even as the laying of the Wood or Coals together is necessary to the making of the fire which the separating of them will put out Holy Concord cherisheth holy converse and communion And holy communion powerfully kindleth holy Love When the servants of Christ do see in each other the lustre of his Graces and hear from each other the heavenly language which floweth from a Divine and heavenly mind this potently kindleth their affections to each other and maketh them close with those as the sons of God in whom they find so much of God Yea it causeth them to Love God himself in others with a reverent admiring and transcendent Love when others at the best can Love them but as men Concord is the womb and soil of Love although it be first its progeny In quietness and peace the voice of peace is most regarded § 52. 4. Unity and Concord is the Churches Beauty It maketh us amiable even to the eye of nature and venerable and terrible even to the eye of malice A concord in sin is no more honour than it is for conquered men to go together in multitudes to prison or captivity or for beasts to go by droves unto the slaughter But to see the Churches of Christ with one heart and soul acknowledging their Maker and Redeemer and singing his Praise as with one voice and living together in Love and Concord as those that have one Principle one Rule one nature one work one Interest and Hope and End this is the truly beauteous symmetry and delectable harmony Psal. 133. Behold how good
how contrary soever among themselves but they all pretended Gods authority and entitled him to their sin and called it his service and censured others as ungodly or less godly that would not do as bad as they St. Iames is put to confute them that thought this wisdom was from above and so did glory in their sin and lye against the truth when their wisdom was from beneath and no better than earthly sensual and deviliish For the wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy c. James 3. 17. § 78. 12. Church divisions are unlike to our Heavenly state and in some regard worse than the Kingdom of the Devil for he would not destroy it by dividing it against it selâ— Matth. 12. 26. O what a blessed harmony of united holy souls will there be in the Heavenly Ierusalem where we hope to dwell for ever There will be no discords envyings Sideings or contendings one being of this party and another of that but in the Unity of perfect Love that world of Spirits with joyful Eph. 4. 13 14 16. praise will magnifie their Creator And is a snarling envy or jarring discord the likely way to such an end Is the Church of Christ a Babâ—l of confusion Should they be divided party against party here that must be one in perfect Love for ever Shall they here be condemning each other as none of the children of the Most High who there must live in sweetest concord If there be shame in Heaven you will be ashamed to meet those in the delights of Glory and see them entertained by the Lord of Love whom you reviled and cast out of the Church or your communion causelesly on earth § 79. Remember now that Schism and making parties and divisions in the Church is not so small a sin as many take it for It is the accounting it a duty and a part of Holiness which is the greatest cause that it prospereth in the world And it will never be reformed till men have right apprehensions of the evil of it Why is it that sober people are so far and free from the sins of swearing drunkenness fornication and lasciviousness but because these sins are under so odious a character as helpeth them easily to perceive the evil of them And till Church-divisions be rightly apprehended as whoredom and swearing and drunkenness are they will never be well cured Imprint therefore on your minds the true Character of them which I have here laid down and look abroad upon the effects and then you will fear this confounding sin as much as a consuming Plague § 80. The two great causes that keep Divisions from being hated as they ought are 1. A charitable Two Hinderances of our true apprehensions of Schisme respect to the good that is in Church-dividers carrying us to overlook the evil of the sin judging of it by the Persons that commit it and thinking that nothing should seem odious that is theirs because many of them are in other respects of blameless pious conversations And indeed every Christian must so prudently reprehend the mistakes and faults of pious men as not to asperse the piety which is conjunct and therefore not to make their persons odious but to give the person all his just commendations for his piety while we oppose and aggravate his sin Because Christ himself so distinguisheth between the good and the evil and the person and the sin and loveth his own for their good while he hateth their evil and so must we And because it is the grand design of Satan by the faults of the godly to make their Persons hated first and their Piety next and so to banish Religion from the world And every friend of Christ must shew himself an enemy to this design of Satan But yet the sin must be disowned and opposed while the person is Loved according to his worth Christ will give no thanks for such Love to his children as cherisheth their Church-destroying sins There is no greater enemy to sin than Christ though there be no greater friend to souls Godliness was never intended to be a fortress for iniquity or a battery for the Devil to mount his Cannons on against the Church nor for a blind to cover the Powder-mines of Hell Satan never opposeth Truth and Godliness and Unity so dangerously as when he can make Religious men his instruments Remember therefore that all men are vanity and Gods interest and honour must not be sacrificed to theirs nor the most Holy be abused in reverence to the holiest of sinful men § 81. The other great hinderance of our due apprehension of the sinfulness of divisions is our too deep sense of our sufferings by superiours and our looking so much at the evil of persecutions as not to look at the danger of the contrary extream Thus under the Papacy the people of Germany at Luthers Reformation were so deeply sensible of the Papal cruelties that they thought by how many wayes soever men fled from such bloody persecutors they were very excusable And while men were all taken up in decrying the Roman Idolatry corruptions and cruelties they never feared the danger of their own divisions till they smarted by them And this was once the case of many good people here in England who so much hated the wickedness of the Prophane and the Haters of Godliness that they had no apprehensions of the evil of Divisions among themselves And because many prophanâ— ones were wont to call sober godly people Schismaticks and Factious therefore the very names begâ—n with many to grow into credit as if they had been of good signification and there had been really no such sin as schism and factiâ—n to be feared Till God permitted this sin to break in upon us with such fury as had almost turned us into a Babel and a desolation And I am perswaded God did purposely permit it to teach his people more sensibly to know the evil of that sin by the efâ—â—cts which they would not know by other means And to let them see when they had reviled and ruined each other that there is that in themselves which they should be more afraid of than of any enemy without § 82. Direct 5. Own nâ—t any cause which is an enemy to Love And pretend neither Truth nor Holiness Direct 5. nor Unity nor Order nor any thing against it The Spirit of Love is that one Vital Spirit which 〈…〉 9 〈…〉 4. 〈…〉 2. 〈…〉 19. â—â— 1 〈…〉 1 â—â—â—â— 5 〈…〉 2 â—â—â—â— 1. 7. Heb. 10. 24. 〈…〉 5. 6 13. doth animate all the Saints The increase â—f Love is the powerful Balâ—â—me that healeth all the Churches wounds Though loveless lifeless Physicions think that all these wounds must be healed by the Sword And indeed the Weapon-salve is now become the proper cure It is the Sword that must be medicated that the wounds made by it may be healed The decayes of
14. Tit. 3. 3 5 6. 2. 13 14. 1 Pet. 2. 5 9. Exod. 19. 6. Rom. 1. 1 2. 1 Cor. 3. 17. 7. 14. Zech. 2. 12. Hag. 2. 12. Luk. 1. 70 72. Ezr. 8. 28. 9. 2. Numb 31. 6. Numb 6. 8 20. Lev. 16. 4 33. Exod. 29. 6 33. Psal. 89. 20. Numb 35. 25. 2 Tim. 3. 15. Isa. 58. 13. Psal. 42. 4. 2 Pet. 1. 18 21. Psal. 87. 1. Num. 5. 17. Exod. 3. 5. 1 Sam. 21. 5. Neh. 8. 9 10 11. infinite is the distance between God and us that whatever is His in a special sense or separated to his use is called Holy And that is 1. Persons 2. Things 1. Persons are either 1. In general devoted to his Love and Service 2. Or specially devoted to him in some special office Which is 1. Ecclesiastical 2. Oâ—conomical 3. Political Those devoted to his general service are 1. Either Heartily and sincerely so devoted who are ever sanctified in the first Real sense also or only by word and outward profession 2. Things devoted to God are 1. Some by his own immediate choice designation and command 2. Or by general directions to man to do it And these are 1. Some things more Nâ—erly some things more Remotely separated to him None of these must be confounded And so we must conclude 1. All that shall be saved are Really Holy by a Divine Inclination and nature and Actual exercise thereof and Relatively Holy in a special sense as thus devoted and separated to God 2. All the Baptized and professors not apostate are Relatively Holy as verbally devoted and separated to God 3. All that are Ordained to the Sacred Ministry are Relatively Holy as devoted and separated to that office And the well qualified are also really Holy as their qualifications are either special or common 4. All that are duly called of God to the Place of Kings and Iudges and Rulers of families are Relatively Sacred as their offices and they are of God and for him and devoted to him 5. Temples and other utensils designed by God himself are Holy as Related to him by that designation 6. Temples Utensils Lands c. devoted and lawfully separated by man for holy uses are Holy as justly Related to God by that lawful separation To say as some do that They are indeed consecrated and separated but not Holy is to be ridiculously wise by self-contradiction and the masterly use of the word Holy contrary to custome and themselves 7. Ministers are more Holy than Temples Lands or Utensils as being neerlier related to holy things And things separated by God himself are more holy than those justly separated by man And so of dayes 8. Things Remotely devoted to God are Holy in their distant place and measure As the Meat Drink House Lands Labours of every Godly man who with himself devoteth all to God But this being more distant is yet a remoter degree of Holiness II. Every thing should be Reverenced according to the measure of its Holiness And this expressed Uncovered in Church and Reverent gestures by such signes gestures actions as are fittest to Honour God to whom they are Related And so to be uncovered in Church and use Reverent carriage and gestures there doth tend to preserve due Reverence to God and to his Worship 1 Cor. 16. 20. Quest. 171. What is Sacriledge and what not Answ. I. SAcriledge is Robbing God by the unjust alienation of holy things And it is measured Rom. 2. 22. 2 Pet. 2. 20 21 22. Heb. 6. 6 7. Heb. 10. 26 27 28 29. 1 Thes. 2. 15 16. â—ev 19. 8. Heb. 12. 16. Act. 5. 5 c. â—zek 22. 26. 42. 20. 44. 23. according as things are diversified in Holiness as 1. The greatest Sacriledge is a prophane unholy alienating a person to the flâ—sh and the world from God and his Love and his service who by Baptism was devoted to him And so all wicked Christians are grosly Sacrilegious 2. The next is alienating consecrated persons from the sacred work and office by deposing Kings or by unjust silencing or suspending true Ministers or their casting off Gods work themselves This is far greater sacriledge than alienating Lands or Utensils 3. The next is the unjust alienating of Temples Utensils Lands dayes which were separated by God himself 4. And next such as were justly consecrated by man as is aforesaid in the degrees of Holiness II. It is not Sacriledge 1. To cease from the Ministry or other holy service when sickness disability of body or violence utterly disable us 2. Nor to alienate Temples Lands goods or utensils when providence maketh it needful to the Churches good so the fire in London hath caused a diminution of the number of Churches so some Bishops of old sold the Church plate to relieve the poor And some Princes have sold some Church Lands to save the Church and state in the necessities of a lawful war Matth. 12. 5. 3. It is not Sacriledge to alienate that which man devoted but God accepted not nor owned as appropriate to him which his prohibition of such a dedication is a proof of As if a man devote his wife to chastity or his Son to the Ministry against their wills or if a man Vow himself to the Ministry that is unable and hath no call or if so much Lands or goods be consecrated as is superfluous useless and injurious to the common wellfare and the state Alienation in these cases is no sin Quest. 172. Are all Religious and private meetings forbidden by Rulers unlawful Conventicles Or are any such necessary Answ. THough both such Meetings and our Prisons tell us how greatly we now differ about this point in the application of it to persons and our present case yet I know no difference in the doctrinal resolution of it among most sober Christians at all which makes our case strange For ought I know we are agreed I. 1. That it is more to the honour of the Church and of Religion and of God and more to our Psal. 1. 2 4 5. 22. 25. 35. 18. 40. 9 10. Act. 28. last Heb. 10. 25. Act. 20. 7. 1. 15. 2. 44 1 Cor. 14. 23. safety and edification to have Gods Worship performed solemnly publickly and in great assemblies than in a corner secretly and with few 2. That it is a great mercy therefore where the Rulers allow the Church such publick Worship 3. That caeteris paribus all Christians should prefer such publick worship before private And no private meetings should be kept up which are opposite or prejudicial to such publick meetings 4. And therefore if such meetings or any that are unnecessary to the ends of the Ministry the service of God and good of souls be forbidden by Lawful Rulers they must be forborn II. But we are also agreed 1. That it is not the Place but the presence of the true Pastors and 1 Cor. 16. 19. Rom. 16. 5. Act.
holy industry of all their lives Say not God can give more to you in a year than to others in twenty For it is a poor argument to prove that God hath done it because he can do it He can make you an Angel but that will not prove you one Prove your wisdome before you pretend to it and overvalue it not Heb. 5. 11 12 sheweth that it is Gods ordinary way to give men wisdom according to their time and means unless their own negligence deprive them of his blessing Direct 6. Study to keep up Christian Love and to keep it lively For Love is not censorious but Direct 6. is inclined to judge the best till evidence constrain you to the contrary Censoriousness is a Vermine which crawleth in the carkass of Christian Love when the life of it is gone Direct 7. Value all Gods graces in his servants And then you will see something to love them Direct 7. for when hypocrites can see nothing Make not too light of small degrees of grace and then your censure will not overlook them Direct 8. Remember the tenderness of Christ who condemneth not the weak nor casteth Infants Direct 8. out of his family nor the diseased out of his Hospital but dealeth with them in such gracious gentleness as beseemeth a tender-hearted Saviour He will not break the bruised reed He carryeth his Lambs in his arms and gently driveth those with young He taketh up the wounded man when the Priest and Levite pass him by And have you not need of the tenderness of Christ your selves as well as others Are you not afraid lest he should find greater faults in you than you find in others And condemn you as you condemn them Direct 9. Let the sense of the common corruption of the world and imperfection of the godly moderate Direct 9. your particular censures As Seneca saith To censure a man for that which is common to all men is in a sort to censure him for being a man which beseemeth not him that is a man himself Do you not know the frailty of the best and the common pravity of humane nature How few are there that must not have great allowance or else they will not pass for currant in the ballance Elias was a man subject to passions Ionah to pievishness Iob had his impatiency â—â—ul saith even of the Teachers of the primitive Church They all that were with him seek their own and not the things of Iesus Christ. What blots are charged on almost all the Churches and almost all the holy persons mentioned throughout all the Scriptures Learn then of Paul a better lesson than censoriousness Gal. 6. 1. Brethren if a man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness considering thy self lest thou also be tempted Bear ye one anothers burdens and so fulfill the Law of Christ. Let every man prove his own work and then be shall have rejoycing in himself alone c. Direct 10. Remember that Iudgement is Gods prerogative further than as we are called to it for Direct 10. the performance of some duty either of Office or of private Charity or self-preservation And that the Judge is as at the door And that judging unmercifully maketh us lyable to judgement without mercy The foresight of that near universal Judgement which will pass the doom on us and all men will do much to cure us of our rash censoriousness Direct 11. Peruse and observe all the Directions in the last Chapter against evil-speaking and backbiting Direct 11. that I may not need to repeat them Especially avoid 1. The snare of selfishness and interest For most men judge of others principally by their own interest He is the good man that is good to them or is on their side that loveth and honoureth them and answereth their desires This is the common false judgement of the corrupted selfish world who vilifie and hate the best because they seem unsuitable to them and to their carnal interest Therefore take heed of your judgement about any man that you have any falling-out with For its two to one but you will wrong him through this selfishness 2. Avoid passion which blindeth the judgement 3. Avoid Faction which maketh you judge of all men as they agree or disagree with your opinions or your side and party 4. Avoid too hasty belief of censures and rebuke them 5. Hear every man speak for himself before you censure him if it be possible and the case be not notorious Direct 12. Keep still upon your mind a just and deep apprehension of the malignity of this sin of Direct 12. rash censuring It is of greatest consequence to the mortifying of any sin what apprehensions of it are upon the mind If religious persons apprehended the odiousness of this as much as they do of swearing drunkenness fornication c. they would as carefully avoid it Therefore I shall shew you the Malignity of this sin Tit. 3. The evil of the Sin of Censoriousness § 1. 1. IT is an usurpation of Gods Prerogative who is the Judge of all the world It is a stepping up into his Judgement Seat and undertaking his work as if you said I will be God as to this action And if he be called The Antichrist who usurpeth the Office of Christ to be the Universal Monarch and Head of the Church you may imagine what he doth who though but in one point doth set up himself in the place of God § 2. 2. They that usurp not Gods part in judging yet ordinarily usurp the part of the Magistrate or Pastors of the Church As when mistaken censorious Christians refuse to come to the Sacrament of Communion because many persons are there whom they judge to be ungodly what do they but usurp the Office of the Pastors of the Church To whom the Keys are committed for admission and exclusion And so are the appointed Judges of that case The duty of private members is but to admonish the offender first secretly and then before witnesses and to tell the Church if he repent not and humbly to tell the Pastors of their duty if they neglect it And when this is done they have discharged their part and must no more excommunicate men themselves than they must hang Thieves when the Magistrate doth neglect to hang them § 3. 3. Censoriousness signifieth the absence or decay of Love which inclineth men to think evil and judge the worst and aggravate infirmities and overlook or extenuate any good that is in others And there is least Grace where there is least Love § 4. 4. It sheweth also much want of self-acquaintance and such heart-employment as the sincerest Christians are taken up with And it sheweth much want of Christian humility and sense of your own infirmities and badness and much prevalency of Pride and self-conceitedneâ—s If you knew how ignorant you are you would not be so peremptory in
nature of Carnal-selfishness and it is no better § 4. 3. SELFISHNESSE is the corruption of all the faculties of the soul. It is the sin of the mind by self-conceitedness and pride It is the sin of the will and affections by self-love and all the selfish passions which attend it Selfish desires angers sorrows discontents jealousies fears audacities c. It is the corruption of all the inferiour faculties and the whole conversation by self-seeking and all the forementioned evils § 5. 4. Selfishness is the commonest sin in the world Every man is now born with it and hath it more or less And therefore every man should fear it § 6. 5. Selfishness is the hardest sin in the world to overcome In all the unregenerate it is predominant For nothing but the sanctifying Spirit of God can overcome it And in many thousands that seem very zealous in Religion and very mortified in all other respects yet in some way or other selfishness doth so lamentably appear yea and is so strong in many that are sincere that it is the greatest dishonour to the Church of Christ and hath tempted many to infidelity or to doubt whether there be any such thing as true sanctification in the world The persons that seemed the most mortified Saints if you do but cross them in their self-interest or opinion or will or seem to slight them and have a low esteem of them what swellings what heart-burnings what bitter censurings what proud impatience if not Schisms and separations will it cause God hath better servants but too many which seem to themselves and others to be the best are no better How then should every Christian abhor and watch against this Universal Evil § 7. Direct 2. Consider oft how amiable a creature man would be and what a blessed condition the Direct 2. world and all societies would be in if selfishness were but overcome There would then â—e no pride no covetousness no sensuality no tyranny or oppressing of the poor no malice cruelty or persecution no Church-divisions no scandals nothing to dishonour Religion or to hinder the saving progress of the Gospel no fraud or treacheries no over-reaching or abusing others no lying noâ— deceit no neglect of our duty to others In a word no injustice or uncharitableness in the world § 8. Direct 3. Iudge of good and evil by sober Reason and not by bruitish sense And then oft Direct 3. consider whether really there be not a more excellent end than your self ish interest Even the publick good of many and the pleasing and glorifying of God And whether all mediate good or evil should not be judged of principally by those highest ends Sense leadeth men to selfishness and privateness of design But true Reason leadeth men to prefer the publick or any thing that is better than our self-interest § 9. Direct 4. Nothing but returning by converting Grace to the true Love of God and of Man for Direct 4. his sake will conquer selfishness Make out therefore by earnest prayer for the Spirit of Sanctification And be sure that you have a true apprehension of the state of Grace that is that it is indeed The Love of God and Man Love is the fulfilling of the Law Therefore Love is the Holiness of the soul Set your whole study upon the exercise and increase of Love and selfishness will dye as Love reviveth § 10. Direct 5. Study much the self-denying example and precepts of your Saviour His life and Direct 5. doctrine are the liveliest representation of self-denyal that ever was given to the World Learn Christ and you will learn self-denyal He had no sinful selfishness to mortifie yet natural-self was so wonderfully denyed by him for his Fathers Will and our Salvation that no other Book or Teacher in the world will teach us this lesson so perfectly as he Follow him from the Manger or rather from the Womb to the Cross and Grave Behold him in his poverty and contempt enduring the contradiction and ingratitude of sinners and making himself of no reputation Behold him apprehended accused condemned crowned with thorns clothed in purple with a reed in his hand scourged and led away to execution bearing his Cross and hanged up among Thieves forsaken by his own Disciples and all the world and in part by him who is more than all the world And consider why all this was done For whom he did it and what lesson he purposed hereby to teach us Consider why he made it one half the condition of our salvation and so great a part of the Christian Religion to Deny our selves and take up our Cross and follow him and will have no other to be his Disciples Luke 14. 26 31 33. Were a Crucified Christ more of our daily study and did we make it our Religion to learn and follow his holy example self-denyal would be better known and practised and Christianity would appear as it is and not as it is misunderstood adulterated and abused in the world But because I have long ago written a Treatise of Self-denyal I shall add no more CHAP. XXVII Cases and Directions for Loving our Neighbour as our selves Tit. 1. Cases of Conscience about Loving our Neighbour Quest. 1. IN what sense is it that I must love my neighbour as my self Whether in the kind of Quest. 1. love or in the degree or only in the reality Answ. The true meaning of the Text is You must love him according to his true worth without the diversion and hinderance of selfishness and partiality As you must love your self according to that degree of Goodness which is in you and no more so must you as impartially love your neighbour according to that degree of Goodness which is in him So that it truly extendeth to the reality the kind and the degree of love supposing it in both proportioned to the goodness of the object But before this can be understood the true nature of Love must be well understood Quest. 2. What is the true Nature of Love both as to my self and neighbour Quest. 2. Answ. Love is nothing but the prime motion of the Will to its proper object which is called Complacence The object of it is simple Goodness or Good as such It ariseth from suitableness between the Object and the Will as appetite doth from the suitableness of the appetent faculty and the food This GOOD as it is variously modified or any way differeth doth accordingly cause or require a difference in our Love Therefore that Love which in its prime act and nature is but one is diversly denominated as its objects are diversified To an object as simply Good in it self it followeth the Understandings Estimation and is called as I said meer Complacence or Adhesion To an Object as not yet attained but absent or distant and attainable it is called Desire or Desiring Love And as expected Hope or Hoping Love which is a conjunction of Desire
shut-up the bowels of his compassion from him how dwelleth the Love of God in him 1 Iohn 3. 17. Surely if the love of his brother were in him the love of God had been in him But he hath no true love to his brother that will only love him on terms that cost him little and cannot give and suffer for his love All these are deceiving Counterfeits of Love to the children of God Tit. 6. Cases and Directions for intimate special Friends Quest. 1. IS it lawful to have an earnest desire to be Loved by others Especially by some one person Quest. 1. above all other Answ. There is a desire of others Love which is lawful and there is a desire which is unlawful I. It is lawful 1. When we desire it as it is their duty which God himself obligeth them to perform and so is part of their integrity and is their own good and pleaseth God So Parents must desire their children to love them and one another because it is their duty and else they are unnatural and bad And Husband and Wife may desire that each other discharge that duty of Love which God requireth and so may all others 2. It is lawful also to desire for our own sakes to be loved by others so be it it be 1. With a calm and sober desire which is not eager peremptory or importunate nor overvalueth the Love of man 2. According to the proportion of our own worth not desiring to be thought Greater Wiser or Better than indeed we are nor to be loved erroneously by an overvaluing Love 3. When we desire it for the benefits to which it tendeth more than to be valued and loved our selves As 1. That we may receive that edification and good from a friend which Love disposeth them to communicate 2. That we may do that good to our friends which Love disposeth them to receive 3. That we may honour and please God who delighteth in the true Love and Concord of his Children II. But the unlawful desire of others Love to us is much more common and is a sin of a deeper malignity than is commonly observed This desire of love is sinful when it is contrary to that before described As 1. When we desire it over eagerly 2. When we desire it selfishly and proudly to be set up in the good opinion of others and not to make a benefit of it to our selves or them bt our own Honour is more desired in it than the honour of God 3. When we desire to be thought Greater Wiser or Better than we are and to be loved with such an overvaluing Love and have no desire that the bounds of Truth and Usefulness should restrain and limit that love to us which we affect 4. When it is an erroneous fanciful carnal or lustful esteem of some one person which maketh us desire his love more than others As because he is higher richer fairer c. This eager desire to be over-loved by others hath in it all these aggravations 1. It is the very sin of Pride which God hath declared so great a detestation of For Pride is an over-valuing our selves for Greatness Wisdom or Goodness and a desire to be so over-valued of others And he that would be over-loved would be over-valued 2. It is self-idolizing When we would be loved as better than we are we rob God of that Love which men should render to him who can never be over-loved and we would fain seem a kind of petty Deities to the world and draw mens eyes and hearts unto our selves When we should be jealous of Gods interest and honour lest we or any creature should have his due this proud disposition maketh people set up themselves in the estimation of others and they scarce care how Good or Wise they are esteemed nor how much they are lifted up in the hearts of others 3. It is an injurious ensnaring the minds of others and tempting them to erroneous opinions of us and affections to us which will be their sin and may bring them into many inconveniences It is an ordinary thing to do greater hurt to a friend whom we value by ensnaring him in an inordinate Love than ever we did or can do to an enemy by hating him Quest. 2. Is it lawful meet or desirable to entertain that extraordinary affection to any one which Quest. 2. is called special friendship or to have an endeared intimate friend whom we love far above all others Answ. Intimate special friendship is a thing that hath been so much pleaded for by all sorts of men and so much of the felicity of mans life hath been placed in it that it beseemeth not me to speak against it But yet I think it meet to tell you with what Cautions and limits it must be received and how far it is good and how far sinful For there are perils here to be avoided which neither Cicero nor his Scipio and Laelius were acquainted with I. 1. It is lawful to choose some one well qualified person who is fittest for that use and to make him the chief companion of our lives our chiefest counsellor and comforter and to confine our intimacy and converse to him in a special manner above all others 2. And it is lawful to love him not only according to his personal worth but according to his special suitableness to us and to desire his felicity accordingly and to exercise our love to him more frequently and sensibly because of his nearness and presence than towards some better men that are further off The Reasons of such an intimate friendship are these 1. No man is sufficient for himself and therefore Nature teacheth him to desire an helper And there is so wonderful a diversity of temperaments and conditions and so great a disparity and incongruity among good and wise men towards each other that one that is more suitable and congruous to us than all the rest may on that account be much preferred 2. It is not many that can be so near us as to be ordinary helpers to us And a wiser man at a distance or out of reach may be less useful to us than one of inferiour worth at hand 3. The very exercise of friendly love and kindness to another is pleasant And so it is to have one to whom we may confidently reveal our secrets to bear part of our burden and to confirm us in our right apprehensions and to cure us of wrong ones 4. And it is no small benefit of a present bosome friend to be instead of all the world to us that is of common unprofitable company For man is a sociable creature and abhorreth utter solitude And among the common sort we shall meet with so much evil and so little that is truly wise or good as will tempt a man to think that he is best when he is least conversant with mankind But a selected friend is to us for usefulness instead of many without these common
own case whatever censures for it I incur When I was first awakened to the regard of things spiritual and eternal I was exceedingly inclined to a vehement Love to those that I thought the most serious Saints and especially to that intimacy with some one which is called Friendship By which I found extrordinary benefit and it became a special mercy to my soul. But it was by more than one or two of the fore-mentioned wayes that the strict bond of extraordinary Friendship hath been relaxed and my own excessive esteem of my most intimate friends confuted And since then I have learned to love all men according to their real worth and to let out my love more extensively and without respect of persons acknowledging all that is good in all But with a double Love and honour to the excellently wiâ—e and good and to value men more for their publick usefulness than for their private suitableness to me and yet to value the ordinary converse of one or a few suitable friends before a more publick and tumultuary life except when God is publickly Worshipped or when publick service inviteth me to deny the quiet of a private life And though I more difference between man and man than ever I do it not upon so slight and insufficient grounds as in the time of my unexperienced credulity nor do I expect to find any without the defects and blots and failings of infirm imperfect mutable man Quest. 10. What qualifications should Direct us in the choice of a special bosome friend Quest. 10. Answ. 1. He must be one that is sincere and single hearted and not given to affectation or any thing that is much forced in his deportment plain and open hearted to you and not addicted to a hiding fraudulent or reserved carriage 2. He must be one that is of a suitable temper and disposition I mean not guilty of all your own infirmities but not guilty of a crosness or contrariety of disposition As if one be in love with plainness of Apparel and frugality in dyet and course of life and the other be guilty of curiosity and ostentation and prodigality If one be for few words and the other for many If one be for Labour and the other for Idleness and frequent interruptions If one be for serving the humours of men and the other for a contempt of humane censure in the way of certain duty these disparities make them unfit for this sort of bosome friendship 3. He must not be a slave to any vice For that which maketh him false to God and to betray his own soul may make him false to man and to betray his friend 4. He must not be a selfish person that is corruptly and partially for himself and for his own Carnal ends and interest For such a one hath no true love to others but when you seem cross to his Own interest his pleasure wealth or honour he will forsake you For so he doth by God himself 5. He must be Humble and not notably proud For Pride will make him quarrelsome disdainful impatient and quite unsuitable to a humble person 6. He must be one that 's throughly and resolvedly Godly For you will hardly well center any where but in God nor will he be useful to all the ends of friendship if he be not one that Loveth God and holy things and is of a pious conversation Nor can you expect that he that is false to God and will sell his part in him for the pleasure or gain of sin should long prove truly faithful unto you 7. He must be one that is judicious in Religion that is not of an erroneous heretical wit nor ignorant of those great and excellent Truths which you should ost confer about But rather one that excelleth you in solid understanding and true judgement and a discerning head that can teach you somewhat which you know not and is not addicted to corrupt you with false opinions of his own 8. He must be one that is not Schismatical and embodied in any dividing Sect For else he will be no longer true to you than the interest of his party will allow him And if you will not follow him in his conceits and singularities he will withdraw his love and despise you And if he do not yet he may endanger your stedfastness by the temptation of his love 9. He must be one that hath no other very intimate friend unless his friend be also as intimate with you as with him Because else he will be no further secret and trusty to you than the interest or will of his other friend will allow him 10. He must be one that is Prudent in the management of business and especially those which your converse is concerned in else his indiscretion in words or practice will not suffer your friendship to be long entire 11. He must be one that is not addicted to loquacity but can keep your secrets Otherwise he will be so untrustly as to be uncapable of doing the true office of a friend 12. He must have a zeal and activity in Religion and in all well-doing Otherwise he will be unfit to warm your affections and to provoke you to love and good works and to do the principal works of friendship but will rather cool and hinder you in your way 13. He must be one that is not addicted to levity unconstancy and change or else you can expect no stability in his friendship 14. He must not much differ from you in Riches or in poverty or in quality in the world For if he be much Richer he will be carryed away with higher company and converse than yours and will think you fitter to be his servant than his friend And if he be much poorer than you he will be apt to value your friendship for his own commodity and you will be still in doubt whether he be sincere 15. He must be one that is like to live with you or near you that you may have the frequent benefit of his converse counsel example and other acts of friendship 16. He must be one that is not very covetous or a Lover of Riches or preferment For such a one will no longer be true to you than his Mammon will allow him 17. He must be one that is not pievish passionate and impatient but that can both bear with your infirmities and also bear much from others for your sake in the exercise of his friendship 18. He must be one that hath so good an esteem of your person and so true and strong a Love to you as will suffice to move him and hold him to all this 19. He must be yet of a publick Spirit and a lover of good works that he may put you on to well doing and not countenance you in an idle self-pleasing and unprofitable life And he ought to be one that is skilful in the business of your Calling that may be fit to censure your work and amend it and
true pleasure as his life and labours are successful in doing good I know that the Conscience of honest endeavours may afford solid comfort to a willing though unsuccessful man and well-doing may be pleasant though it prove not a doing good to others But it is a double yea a multiplyed comfort to be successful It is much if an honest unsuccessful man a Preacher a Physicion c. can keep up so much peace as to support him under the grief of his unsuccessfulness But to see our honest labours prosper and many to be the better for them is the pleasantest life that man can here hope for 7. Good works are a comfortable evidence that faith is sincere and that the heart dissembleth not with God When as a faith that will not prevail for works of Charity is dead and uneffectual and the image o◠carkass of faith indeed and such as God will not accept Iam. 2. 8. We have received so much our selves from God as doubleth our obligation to do good to others Obedience and Gratitude do both require it 9. We are not sufficient for our selves but need others as well as they need us And therefore as we expect to receive from others we must accordingly do to them If the eye will not see for the body nor the hand work for the body nor the feet go for it the body will not afford them nutriment and they shall receive as they do 10. Good works are much to the honour of Religion and consequently of God and much tend to mens conviction conversion and salvation Most men will judge of the doctrine by the fruits Mat. 5. 16 Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven 11. Consider how abundantly they are commanded and commended in the word of God Christ himself hath given us the pattern of his own life which from his first moral actions to his last was nothing but doing good and bearing evil He made Love the fulfilling of his Law and the works of Love the genuine fruits of Christianity and an acceptable sacrifice to God Gal. 6. 10. As we have opportunity let us do good to all men especially to them of the houshold of faith Heb. 13. 16. To do good and communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased Tit. 3. 8. This is a faithful saying and these things I will that thou constantly affirm that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works These things are good and profitable to men Ephes. 2. 10. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Iesus to good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them Tit. 2. 14. To purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Act. 20. 35. So labouring ye ought to support the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Iesus how he said It is more blessed to give than to receive Ephes. 4. 28. Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labour working with his hands the thing that is good that he may have to give to him that needeth You see poor labourers are not excepted from the command of helping others In so much that the first Church sold all their possessions and had all things common not to teach levelling and condemn propriety but to shew all after them that Christian Love should use all to relieve their brethren as themselves 12. Consider that God will in a special manner judge us at the last day according to our works and especially our works of Charity As in Matth. 25. Christ hath purposely and plainly shewed and so doth many another text of Scripture These are the Motives to works of Love Quest. 2. What is a good work even such as God hath promised to reward Quest. 2. Answ. 1. The matter must be lawful and not a sin 2. It must tend to a good effect for the benefit of man and the honour of God 3. It must have a good end even the pleasing and Glory of God and the good of our selves and others 4. It must come from a right principle even from the Love of God and of man for his sake 5. It must be pure and unmixed If any sin be mixt with it it is sinful so as to need a pardon And if sin be predominant in it it is so far sinful as to be unacceptable to God in respect to the person and is turned into sin it self 6. It must be in season or else it may sometimes be mixt with sin and sometimes be evil it self and no good work 7. It must be comparatively good as well as simply It must not be a lesser good instead of a greater or to put off a greater As to be praying when we should be quenching a fire or saving a mans life 8. It must be good in a convenient degree Some degrees are necessary to the Moral being of a good work and some to the well being God must be loved and worshipped as God and Heaven sought as Heaven and mens souls and lives must be highly prized and seriously preserved some sluggish doing of good is but undoing it 9. It must be done in confidence of the merits of Christ and presented to God as by his hands who is our Mediator and Intercessour with the Father Quest. 3. What works of Charity should one choose in these times who would improve his masters talents Quest. 3. to his most comfortable account Answ. The diversity of mens abilities and opportunities make that to be best for one man which is 〈◊〉 the Pre 〈…〉 e to my 〈…〉 ok called 〈◊〉 Crucifying 〈…〉 he world impossible to another But I shall name some that are in themselves most beneficial to mankind that every man may choose the best which he can reach to 1. The most eminent work of Charity is the promoting of the Conversion of the Heathen and Infidel parts of the world To this Princes and men of power and wealth might contribute much if they were willing especially in those Countreys in which they have commerce and send Embassadours They might procure the choicest Scholars to go over with their Embassadours and learn the languages and set themselves to this service according to opportunity Or they might erect a Colledge for the training up of Students purposely for that work in which they might maintain some Natives procured from the several Infidel Countreys as two or three Persians as many Indians of Indostan as many Tartarians Chinenses Siamites c. which might possibly be obtained and these should teach students their Countrey languages But till the Christian world be so happy as to have such Princes something may be done by Volunteers of lower place and power As Mr. Wheelock did in translating the New Testament and Mr. Pococke by the Honourable Mr. Robert Boile's procurement and charge in translating Grotius de Verit. Christ. Relig. into
Love is holy and from God whereas the same Love may be of God as to the principle motives and ends in the main and yet may have great mixtures of passionate weakness and sinful excess which may tend to their great affliction in the end Some that have been converted by the writings of a Minister a hundred or a thousand miles off must needs go see the Author some must needs remove from their lawful dwellings and callings to live under the Ministry of such a one yea if it may be in the house with him some have affections so violent as proveth a torment to them when they cannot live with those whom they so affect some by that affection are ready to follow those that they so value into any errour And all this is a sinful Love by this mixture of passionate weakness though pious in the main Quest. 9. Why should we restrain our Love to a bosome friend contrary to Cicero's doctrine and what Quest. 9. sin or danger is in loving him too much Answ. All these following 1. It is an errour of judgement and of will to suppose any one Better than he is yea perhaps than any creature on earth is and so to Love him 2. It is an irrational act and therefore not fit for a Rational creature to Love any one farther than reason will allow us and beyond the true causes of regular Love 3. It is usually a fruit of sinful selfishness For this excess of Love doth come from a selfish cause either some strong conceit that the person greatly Loveth us or for some great kindness which he hath shewed us or for some need we have of him and fitness appearing in him to be useful to us c. Otherwise it would be purely for Amiable worth and then it would be proportioned to the nature and measure of that worth 4. It very often taketh up mens minds so as to hinder their Love to God and their desires and delights in holy things While Satan perhaps upon Religious pretences turneth our affections too violently to some person it diverteth them from higher and better things For the weak mind of man can hardly think earnestly of one thing without being alienated in his thoughts from others nor can hardly love two things or persons fervently at once that stand not in pure subordination one to the other And we seldom Love any fervently in a pure subordination to God For then we should Love God still more fervently 5. It oft maketh men ill members of the Church and Commonwealth For it contracteth that Love to one over-valued person which should be diffused abroad among many and the common good which should be loved above any single person is by this means neglected as God himself which maketh Wives and Children and bosome friends become those gulfs that swallow up the estates of most rich men so that they do little good with them to the publick state which should be preferred 6. Overmuch friendship engageth us in more duty than we are well able to perform without neglecting our duty to God the Commonwealth and our own souls There is some special duty followeth all special acquaintance but a bosome friend will expect a great deal You must allow him much of your Time in conference upon all occasions and he looketh that you should be many wayes friendly and useful to him as he is or would be to you When alas frail man can do but little our Time is short our strength is small our estates and faculties are narrow and low And that Time which you must spend with your bosome friend where friendship is not moderated and wisely managed is perhaps taken from God and the publick good to which you first owed it Especially if you are Magistrates Ministers Physicions Schoolmasters or such other as are of publick usefulness Indeed if you have a sober prudent friend that will look but for your vacant hours and rather help you in your publick service you are happy in such a friend But that is not the excess of Love that I am reprehending 7. This inordinate friendship prepareth for disappointments yea and for excess of sorrows Usually experience will tell you that your best friends are but uncertain and imperfect men and will not answer your expectation And perhaps some of them may so grosly fail you you as to set light by you or prove your Adversaries I have seen the bonds of extraordinary dearness many ways dissolved One hath been overcome by the flesh and turned drunkard and sensual and so proved unfit for intimate friendship who yet sometime seemed of extraordinary uprightness and zeal Another hath taken up some singular conceits in Religion and joyned to some sect where his bosome friend could not follow him And so it hath seemed his duty to look with strangeness contempt or pity on his ancient friend as one that is dark and low if not supposed an adversary to the truth because he espouseth not all his mis-conceits Another is suddenly lifted up with some preferment dignity and success and so is taken with higher things and higher converse and thinks it is very fair to give an embrace to his ancient friend for what he once was to him instead of continuing such endearedness Another hath changed his place and company and so by degrees grown very indifferent to his ancient friend when he is out of sight and converse ceaseth Another hath himself chosen his friend amiss in his unexperienced youth or in a penury of wise and good men supposing him much better than he was and afterward hath had experience of many persons of far greater wisdom piety and fidelity whom therefore reason commanded him to preser All these are ordinary dissolvers of these bonds of intimate and special friendship And if your Love continue as hot as ever its excess is like to be your excessive sorrow For 1. You will be the more grieved at every suffering of your friend as sickness losses crosses c. whereof so many attend mankind as is like to make your burden great 2. Upon every removal his absence will be the more troublesome to you 3. All incongruities and fallings out will be the more painful to you especially his jealousies discontents and passions which you cannot command 4. His death if he die before you will be the more grievous and your own the more unwellcome because you must part with him These and abundance of sore afflictions are the ordinary fruits of too strong affections And it is no rare thing for the best of Gods servants to profess that their sufferings from their friends who have over-loved them have been ten times greater than from all the enemies that ever they had in the world And to those that are wavering about this case Whether only a common friendship with all men according to their various worth or a bosome intimacy with some one man be more desirable I shall premise a free confession of my