believe that God the Father is the First in the holy Trinity of persons that the whole Godhead is perfect and infinite in Being and Power and Wisdom and Goodness in which all his Attributes are comprehended but yet a distinct understanding of them all is not of absolute necessity to Salvation That this God is the Creator Preserver and Disposer of all things and the Owner and Ruler of Mankind most just and merciful that as he is the Beginning of all so he is the Ultimate end and the Chief Good of man which before all things else must be loved and sought This is to be believed concerning the Godhead and the Father in person Concerning the Son we must moreover believe that he is the same God with the Father the second person in Trinity in carnate and so become man by a personal union of the Godhead and Manhood That he was without Original or actual sin having a sinless nature and a sinless life that he fulfilled all Righteousness and was put to death as a Sacrifice for our sins and gave himself a Ransome for us and being buried he rose again from the dead and afterward ascended into Heaven where he is Lord of all and intercedeth for Believers that he will come again and raise the dead and judg the World the Righteous to everlasting Life and the Wicked to everlasting punishment that this is the only Redeemer the Way the Truth and the Life neither is their access to the Father but by him nor Salvation in any other Concerning the Holy Ghost we must believe that he is the same One God the third person in Trinity sent by the Father and the Son to inspire the Prophets and Apostles and that the Doctrine inspired and miraculously attested by him is true that he is the sanctifier of those that shall be saved renewing them after the Image of God in Holiness and Righteousness giving them true Repentance Faith Hope Love and sincere Obedience causing them to overcome the Flesh the World and the Devil thus gathering a Holy Church on earth to Christ who have by his Bloud the pardon of all their sins and shall have everlasting blessedness with God This is the Essence of the Christian Faith as to the Matter of it As to the Manner of Receiving it by the understanding 1. It must be received as Certain truth of Gods Revelation upon the credit of his Word by a lively effectual belief pierceing so deep as is necessary for its prevalency with the Will 2. And it must be Entirely received and not only a part of it Though all men have not so exactly formed distinct apprehensions of every member of this belief as some have yet all true Christians have a true apprehension of them We feel by daily experience that with the wisest some matters are truly understood by us which yet are not so distinctly and clearly understood as to be ready for an expression I have oft in matters that I am but studying a light that gives me a general imperfect but true conception which I cannot yet express but when another hath helped me to form my conception I can quickly and truly say that was it that I had an unformed apprehension of before and it that I meant but could not utter not so much for want of words as for want of a full and distinct conception 2. The Matter of our Christianity to be Received by the Will is as followeth As we must consent to all the forementioned truths by the Belief of the understanding so the pure Godhead must be Received as the Fountain and our End the Father as our Owner Ruler and Benefactor on the title of Creation and Redemption and as our everlasting happiness The Son as our only Saviour by Redemption bringing us pardon reconciliation holiness and glory and delivering us from sin and Satan and the wrath and Curse of God and from Hell The Holy Ghost as our Guide and Sanctifier All which containeth our Renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil and carnal Self that is the point of their Unity and heart of the old Man This is the Good that must be embraced or accepted by the will And secondly as to the Manner of Receiving it it must be done Vnfeignedly Resolvedly unreservedly or absolutely and habitually by an inward Covenanting of the heart as I have formerly explained it And this is the Essence of Christianity This is true Believing in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost This is the Foundation and this is the right laying of it And now the thing that I am perswading you to is to see that this Foundation be surely laid in Head and Heart And 1. That it may be surely laid in the Head you must labour 1. To understand these Articles And 2. to see the Evidence of their verity that you may firmly believe them And 3. To Consider of the worth and necessity of the matter revealed in them that your Judgments may most highly esteem it This is the sure laying the Foundation in the Head To these ends you should first learn some Catechism and be well acquainted with the Principles of Religion and also be much in reading or hearing the holy Scripture and enquiring of your Teachers and others that can help you and see that you take your work before you and step not higher till this be done And then all other following truths and Duties and promised benefits must all be so learnt as to be built upon this foundation and joyned to it as receiving their life and strength from hence and never lookt upon as separated from this nor as more excellent and necessary For want of learning well and believing soundly these Principles Essentials or Fundamentals of Christianity some of our people can go no further but stand all their dayes in their ignorance at a non-plus Some of them go on in a blind Profession deceiving themselves by building upon the Sand and hold true Doctrine by a false unsound belief of it And when the Flouds and storms do beat upon their building it falls and great is the fall thereof With some of them it falls upon the first assault of any Seducer that hath interest in them or advantage on them and abundance swallow up Errors because they never well understood or Firmly believ'd Fundamental Truths With others of them the building falls not until death because they lived not under any shaking temptations But it being but a perseverance in an unfound Profession will nevertheless be ineffectual to their Salvation 2. When you have thus laid the Foundation in your understanding be sure above all that it be firmly laid in your Heart or Will Take heed lest you should prove false and unstedfast in the holy Covenant and lest you should take in the Word but into the furnace of the Soul and not give it depth of earth and rooting and lest you should come to Christ but as a servant upon tryall and make an absolute
them against Heresies which indeed are all but novelties that so they may know how to try the Doctrines that afterward should be offered them and stick fast to that which the Apostles taught He next requireth them to abound therein to let them know that as it is no small matters that they expect by Christ so they should not rest in small degrees of Grace or duty but especially the duty of Thanksgiving which is an Evangelical and celestial duty and so admirably beseems a people that have partaked of such admirable Salvation and is so suitable to our mercies and our condition and Gods just expectation As it is Love and Grace whose eternal praise is designed by the Gospel and are magnified in the Church by the Redeemers great and blessed work So it is returns of Love and Praise and Joy that should be the most abounding or overflowing part of all our Christian affections and performances After this explication you may see that the sense of the Text lyeth plain in this Proposition Doct. Those that have savingly Received Christ Jesus the Lord must be so far from resting here as if all were done that they must spend the rest of their dayes in walking in him being Rooted and built up in him and stablished in the Faith as the Apostles taught it and abounding in it especially with joyful prayses to our Redeemer And because that my design is only to Direct young Christians how they may come to be established and confirmed in Christ I shall therefore pass over all other things that the full handling of this Text requireth and shall only give you 1. A short intimation here what this confirmation and stability is which shall be fullyer opened to you in the Directions 2. And shew you the need of seeking it And 3. How you may attain it 1. This Confirmation is the Habitual strength of Grace distinct from present actual confirmation by the influence of Grace from God For though God may in an instant confirm a weak person against some particular temptation by his free assistance yet that is not it which we have here to speak of but Habitual confirmation in a State of Grace And ordinarily we may expect that Gods co-operating assisting Grace should bear some proportion with our Habitual Grace Even as in nature he concurreth with the strongest men to do greater works than he causeth the weak to do and with the wisest men to understand more than the foolish do I say but that Ordinarily it is thus A Confirmed Christian as contrary to a weak one 1. Is not to be judged of by his freedome from all scruples doubts or fears 2. Nor by his eminency in mens esteem or observation 3. Nor by his strength of Memory 4. Or freedom of utterance in Praying Preaching or Discourse 5. Or by his seemly deportment and courtesy towards others 6. Nor by his sedate calm and lovely temper and freedom from some hast and heats which other tempers are more prone to 7. Nor by a Man-pleasing or dissembling faculty to bridle the tongue when it would open the corruption of the mind and to suppress all words which would make others know how bad the heart is There are many endowments laudable and desirable which will not shew so much as sincerity in Grace and much less a state of Confirmation and stability But Confirmation lyeth in the great degree of all those Graces which Constitute a Christian. And the great degree appeareth in the operations of them As 1. When Holiness is as a New-nature in us and giveth us a Promptitude to holy actions and maketh us free and ready to them and maketh them easie and familiar to us Whereas the weak go heavily and can scarce drive on and force their minds 2. When there is a constancy or frequency of holy actions which sheweth the strength and stability of holy inclinations 3. When they are powerful to bear down oppositions and temptations and can get over the greatest impediments in the way and make an advantage of all resistance and despise the most splendid baits of sin 4. When it is still getting ground and drawing the Soul upward and nearer to God its Rest and End And when the heart groweth more Heavenly and Divine and stranger to Earth and earthly things 5. And when holy and heavenly things are more sweet and delectable to the Soul and are sought and used with more Love and pleasure All these do shew that the Operations of Grace are vigorous and strong and consequently that the Habits are so also And this confirmation should be found 1. In the Vnderstanding 2. In the Will 3. In the Affections 4. In the Life 1. When the Mind of man hath a larger comprehension of the Truths of God and the Order and Method and Vsefulness of every truth And a deeper apprehension of the certainty of them and of the Goodness of the matter expressed in them When Knowledg and Faith come nearest unto sight or intention and we have the fullest the truest and the firmest and most certain apprehension of things revealed and unseen when the Nature and the Reasons and the ends and benefits of the Christian Religion are all most clearly orderly decently constantly and powerfully printed on the mind then is that Mind in a Confirmed state 2. When the Will is guided by such a confirmed understanding and is not bruitishly resolved he knoweth not for what or why When Light hath fixed it in such Resolutions as are past all notable doubtings deliberations waverings or unwilling backwardness and a man is in seeking God and his Salvation and avoiding known sin as a natural man is about the questions whether he should preserve his Life and make provision for it and whether he should poison or famish or torment himself When the Inclination of the Will to God and Heaven and Holiness are likest to its natural Inclination to Good as Good and to its own felicity And its action is so free as to have Least Indetermination and to be likest to Natural necessary acts as those are of blessed Spirits in Heaven When the least intimation from God prevaileth and the Will doth answer him with readiness and delight And when it taketh pleasure to trample upon all opposition and when all that can be offered to corrupt the heart and draw it to sin and loosen it from God prevaileth but as so much filth and dung would do Phil. 3.7 8 9. This is a confirmed state of Will 3. When the Affections do proceed from such a Will and are ready to assist excite and serve it and to carry us on in necessary Duties When the lower affections of Fear and sorrow do cleanse and restrain and prepare the way and the Higher Affections of Love and Delight adhere to God and Desire and Hope do make out after him and set the Soul on just endeavours When Fear and Grief have less to do and are delivering up the heart still more and more
and ye have snuffed at it saith the Lord of Hosts and ye brought that which was torn and the lame and the sick thus ye brought an offering should I accept this of your hand saith the Lord But cursed be the deceiver which hath in his Flock a Male and voweth and Sacrificeth to the Lord a corrupt thing for I am a great King saith the Lord of Hosts and my Name is dreadful among the Heathen If you better knew the Majesty of God you would knew that the best is too little for him and trifling is not tollerable in his service When Nadab and Abibu ventured with false fire to his Altar and he smote them dead he silenced Aaron with this reason of his Judgment I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people will I be glorified Lov. 10.1 2 3. That is I will have nothing common offered to me but be served with my own holy peculiar service When the Bethshemites were smitten dead 50070 men of them they found that God would not be dallyed with and cryed out Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God 1 Sam. 6.20 2. Consider also It was an exceeding great price that was payed for your Redemption For you were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your Fathers but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1.18 19. It was an exceeding great Love that was manifested by God the Father and by Christ in this work of Redemption such as even paseth Angels and men to study it and comprehend it 1 Pet. 1.12 Eph. 3.18 19. And should all this be answered but with trissâ—ng from you Should such a matchless Miracle of Love be answered with no greater 〈◊〉 especially when you were purposely 〈◊〉 from all iniquity that you might be sanctified 〈◊〉 a peculiar people zealous of good works 〈◊〉 14. It being therefore so great a price that you are bought with remember that you are none of your own but must glorify him that bought you in body and spirit 1. Cor. 6.20 3. Consider also that it is not a small but an exceeding glory that is promised you in the Gospel and which you live in hope to possess for ever And therefore it should be an exceeding Love that you should have to it and an exceeding care that you should have of it Make light of Heaven and make light of all Truly it is an unsuitable unreasonable thing to have one low thought or one careless word or one cold Prayer or other performance about such a matter as eternal glory Shall such a thing as Heaven be coldly or carelesly minded and sought after Shall the endless fruition of God in glory be look't at with sleepy heartless wishes I tell you Sirs if you will have such high hopes you must have high and strong endeavours A slow pace becomes not him that travelleth to such a home as this If you are resolved for Heaven behave your selves accordingly A gracious reverent godly frame of spirit producing an acceptable service of God is fit for them that look to receive the Kingdom that cannot be moved Heb. 12.18 The believing thoughts of the end of all our labours must needs convince us that we should be stedfast and unmoveable alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 O heatken thou sleepy slothful Christian Doth not God call and Conscience call Awake and up be doing man for it is for Heaven Hearken thou negligent lazy Christian Do not God and Conscience call out to thee O man make hast and mend thy pace it is for Heaven Hearken thou cowardly saint hearted Christian Do not God and Conscience call out to thee Arm man and see thou stand thy ground do not give back nor look behind thee but fall on and fight in the strength of Christ for it is for the Crown of endless glory O what a heart hath that man that will not be heartned with such calls as these Methinks the very name of God and Heaven should awaken you and make you stir if there be any stirring power within you Remissness in wordly matters hath an excuse for they are but trifles but flackness in the matters of Salvation is made unexcusable by the greatness of those matters O let the noble greatness of your Hopes appear in the Resolvedness exactness and diligence of your lives 4. Consider also that it is not only low and smaller Mercies that you receive from God but mercies innumerable and inestimable and exceeding great And therefore it is not cold affections and dull endeavours that you should return to God for all these mercies Mercy brought you into the World and Mercy hath nourished you and bred you up and Mercy hath defended and maintained you and plentifully provided for you Your bodies live upon it Your Souls were recovered by it It gave you your being It rescued you from misery It saveth you from sin and Satan and your Selves All that you have at the present you hold by it All that you can hope for for the future must be from it It is most sweet in quality what sweeter to miserable souls than Mercy It is exceeding great in quantity The Mercy of the Lord is in the Heavens and his faithfulness reacheth to the Clouds His Righteousness is like the great Mountains His Iudgments are a great deep Psal. 36.5 6. O how great is his goodness which he hath laid up for them that fear him which he hath for them that trust in him before the sons of men Psal. 31.19 His Mercy is great unto the Heavens and his truth unto the Clouds Psal. 57.10 And O what an insensible heart hath he that doth not understand the voice of all this wondrous mercy Doubtless it speaketh the plainest language in the World commanding great returns from us of Love and praise and obedience to the bountiful bestower of them With David we must say Blessed be the Lord for he hath shewed me marvellous kindness in a strong City O Love the Lord all ye his Saints for the Lord preserveth all the faithfull Psal. 31.21 23. Teach me thy way O Lord I will walk in thy truth Vnite my heart to fear thy Name I will praise thee O Lord my God with all my heart and I will glorify thy name for evermore for great is thy mercy towards me and thou hast delivered my Soul from the lowest Hell Psal. 86.11 12 13. Vnspeakable Mercies must needs be felt in deep impressions and be so savoury with the Gracious soul that methinks it should work us to the highest resolutions Unthankfulness is a crime that Heathens did detest And it is exceeding great unthankfulness if we have not exceeding great love and obedience under such exceeding great and many mercies as we possess 5. Consider that they are exceeding great helps and means that you possess to further your holiness and obedience to God and
purified and zealous of good works Tit. 2.14 He called you a chosen Generation a Royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar people that ye should shew forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light ye are as lively stones built up a spiritual house an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 2.5 9. You are born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible 1 Pet. 1.23 and are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light God hath delivered you from the power of darkness and translated you into the Kingdom of his dear Son in whom you have redemption through his bloud the remission of sins Col. 1.12 13 14. The spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God and if children then Heirs Heirs of God and joynt Heirs with Christ Rom. 8.16 17. All things shall work together for your good He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Vers. 28.32 Nothing but the illuminated Soul can discern the riches of the glory of Gods inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the work of his mighty power Eph. 1.18 19. When we were dead in sins he hath quickned us together with Christ and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding Riches of his Grace in his kindness towards us through Jesus Christ. He hath brough us nigh that were far off so that by one spirit we have access to the Father by Christ and are now no more strangers and forreigners but fellow Citizens of the Saints and of the houshold of God Eph. 2.5 6 7 13 17 18 19. We are members of the body of Christ we are come to Mount Zion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant Heb. 12.22 23 24. Brethren shall the Lord speak all this and more than this in the Scripture of your Glory and will you not prove your selves glorious and study to make good this precious word Doth he say The righteous is more excellent than his Neighbour Prov. 12.26 and will you not study to shew your selves more excellent indeed Shall all these high things be spoken of you and will you live so far below them all What a hainous wrong is this to God He sticks not in boasting of you to call you his jewells Mal. 3.17 and tells the world he will make them one day discern the difference between the Righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not verse 18. He tells the World that his coming in Judgment will be to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in them that believe 2 Thess. 1.10 It 's openly Professed by the Apostle John We know that we are of God and the whole World lyeth in wickedâ—â—â—â— 1 John 5.19 He challengeth any to condemn you or lay any thing to your charge professing that it is he that justifieth you casting the Saints into admiration by his love What shall we say to these things if God be for us who can be against us Rom. 8.31 He challengeth Tribulation Distress Persecution Famine or Nakedness Peril or Sword to separate you if they can from the Love of God He challengeth Death and Life Angels Principalities and Powers things present and things to come height and depth or any other Creature to separate you if they are able from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom. 8.35 37 38 39. Shall the Lord of Heaven thus make his boast of you to all the World and will you not make good his boasting Yea I must tell you he will see that it be made good to a word and if you be not careful of it your selves and it be not made good in you then you are not the people that God thus boasteth of He tells the greatest Persecutors to their faces that the meek the humble little ones of his Flock have their Angels beholding the face of God in Heaven Matth. 18.10 and that at the great and dreadful day of Judgment they shall be set at his right hand as his Sheep with a Come ye blessed inherit the Kingdom when others are set at his left hand as Goats with a Go ye cursed into everlasting Fire Matth. 25. He tells the world that he that receiveth a Converted man that is become as a little Child receiveth Christ himself and that whoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in him it were better for him that a Milstone were hanged about his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the Sea Matth. 18.3 4 5 6. Mark 9.42 Luke 17.2 O Sirs must God be thus wonderfully tender of you and will you not now be very tender of his interest and your duty Shall he thus difference you from all the rest of the world and will you not study to declare the difference The ungodly even gnash the teeth at Ministers and Scriptures and Christ himself for making such a difference between them and you and will you not let them see that it is not without cause I intreat you I require you in the Name of God see that you answer these high commendations and shew us that God hath not boasted of you beyond your worth 9. Consider this as the highest Motive of all God doth not only magnify you and boast of you but also he hath made you the living Images of his blessed self his Son Jesus Christ his Spirit and his holy Word and so he hath exposed himself his Son his Spirit and his Word to be censured by the World according to your lives The express Image of the Fathers person is the Son Heb. 1.3 The Son is declared to the World by the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost hath endited the Holy Scriptures which therefore bear the Image of Father Son and Holy Ghost This holy Word both Law and Promise is written on your hearts and put into your inner parts by the sâ—me spirit 2 Cor. 3.3 Heb. 8.13 and 10.16 So that as God hath imprinted his holy nature in the Scripture so hath he made this word the Seal to imprint again his Image on your hearts And you know that common eyes can better discern the Image in the Wax than on the Seal Though I know that the hardness of the Wax or somthing lying between or the imperfect application may cause an imperfection in the Image on the
resignation of your selves to him Of which I warned you in the former Directions O this is it that makes our people fall so fast in a day of tryal some shrink in adversity and some are enticed away by prosperity Greatness and honour deceiveth one and riches run away with another and fleshly pleasure poison a third and his Conscience Religion Salvation and all he Sacrificeth to his belly and swalloweth it down his throat and all the Love and goodness of God the Bloud of Christ the workings of the Spirit the Precepts and Promises and Threatnings of the Word and the joy and torments which once they seemed to believe all are forgotten or have lost their force And all because the Foundation was not laid well at the first But because this was the very business of the former Directions I will dismiss it now DIRECT II. Think not that all is done when once you are Converted but remember that the work of your Christianity then comes in and must be as long as the time of your lives OF this also I shall say but little because it is the drift of all the moving Considerations before-going I doubt it is the undoing of many to imagine that if once they are sanctified they are so sure in the hands of Christ that they have no more care to take nor no more danger to be afraid of and at last think that they have no more to do as of necessity to Salvation and thus prove that indeed they were never sanctified I confess when a man is truly Converted the principal part of his danger is over he is safe in the love and care of Christ and none can take him out of his hands But this is but part of the truth the other part must be taken with it or we deceive our selves There is still a great deal of work before us and Holiness is still the way to happiness and much care and diligence is required at our hands And it is no more certain that we shall be saved by Christ than it is that we shall be kept in Faith and love and holy obedience by him It is as true that none can separate us from the Love of God and from a care to please him and from a holy diligence in the work of our Salvation as that none can take us out of his hands and bring us into a state of condemnation He that is resolved to bring us to Glory is as much resolved to bring us to it by perseverance in Holiness and diligent obedience for he never decreeth one without the other and he will never save us by any other way Indeed when we are Converted we have escaped many and grievous dangers but yet there are many more before us which we must by care and diligence escape We are translâ—ted from death to life but not from earth to heaven We have the life of Grace but yet we are short of the life of Glory And why have we the life of Grace but to use it and to live by it Why came we into the Vineyard but to work And why came we into the Army of Christ but to fight Why came we into the race but to run for the prize or why turned we into the right way but to travel in it We never did God faithful service till the day of our Conversion and then it is that we begin And shall we be so sottish as to think we have done when we have but begun Now you begin to live that before were dead Now you begin to awake that were before asleep And therefore now you should begin to work that before did nothing or rather a thousand fold worse than nothing Work is the effect of life it is the dead that lye still in darkness and do nothing If you had rather be alive than dead you should rather delight in action than in idleness It 's now that you set to Sea and begin your voyage for the blessed Land many a storm and wave and tempest must you yet expect Many a combat with temptations must you undergo many a hearty prayer have you yet to pour forth Many and many a duty to perform to God and man Think not to have done your care and work till you have done your lives Whether you come in at the first hour or at the last you must work till night if you will receive your wages And think not this a grievous doctrine It is your priviledge it is your joy your earthly happiness that you may be so employed that you that till now have lived like swine or moles or earthly vermine may now take wing and fly to God and walk in heaven and talk with Saints and be guarded by Angels is this a life to be accounted grievous Now you begin to come to your selves to understand what you have to do in the world to live like men that you may live like Angels And therefore now you should begin accordingly to bestir you I would not have you retain the same measure of fear of Gods displeasure nor the same apprehensions of your misery nor the doubts and perplexities of mind which you were under at your first conversion for these were occasioned by the passage in your change and the weakness of your grace in that beginning and your former folly made them necessary for a time But I would have you retain your fear of sinning and be much more in the love of God and in his service than you were at first Temptations will haunt you to the last hour of your lives If therefore you would not fall by these temptations you must watch and pray to the last Give not over watching till Satan give over tempting and watching advantages against you The promise is still but on condition that you persevere and abide in Christ and continue rooted and stedfast in the faith and overcome and be faithful to the death as you may see in Joh. 15. throughout Joh. 8.31 Rev. 2. 3. Col. 1.22 23. Work out therefore your salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2.12 If you have begun resolvedly proceed resolvedly It 's the undoing of mens souls to think that all the danger is over and lose their apprehensions of it when they are yet but in the way when their care and holy fears abate their watch goes down the soul 's laid open as a common wilderness and made a prey to every lust And therefore still know your work 's not done till your life be done DIRECT III. Be sure that you understand wherein your establishment and growth consisteth that you may not miscarry by seeking somewhat else instead of it nor think you have it when you have it not or that you want it when you have it and so be needlessly disquieted about it FOr your assistance in this I shall further shew you wherein your confirmation and growth consisteth in its several parts both as it is subjected or exercised in your understandings
to God He hath respect to the humble contrite soul. Isa. 57.15 and 66.2 Psal. 51.17 The hungry he filleth with good but the rich he sendeth empty away Luk. 1.53 He giveth more grace to the humble when the proud are abhorred by him 1 Pet. 5.5 The Church of Laodicea that said I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing was miserable and poor and blinde and naked Rev. 3.17 As many that are proud of their honour and birth run out of all by living above their estates when meaner persons grow rich because they are still gathering and make much of every little So proud Professors of Religion are in a Consumption of the Grace they have while the humble increase by making much of every little help which is sleighted and neglected by the proud and by shunning all those spending courses which the proud are plunged in Be sure to keep mean thoughts of your selves of your knowledg and parts and grace and duties and be content to be mean in the esteem of others if you would not be worse than mean in the esteem of God DIRECT V. Exercise your selves daily in a life of Faith upon Jesus Christ as your Saviour your Teacher your Mediator and your King as your Example your Wisdom your Righteousness and your Hope ALL other studies and knowledg must be meerly subservient to the study and knowledg of Christ 1 Cor. 2.2 That vain kind of Philosophy which St. Paul so much cautioneth Christians against is so far yet from being accounted vain that by many called Christians it is preferred before Christianity it self and to shew that it is Vain while they overvalue it they can shew no solid worth or vertue which they have got by it but only a tumified mind and an idle tongue like a tinkling Cymbal 1 Cor. 13.1 and 12.31 and 2.4.14 15 16. and 1.18 19 20 21 23 24 27. Col. 2.8 9. We are compleat in Christ in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ver 10. No study in the World will so much lead you up to God and acquaint you with him especially in his Love and Goodness as the study of Christ his Person his Office his Doctrine his Example his Kingdom and his benefits As the Deity is your ultimate end to which all things else are but helps and means so Christ is that great and principal means by whom all other means are animated Remember that you are in continual need of him for direction intercession pardon sanctification for support and comfort and for peace with God Let no thoughts therefore be so sweet and frequent in your hearts nor any discourse so ready in your mouths next to the excellencies of the eternal Godhead as this of the design of mans Redemption Let Christ be to your Souls as the Air the Earth the Sun and your Food are to your bodies without which your life would presently fail As you had never come home to the Father but by him so without him you cannot a moment continue in the Fathers love nor be accepted in one duty nor be protected from one danger nor be supplyed in any want For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell Col. 1.18 19. And by him it is that being justified by Faith we have peace with God and have access by Faith unto this Grace wherein we stand and rejoyce in hope of the Glory of God Rom. â— 1 2. And it is in him the Head that we must grow up in all things from whom the whole body doth receive it's increase Ephes. 4.15 16. You grow no more in Grace than you grow in the true knowledg and daily use of Jesus Christ. But of this I will say no more because I have said so much in my Directions for a sound Conversion DIRECT VI. Let the Knowledg and Love of God and your obedience to him be the Works of your Religion and the everlasting fruition of him in Heaven be the continual end and ruling Motive of your Hearts and Lives that your very Conversation may be with God in Heaven YOu are so far HOLY as you are DIVINE and HEAVENLY A Christian indeed in casting up his accounts being certain that this World doth make no man happy hath been led up by Christ to seek a Happiness with God above If you live not for this everlasting happiness if you trade not for this if this be not your treasure your hope and home the chief matter of your desires love and joy and if all things be not prest to serve it and despised when they stand against it you live not indeed a Christian life GOD and HEAVEN or GOD in HEAVEN is the Life and Soul the beginning and the end the Sum the All of true Religion And therefore it is that we are directed to lift up our Heads and Hearts and begin our Prayers with Our Father which art in Heaven and end them with ascribing to Him the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever It is not the Creatures but God the Creator that is the Father the Guide and the felicity of Souls and therefore the ultimate end and object of all Religious actions and affections Dwell still upon God and dwell in Heaven if you would understand the nature and design of Christianity Take God for all that is for God Study after the knowledg of him in all his Works Study him in his Word Study him in Christ And never study him barely to know him but to know him that you may love him Take your selves as dead when you live not in the Love of God Keep still upon your hearts a lively sense of the infinite difference between him and the Creature Look on all the World as a shadow and on God as the substance Take the very worst that man can do to be in comparison of the punishments of God but as a Flea-biting to the sorest death And take all the dreaming pleasures of the World to be less in comparison with the joyes of Heaven than one lick of honey is to a thousand years possession of all the felicities on earth Think not all the pleasures honours or riches of the world to be worthy to be named in comparison of Heaven nor the Greatest of Men to be worthy to be once thought on in comparison of God As one straw or feather won or lost would neither much rejoyce or trouble you if all the City or land were yours So live as men whose eyes are open and who discern a greater disproportion between the portion of a worldling and a Saint Let God be your King your Father your master your friend your wealth your joy your All. Let not a day go over your heads in which your hearts have no converse with God in Heaven when any trouble overtaketh you on Earth look up to Heaven and remember that it is there that Rest and Joy are prepared for believers When you are under any want or cross or
sorrow fetch not your comfort from any hopes of deliverance here on Earth but from the place of your final full deliverance If you feel any strangeness and backwardness on your minds to Heavenly contemplations do not make light of them but presently by Faith get up to Christ who must make your thoughts of Heaven familiar and seek remedy before your estrangedness increase The soul is in a sad condition when it cannot fetch comfort and encouragement from Heaven for then it must have none or worse than none When the thoughts of Heaven will not sweeten all your crosses and relieve your minds against all the encombrances of earth your souls are not in a healthful state It 's time then to search out the cause and seek a cure before it come to worse There are three great causes of this dark and dangerous state of soul which make the thoughts of Heaven uneffectual and uncomfortable to us which therefore must be overcome with the daily care and diligence of your whole lives 1. Unbelief which maketh you look towards the life to come with doubting and uncertainty And this is the most common radical powerful and pernicious impediment to a heavenly life The second is the Love of present things which being the vanity of a poor low fleshly mind the reviving of Reason may do much to overcome it but it 's the sound Belief of the life to come that must indeed prevail The third is the inordinate Fear of Death which hath so great advantage in the constitution of our nature that it is commonly the last enemy which we overcome as Death it self is the last enemy which Christ overcometh for us Bend all your strength and spend your daies in striving against these three great impediments of a heavenly conversation And remember that so far as you suffer your heart to retire from Heaven so far they retire from a life of Christianity and peace DIRECT VII In the work of Mortification let SELF-DENYAL be the First and Last of all your study care and diligence UNderstand how much of the fallen depraved state of man consisteth in the sin of SELFISHNESS How he is sunk into Himself in his fall from the Love of God and of his Neighbour of the publick or private good of others And how this inordinate self-Self-love is now the grand enemy of all true Love to God or Man and the root and heart of Covetousness Pride Voluptuousness and all iniquity Let it be your work therefore all your dayes to mortifie it and watch against it When you feel your selves partial in your own cause and apt to be drawing from others to your selves in point of reputation precedency or gain and apt to make too great a matter of every word that is spoken against you or every little wrong that is done you observe then the pernicious root of Selfishness from whence all this mischief doth proceed Read more of this in my Treatise of Self-denyal DIRECT VIII Take your corrupted fleshly Desires for the greatest enemy of your Souls and let it be every day your constant work to mortify the Flesh and to keep a watch upon your lusts and appetite and every sense REmember that our senses were not made to govern themselves but to be governed by right Reason And that God made them at the first to be the ordinary passage of his Love and mercy to our hearts by the means of the Creatures which represent or manifest him unto us But now in the depraved state of man the Senses have cast off the Government of Reason and are become the Ruling power and so man is become like the Beasts that perish Remember then that to be sensual is to be bruitish And though Grace doth not destroy the appetite and sense yet it subjecteth it to God and Reason Therefore let your appetite be pleased in nothing but by the allowance of right Reason And think not that you have reason to take any meats or drink or sport meerly because your flesh desireth it but consider whether it will do you good or hurt and how it conduceth to your ultimate end It is a base and sinful state to be in servitude to your appetite and sense When by using to please it you have so increased its desires that now you know not how to deny it and displease it When you have taught it to be like a hungry dog or swine that will never be quiet till his hunger be satisfied Whereas a well-governed appetite and sense is easily quieted with a rational denyal Rom. 8.1 6 7 8 13. and 13.13 14. 1 Pet. 2.11 1 Johnâ— 16 DIRECT IX Take heed lest you fall in love with the World or any thing therein and lest your thoughts of any place or condition which you either possess or hope for do grow too sweet and pleasing to you FOr there is no one perisheth but for loving some Creature more than God And complacency is the formal act of Love Love not the World nor the things that are in the World for if any man love the World the love of the Father is not in him 1 John 2.15 Value all earthly things as they conduce to your Masters Service or to your Salvation and not as they tend to the pleasing of your Flesh It is the commonest and most dangerous folly in the World to be eager to have our houses and lands and provisions and every thing about us in the most pleasing and amiable state when as this is the acknowledged way to Hell and the only poyson of the Soul Are you not in more danger of overloving a pleasing and prosperous condition than a bitter and vexatious state and of overloving Riches honour and sensual fulness and delights rather than Poverty reproach and mortification And do you not know that if ever you be damned it will be for loving the World too much and God too little Is it for nothing that Christ describeth a Saint to you as a Lazarus in poverty and sores and a damned wretch as one that was clothed in Purple and Silk and fared sumptuously every day Luke 16. Did not Christ know what he did when he put the rich man upon this tryal to part with all his worldly riches and follow Christ for a treasure in heaven Luke 18.22 13. All things must be esteemed as loss and dung for the knowledg of Christ and the hopes of heaven if ever you will be saved Phil. 3.6 7 8. You must so live by Faith and not by sight as not to look at the temporal things that are seen but at the things eternal which are unseen 2 Cor. 4.17 18. and 5.7 8. And one that is running in a race for his life would not so much as turn his head to look back on any one that called to him to stay or to look aside to any one that would speak with him in his way Thus must we forget the things that are behind as counting them not worthy a thought
Christians though their Worship hath errors and faults repugnant to the right order and manner of Worship so be it you joyn not in that Worship which is substantially evil and such as God doth utterly disown Or that you commit no actual sin your selves or that you approve not of the errors and faults of the Worshippers and justifie not their smallest evil Or that you prefer not defective faulty Worship before that which is more pure and agreeable to the Will of God For while all the Worshippers are faulty and imperfect all their Worship will be so too And if your actual sin when you Pray or Preach defectively your selves doth not signify that you approve your faultiness much less will your presence prove that you allow of the faultiness of others The business that you come upon is to joyn with a Christian Congregation in the use of those Ordinances which God hath appointed supposing that the Ministers and Worshippers will all be sinfully defective in method order words or circumstances And to bear with that which God doth bear with and not to refuse that which is Gods for the adherent faults of men no more than you will refuse every dish of meat which is unhansomly Cooked as long as there is no poyson in it and you prefer it not before better 1 Cor. 1.10 and 3.1 2 3. with 11.17 18 21. Rom. 15.1 2. DIRECT XIV Keep up a constant Government over your Thoughts and Tongues especially against those particular sins which you are stronglyest tempted to and which you see other Christians most overtaken with KEep your Thoughts imployed upon somthing that is good and profitable either about some useful Truths or about some duty to God or man of your general or particular Calling yea about all these in their several seasons Learn how to watch your thoughts and stop them at their first excursions and how to quicken them and make them serviceable to every grace and every duty You can never improve your solitary hours if you have not the Government of your Thoughts And as the Thoughts must be governed because they are the first and intimate actings of good or evil so the Tongue must be Governed as the first expresser of the mind and the first instrument of good or hurt to others Especially take heed of these sins which the faultiness of most Professors of Religion doth warn you to avoid 1. An ordinary course of vain jesting and unprofitable talk 2. Provoking passionate inconsiderate words that tend to kindle wrath in others 3. Backbiting censuring and speaking evil of others without any just call when it is either upon uncertain reports or uncharitable suspition or tendeth more to hurt than good 4. A forward venting of our own conceits and a confident pleading for our uncertain unproved Opinions in Religion and a contentious wrangling for them as if the Kingdom of God lay in them And a forwardness in all company to be the Speakers rather than the Hearers and to talk in a Magisterial Teaching way as if we took our selves to be the wisest and others to have need to learn of us But especially take heed of speaking evil of those that have wronged you or of those that differ from you in some tollerable Opinions in Religion And hate that devilish uncharitable vice which maketh many ready to believe any thing or say any thing be it never so false of those that are against their Sect yea of whole parties of men that differ from them when there is not one of a thousand of all the party that ever they were acquainted with or ever could prove the thing by of which they are accused By the means of these bold uncharitable reports the Devil hath unspeakably gained against Christ and the Kingdom of malice hath won upon the Kingdom of Love and most Christians are easier known to be factious by hating or slandering one another than they can be known to be Christs Disciples by loving one another And while every Sect without remorse doth speak reproachfully and hatefully of the rest they learn hereby to hate one another and harden the Infidel and ungodly world in hating and speaking evil of them all So that a Turk or Heathen need no other witness of the odiousness of all Christians than the venemous words which they speak against each other And as foul words in quarrels prepare for blows so these malicious invectives upon differences in Religion prepare for the cruellest persecutions From my own observation which with a grieved soul I have made in this Generation I hereby give warning to this and all succeeding Ages that if they have any regard to Truth or Charity they take heed how they believe any factious partial Historian or Divine in any evil that he saith of the party which he is against For though there be good and credible persons of most parties yet you shall find that passion and partiality prevaileth against Conscience Truth and Charity in most that are sick of this Disease And that the envious zeal which is described Jam. 3. doth make them think they do God service first in believing false reports and then in verting them against those that their zeal or laction doth call the enemies of truth so that there is little credit to be given to their reproaches farther than some better evidence is brought to prove the thing Nay it would astonish a man to read the impudent lies which I have often read obtruded upon the World with such confidence that the Reader will be tempted to think Surely all this cannot be false Yea about publick words or actions where you would think that the multitude of Witnesses would deter them from speaking it if it were not true and yet all as false as tongue can speak Therefore believe not Pride or Faction or Malice in any evil that it saith unless you have better evidence of the truth Most Christian is that advice of Dr. H. More that all Parties of Christians would mark all the Good which is in other Parties and be more forward to speak of that than of the Evil And this would promote the work of Charity in the Church and the interest of Christianity in the World whereas the overlooking of all that 's good and aggravating all the evil and falsly seigning more than is true is the work of greatest service to the Devil and of greatest enmity to Christianity and Love that I know commonly practised in the World Keep your tongues from all such hellish work as this DIRECT XV. Let every state of life and Relation that you are in be sanctifyed unto God and conscionably used And to that end understand the advantages and duties of every condition and Relation and the sins and hinderances and dangers which you are most lyable to THe duties of our Relations are a great part of the work of a Christians life As Magistrates and Subjects Pastors and Flocks Parents and Children Husband and Wife Masters and
Servants as Superiors in Gifts or Places or Inferiors or equals as Neighbors and companions In our Teaching and learning ruling and obeying buying and selling Be conscionable in all these which are your own Relations if you will live as Christians and be acceptable unto God An ungodly or oppressing Magistrate a murmuring rebellious Subject an ungodly negligent or factious Pastor an unteachable refractory ungodly Flock a Husband Parent or Master without Religion Love or Justice a Wife or Child or Servant without Love and dutiful obedience and faithful diligence a proud contemptuous Superior a malicious censorious inferiour an unjust uncharitable Neighbor a deceitful buyer or seller borrower or lender and a self-seeking friend and seducing unprofitable companion are all as far from pleasing God by the rest of their works or profession of Religion as they are from being obedient to his will They provoke him to abhor their Prayers and Profession and to tell them that he will rather have Obedience than Sacrifice If you are false to men you are not true to God It is he that feareth God and worketh Righteousness that is accepted of him and the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God DIRECT XVI Live as those that have all their powers receivings and opportunities to do Good with in the World and must be answerable how they have improved all And as those that believe that the more Good they do the more they do receive and the greater is the honour the profit and the pleasure of their lives TO do no harm is an honour which is common to a stone or a clod of Clay with the most innocent man If this were all the excellency that you aim at it were better that you had never been born for then you would certainly have done no harm Remember that to do good is the highest imitation of God supposing that it proceed from Holy Love and be done to the Pleasing and Glorifying of God that the Principle and the End be sutable to the work Remember who hath told you that it is more blessed to give than to receive Acts 20.35 And hath promised that He that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward and he that receiveth a Righteous man in the name of a Righteous man shall receive a Righteous mans reward and whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a Cap of cold water only in the name of a Disciple verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward supposing that he have no better to give Matth. 10.41 42. Give to every man that asketh of thee according to thy ability Give and it shall be given to you Luke 6.30 38. and 12.33 Take that day or hour as lost in which you do no good directly or preparatorily And take that part of your estate as lost with which directly or remotely you do no good Remember how the Judgment must pass on you at last according to the improvement of your several Talents Matth. 25. When your time is past and your estates are gone or your understandings or your strength decayed and your power and greatness is levelled with the poorest it will be an unspeakable comfort to you if you are able to say We laid them out sincerely to our Masters use and an unspeakable terror to you to say They were lost and cast away on the service of the Flesh. If therefore you are Rulers and are entrusted with Power study how to do all the good with your Power that possibly you can If you are Ministers of Christ lay out your time and strength and parts in doing good to the Souls of all about you study how you may be most serviceable to the Church and Cause of Christ. If you are rich men study how to do all the good with your Riches that possibly you can do not violating the order appointed you by God In your Neighbourhoods and in all your Families and Relations study to do the greatest good you can Take it thankfully as a great mercy to your selves when opportunity to do good is offered you And content not your selves to do a little while you are able to do more Gal. 6.7 8 9 10. Be not deceived God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap For he that soweth to his Flesh shall of the Flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap everlasting Life And let us not be weary in well-doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not As we have therefore opportunity let us do good to all men especially unto them who are of the houshold of Faith 2 Cor. 9.6 He which soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly and he which soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully Every man according as he purposeth in his heart so let him give not grudgingly or of necessity for God loveth a chearful giver Heb. 13.16 To do good and to communicate forget not for with such Sacrifices God is well pleased Ephes. 3.10 For we are his Workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works which God hath ordained that we should walk in them Let doing good be the business and imployment of your lives Preferring still the publick good before the private good of any and the good of mens Souls before that of the body But yet neglecting none but doing the lesser in order to the greater Object But I am a poor obscure person that have neither abilities of mind or body or estate and what good can I do Answ. There is no rational person that is not entrusted with One Talent at the least Matth. 25. and that is not in a capacity of doing good in the World if they have but hearts and be but willing If you had neither money to give nor tongues to speak for God and to provoke others to do good yet a Holy humble heavenly patient blameless life is a powerful means of doing good by shewing the excellency of Grace and convincing the Ungodly and stopping the mouths of the enemies of Piety and honouring the waies of God in the World Such a holy harmless exemplary life is a continual and a powerful Sermon And for giving if there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not 2 Cor. 8.12 If you are unseignedly willing to give if you had it God taketh it as done What you would have given is set down on your account as given indeed The Widdows two mites were praised by Christ as a bountiful gift and a Cup of cold water is not unrewarded to the willing Soul No one therefore is excusable that liveth unprofitably in the World But yet men of Power and Parts and Wealth have the greatest reckoning to make Their ten Talents must have a proportionable improvement It is a great deal of good that they must do For to whomsoever much is given
irrational creatures but at least it much imitateth Nature as it is found in Rational creatures where the Inclination is necessary but the Operations free and subject to Reason It is a spiritual appetite in the Rational appetite even the will and a spiritual visive disposition in the understanding Not a faculty in a faculty but the right disposition of the faculties to their highest objects to which they are by corruption made unsuitable So that it is neither a proper power in the Natural sense nor a meer act but neerest to the nature of a seminal disposition or habit It is the health and rectitude of the faculties of the Soul Even as Nature hath made the understanding disposed to Truth in generall and the will disposed or inclined to Good in generall and to self-preservation and felicity in particular so the Spirit of Christ doth dispose the understanding to spiritual truth to know God and the matters of salvation and doth incline the will to God and Holiness not blindly as they are unknown but to love and serve a known God So that whether this be properly or only analogically called A Nature or rather should be called a Habit I determine not but certainly it is a fixed Disposition and Inclination which Scripture calleth the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 and the seed of God abiding in us 1 Joh. 3.9 But most usually it is called the Spirit of God or of Christ in us Rom. 8.9 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his 1 Cor. 12.13 By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body Therefore we are said to be in the Spirit and walk after the Spirit and by the Spirit to mortifie the deeds of the Body Rom. 8.1.9 13. And it is called the Spirit of the Son and the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father or are inclined to God as Children to their Father and the Spirit of grace and supplication Rom. 8.15.23.26 Gal. 4.6 5.17 18. Eph. 2.18 22. 4.3 4. Phil. 1.27 2.1 Zech. 12.10 From this Spirit and the fruits of it we are called New Creatures and quickened and made alive to God 2 Cor. 5.17 Eph. 2.15 Rom. 6.11 13. It is a great controversie whether this Holy disposition and inclination was Natural to Adam or not and consequently whether it be a restored nature in us or not It was so natural to him as Health is natural to the body but not so natural as to be a Necessitating Principle nor so as to be inseparable and unlosable 2. This same Spirit and holy inclination is in the weakest Christian also but in a small degree and remisly operating so as that the fleshly inclination oft seemeth to be the stronger when he judgeth by its passionate struglings within him Though indeed the Spirit of life doth not only strive but conquer in the main even in the weakest Christians Rom. 8 9. Gal. 5.17 18 19 20 21. 3. The seeming Christian hath only the uneffectual motions of the Spirit to a Holy Life and effectual motions and inward dispositions to some common duties of Religion And from these with the natural principles of self-love and common honesty with the outward perswasions of company and advantages his Religion is maintained without the Regeneration of the Spirit Joh. 3.6 V. From hence it followeth 1. That a Christian indeed doth not serve God for fear only but for love even for love both of himself and of his holy work and service Yea the strong Christians Love to God and Holiness is not only greater than his Love to Creatures but greater than his fear of wrath and punishment The Love of God constraineth him to duty 2 Cor. 5.14 Love is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 therefore the Gospel cannot be obeyed without it He saith not O that this were no duty and O that this forbidden thing were lawfull Though his Flesh say so the Spirit which is the predominant part doth not But he saith O how I love thy Law O that my wayes were so directed that I might keep thy statutes Psal. 119.5 For the spirit is willing even when the flesh is weak He serveth not God against his will but his will is to serve him more and better than he doth He longeth to be perfect and perfectly to do the will of God and taketh the remnant of his sinfull infirmities to be a kind of bondage to him which he groaneth to be delivered from To will even perfection is present with him though not perfectly and though he do not all that he willeth And this is the true meaning of Pauls complaints Rom. 7. Because the flesh warreth against the Spirit he cannot do the good that he would that is he cannot be perfect for so he would be Gal. 5.17 His love and will excells his practice 2. The weak Christian also hath more love to God and holiness than to the world and fleshly pleasure But yet his fear of punishment is greater than his Love to God and Holiness To have no Love to God is inconsistent with a state of Grace and so it is to have less love to God than to the world and less love to holiness than to sin But to have more Fear than Love is consistent with sincerity of Grace Yea the weak Christians love to God and Holiness is joyned with so much backwardness and aversness and interrupted with weariness and with the carnall allurements and diversions of the Creature that he cannot certainly perceive whether his love and willingness be sincere or not He goeth on in a course of duty but so heavily that he scarce knoweth whether his love or loathing of it be the greater He goeth to it as a sick man to his meat or labour All that he doth is with so much pain or undisposedness that to his feeling his aversness seemeth greater than his willingness were it not that necessity maketh him willing For the habitual love and complacency which he hath towards God and Duty is so oppressed by fear and by aversness that it is not so much felt in act as they 3. A seeming Christian hath no true Love of God and Holiness at all but some uneffectual liking and wishes which are overborn by a greater backwardness and by a greater love to earthly things so that Fear alone without any true effectual Love is the spring and principle of his Religion and obedience God hath not his heart when he draweth near him with his lips He doth more than he would do if he were not forced by Necessity and Fear and had rather be excused and lead another kind of life Mat. 15.8 Isa. 29.13 Though Necessity and fear are very helpfull to the most sincere yet Fear alone without Love or Willingness is a graceless state VI. 1. A Christian indeed doth love God in these three gradations He loveth him much for his mercy to himself and for that Goodness which consisteth in benignity to himself But he
loveth him more for his Mercy to the Church and for that Goodness which consisteth in his Benignity to the Church But he Loveth him most of all for his Infinite perfections and essential excellencies His Infinite Power and Wisdom and Goodness simply in himself considered For he knoweth that Love to himself obligeth him to returns of Love especially differencing saving grace And he knoweth that the souls of millions are more worth incomparably then his own and that God may be much more honoured by them than by him alone And therefore he knoweth that the mercy to many is greater mercy and a greater demonstration of the goodness of God and therefore doth render him more amiable to man Rom. 9.3 And yet he knoweth that the Essential perfection and goodness of God as simply in himself and for himself is much more amiable than his Benignity to the creature And that he that is the first efficient must needs be the ultimate final cause of all things And that God is not finally for the creature but the creature for God for all that he needeth it not For of him and through him and to him are all things Rom. 11.36 And as he is Infinitely better than our selves so he is to be better Loved than our selves As I love a wise and vertuous person though he be one I never expect to receive any thing from and therefore Love him for his own sake and not for his benignity or usefulness to me So must I love God most for his essential perfections though his benignity also doth represent him amiable As he is blindly selfish that would not rather himself be annihilated or perish than whole Kingdoms should all perish or the Sun be taken out of the world because that which is best must he loved as best and therefore be best loved so is he more blind who in his estimative complacential Love preferreth not Infinite Eternal Goodness before such an imperfect silly creature as himself or all the world We are commanded to love our Neighbour as our selves when God is to be loved with all the heart and soul and might which therefore signifieth more than to love him as our selves or else he were to be loved no more than our Neighbour So that the strong Christian loveth God so much above himself as that he accounteth himself and all his interests as nothing in comparison of God yea and loveth himself more for God than for himself Though his own salvation be loved and desired by him and God must be loved for his mercy and benignity yet that salvation it self which he desireth is nothing else but the love of God Wherein his love is the final felicitating act and God is the final felicitating object and the felicity of loving is not first desired but the attractive object doth draw out our love and thereby make us consequentially happy in the injoying exercise thereof Thus God is All and in all to the soul. Psal. 73.25 Rom. 11.36 1 Cor. 10.31 Deut. 6.5 Mat. 23.37 Mat. 19.17 2. A weak Christian also loveth God as one that is infinitely better than himself and all things or else he did not love him at all as God But in the exercise he is so much in the minding of himself and so seldom and weak in the contemplation of Gods perfections that he feeleth more of his love to himself than unto God and feeleth more of his love to God as for the Benefits which he receiveth in and by himself than as for his own perfections yea and often feeleth the love of himself to work more strongly than his Love to the Church and all else in the world The care of his own salvation is the highest principle which he ordinarily perceiveth in any great strength in him and he is very little and weakly carried out to the Love of the whole Church and to the Love of God above himself Phil. 2.20 21 22. 1 Cor. 10.24 Jer. 45.5 3. A seeming Christian hath a common Love of God as he is Good both in himself and unto the world and unto him But this is not for his Holyness and it is but a general uneffectual approbation and praise of God which followeth a dead uneffectual belief But his chiefest predominant Love is always to his Carnal self and the Love both of his soul and of God is subjected to his fleshly self-love His chiefest Love to God is for prospering him in the world and such as is subservient to his sensuality pride coveteousness presumption and false hopes Luke 18.21 22. 1 Joh. 2.15.2 Tim. 3.2 4. Joh. 12.43 Joh. 5.42 VII 1. A Christian indeed doth practically take this Love of God and the holy expressions of it to be the very life and top of his Religion and the very life and beauty and pleasure of his soul He makes it his work in the world and loveth himself complacentially but so far as he findeth in himself the Love of God And so far as he findeth himself without it he loatheth himself as an unlovely carkass And so far as his prayers and obedience are without it he looks on them but as unacceptable loathsome things And therefore he is taken up in the study of Redemption because he can no where so clearly see the Love and Loveliness of God as in the face of a Redeemer even in the wonders of Love revealed in Christ. And he studieth them that Love may kindle Love And therefore he delighteth in the contemplating of Gods attributes and infinite perfections and in the beholding of him in the frame of the Creation and reading his name in the book of his works that his soul may by such steps be raised in Love and Admiration of his Maker And as it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun or light so is it to the mind of the Christian indeed to be frequently and seriously contemplating the nature and glory of God And the exercise of Love in such contemplations is most of his daily walk with God And therefore it is also that he is more taken up in the exercises of thanksgiving and the Praises of the Almighty than in the lower parts of Godliness so that though he neglect not confession of sin and humiliation yet doth he use them but in subserviency to the Love and Praise of God He doth but rid out the filth that is undecent in a Heart that is to entertain its God He placeth not the chief part of his Religion in any outward duties nor in any lower preparatory acts Nor doth he stop in any of these however he neglect them not But he useth them all to advance his soul in the Love of God And useth them the more diligently because the Love of God to which they conduce as to their proper end is so high and exellent a work Therefore in Davids Psalms you find a heart delighting it self in the praises of God and in Love with his word and works in order
to forget that these are but his messengers and instruments to convey unto us several parcells of that Truth which is his and not theirs and which naturally or supernaturally they received from him and all these Candles were lighted by him who is the Sun And how little doth this weak Christian refer his common knowledge to God or use it for him or to the furtherance of his own and others happiness 1 Tim. 2.4 3. And the seeming Christian though materially he may be eminent for knowledge yet is so far from resigning himself to the teachings of Christ that he maketh even his knowledge of Christian Verities to be to him but a common carnal thing while he knoweth it but in a common manner and useth it to the service of the flesh and never yet learned so much as to be a new creature nor to love God as God above the world 1 Cor. 13.2 X. 1. A Christian indeed is one whose Repentance hath been deep and serious and universal and unchangeable It hath gone to the very roots of sin and to the bottom of the sore and hath not left behind it any reigning unmortified sin nor any prevalent love to fleshly pleasures His Repentance did not only disgrace his sin and cast some reproachful words against it and use confessions to excuse him from mortification and to save its life and hide it from the mortal blow Nor doth he only repent of his open sins and those that are most censured by the beholders of his life But he specially perceives the dangerous poyson of Pride and unbelief and worldliness and the want of the Love of God and all his outward and smaller sins do serve to shew him the greater malignity of these and these are the matter of his greatest lamentations He taketh not up a profession of Religion with strong corruptions secretly covered in his heart But his Religion consisteth in the death of his corruptions and the purifying of his heart He doth not secretly cherish any sin as too sweet or too profitable to be utterly forsaken nor overlook it as a small inconsiderable matter But he feeleth sin to be his enemy and his disease and as he desireth not one enemy one sickness one wound one broken bone one serpent in his bed so he desireth not any one sin to be spared in his soul But faith with David Psal. 139.23 Search me O God and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting He liveth in no gross or scandalous sin And his infirmities are comparatively few and small so that if he were not a sharper accuser of himself than the most observant spectators are that are just there would little be known by him that is culpâ—ble and matter of reproof He walketh in all the commandments and ordinances of God blameless as to any notable miscarriage Luk. 1.6 He is blameless and harmless as the son of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom he shineth as a light in the world Phil 2 15. The fear and love and obedience of God is the work and tenour of his life 2. But the weak Christian though he hath no sin but what he is a hater of and fain would be delivered from yet alas how imperfect is his deliverance and how weak is the hatred of his sin and mixed with so much proneness to it thaâ— his life is much blemished with the spots of his offences Though his unbelief and pride and worldleness are not predominant in him yet are they or some of them still so strong and fight so much against his faith humility and heavenliness that he can scarcely tell which hath the upper hand nor can others that see the failings of his life discern whether the good or the evil be most prevalent Though it be Heaven which he most seeketh yet Earth is so much regarded by him that his Heavenly mindedness is greatly damped and suppressed by it And though it be the way of Godliness and obedience which he walketh in yet is it with so many stumblings and falls if not deviations also that maketh him oft a burthen to himself a shame to his profession and a snare or trouble to those about him His heart is like an ill swept house that hath many a sluttish corner in it And his life is like a moth-eaten garment which hath many a hole which you may see if you bring it into the light 1 Cor. 3.1 2 3. 6.6 7 8. 11.18 21 22 c. 3. And for the seeming Christian his Repentance doth but cropp the branches it goeth not to the root and heart of his sin It leaveth his fleshly mind and interest in the dominion It pollisheth his life but maketh him not a new creature It casteth away those sins which the flesh can spare and which bring more shame or loss or trouble with them than worldly honour gain or pleasure But still he is a very worldling at the heart and the sins which his fleshly pleasures and felicity consisteth in he will hide by confessions and seeming oppositions but never mortifie and forsake As Judas that while he followed Christ was yet a thief and a coveteous hypocrite Joh. 12.6 1 Tim. 6.10 11. XI 1. Hence it followeth that a Christian indeed doth heartily love the searching light that it may fully acquaint him with his sins He is truly desirous to know the worst of himself And therefore useth the word of God as a candle to shew him what is in his heart and bringeth himself willingly into the light He loveth the most searching Books and Preachers not only because they disclose the faults of other men but his own he is not one that so loveth his pleasant and profitable sins as to fly the light lest he should be forced to know them and so to forsake them But because he hateth them and is resolved to forsake them therefore he would know them Joh. 3.19 20 21. Therefore he is not only patient under Reproofs but loveth them and is thankful to a charitable reprover and maketh a good use even of malicious and passionate reproofs Psal. 141.5 2 Sam. 16.11 He saith as in Job 34.32 That which I see not teach thou me If I have done iniquity I will do no more His hatred of the sin and desire to be reformed suffer not his heart by pride to rise up against the remedy and reject reproof Though he will not falsely confess his duty to be his sin nor take the judgement of every selfish passionate or ignorant reprover to be infallible nor to be his rule yet if a judicious impartial person do but suspect him of a fault he is ready to suspect himself of it unless he be certain that he is clear He loveth him better that would save him from his sin than him that would entice him to it and taketh him for his best
grounds of comfort and when they cannot raise their souls to any high and passionate joys they yet walk in a settled peace of soul and in such competent comforts as make their lives to be easie and delightful being well pleased and contented with the happy condition that Christ hath brought them to and thankful that he left them not in those foolish vain pernicious pleasures which were the way to endless sorrows 3. But the seeming Christian seeketh and taketh up his chief contentment in some carnal thing If he be so poor and miserable as to have nothing in possession that can much delight him he will hope for better dayes hereafter and that hope shall be his chief delight or if he have no such hope he will be without delight and shew his love to the world and flesh by mourning for that which he cannot have as others do in rejoycing in what they do possess and he will in such a desperate case of misery be such to the world as the weak Christian is to God who hath a mourning and desiring love when he cannot reach to an enjoying and delighting Love His carnal mind most savoureth the things of the flesh and therefore in them he findeth or seeketh his chief delights Though yet he may have also a delight in his superficiall kind of Religion his hearing and reading praying in his ill-grounded hopes of life eternal But all this is but subordinate to his chiefest earthly pleasure Isai. 58.2 Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my waies as a nation that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinances of their God they ask of me the ordinances of justice they take delight in approaching unto God And yet all this was subjected to a covetous oppressing mind Mat. 13.20 He that received the seed into stony places the same is he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it yet hath he not root in himself but dureth for a while for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word by and by he is offended Whereby it appeareth that his love to the word was subjected to his love to the world Obj. But there are two sorts of people that seem to have no fleshly delights at all and yet are not in the way to salvation viz. the Quakers and Behmenists that live in great austerity and some of the Religious orders of the Papists who afflict their flesh Answ. Some of them undergo their fastings and pennance for a day that they may sin the more quietly all the week after And some of them proudly comfort themselves with the fancies and conceit of being and appearing more excellent in austerity than others And all these take up with a carnal sort of pleasure As proud persons are pleased with their own or others conceits of their beauty or witt or worldly greatness so prouder persons are pleased with their own and others conceits of their holiness And verily they have their reward Mat. 6.2 But those of them that place their chiefest happiness in the love of God and the eternal fruition of him in heaven and seek this sincerely according to their helps and power though they are mislead into some superstitious errors I hope I may number with those that are sincere for all their errors and the ill effects of them XXIV 1. A confirmed Christian doth ordinarily discern the sincerity of his own heart and consequently hath some well grounded assurance of the pardon of his sins and of the favour of God and of his everlasting happiness And therefore no wonder if he live a peaceable and joyfull life For his grace is not so small as to be undiscernable nor is it as a sleepy buried seed or principle but it is almost in continual act And they that have a great degree of grace and also keep it in lively exercise do seldom doubt of it Besides that they blot not their Evidence by so many infirmities and falls They are more in the light and have more acquaintance with themselves and more sense of the abundant love of God and of his exceeding mercies than weak Christians have and therefore must needs have more assurance They have boldness of access to the throne of grace without unreverent contempt Eph. 3.12 2.18 They have more of the spirit of Adoption and therefore more child-like confidence in God and can call him Father with greater freedom and comfort than any others can Rom. 8.15 16. Gal. 4.6 Eph. 1.6 1 Joh. 5.19 20. And we know that we are of God and that the whole world lyeth in wickedness c. 2. But the weak Christian hath so small a degree of grace and so much corruption and his grace is so little in act and his sin so much that he seldom if ever attaineth to any well-grounded assurance till he attain to a greater measure of grace He differeth so little from the seeming Christian that neither himself nor others do certainly discern the difference When he searcheth after the truth of his faith and love and heavenly mindedness he findeth so much unbelief and aversness from God and earthly mindedness that he cannot be certain which of them is predominant and whether the interest of this world or that to come do bear the sway So that he is often in perplexities and fears and more often in a dull uncertainty And if he seem at any time to have assurance it is usually but an ill-grounded perswasion of the truth though it be true which he apprehendeth when he taketh himself to be the child of God yet it is upon unfound reasons that he judgeth so or else upon sound reasons weakly and uncertainly discerned so that there is commonly much of security presumption fancie or mistake in his greatest comforts He is not yet in a condition fit for full assurance till his love and obedience be more full 3. But the seeming Christian cannot possibly in that estate have either certainty or good probability that he is a child of God because it is not true His seeming certainty is meerly self-deceit and his greatest confidence is but presumption because the spirit of Christ is not within him and therefore he is certainly none of his Rom. 8.9 XXV 1. The Assurance of a confirmed Christian doth increase his alacrity and diligence in duty and is alwayes seen in his more obedient holy fruitful life The sense of the love and mercy of God is as the rain upon the tender grass He is never so fruitful so thankful so heavenly as when he hath the greatest certainty that he shall be saved The Love of God is then shed abroad upon his heart by the Holy Ghost which maketh him abound in love to God Rom. 5.1 2 3 4. He is the more stedfast unmoveable and alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord when he is most certain that his labour shall not be in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 2. But the weak Christian is unfit
fear the Lord and that he keepeth all the tears of his servants till the reckoning day And if judgement begin at the house of God and the righteous be saved through so much suffering and labour what then shall be their end that obey not the Gospel and where shall the ungodly and sinner appear 1 Pet. 4.17 18. Eccl. 8.12 Prov. 11.31 13.6 Psal. 56.8 Deut. 32.35 Jam. 5.9 2. And the weak Christian is one that will forsake all for the sake of Christ and suffer with him that he may be glorified with him and will take his treasure in heaven for all Luk. 14.26 33. Luk. 18.22 But he doth it not with that easiness and alacrity and joy as the confirmed Christian doth He hearkens more to the flesh which saith favour thy self suffering is much more grievous to him And sometimes he is wavering before he can bring himself fully to resolve and let go all Mat. 16.22 3. But the seeming Christian looketh not for much suffering He reads of it in the Gospel but he saw no probability of it and never believed that he should be called to it in any notable degree He thought it probable that he might well escape it And therefore though he agreed verbally to take Christ for better and worse and to follow him through sufferings he thought he would never put him to it And indeed his heart is secretly resolved that he will never be undone in the world for Christ Some reparable loss he may undergo but he will not let go life and all He will still be religious and hope for heaven But he will make himself believe and others if he can that the Truth lieth on the safer side and not on the suffering side and that it is but for their own conceits and scrupulosity that other men suffer who go beyond him and that many good men are of his opinion and therefore he may be good also in the same opinion though he would never have been of that opinion if it had not been necessary to his escaping of sufferings what flourish soever he maketh for a time when persecution ariseth he is offended and withereth Mat. 13.21 6. Unless he be so deeply engaged among the suffering party that he cannot come off without perpetual reproach and then perhaps Pride will make him suffer more than the belief of heaven oâ— the love of Christ could do And all this is because his very belief is unrooted and unsound and he hath secretly at the heart a fear that if he should suffer death for Christ he should be a loser by him and he would not reward him according to his promise with everlasting life Heb. 3.12 XXIX 1. A Christian indeed is one that followeth not Christ for company nor holdeth his belief in trust upon the credit of any in the world and therefore he would stick to Christ if all that he knoweth or converseth with should forsake him If the Rulers of the Earth should change their religion and turn against Christ he would not forsake him If the multitude of the people turn against him nay if the professors of Godliness should fall off yet would he stand his ground and be still the same If the learnedest men and the Pastors of the Church should turn from Christ he would not forsake him Yea if his nearest relations and friends or even that Minister that was the means of his conversion should change their minds and forsake the truth and turn from Christ or a holy life he would yet be constant and be still the same And what Peter resolved on he would truly practise Mat. 26 33 35. Though all men should be offended because of thee yet would not I be offended Though I should die with thee yet will I not deny thee And if he thought himself as Elias did left alone yet would he not how the knee to Baal Rom. 11.3 If he hear that this eminent Minister falleth off one day and the other another day till all be gone yet still the foundation of God standeth sure he falleth not because he is built upon the rock Mat. 7.22 23. His heart saith Alas whither shall I go if I go from Christ Is there any other that hath the word and spirit of eternal life Can I be a gainer if I lose my soul Joh. 6.67 68. Mat. 16.26 He useth his Teachers to bring him that light and evidence of truth which dwelleth in him when they are gone And therefore though they fall away he falleth not with them 2. And the weakest Christian believeth with a Divine faith of his own and dependeth more on God than man But yet if he should be put to so great a tryal as to see all the Pastors and Christians that he knoweth change their minds I know not what he would do For though God will uphold all his own whom he will save yet he doth it by means and outward helps together with his internal grace and keepeth them from temptations when he will deliver them from the evil And therefore it is a doubt whether there be not degrees of grace so weak as would fail in case the strongest temptations were permitted to assault them A strong man can stand and go of himself but an infant must be carried and the same and sick must have others to support them The weak Christian falleth if his Teacher or most esteemed company fall If they run into an error sect or schisme he keeps them company He groweth cold if he have not warming company He forgeteth himself and letteth loose his sense and passion if he have not some to watch over him and warn him No man should refuse the help of others that can have it and the best have need of all Gods means But the weak Christian needeth them much more than the strong and is much less able to stand without them Luk. 22.32 Gal. 2.11 12 13 14. 3. But the seeming Christian is built upon the sand and therefore cannot stand a storm He is a Christian more for company or he credit of man or the interest that others have in him or the encouragement of the times than from a firm Belief and love of Christ and therefore falleth when his props are gone Mat. 7.24 XXX 1. A strong Christian can digest the hardest Truths and the hardest works of Providence He seeth more of the reason and evidence of truths than others And he hath usually a more comprehensive knowledge and can reconcile those truths which short sighted persons suspect to be inconsistent and contradictory And when he cannot reconcile them he knoweth they are reconcileable For he hath laid his foundation well and then he reduceth other truths to that and buildeth them on it And so he doth by the hardest Providences Whoever is high or low whoever prospereth or is afflicted however humane affairs are carried and all things seem to go against the Church and cause of Christ he knoweth yet that God is good to Israel Psal.
especially his opinions and distinct manner of worship are the chief of his discourse 3. And for the seeming Christian though he can affectedly force his tongue to talk of any subject in religion especially that which he thinks will most honour him in the esteem of the hearers yet when he speaketh according to the inclination of his heart his discourse is first about his fleshly interest and concernments and next to that of the meer externals of religion as controversies parties and the severall modes of worship XXXIX 1. A Christian indeed is one that so liveth upon the great sustantial matters of Religion as yet not willingly to commit the smallest sin nor to own the smallest falsehood nor to renounce or betray the smallest holy truth or duty for any price that man can offer him The works of Repentance Faith and Love are his daily business which take up his greatest care and diligence Whatever opinions or controversies are a foot his work is still the same whatever changes come his Religion changeth not He placeth not the Kingdom of God in meats and drinks and circumstances and ceremonies either being for them or against them but in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost and he that in these things serveth Christ as he is acceptable to God so is he approved by such a Christian as this however factious persons may revile him Rom. 14.17 18 1 2 3 4 5 10. The strong Christian can bear the infirmities of the weak and not take the course that most pleaseth himself but that which pleaseth his neighbour for his good to edification Rom. 15.1 2 3. The essentials of Religion Faith and Love and obedience are as Bread and drink the substance of his food These he meditateth on and these he practiseth and according to these he esteemeth of others But yet no price can seem sufficient to him to buy his innocency Nor will he willfully sin and say it is a little one nor do evil that good may come by it nor offer to God the sacrifice of disobedient fools and then say I knew not that I did evil For he knoweth that God will rather have obedience than sacrifice and that disobedience is as the sin of witchcraft And he that breaketh one of the least commands and teacheth men so shall be called Least in the Kingdom of God And he that teacheth men to sin by the example of his own practice can little expect to turn them from sin by his better instructions and exhortations He that will deliberately sin in a small matter doth set but a small price on the favour of God and his salvation Willfull disobedience is odious to God how small soever the matter be about which it is committed Who can expect that he should stick at any sin when his temptation is great who will considerately commit the least especially if he will approve and justifie it Therefore the sound Christian will rather forsake his riches his liberty his reputation his friends and his country than his conscience and rather lay down libertie and life it self than choose to sin against his God as knowing that never man gained by his sin Rom. 3.8 Eccl. 5.2 1 Sam. 15.15 21 22 23. Mat. 5.19 The sin that Saul was rejected for seemed but a little thing nor the sin that Vzzah was slain for and the service of God even his sacrifice and his ark were the pretence for both The sin of the Bethshemites of Achan of Gebezi of Ananias and Saphira which had grievous punishments would seem but little things to us And it is a great aggravation of our sin to be chosen deliberate justified and fathered upon God and to pretend that we do it for his service for the worshiping of him or the doing good to others as if God would own and bless sinful means or needed a lie to his service or glory When he hateth all the workers of iniquity Psal. 5.5 and requireth only the sacrifices of righteousness Psal. 4.5 He abhorreth sacrifice from polluted hands they are to him as the offering a dog and he will ask who hath required this at your hand see Psal. 50.8.4 Isa. 1.9 10 11 12. c. 58.1 2 3 4. c. Jer. 6.19.20 The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to the Lord Prov. 15.8 21.27 It is not pleasing to him all that eat thereof shall be polluted Ho. 9.4 See Isa. 66.1 2 3 4 5 6. The preaching the praying the sacraments of wilful sinners especially when they choose sin as necessary to his service are a scorn and mockery put upon the most Holy one As if your servant should set dung and carrion before you on your table for your food such offer Christ vinegar and gall to drink 2. In all this the weakest Christian that is sincere is of the same mind saving that in his ordinary course he useth to place too much of his Religion in controversies and parties and modes and ceremonies whether being for them or against them and allow too great a proportion in his thoughts and speech and zeal and practice and hindereth the growth of his grace by living upon less edifying things and turnning too much from the more substantial nutriment 3. And the seeming Christians are here of different wayes One sort of them place almost all their Religion in Pharisaical observation of little external ceremonial matters as their washings and fastings and tythings and formalities and the traditions of the Elders Or in their several opinions and wayes and parties which they call Being of the true Church As if their sect were all the Church But living to God in faith and love and in a Heavenly conversation and worshipping him in spirit and truth they are utterly unacquainted with The other sort are truly void of these essential parts of Christianity in the life and power as well as the former But yet being secretly resolved to take up no more of Christianity than will consist with their worldly prosperity and ends when any sin seemeth necessary to their preferment or safety in the world their way is to pretend their high esteem of greater matters for the swallowing of such a sin as an inconsiderable thing And then they extol those larger souls that live not upon circumstantials but upon the great and common truths and duties and pitty those men of narrow principles and spirits who by unnecessary scrupulosity make sin of that which is no sin and expose themselves to needless trouble And they would make themselves and others believe that it is their excellency and wisdom to be above such trifling scruples And all is because they never took God and Heaven for their All and therefore are resolved never to lose all for the hopes of Heaven and therefore to do that whatever it be which their worldly interest shall require and not to be of any religion that will undo them And three great pretences are effectual means in this their deceit One is
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 sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive but speaking the truth in Love 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 that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body to the Edifying of it self in love Here you see the children are apt to be carryed into dividing parties And that they are aptest to be Proud and that way to miscarry see 1 Tim. 3.6 Not a novice or raw young Christian lest being lifted up with Pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil And then followeth the effect Act. 20.30 Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them I would not have you groundlesly accuse any Christian with a charge of Pride But I must tell you that the childish Pride of apparel is a petty business in comparison of that Pride which many in sordid attire have manifested who in their ignorance do rage and foam out words of falshood and reproach against Christs Ministers and Servants as if they were all fools or impious in comparison of them speaking evil of that which they never understood The lifting up the Heart above the people of the Lord in the Pride of supposed Holiness is incomparably worse than Pride of Learning honour greatness wit or wealth Nay it hath oft been to me a matter of wonder to observe how little all those plain and urgent Texts of Scripture which cry down Division do work upon many of the younger Christians who yet are as quickly toucht as any with a Text that speaketh against prophaneness and lukewarmness In a word they are often of the temper of James and John when they would fain have had Christ have revenged himself on his opposers by fire from Heaven They know not what manner of Spirit they are of Luk. 9.55 They think verily that it is a holy zeal for God when it is the boiling of passion pride and selfishness They feel not the sense of such words as Christs Joh. 17.20 21 22 23 24. I pray also for them who shall believe on me through their word that they All may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the World may believe that thou hast sent me c. 3. And as for the seeming Christians in this they are of several sorts When their carnal interest lyeth in complyance with the Major part and stronger side then no men do more cry up Vnity and Obedience what a noise do many thousand Papist-Prelates Jesuites and Fryers make with these two words throughout the world Vnity and Obedience unto them upon their terms do signifie Principally their worldly greatness wealth and power But if the Hypocrite be engaged in point of honour or other carnal interest on the suffering side or be out of hope of any advantage in the common rode then no man is so much for separation and singularity as he For he must needs be noted for some body in the world and this is the chief way that he findeth to accomplish it And so being lifted up with pride be falleth into the Condemnation of the Devil and becomes a firebrand in the Church LIII 1. A Christian indeed is not only zealous for the Unity and Concord of Believers but he seeketh it on the right terms and in the way that is fitest to attain it Vnity Peace and Concord are like Piety and Honesty things so unquestionably good that there are scarce any men of reason and common sobriety that ever were heard to oppose them Directly and for themselves And therefore all that are enemies to them are yet pretenders to them and oppose them 1. In their causes only 2. Or covertly and under some other name Every man would have Vnity Concord and Peace in his own way and upon his own terms But if the right terms had been understood and consented to as sufficient the Christian world had not lain so many hundred years in the sin and shame and ruines as it hath done And the cause of all is that Christians indeed that have clear confirmed judgements and strength of grace are very few and for number and strength unable to perswade or overrule the weak the passionate and the falsehearted worldly hypocritical multitude who bear down all the counsels and endeavours of the wise The judicious faithful Christian knoweth that there are three degrees or sorts of Christian Communion which have their several terms 1. The universal-church Communion which all Christians as such must hold among themselves 2. Particular Church-communion which those that are conjoyned for personal Communion in Worship do hold under the same Pastors and among themselves 3. The extraordinary intimate communion that some Christians hold together who are bosome friends or are specially able and fit to be helpful and comfortable to each other The last concerneth not our present business we must hold Church-communion with many that are unfit to be our bosome friends and that have no eminency of parts or piety or any strong-perswading evidence of sincerity But the terms of Catholick Communion he knoweth are such as these 1. They must be such as were the terms of Church Communion in the dayes of the Apostles 2. They must be such as are plainly and certainly expressed in the holy Scriptures 3. And such as the Vniversal Church hath in some ages since been actually agreed in 4. And those points are likest to be such which all the differing parties of Christians are agreed in as Necessary to Communion to this day so we call not those Christians that deny the essentials of Christianity 5. Every man in the former ages of the Church was admitted to this Catholick Church-communion who in the Baptismal Vow or Covenant gave up himself to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as his Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier his Owner Governour and Father renouncing the flesh the world and the Devil And more particularly as man hath an Vnderstanding a Will and an executive power which must all be sanctified to God so the Creed was the particular Rule for the Credenda or things to be Believed and the Lords Prayer for the Petenda or things to be Willed Loved and Desired and the Ten Commandments for the agenda or things to be done so that to Consent to these Rules particularly and to all the Holy Scriptures implicitly and generally was the thing then required to Catholick Communion The belief of the doctrine being necessary for the sanctifying of the heart and life the Belief of so much is of Necessity without which the Heart cannot be sanctified or
shall be overcome by his own successes and the just shall conquer by patience when they seem most conquered The name and form and image of Religion the carnal hypocrite doth not only bear but favour and himself accept But the Life and serious practice he abhorreth as inconsistent with his worldly interest and ends For these he can find in his heart with Ahab to hate and imprison Micaiah and preferr his four hundred flattering Prophets 1 King 22.6 8 24 27. If Luther will touch the Popes Crown and the Fryers Bellies they will not scruple to Oppose and ruine both him and all such Preachers in the World if they were able John 11.48.50 Acts 5.28 LVI 1. A Christian indeed is one whose Holiness usually maketh him an eyesore to the ungodly world and his charity and peaceableness and moderation maketh him to be censured as not strict enough by the superstitious and dividing sects of Christians For seeing the Church hath suffered between these two sorts of opposers ever since the suffering of Christ himself it cannot be but the solid Christian offend them both because he hath that which both dislike All the ungodly hate him for his holiness which is cross to their interest and way and all the Dividers will censure him for that universal charity and moderation which is against their factious and destroying zeal described Jam. 3. Even Christ himself was not strict enough in superstitious observances for the ceremonious zealous Pharisees He transgressed with his Disciples the tradition of the Elders in neglecting their observances who transgressed the commandment of God by their tradition Matth. 15.2 3. He was not strict enough in their uncharitable observation of the Sabbath day Matth. 12.2 John that was eminent for falling they said had a Devil The Son of man came eating and drinking and they say Behold a man gluttonous and a wine bibber a friend of Publicans and sinners But wisdom is justified of her Children Mat. 11.18 19. And the weak Christians Rom. 14.1 2 3. did censure those that durst eat those meats and do those things which they conceived to be unlawful They that erre themselves and make God a Service which he never appointed will censure all as lukewarm or temporizers or wide conscienced men that erre not with them and place not their Religion in such superstitious observances as Touch not taste not handle not c. Col. 2.18 21 22 23. And the raw censorious Christians are offended with the Charitable Christian because he damneth not as many and as readily as they and shutteth not enow out of the number of believers and judgeth not rigorously enough of their wayes In a word he is taken by one sort to be too strict and by the other to be too complyant or indifferent in Religion because he placeth not the Kingdom of God in meats and dayes and such like circumstances but in righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14.15 16 17. And as Paul withstood Peter to his face for drawing men to make scruple or conscience of things lawful Gal. 2.11 12 13. so is the sound Christian withstood by the superstitious for not making scruple of lawful things 2. And the weak Christian is in the same case so long as he followeth prudent pious charitable guides But if he be taken in the snares of superstition he pleaseth the superstitious party though he displease the World 3. And whereas the solid Christian will not stir an inch from truth and duty to escape either the hatred of the wicked or the bitterest censures of the Sectary or the weak the Hypocrite must needs have one party on his side For if both condemn him and neither applaud him he loseth his peculiar reward Matth. 6.2 5. 23.5 6 7 8. LVII 1. The confirmed Christian doth understand the necessary of a faithful Ministry for the safety of the weak as well as the conversion of the wicked and for the preservation of the interest of Religion upon earth And therefore no personal unworthiness of Ministers nor any calumnies of enemies can make him think or speak dishonourably of that sacred office But he reverenceth it as instituted by Christ and though he loaths the sottishness and wickedness of those that run before they are sent and are utterly insufficient or ungodly and take it up for a Living or Trade only as they would a common work and are Sons of Belial that know not the Lord and cause the offering of the Lard to be abhorred 1 Sam. 2.2 17. Yet no such temptation shall overthrow his reverence to the office which is the Ordinance of Christ much less will he be unthankful to those that are able and faithful in their office and labour instantly for the good of souls as willing to spend and be spent for their Salvation When the World abuseth and derideth and injureth them he is one that honoureth them both for their work and masters sake and the experience which he hath had of the blessing of God on their labours to himself For he knoweth that the smiting of the Shepheards is but the devils ancient way for the scattering of the flock Though he knoweth that if the salt have lost its savour it is good for nothing neither fit for the land nor yet for the dung-hill but men cast it out and it 's trodden under foot he that hath ears to hear let him hear Luk. 14.34 35. Mat. 5.13 14. Yet he also knoweth that he that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward Matth. 10.41 42. And that he that receiveth them receiveth Christ and he that despiseth them that are sent by him despiseth him Luk. 10.16 He therefore readily obeyeth those commands Heb. 13.17 Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as those that must give account 1 Thes. 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 1 Tim. 5.17 Let the Elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour especially they who labour in the Word and Doctrine 2. But though the weak Christian be of the same mind so far as he is sanctified yet is he much more easily tempted into a wrangling censoriousness against his Teachers though they be never so able and holy men and by seducers may be drawn to oppose them or speak contemptuously of them as the Galathians did of Paul and some of the Corinthians accounting him as their Enemy for telling them the truth when lately they would have pluckt out their eyes to do him good Gal. 4.15 16. 3. But the Hypocrite is most easily engaged against them either when they grate upon the guilt of his bosome sin or open his hypocrisie or plainly cross him in his carnal interest or else when his