he still asks what you mean by this those things answer not me do ye think I can find Comâ—â—â—â— in them so long as my sin is unpardon'd and there is a 〈◊〉 of Eternal Death standing above my head I feel even an impress of somewhat of that hot Indignation some flashes of it flying and lighting upon the face of my Soul and how can I take pleasure in these things you speak of And though I should be sensless and feel nothing of this all my life yet how soon shall I have done with it and the delights that reach no further and then to have Everlasting burnings Eternity of wrath to enter to how can I be satisfyed with that estate All you offer a Man in this posture is as if ye should set dainty fair and bring musick with it to a Man lying almost pressed to death under great weights and ye bid him eat and be merry but lift not off his pressure you do but mock the Man and add to his misery On the other side he that hath got but a view of his Christ and reads his own pardon in Christs sufferings he can rejoyce in this in the midst of all other sufferings and look on death without apprehension yea with gladness the sting is out Christ hath made all pleasant to him by this one thing that he suffered once for sins Christ hath perfum'd the Cross and the Grave and made all sweet The pardoned Man finds himself light skips and leaps and through Christ strengthning him he can encounter with any trouble If you think to shut in his Spirit within outward sufferings it is now as Sampson in his strength able to carry away the Gates on his back that you would shut one withal yea can submit patiently to the Lords hands in any correction Thou hast forgiven my sin therefore deal with me as thou wilt all is well 1. Learn to consider more deeply and esteem more highly of Christ and his suffering to silence our grumbling at our petty light crosses for so they are in comparison of his will not the great odds of his perfect Innoâ—ency and oâ— his nature and measure of his sufferings will not the sense of that Redemption of our Souls from death by his death will none of these nor all of them argue us into more thankfulness and love to him and patience in our tryals Why will we then be called Christians it is impossible to be fretful and malecontent with the Lord 's dealing with us in any kind till first we have forgot how he dealt with his dearest Son for our sakes But these things are not weigh'd by the most we hear and speak of them but our hearts receive not the impressions of them therefore we repine against our Lord and Father and drown a hundred great blessings in any little touch of trouble that befalls us 2. Seek surer interest in Christ and his suffering than the most either have attained or are aspiring to otherwise all that is here suffered will not ease or comfort thee any thing in any kind of suffering no though thou suffer for a good cause even for his cause still this will be an extraneous foraign thing to thee to tell thee of his sufferings will work no otherwise with thee than some other common story And as in the day of peace thou regardest it no more so in the day of thy trouble thou shalt receive no more comfort from it Other things you esteemed shall have no comfort to speak to you though you persue them with words as Solomon says of the poor Man's friends yet they shall be wanting to you And then you would sure find how happy it were to have this to turn you to that the Lord Jesus suffered for sins and for yours and therefore hath made it a light and comfortable business to you to undergo momentary passing sufferings Days of tryal will come do you not see they are on us already Be perswaded to turn your eyes and desires more towards Christ. This is the thing we would still press the support and happiness of your Souls lyes on it But you will not believe it Oh! that ye knew the comforts and sweetness of Christ. Oh that one would speak that knew more of them were you once but entered into this knowledge of him and the virtue of his sufferings you would account all your days but lost wherein you have not known him and in all times your hearts would find no refreshment like to the remembrance of his love Having somewhat considered these sufferings as the Apostles Argument for his present purpose Now to take nearer notice of the particulars by which he illustrates them as the main point of our Faith and Comfort Of them here two things 1. Their Cause 2. Their Kind Their Cause both their meriting cause and their final cause 1. What in us procured these sufferings unto Christ. 2. What those his suffering procured unto us Our guiltiness brought suffering upon him and his suffering brings us unto God 1. The evil of sin hath the evil of punishment inseparably ty'd to it We have a natural obligation of obedience unto God and he justly urges it so that where the command of his Law is broke the Curse of it presently followeth And though it was simply in the Power of the supream Lawgiver to have dispensed the infliction yet having in his Wisdom purposed to be known a just God in that way following forth the tenor of his Law of necessity there must be a suffering for sin Thus the Angels that kept not their Station falling from it fell into a Dungeon where they are under chains of darkness reserved to the Iudgement of the Great day and Man fell under the sentence of Death But in this is the difference betwixt Man and them they were not of one as parent or common root of the rest but each one fell or stood for himself alone so a part of them only perisht but Man fell altogether so that not one of all the Race could escape condemnation unless some other way of satisfaction be found out And here it is Christ suffered for sins the just for the unjust Father says he I have glorified thee on Earth In this Plot indeed do all the Divine Attributes shine in their full infinite Mercy and immense Justice and Power and Wisdom Looking on Christ as ordained for that purpose I have found a Ransom says the Father one fit to redeem Man a Kinsman one of that very same Stock the Son of Man one able to redeem Man by satisfying me and fullfilling all I lay upon him my Son my only begotten Son in whom my Soul delights And he is willing undertakes all says loe I come c. We are agreed upon the way of this Redemption yea upon the Persons to be redeemed it is not a roving blind Bargain a price paid for we know not to whom Hear his own words Thou hast given the Son
of God And perceiving their short day so far spent ere they set out will account years precious and make the more hast and desire with holy David enlarged hearts to run the way of God's commandments will study to live much in a little time having lived all the past time to no purpose none now to spare upon the lusts and ways of the flesh and vain societies and visits yea will be rescuing all they can from their very necessary Affairs for that which is more necessary than all other necessities that one thing needful to learn the Will of our God and live to it this is our Business our high Calling the main and excellent of all our Employments Not that we are to cast off our particular Callings our due diligence in them for that will prove a snare and involve a Person in things more opposite to godliness But certainly this living to God requires 1. A fit measuring of thy own ability for affairs and as far as thou canst chuse â—itting thy load to thy shoulders not surcharging thy self with it overburden of businesses either by the greatness or multitude of them will not fail to entangle thee and depress thy mind and will hold it so down that thou shalt not find it possible to walk upright and look upwards with that freedom and frequency that becomes Heirs of Heaven 2. The measure of thy affairs being adapted look to thy affection in them that it be regulated too thy heart may be engaged in thy little business as much if thou watch it not a Man may drown in a little brook or pool as well as in a great river if he be down and plunge himself into it and put his head under water Some care thou must have that thou maist not care these things that are thorns indeed thou must make a hedge of them to keep out those tentations that accompany floth and extream want that waits on it but let them be the hedge suffer them not to grow within the Garden though they increase set not thy heart on them nor them in thy heart That place is due to another is made to be the Garden of thy beloved Lord made for the best plants and flowers and there they ought to grow The love of God and Faith and Meekness and the other fragrant Graces of the Spirit and know that this is no common nor easie matter to keep the heart disingaged in the midst of affairs that still it be reserved for him whose right it is 3. Not only labour to keep thy mind Spiritual in it self but by it put a spiritual stamp even upon thy temporal employments And so thou shalt live to God not only without prejudice of thy Calling but even in it and shall converse with him in thy Shop or in the Field or in thy Journey doing all in obedience to him and offering all and thy self withal as a sacrifice to him thou stâ—ll with him and he still with thee in all This is to live to the will of God indeed to follow his direction and intend his glory in all thus the wife in the very exercise of her house and the husband in his affâ—irs abroad may be living to God raising their low employments to a high quality this way Lord even this mean work I do for thee complying with thy will who hast put me in this Station and given me this task thy will be done Lord I offer up even this work to thee accept of me and of my desire to obey thee in all and as in their work so in their refreshments and rest all for him whether you eat or drink doing all for this reason because it is his will and for this end that he may have glory bending the use of all our strength and all his mercies that way setting this mark on all our designs and ways this for the glory of my God and this further for his glory so from one thing to another throughout our life This is the art of keeping the heart spiritual in all affairs yea of spiritualizing the affairs themselves in their use that in themselves are earthly This the Elixir that turns lower mettal into gold the mean actions of this life in a Christians hands into obedience and holy offering unto God And were we acquainted with the way of intermixing holy thoughts ejaculatory eyings of God in our ordinary ways it would keep the heart in a sweet temper all the day long and have an excellent influence into all our ordinary actions and holy performances at those times when we apply our selves solemnly to them our hearts would be near them not so far off to seek and call in as usually they are through the neglect of this This were to walk with God indeed to go all the day long as in our Fathers hand whereas without this our praying morning and evening looks but as a formal visit not delighting in that constant converse which yet is our happiness and honour and makes all estates sweet This would refresh us in the hardest Labour as they that carry the spices from Arabia are refresht with the smell of them in their Journey and some observe that it keeps their strength and frees them from fainting If you would then live to God indeed be not satisfied without the constant regard of him and whosoever hath attained most of it study it yet more to set the Lord always before you as David professeth and then shall you have that comfort that he adds â—e shall be still at your right hand that you shall not be moved And you that are yet to begin to this think what his patience is that after you have fitten so many calls you may yet begin to seek him and live to him and then consider if you still despise all this goodness how soon it may be otherwise you may be past the reach of this Call and may not begin but be cut off for ever from the hopes of it Oh how sad an Estate and the more by the remembrance of these flighted offers and invitations will you then yet return you that would share in Christ let go these lusts to which you have hitherto lived and embrace him and in him there is Spirit and Life for you he shall enable you to live this heavenly life to the will of God his God and your God and his Father and your Father Oh! delay no longer this happy change how soon may that puff of breath that is in thy Nostrils that hearest this be extinguisht and art thou willing to dye in thy sins rather than that they dye before thee thinkest thou it a pain to live to the will of God sure it will be more pain to lie under his eternal wrath Oh! thou knowest not how sweet they find it that have tryed it or thinkest thou I will afterwards who can make thee sure either of that afterwards or of that will if but afterwards why not now presently without
wills and loves that 's Law and a powerful Law so written on the Heart this Law of Love that it obeys not unpleasantly but with delight no constraint but the sweet constraint of love to forgive a wrong to love even thine enemy for him is not only feisible now but deâ—ectable that ere while thou thoughtest impossible That Spirit of Christ is all sweetness and love so calms and composes the Heart that peace with God and that unspeakably blessed correspondence of love with him doth so fill the Soul with lovingness and sweetness that it can breath nothing else hates nothing but sin pities the sinner and carries to the worst that love of good-will desiring their return and salvation but to those in whom appears the Image of their Father those their heart cleaves to as Brethren indeed No advantages natural no birth no beauty nor wit draws a Christian's love so much as the resemblance of Christ wherever that is found it is comely and lovely to a Soul that loves him Much communion with God sweetens and calms the mind cures the distempers of passion and pride that are the avowed enemies of love particularly Prayer and Love suit well 1. Prayer disposes to this love he that loveth not knoweth not God saith the beloved Apostle for God is love he that is most conversant with love the spring of where 't is purest and fullest cannot but have the fullest measure of it flowing in from thence into his heart and flowing forth from thence unto his Brethren if they that use the society of mild and good men are insensibly assimilated to them grow like them and contract somewhat of their temper much more doth familiar walking with God powerfully transform the Soul into his likeness makes it merciful and loving and ready to forgive as he is 2. This love disposes to prayer to pray together hearts must be consorted and tun'd together otherwise how can they sound the same Suits harmoniously How unpleasant in the exquisite ear of God that made the ear are the jarring disunited hearts that often seem to joyn in the same prayer and yet are not set together in love and when thou prayest alone thy heart imbitter'd and disaffected to thy Brother altho' upon an offence done to thee 't is as a mistuned Instrument the Strings are not accorded so are not in tune amongst themselves and so the sound is harsh and offensive try it well thy self and thou wilt perceive it how much more he to whom thou pray'st when thou art stirr'd and in passion against thy Brother or not on the contrary lovingly affected towards him what broken disordered unfastened stuff are thy requests therefore the Lord will have this done first the Heart tun'd go thy way says he leave thy Gift and be reconcil'd to thy Brother c. Why is this so much recommended by Christ and so little received by Christians given by him as the cognisance and badge of his Followers and of them that pretend to be so so few that wear it Oh! little real Christianity were more worth than all that empty profession and discourse that we think so much of Hearts receiving the mould and stamp of this Rule these were living Copies of the Gospel ye are our Epistle says the Apostle We come together and hear and speak sometimes of one Grace and sometimes of another and the most never seek to have their hearts enricht with the possession of any of them We search not to the bottom the perversness of our Nature and the guiltiness that is upon us in these or we shift off the Conviction and find a way to forget it when the hour 's done That accursed root self-love that makes man an enemy to God and Men enemies and devourers one of another who sets to the discovery and the displanting of it bends the force of holy Endeavours and Prayer supplicates the hand of God for the plucking of it up Some Natures are quieter and make less noise but till the heart be possest with the love of God it shall never truely love either men in that way due to all or the Children of God in their peculiar relation Among your selves c. That is here the point the peculiar love of the Saints as thy Brethren glorying and rejoycing in the same Father the Sons of God begotten again to that lively hope of glory now these as they owe a bountiful disposition to all they are mutually to love one another as Brethren Thou that hatest and reproachest the godly and the more they study to walk as the Children of their holy Father the more thou hatest them art glad to find a spot to point at on them or wilt dash mire on them where thou findest none know that thou art in this the enemy of God that the indignity done to them Jesus Christ will take it as done to himself truely we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the Brethren he that loveth not his Brother abideth in death So then renounce this Word or else believe that thou art yet far from the Life of Christ that so hatest it in others Oh! but they are but a number of Hypocrites wilt thou say Brethren if they be so this declares so much the more thy extream hatred of holiness that canst not endure so much as the Picture of it canst not see any thing like it but thou must let fly at it and this argues thy deep hatred of God holiness in a Christian as the Image of God and the Hyprocrite in the resemblance of it is the Image of a Christian so thou hatest the very Image of the Image of God for deceive not thy self it is not the latent evil in hypocrisie but the apparent good in it that thou hatest The prophane Man thinks himself a great Zealot against Hypocrisie he is still crying out of it but it s only this he is angry at that all should not be ungodly wicked enemies of Religion as he is either dissolute or meerly civil and the civil man is readily the bitterest enemy of all strictness beyond his own size as condemning him and therefore he cries it down as all of it false and counterfeit wares Let me intreat you if you would not be found fighters against God let no revilings be heard amongst you against any that are or seem to be Followers of Holiness if ye will not reverence it your selves yet reverence it in others at least do not reproach it It should be your ambition else why are you willing to be called Christians but if you will not pursue holiness yet persecute it not if you will not have fervent love to the Saints yet burn not with infernal heat of fervent hatred against them for truly that is one of the likliest pledge of these flames and society with damned Spirits as love to the Children of God is of that inheritance and society with them in glory 2. You that are Brethren and
with God of great price and things are indeed as he values them and no otherways Tho' it be not the Country fashion yet it is the fashion at Court yea 't is the Kings own fashion Matth. 11. 29. Learn of me for I am meek and lowly c. Some that are Court-bred will send for the Masters of fashions tho' they live not in the Court and tho' the Peasants think them strange dresses yet they regard not that but use them as finest and best Care not what the World say You are not to stay long with them desire to have both fashions and stuff from Court from Heaven this Spirit of meekness and it shall be sent you 't is never right in any thing with us till we attain to this to tread on the opinion of Men and eye nothing but Gods approbation Verses 5 6. 5. For after this manner in the old time the holy Women also who trusted in God adorned themselves 6. Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord whose Daughters ye are as long as ye do well and are not afraid with any amazement THe Apostle inforces his Doctrine by Example The most compendious way of teaching Hence the right way to use the Scriptures is to regulate our manners by them as by their precepts so by examples And for this end it is that a great part of it is historical There is not in the Saints a transmigration of Souls but there is so to speak an oneness of Souls being in all Ages partakers of the self same Spirit hence the Daughters of Sarah are called pious and obedient Wives Women here designed 1. Holy 2. Believing 3. Firm and resolute not afraid with any Amazement tho' by nature they are fearful yet rendred of undaunted Spirits by a holy clean and pure conscience Believing Wives and fearers of God are not terrify'd their Minds are established in a due obedience to God and also toward their Husbands Verse 7. 7. Likewise ye Husbands dwell with them according to knowledge giving honour unto the Wife as unto the weaker Vessel and as being heirs together of the Grace of Life that your Prayers be not hindred YOur Wives are subject to you but you likewise subject to this Word by which all ought in all Stations to be directed and however all shall one day be judged by it and alike subject as they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Parents as Children Masters as Servants and Kings as their Subjects all hold of a superiour and 't is high treason against the Majesty of God for any in any place of command to dream of any unbounded absolute authority in opposition to him A Spirit of prudence or knowledge particularly suitable and relating to this subject is required as the light and rule by which his whole oeconomy and carriage is to be guided It is requir'd that he endeavour after that civil prudence for the ordering of his Affairs that tends to the good of his Family but chiefly a pious religious prudence for regulating his Mind and carriage as a Christian Husband that he study the Rule of Scripture in this particular which many do not neither advising with it what they should do nor laying it by reâ—lex upon their actions past examining by it what they have done Now this is the great fault in all practical things most know something of them but inadvertency and inconsideration not ordering our ways by that light is the thing that spoils all Knowledge required in the Wife but more eminently in the Husband as the Head the proper seat of knowledge It is possible that the Wise may sometimes have the advantage of knowledge either natural wit and judgment or a great measure of understanding of spiritual things but this still holds that the Husband is bound to improve the measure both of natural and of spiritual gifts that he hath or can attain to and apply them usefully to the ordering of his conjugal carriage and that he understand himself oblig'd somwhat the more in the very notion of a Husband both to seek after and to use that prudence that is peculiarly requir'd for his due deportment and a Christian Wiâ—e that 's largelier endow'd yet will shew all respectiveness to the measure of Wisdom though it be less that is bestow'd upon her Husband Dwell with them This indeed implies and supposes their abiding with them so far as their calling and lawful Affairs permit but I conceive that which it expresly means is all the conversation and duties of that estate that they so behave themselves in dwelling with them as becomes Men of Knowledge wise and prudent Husbands which returns them usually the gain of that full reverence and respect that is due to them of which they rob and divest themselves that be either of a foolish or trisling carriage or of too auâ—â—ere and rigid a conversation Giving honour unto the Wife This I conceive is not as some take it convenient maintenance tho' that 's a requisite duty too and may be taken in under this word but it seems to be chiefly a due conjugal esteem of them and respect to them the Husband not viliâ—ying and despising them which will readily grieve and exâ—spâ—rate them not disâ—losing the weaknesses of the Wife to others nor observing them too narrowly himself but hiding them both from others and his own eyes by love not seeing them further than love it self requires that is to the wise rectifying of them by milde advices and admonitions that flow from love And to this the reasons indeed sute well it seems at first a little incongruous honour because weaker but considering this kind of honour not of reverence as Superiour for that is their part but such an esteem and respect without which indeed love cannot consist for we cannot love that which we do not in some good measure esteem well of And that they be not contemn'd and slighted even because weaker for of all injuries contempt is one of the smartingest and most sensible especially to weakest Persons who feel most exactly the least touches of this whereas greater Spirits are a little harder against opinion and more indifferent for it and tho' not all yet some Wives may be of a stronger Mind and Judgment than the Husbands yet those rules respect the general condition of the Sexes and speak of it so as ordinarily weaker Again Love which is ever to be supposed one Article and the main one for nothing indeed can be right where that supposition proves false Love I say supposed this reason is very enforcing that the weaker the Vessels be the more tenderly they should be used and the more a prudent passing by of frailâ—ies is needâ—ul there love will study it and bestow it the more yea this tie you know makes two one and that which is a part of our selves the more it needs in that the more comeliness we put upon it as the Apostle St. Paul tells us and this further may be consider'd
good and pleasant that Bretâ—ren dwell together in unity it persumes all as the precious â—yntâ—â—â—â—â—â— c. But many that are called Christians are not indeed of this Brotherhood and therefore no wonder they know not what this love means but are either of restless unquiet Spirits biting and devouring one another as the Apostle speaks or at the best only civilly smooth and peaceable in their carriage but rather scorners than partakers of this spiritual love and fraternity are strangers to Christ not brought into acquaintance and union with him and therefore void of the life of Grace and the fruits of it whereof this is a chief one Oh! how few amongst multitudes that throng in as we do here together are indeed partakers of the glorious liberty of the Sons of God or ambitious of that high and happy estate As for you that know these things and have a portion in them that have your communion with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ I beseech you adorn your holy profession and testifie you selves the Disciples and the Brethren of Jesus Christ by this mutual love seek to understand better what it is and to know it more practically Consider that sourse of love that love that the Father hath shewed us in this that we should be called the Sons of God and so be Brethren and thence draw more of this sweet stream of love God is love says the Apostle therefore sure where there is most of God there is most of this Divine Grace this holy love Look upon and study much that infinite love of God and his Son Jesus Christ towards us he gave his only begotten Son the Son gave himself he sweeten'd his bitter cup with his tranâ—â—endent love and this he hath recommended to us that even as he loved us so should we love one another we know we cannot reach this highest pattern that 's not meant but the more we look on it the higher we shall reach in this love and shall learn some measure of such love on Earth as is in Heaven and that which so begins here shall be perfected there Be pitiful be courteous The Roots of Plants are hid under Ground so that themselves are not seen but they appear in their Branches and Flowers and Fruits which argue there is a Root and Life in them thus the Graces of the Spirit planted in the Soul though themselves invisible yet discover their Being and Life in the Tract of a Christian's Life their Words and Actions and the frame of their carriage thus Faith shews that it lives as the Apostle St. Iames teacheth at large and thus Love a Grace of so active a nature that it is still working and yet never weary your labour of love says the Apostle it labours but delight makes the hardest labour sweet and easie and so proper is action to it that all action is null without it 1 Cor. 13. yea it knits Faith and Action together is the link that unites them Faith worketh but 't is by it as the Apostle teaches us by Love so then where this Root is these Fruits will spring from it and discover it Pity and Courtesie They are of a larger extent in their full Sphere than the precedcing for from a general love due to all they act towards all to men or humanity in the general And this not from a bare natural tenderness which softer complexions may have nor from a prudent moral consideration of their own possible falling under the like or greater calamities but out of obedience to God who requires this mercifulness in all his Children and cannot own them for his unless in this they resemble him And it is indeed an evidence of a truly Christian mind to have much of this pity to the miseries of all being rightly principled and acting after a Pious and Christian manner towards the Sick and Poor of what condition soever yea most pitying the spiritual misery of ungodly men their hardness of heart and unbelief and earnestly wishing their conversion not repining at the long-suffering of God as if thou would'st have the Bridge out because thou art over as St. Augustine speaks but longing rather to see that long-suffering and goodness of God lead them to repentance being griev'd to see men ruining themselves and diligently working their own destruction going in any way of wickedness as Solomon speaks of one particularly as an Ox to the Shambles or a Fool to the correction of the Stocks Certainly the ungodly Man is an object of the highest pity But there is a special debt of this pity to those that we love as Brethren in our Lord Jesus these are most closely linkt by a peculiar fraternal love Their sufferings and calamities will move the Bowels that have Christian affection within them Nor is it an empty helpless pity but carries with it the real communication of our help to our utmost power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not only Bowels that are moved themselves with pity but that move their hand to succour for by this word the natural affection of Parents and the tenderer of them the Mother are express'd who do not idly behold and beâ—oan their Children being sick or distress'd but provides all possible help their bowels are not only stirr'd but dilated and enlarged towards them And if our feeling bowels and helping hand are due to all and particularly to the Godly and we ought to pay this due in outward distresses how much more in their Soul-afflictions the rather because these are most heavy in themselves and least understood and therefâ—re least regarded yea sometimes more by natural Friends possibly by their bitter scoffes and taunts or by their flighting or at best by their misapplying of proper helps and remedies which as unfit Medicines do rather exasperate the Disease therefore they that do understand and can be sensible of that kind of wound ought so much the more to be tender and pitiful towards it and to deal mercifully and gently with it It may be very weak things sometimes trouble a weak Christian but there is in the Spirit of the Godly a humble condescention learn'd from Christ who broke not the bruised reed nor quenched the smoaking flax The least difficulties and scruples in a tender conscience should not be roughly encounter'd they are as a knot in a silken thread and require a gentle and wary hand to loose them Now this tenderness of bowels and inclinement to pity all especially Christians and them especially in their peculiar pressures is not a weakness as some kind of Spirits take it to be this even naturally is a generous pity in greatest Spirits Christian pity is not womanish yea 't is more than manly 't is divine there is of it natural most in the best and most ingenuous natures but where 't is spiritual 't is a prime lineament of the image of God and the more absolute and disengag'd it is in regard of those towards whom it acts the more like
that are usual and were it no worse is it not a sufficient evil that they waste away that time precious time that cannot be recover'd that the most just or most thankful Man in the World cannot restore He that spares speech favours his Tongue indeed as the Latin Phrase is favere Linguae not he that looses the reins and lets it run he may ponder and pre-examine what he utters whether it be profitable and seasonable or no and so the Tongue of the Just is as fined silver 't is resined in the wise forethought and pondering of the heart so is his advice Bis ad â—imam priusquam semel ad linguam Even to utter Knowledge and wise things profusely holds not of wisdom and a little usually makes most noise as the Hebrew proverb is a penny in an earthen pot keeps a great sound and tinkling Certainly 't is the way to have much inward peace to be wary in this point Men think to have solace by much free unbounded discourse with others and when they have done they find it otherways and sometimes contrary He is wise that hath learn't to speak little with others and much with himself and with God How much might be gained for our Souls if we would make a right use of this silence so David dumb to Men found his Tongue to God Psal. 38 13 15. a spiritual minded Man is quickly weary of other discourse but of that which he loves and wherewith his affection is possess'd and taken up grave aestimant quicquid illud non sonat quod intus amant and by experience a Christian will find it that when the Lord is pleas'd to shew him most favour at Prayer or other spiritual exercise how unsavoury it makes other discourses after it as they that have tasted something singularly sweet think other things less sweet altogether tasteless and unpleasant 4. In the use of the Tongue when thou doest speak divert it from evil and guile by a habitude of and delight in profitable and gracious discourse thus St. Paul makes the Opposition Eph. 4. no rotten communication and yet not total silence neither but such as may edifie and minister grace to the hearers Now in this we should consider to the end such discourses may be more fruitful both what is the true end of them and the right means suiting it they are not only nor principally for the learning of some new things or the canvasing of debated questions but their chief good the warming of the heart stirring up in it love to God and remembrance of our present and after Estate our mortality and immortality and extolling the ways of Holiness and the Promises and Comforts of the Gospel and the Excellency of Jesus Christ and in these sometimes one particular sometimes another as our particular condition requires or any occasion makes them pertinent so that in those discourses seek not so much either to vent thy Knowledge or to increase it as to know more spiritually and effectually what thou do'st know And in this way those mean despised Truths that each one thinks they are sufficiently seen in will have a new sweetness and use in them which thou didst not so well perceive before for these flowers cannot be suck'd dry and in this humble sincere way thou shalt grow in Grace and in Knowledge too There is no sweeter entertainment than for Travellers to be remembring of their Country their blessed Home and the Happiness abiding them there and refreshing and encouraging one another in the hopes of it strengthening their hearts against all the hard encounters and difficulties in the way often often overlooking this moment and helping each other to higher apprehensions of that vision of God which we expect And are not such Discourses much more worthy the choosing than the base trash we usually fill one another ears withal Were our Tongues given us to exchange folly and sin or were they not fram'd for the glorifying of God and therefore are called our Glory some take it for the Soul but they must be one in this and then indeed are both our Tongues and Souls truely our Glory when they are busied in exalting his and are tun'd together to that that my Glory may sing praise to thee and not be silent Ps. 30. 12. Instead of calumnies and lies and vanities that are the carrion that Flies base minds feed on to delight in Divine Things and the extolling of God is for a Man to eat Angels Food An Excellent task for the Tongue that David chooseth Psal. 35. 28. And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long Were the day ten in one no vacant room for any unholy or offensive or seigned speech And they lose not who love to speak praise to him for he loves to speak peace to them and instead of the World's Vain-Tongue-Liberty to have such intercourse and discourse is no sad melancholy life as the World mistakes it Verse 11. Let him eschew evil and do good let him seek peace and ensue it THIS is a full and compleat Rule but this is our miserable folly to mistake so far as to embrace evil in the notion of good and not only contrary to the nature of the thing but contrary to our own experience still to be pursuing in that which is still flying further off from us catching at a vanishing shadow of delight and nothing to fasten upon but real guiltiness and misery Childish minds we have been so often gull'd and yet never grow wiser still bewitched and deluded with dreams a deceived heart a mocked or deluded heart hath turned him aside c. when we think we are surest have that hand that holds fastest our right hand upon some good and now sure we 're sped even then it proves a lie in our right hand slips through as a handful of air and proves nothing promises fair but doth but mock us as the same word is us'd by Iacob Gen. 31. 7. expressing the unfaithfulness of his Unkle that changed his ways so often but still we foolishly and madly trust it when it makes so gross a lie that we might easily if we took it to the light see through it being a lie so often discovered and of known falshood yet some new dream or guise makes it pass with us again and we go round in that Mill having our eyes out as Sampsen and still where we were perpetual fruitless toil Strange that so base deceitful lusts of sin should still keep their credit with us but the Beast hath a false Prophet at his side to commend him and set him off with new Inventions and causes us to err by his lies as it is said of the false Prophets Ier. 23. But evil 't is still not only void of all good but the very deformity and debasement of the Soul desacing in it the Divine Image of its Maker and impressing on it the vile Image of Satan and then further is
attended with shame and sorrow even at the very best 't is a sowing of the wind no solid good in it and withal a reaping of the Whirlwind vexations and horrors they that know it in the sense of this after-view attended with the wrath of an offended God ask them what they think of it if they would not in those thoughts rather chuse any trouble or pain tho great than willingly to adventure on the ways of sin Obedience is that good that beauty and comeliness of the Soul that conformity with the holy will of God that hath peace and sweetness in it the hardest of it truly delighful even in present and hereafter sully Would we learn to consider it thus to know sin to be the greatest Evil and the holy will of God the highest good it would be easie to perswade and prevail much in this to eschew the one and do the other These do not only reach the actions but require an intrinsecal aversion of the heart from sin and propesionn to holiness and love of it Eschew The very motion and bias of the Soul turn'd from sin and carried towards God and this is principally to be considered by us and enquir'd after within us an abhorrence of sin as the Scripture speaks not simple forbearing but hating and loathing it and this springing from the love of God Ye that love the Lord hate Evil you will do so cannot choose but do so and so know that Love to him to be upright and true And where this is the avoidance of sin and walking in holiness doing good will be 1. More constant not wavering with the variation of outwards of occasion or society or secrecy but going on in its natural course as the Sun is as far from the earth and goes as fast under a cloud as when 't is in our sight and goes cheerfully because from a natural principle rejoyceth as a strong Man to run Psal. 19. thus the obedience of a renewed Mind And 2. More Universal viz. of all sin as natural antipathies are against the whole kind of any thing 3. More exact keeping a far off from the very appearances of sin and from all the inducements and steps towards it and this is the true way of eschewing it Not a little time of constrain'd forbearance during a night or the day of participating of the Communion or a little time before them and some few days after them for thus with the most sin is not dispossess'd and cast out but retires inward and lurks in the heart being beset with those Ordinances knows they last but a while and therefore it gets into its strength and keeps close there till those be out of sight and disappear again and be a good way off that it thinks it self out of their danger a good many days past and then it comes forth and returns to act it self with liberty ' and with more vigour as it were to regain the time it hath been forced to lose and lie idle in They again miss in the right of this eschewing that think themselves possibly some Body in it in that they do avoid the gross sins wherein the vulgar sort of sinners wallow or do eschew such evils as they have little or no inclination of nature to but where the heart stands against sin as a breach of God's Law and an offence against His Majesty as Ioseph shall I do this evil and sin against God there it will carry against all kind of sin the most refined and the most beloved sin wherein the Truth of this aversion is most try'd and approv'd as they that have a strong natural dislike of some kind of meat dress it as you will and mingle it with what they love best yet will not willingly eat of it and if they be surpriz'd and deceiv'd some way to swallow some of it yet they will find it after and be restless till they have vomited it up again Thus is it with the heart that hath that inward contrariety to sin wrought in it by a new Nature no reconcilement with it nor with any kind of it as those deadly Feuds that were against whole Families and Names without exception No fellowship with the unfruiâ—ful works of darkness as the Apostle speaks for what agreement betwixt light and darkness And this hatred of sin works most against sin in a Man's self as in things we abhor our reluctance rises most where they are nearest us a Godly Man hates sin in others as hateful wheresoever 't is found but because 't is nearest him in himself he hates it most there They who by their nature and breading are somewhat delicate like not to see any thing uncleanly any where but least in their own House and upon their own Cloaths or skin This makes the Goldly Man indeed sly not only the Society of Evil Men but from himself goes out of his old self and till this be done a Man does not indeed sly sin but carries it still with him as an evil Companion or an evil Guide rather that misleads him still from the Paths of Life And there is much first in the true discovery and then the through disunion of the heart from that sin which is most of all a Man's self that from which he can hardliest escape that besets him most and lieth in his way on all hands hath him at every turn to disengage and get free from that to eschew that evil And the task in this is the harder if this evil be as oftentimes it may be not some gross one but more subtile that is less seen and therefore not so easily avoided but for this an impartial search must be used if it be amongst those things that seem most necessary and that cannot be wanting an Idol hid amongst the stuff yet thence must it be drawn forth and cast out The right eschewing of evil is a wary avoidance of all occasions and beginnings of it fly from sin says the Wiseman as from a Serpent not to be tampering with it and coming near it and thinking to charm it fâ—r who will not laugh at the Charmer that is bit with a Sâ—rpâ—nt as he says he that thinks he hath power and skill to handle it without danger let him observe Solomon's â—â—vice concerning the strange Woman he says not only go not into her House but remove thy way far from her and â—ome 〈◊〉 near the Door of her House So teaches he wisely for the avoiding that other sin near to it look not on â—he Wine when 't is red in the Câ—p. They that are bold and adventurous are 〈◊〉 wounded thus he that reâ—â—â—â—th 〈◊〉 shall be hurt thereby If we know our own weakness and the strength of sin we will fear to â—â—pose our selves to hazards and even abridge our selves of some things lawful when they prove dangerous for he that will do always all he lawfully may shall often do something that lawfully he may not Thus for the other
eyes upon the Righteous Now the perswasion of this Truth is the main establishment of a godly mind amidst all the present confusions that appear in things and 't is so here intended and in the Psalm and throughout the Scriptures To look upon the present flourishing and prosperity of Evil doers and distresses and sorrows of the Godly is a dark obscure matter in it self but the way to be cleared and comforted is to look above them to the Lord they loâ—k'd unto him and were lightned Psal. 34. 5. that answers all doubts to believe this undoubted providence and justice the Eye of God that sees all yea rules all these things and in the midst of all the painted happiness of Wicked Men this is enough to make them miserable the Lord's Face is against them and they shall surely find it so he hath wrath and judgement in store and will bring it forth to light will execute it in due time he is preparing for them that cup spoke of and they shall drink it so in the saddest condition of his Church and a believing Soul to know this that the Lord's eye is even then upon them and that he is upon thoughts of peace and love to them is that which settles and composes the mind Thus in that Psalm before cited it was such difficulties that did drive David's thoughts to that for satisfaction if the Foundations be destroy'd what can the righteous do in the time of such great shakings and confusions the righteous Man can do nothing to 't but the righteous Lord can do enough he can do all the righteous Lord that loveth righteousness while all seems to go upside down he is on his Throne he is trying and judging and will appear to be Judge This is the thing that a faithful Soul should learn to look to and not lose view and firm belief of and desire the Lord himself to raise their minds to it when they are like to sink Natural strength and resolution will not serve turn floods may come that will arise above that something above a man's own must support him Therefore say with David when my Spirit is overwhelm'd lead me to the Rock that is higher than I They think sometimes 't is so hard with them he regards not but he assures them the contrary Is. 49. I have graven thee upon the palms of mine hands I cannot look upon my own hands but I must remember thee and thy walls are continually before me this is that the Spouse seeks for set me as a Seal upon thine Arm Cant. 8. Now a little more particularly to consider the Expressions and their Scope here how is it made good that the former words teach that they that walk in the ways of wickedness can expect no good are certainly miserable Thus the face of the Lord is against them Prosper they may in their Affairs and Estates may have Riches and Posterity and Friends and the World caressing them and smiling on them on all hands but there is that one thing that damps all the Face of the Lord is against them this they feel not indeed for the time 't is an invisible ill out of sight and out of mind with them but there is a time of the appearing of this Face of the Lord against them the revelation of his just Iudgment as the Apostle speaks sometimes precursory days of it here but however one great prefixed day a day of darkness to them indeed wherein they shall know what this is that now founds so light to have the Face of the Lord against them a look of it more terrible than all present miseries combined together what then shall the Eternity of it be to be punished as the Apostle speaks with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his Power Are we not then impertinent foolish Creatures that are so thoughtful how our poor businesses here succeed with us and how we are accounted of in the World and how the faces of men are towards us and scarce ever enter into a secret serious enquiry how the countenance of God is to us whether favourably shining on us or still angrily set against us as it is against all impenitent sinners The Face of the Soul being towards God turn'd away from the World and Sin argues to it that his Face is not against it but that he hath graciously look'd upon it and by a look of love hath drawn it towards himself for we act not first in that non amatur Deus nisi de Deo 't is he that prevents us and by the beam of his kindles love in our hearts Now the Soul that 's thus set towards him it may be doth not constantly see here his face shining full and clear upon it but often clouded it may be hath not not yet at all seen it sensibly yet this it may conclude seeing my desires are toward him and my chief desire is the sweet light of his countenance though as yet I find not his face shining on me yet I am perswaded it is not set against me to destroy me Misbelief when the Soul is much under and distemper'd may suggest this sometimes too but yet still there is some spark of hope that it is otherwise and that the eye of the Lord's pity is even in that estate upon us and will in time manifest it self to be so To the other what assurance have the Godly for that seeing of good these blessings you speak of This the Eyes of the Lord are upon them and his Ears open to their prayer if you think him wise enough to know what is good for them and rich enough to afford it they are sure of one thing he loves them they have his good will his heart is towards them and therefore his Eye and his Ear can they then want any good If many Days and outward good things be indeed good for them they cannot miss of these he hath given them already much better things than these come to and hath yet far better in in store for them and what way soever the World go with them this it self is happiness enough that they are in his love whose loving kindness is better than Life sweet days have they that live in it what better days would a Courtier wish than to be still in the eye and savour of the King to be certain of his good will towards them and to know of access and of a gracious acceptance of all their Suits Now thus it is with all the Servants of the great King without prejudice one to another he is ready to receive their Requests and able and willing to do them all good Happy estate of a Believer he must not account himself poor and destitute in any condition for he hath favour at Court he hath the Kings eye and his ear the eyes of the Lord are upon him and his ears open to his prayers The Eyes This hath in it 1. His love the
in the World trades with Heaven and what is most precious there And as Holiness fits to Prayer so Prayer befriends Holiness increases it much nothing so regines and purifies the Soul as frequent Prayer if the often conversing with Wise Men doth so teach and advance the Soul in Wisdom what then will the converse of God This makes the Soul to despise the things of the World and in a manner makes it Divine winds up the Soul from the Earth acquainting it with delights that are infinitely sweeter The natural heart is full stuff'd with prejudices against the way of Holiness that disswade and detain it and therefore the holy Scriptures are most fitly much in this point of asserting the true advantage of it to the Soul And in removing those mistakes it has of that way Thus here and to press it the more home the Apostle used the Psalmists words and Ver. 10. c. and now follows it forth in his own the particular way of meekness and love c. But extends in the general Doctrine to all the paths of righteousness The main conclusion is that Happiness is the certain consequent and fruit of Holiness All good even outward good so far as it holds good and prejudges not a higher good If we did believe this more we should feel it more and so upon feeling and experiment believe it more strongly All the heavy judgements we feel or fear are they not the fruit of our own ways or prophaneness and pride and malice and abounding ungodliness all cry out of hard times evil days and yet who is taking the right way to better them yea who is not still helping to make them worse our selves the greatest enemies of our own peace Who looks either rightly backward reflects on his former ways or rightly forward to direct his way better that is before him either says what have I done or what ought I to do and indeed the one of these depends on the other I consider'd my ways says David turn'd them over and over as the word is and then I turn'd my feet unto thy testimonies Are there any for all the Judgements fallen on us or that threatens us returning apace with regret and hatred of sin hastening unto God and mourning and weeping as they go bedewing each step with their tears yea where that newness of Life that the word so long and now the word and the rod together are so loud calling for Who more reforming his Tongue from evil and lips from guile changing Oaths and Lyes and Calumnies into a new Language into Prayers and reverend speaking of God and joyning a sutable consonant carriage eschewing evil and doing good labouring to be fertile in Holiness to bring forth much fruit to God This were the way to see good days indeed this is the way to the longest Life the only long Life and length of Days one eternal Day as St. Augustine on these words one Day in thy Courts is better than a thousand Millia dierum desiderant Homines multum volunt hic vivere contemnant millâ—a dierum desiderent unum qui non habet ortum occasum cui non cedit hesternus quem non urget crastinus The reason added is above all exception 't is supreme the eyes of the Lord c. If he that made times and seasons and commands and formes them as he will if he can give good Days or make Men happy then the only way to it sure must be the way of his obedience to be in the constant favour of the great King and still in his gracious thoughts to have his eye and his ear if this will serve turn and if this do it not I pray you what will then the righteous Man is the only happy Man for the eyes of the Lord are upon him Surer happy Days hence than theirs that draw them from the aspect of the Stars the Eyes of the Father of Lights benignity beholding them the trine aspect of the blessed Trinity The love he carries to them draws his eye still towards them no forgetting of them nor slipping of the sit season to do them good his Mind I may say runs on that he sees how 't is with them and receives their suits gladly rejoyces to pâ—t favours upon them He is their assured friend yea he is their Father what can they want they cannot miss of any good that his love and power can help them to But his Face c. So our happiness and misery are in his Face his looks Nothing so comfortable as his favourable Face nothing so terrible again as his Face his anger as the Hebrew word is often taken that signifies his Face And yet how many sleep sound under this misery but believe it 't is a dead and a deadly sleep the Lord standing in terms of enmity with thee and yet thy Soul at case pitiful accursed ease I regard not the differences of your outward estate that 's not a thing worth the speaking of if thou be poor and base and in the Worlds eye but a wretch and with all under the hatred of God as being an impenitent hardned sinner those other things are nothing this is the top yea the total sum of thy misery or be thou beautiful or rich or noble or witty c. or all these together or what thou will but is the Face of the Lord against thee think as thou wilt thy estate is not to be envyed but lamented I cannot say much good do it thee with all thy enjoyments for 't is sure they can do thee no good and if thou doest not believe this now the Day is at hand wherein thou shalt be forc'd to believe it finding it then irrecoverably true If you will you may still follow the things of the World walk after the lusts of your own hearts neglect God and please your selves but as Solomons word is of judgement remember that the Face of the Lord is against thee and in that judgement it shall unvail it and let thee see it against thee Oh! the terriblest of all sights The Godly often do not see the Lord's favourable looks while he is eying them and the wicked usually do not see nor perceive neither will believe that his Face is against them but besides that the day of full discovery is a coming the Lord doth sometimes let both the one and the other know somewhat how he stands affected towards them in peculiar deliverances and mercies Tells his own that he forgets them not but both sees and hears them when they think he does neither after that loving and gracious manner they desire and is here meant and sometimes le ts forth glances of his bright countenance darts in a beam upon their Souls that is more worth than many Worlds And on the otherside he is pleased sometimes to make it known that his Face is against the wicked either by remarkable outward judgements which to them are the vent of
for his Companion against evil and troubleous times if moral Integrity went so far as truly it did much in some men that had much of it that they scorn'd all hard Encounters and esteemed this a sufficient Bulwark a strength impregnable Hic murus Aheneus esto nil conscire sibi how much more the Christians good Conscience which alone is truly such 2. As the Christian may thus look inward and rejoyce in tribulation so there is another look upward that is here likewise mention'd that allays very much all the sufferings of the Saints If such be the will of God The Christian mind hath still one eye to this above the hand of men and all inferiour causes in suffering whether for the name of God or otherwise Looks on the Sovereign will of God and sweetly complies with that in all Neither is there any thing that doth more powerfully compose and quiet the mind than this makes it invincibly firm and content when it hath attained this resignment of it self to the will of God to agree to that in every thing This is the very thing wherein tranquility of spirit lies it is no riddle nor hard to understand yet few attain it And I pray you what is thus gained by our reluctancies and repinings but pain to our selves he doth what he will whether we consent or no our disagreeing doth not prejudge his Purposes but our own Peace if we will not be led we are drawn we must suffer if he will but if we will what he wills even in suffering that makes it sweet and easie when our mind goes along with his and we willingly move with that stream of Providence which will carry us with it though we row against it and we still have nothing but toyl and weariness for our pains But this hard Argument of Necessity is needless to the Child of God perswaded of the Wisdom and Love of his Father knows that to be truly best for him that his hand reaches Sufferings are unpleasant to the flesh and it will grumble but the Voice of the Spirit of God in his Children is that of that good King good is the Will of the Lord let him do with me as seems good in his eyes My foolish heart would think these things I suffer might be abated but my wise and heavenly Father thinks otherwise he hath his design of honour to himself and good to me in these which I would be loath to cross if I might I may do God more service by these advantages but doth not he know best what fits cannot he advance his Grace more by the want of these things I desire than I could do my self by having them cannot he make me a gainer by Sickness and Poverty and Disgraces and loss of Friends and Children by making up all in himself and teaching me more of his all-sufficiency yea even concerning the Affairs of my Soul I am to give up all to his good pleasure though desiring the light of his countenance above all things in this World yet if he see it fit to hide it sometimes if that be his will let me not murmur there is nothing lost by this obedient temper yea what way soever he deals with us there is much more advantage in it No Soul shall enjoy so much in all estates as that which hath devested and renounced it self and hath no will but Gods Verse 18. 18. For Christ hath also once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but quickened by the Spirit THE whole Life of a Christian is a steady aiming at Conformity with Christ so that in any thing whether doing or suffering there can be no Argument so apposite and perswasive as his Example and no obedience either active or passive so difficult but the representment of that Example will powerfully sweeten it The Apostle doth not decline the often use of it here we have it thus for Christ also suffered Though the Doctrine of Christian suffering is the occasion of speaking of Christ's suffering yet he insists on it beyond the simple necessity of that Argument for its own excellency and further usefulness so we shall consider the double capacity 1. As an encouragement and engagement for Christians to suffer 2. As the great point of their Faith whereon all their Hopes and Happiness depends being the means of their reduction to God The sufferings of Christ being duely considered doth much temper all the sufferings of Christians especially such as are directly for Christ. 1. It is some known ease to the mind in any distress to look upon Examples of the like or greater distress in present or former times It diverts the eye from continual poreing on our own suffering and when we return to view it again it lessens it abates of the imagined bulk and greatness of it Thus publick thus Spiritual troubles and particularly the sufferings and tentations of the Godly by the consideration of this as their common lot their high way not new in the Person of any 1 Cor. 10. 13. If we trace the Lives of the most eminent Saints shall we not find every notable step that is recorded marked with a new cross one trouble following on another as the Waves do in an uncessant succession And is not this manifest in the Life of Abraham and of Iacob and the rest of God's Worthies in the Scriptures and doth not this make it an unreasonable absurd thought to dream of an exemption would any one have a new untroden way cut out for him free of Thorns and strewed with Flowers all along no contradictions nor hard measure from the World or imagine that there may be such a dexterity necessary as to keep its good will and the friendship of God too this will not be and its an universal conclusion all that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution this is the Path to the Kingdom that which all the Sons of God the Heirs of it have gone in even Christ as that known word is one son without sin but none without suffering Christ also suffered The example and company of the Saints in suffering is very considerable but that of Christ is more than any other yea than all the rest together Therefore the Apostle having represented the former at large ends in this as the top of all Heb. 12. 1 2. There is a race set before us it is to be run and run with patience and without fainting now he tells us of a cloud of Witnesses a cloud made up of instances of Believers suffering before us and the heat of the day wherein we run is somewhat cooled even by that Cloud compassing us But the main strength of their comfort here lyes in beholding of Christ eying of his sufferings and their Issue The considering and contemplating of him will be the strongest cordial will keep you from wearying and fainting in the way v. 3.
be filthy still in the sight of God There is such a Generation a Multitude of them that is pure in their own Eyes and yet are not washed from their filthiness Moral evil persons that are most satisfied with their own estate or such as have further a form of Godliness but their lusts not mortified by the power of it secret pride and earthliness of Mind and vain glory and carnal wisdom still pleasingly entertained within these are foul Pollutions filthy and hateful in the sight of God so that where it is thus that the heart is peaceably possest with such guests there the blood and Spirit of Christ are not yet come neither can there be this answer of a Good Conscience unto God This answer of a Good Conscience unto God as likewise its questioning to enable it self for that answer is touching two great points that are of chief concern to their Soul its Iustification and Sanctification for Baptism is the Seal of both and purges the Conscience in both respects that water as the figure both of the blood and water the justifying blood of Christ and the pure water of the sanctifying Spirit of Christ takes away the condemning guiltiness of sin by the one and the polluting filthiness by the other Now the Conscience of a real Believer enquiring within upon right discovery will make this answer unto God Lord I have found that there is no standing before thee for the Soul in it self is overwhelmed with a World of guiltiness but I find a blood sprinkled upon it that hath I am sure vertue enough to purge it all away and to present it pure unto thee and I know that wheresoever thou findest that blood sprinkled thine anger is quench'd and appealed presently upon the sight of it That hand cannot smite where that blood is before thine eye And this the Lord does agree to and authorises the Conscience upon this account to return back an answer of safety and peace to the Soul So for the other Lord I find a living Work of holiness on this Soul though there is yet corruption there yet it is as a continual grief and vexation it s an implacable hatred there is no peace betwixt them but continual enmity and hostility and if I cannot say much of the high degrees of Grace and faith in Christ and love to him and heavenliness of Mind yet I may say there is a beginning of those at least this I most confidently affirm that there are real and earnest desires of the Soul in these things It would know and conform to thy will and be delivered from it self and its own will and though it were to the highest displeasure of all the World it would gladly walk in all well pleasing unto thee And he that sees the truth of these things knowing it to be thus owns it as his own work and engages himself to advance it on and bring it to perfection This is a taste of that intercourse the purified Conscience hath with God as the saving fruit of Baptism And all this it doth not of it self but by vertue of the resurrection of Jesus Christ which refers both to the utmost effect Salvation and the nearer effect as a means and pledge of that the purging of the Conscience By this his Death and the effusion of his Blood in his sufferings are not excluded but are included in it His Resurrection being the evidence of all that work of Expiation both compleated and accepted full Payment made by our Surety and so he set free and his Freedom the Cause and the Assurance of ours Therefore the Apostle St. Paul expresses it so That he died for our sins and rose for our righteousness and our Apostle shews us the worth of our living hope in this same resurrection Chap. 1. v. 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Iesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Iesus Christ from the dead Now that Baptism doth apply and seal to the Believer his Interest in the death and resurrection of Christ the Apostle St. Paul teaches to the full Rom. 8. 3. The dipping into the waters our dying with him and the return thence our rising with him The last thing is the resemblance of Baptism in these things with the saving of Noah in the Flood and it holds in that we spoke last of for he seemed to have rather entred into a Grave as dead than into a safeguard of Life in going into the Ark yet there being buried he rose again as it were in his coming forth to begin a new World The Waters of the Flood drown'd the Ungodly as a heap of filthiness washt them away they and their sin together as one being inseparable and upon the same Waters the Ark floating preserved Noah Thus the Waters of Baptism are intended as a deludge to drown Sin and to save the Believer that by Faith is separated both from the World and from his Sin so it sinks and he is saved And there is further one thing specified by the Apostle wherein though it be a little hard yet chiefly intends the paralel The fewness of these that are sav'd by both for though many are sprinkled with the Elemental Water of Baptism yet few so as to attain by it the Answer of a good Conscience towards God and to live by participance of the Resurrection and Life of Christ. Thou that seest the World perishing in a deluge of Wrath and art now most thoughtful for this how thou shalt escape it fly into Christ as thy safety and rest secure there thou shalt find life in his death and that life further ascertained to you in his rising again so full and clear a Title to Life in these two that thou canst challenge all Adversaries upon this very Ground as unconquerable whilest thou standest on it and speak thy challenge in the Apostles stile It is God that justifieth who shall condemn But how know you that he justifies it is Christ that died yea rather that is risen who sitteth at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us It alludes to that place Isa. 50. where Christ speaks of himself but in the name of all that adhere to him he is near that justifies me who is he that will contend with me so that what Christ speaks there the Apostle with good reason imparts to each Believer as in him If no more to be laid to Christ's charge being now acquitted as is clear by his rising again then neither to thine who art cloathed with him and one with him This the grand Answer of a good Conscience and in point of justifying them before God no answer but this What have any to say to thee thy debt is paid by him that undertook it he is free answer all accusations with this Christ is risen And then for the mortifying of sin and strengthing of thy Graces look daily on that
that was posed lovest thou me Lord I appeal to thine own eye who seest my heart Lord thou knowest that I love thee at least I desire to love thee and to desire thee and that is love Willingly would I do thee more sutable service and honour thy name more and do desire more Grace for this that thou maist have more Glory and intreat the light of thy Countenance for this end that by seeing it my heart may be more weaned from the World and knit unto thy self thus it answers touching its inward frame and the work of holiness by the Spirit of holiness dwelling in it But to answer Justice touching the point of guilt it flies to the blood fetches all its answer thence turns over the matter upon it and answers for it for it doth speak and speaks better things than the blood of Abel speaks full payment of all that can be exacted from the sinner and that 's a sufficient answer The Conscience is then in this point once made speechless driven to a nonplus in it self hath from it self no answer to make then turns about to Christ and finds what to say Lord there is indeed in me nothing but guiltiness I have deserved death but I have fled into the City of refuge thou hast appointed there I resolve to abide to live and die there if Justice pursue me it shall send me there I take sanctuary in Jesus my arrest laid upon me will light upon him and he hath wherewithal to answer it He can straightway declare he hath pay'd all and can make it good hath the acquittance to shew yea his own liberty is a real sign of it he was in Prison and is let free which tells all is satisfied Therefore the answer here rises out of the resurrection of Iesus Christ. And in this very thing lies our peace and way and all our happiness Oh! its worth your time and pains to try your interest in this it is the only thing worthy your highest diligence But the most are out of their wits running like a number of distracted Persons and still in a deal of business but to what end they know not You are unwilling to be deceived in those things that at their best and surest do but deceive you when all is done But content to be deceived in that your great concernment You are your own deceivers in it gladly gull'd with shadows of faith and repentance false touches of sorrow and and false of Joy and are not careful to have your Souls really unbottom'd from themselves and built upon Christ to have him your treasure your righteousness your all and to have him your answer unto God your Father But if you will yet be advised let go all to lay hold on him lay your Souls on him and leave him not he is a tried Foundation Stone and he that trusts on him shall not be confounded Verse 22. 22. Who is gone into Heaven and is on the right hand of God Angels and Authorities and Powers being made subject to him THIS is added on purpose to shew us further what he is how high and glorious a Saviour we have Here four points or steps of the Exaltment of Christ. 1. Resurrection from the Dead 2. Ascension into Heaven 3. Sitting at the right Hand of God 4. In that Posture his Royal Authority over the Angels The particulars clear in themselves Of the sitting at the right Hand of God you are not ignorant that it is a borrowed Expression drawn from Earth to Heaven to bring down some Notion of Heaven to us to signifie to us in our Language suitably to our Customs the Supream Dignity of Jesus Christ God and Man the Mediator of the New Covenant his matchless nearness unto his Father and the Sovereignty given him over Heaven and Earth And that of the subjection of Angels is but a more particular specifying of that his Dignity and Power as enthron'd at the Father's right Hand they being the most elevated and glorious Creatures so his Authority over all the World implyed in that subjection of the highest and noblest part of it His Victory and Triumph over the Angels of Darkness is an evidence of his Invincible Power and Greatness and matter of Comfort to his Saints but this here is his Supremacy over the glorious Elect Angels That there is amongst them Priority we find that there is a comely order in their differences cannot be doubted but to marshal their Degrees and Stations above is a point not only of vain fruitless Curiosity but of presumptuous intrusion whether these are names of their different particular Dignities or only different names of their general Excellency and Power as I think it cannot be certainly well determin'd so it imports us not to determine only this we know and are particularly taught from this place that whatsoever is their common Dignity both in names and differences they are all subject to our glorious Head Christ. What Confirmation they have in their Estate by him though piously asserted by Divines is not so infallibly clear from the alledged Scriptures which may bear another sense But this is certain that he is their King and they acknowledge him so and do incessantly admire and adore him they rejoyce in his glory and in the glory and happiness of Mankind through him they yield him most cheerful obedience and serve him readily in the good of his Church and each particular Believer as he deputes and imploys them Which is the thing here intended having in it these two 1 His Dignity above them 2. His Authority over them 1. Dignity that even that Nature which he stoopt below them to take on he hath carried up and raised it above them the very Earth the flesh of Man exalted in his Person above all those heavenly Spirits who are of so excellent and pure a Being in their Nature and from the beginning of the World cloathed with so transcendent Glory that a parcel of Clay is made so bright and set so high to outshine these bright flaming Spirits these Stars of the Morning that flesh being united to the Fountain of Light the blessed Deity in the Person of the Son In coming to fetch and put on this Garment he made himself lower than the Angels but carrying it with him at his return to his eternal Throne and sitting down with it there it is high above them as the Apostle teaches excellently and amply Heb. 1. 2. To which of them said he sit on my right Hand This they look upon with perpetual Wonder but not with envy nor repining no amongst all their eyes no such eye to be found yea they rejoyce in the infinite Wisdom of God in this Design and his infinite Love to poor lost Mankind its wonderful indeed to to see him filling the room of their fallen Brethren with new guests from Earth yea such as are born Heirs of Hell not only thus sinful Man raised to a participance of Glory with them
he likes and desires and alters not so now thou knowest whom thou hast to do withal and what to do whom to please and what will please him and this cannot but much settle thy mind and put thee to ease and thou maist say heartily as rejoycing in the change of so many for one and such for such a one as the Church says Isa. 26 13. O Lord our God other Lords beside thee have had dominion over me but now by thee only will I make mention of thy name now none but thy self not so much as the name of them any more away with them through thy Grace thou only shalt be my God It cannot endure any thing be named with thee Now that it may be thus that we may wholly live to the will of God we must know his will what it is Persons grosly ignorant of God and of his will cannot live to him we cannot have fellowship with him and walk in darkness for he is light This takes off a great many amongst us that have not so much as a common Notion of the Will of God but besides that Knowledge which is a part and I may say the first part of the renewed Image of God is not a Natural Knowledge of Spiritual Things meerly attained by human teaching or industry but it s a beam of God's own issuing from himself both enlightening and enlivening the whole Soul gains the affection and stirs to action and so indeed it acts and increases by acting for the more we walk according to that of the Will of God which we know the more we shall be advanced to know more that is the real proving what is his good and holy and acceptable will Rom 12. 2. so says Christ if any will do the Will of my Father he shall know of the Doctrine our lying off from the lively use of known Truth keeps us low in the Knowledge of God and Communion with him 2. So then upon that Knowledge of God's Will where it is Spiritual and from himself follows the suiting of the Heart with it the affections taking the stamp of it and agreeing with it receiving the Truth in the love of it the Heart transformed into it and now not driven to obedience violently but sweetly moving to it by love within the Heart framed to the love of God and so of his Will 3. As Divine Knowledge begets this affection so this affection will bring forth action real obedience For these three are inseparably linkt and dependant on the product of another in this way the affection is not blind but flowing from knowledge nor actual obedience constrained but flowing from affection and the affection is not idle seeing it brings forth obedience nor the knowledge dead seeing it begets affection Thus the renewed the living Christian is all for God a sacrifice entirely offer'd up to God and a living sacrifice lives to God Takes no more notice of his own carnal will hath renounc't that to embrace the holy will of God and therefore though there is a contrary Law and will in him yet he does not acknowledge it but only the Law of Christ as now establisht in him that Law of Love by which he is sweetly and willingly led Real Obedience consults not now in his ways with Flesh and Blood what will please them but only enquires what will please his God and knowing his mind thus resolves to demur no more nor to ask consent of any other that he will do and its reason enough to him my Lord will's it therefore in his strength I will do it for now I live to his will it is my Life to study and obey it Now we know what is the true Character of the redeemed of Christ that they are freed from the service of themselves and of the World yea dead to it and have no Life but for God as all his Let this then be our study and ambition to attain this and to grow in it to be daily further freed from all other ways and desires and more wholly addicted to the will of our God displeased when we find any thing else stir or move within us but that that he Spring of our Motion in every work 1. Because we know his Soveraign Will and most justly so is the Glory of his Name therefore not to rest till this be set up in our view as our end in all and to count all our plausible doings as hateful as indeed they are that are not aimed at this end yea endeavouring to have it as much frequent and express before us as we can attain still our eye on the mark throwing away yea undoing our own interest not seeking our selves in any thing but him in all 2. As living to his will in the end of all so in all the way to every step of it For we cannot attain his end but in his way nor can we intend it without a resignation of the way to his prescript taking all our directions from him how we shall honour him in all The Soul that lives to him hath enough not only to make any thing warrantable but amiable to seek his will and not only does it but delights to do it that 's to live to him to find it our life as we speak of a work wherein Men do most and with most deligh employ themselves In that such a lust be Crucified is it thy will Lord then no more advising no more delay how dear soever that was when I lived to it it is now as hateful seeing I live to thee who it thou hatest Wilt thou have me â—orget an injury though a great one and love the person that hath wronged me While I lived to my self and my passions this had been hard But now how sweet is it seeing I live to thee and am glad to be put upon things most opposite to my corrupt heart glad to trample upon my own will to follow thine and this I daily aspire to and aim at to have no will of my own but that thine be in me that I may live to thee as one with thee and thou my rule and delight Yea not to use the very natural comforts of my Life but for thee to eat and drink and sleep for thee and not to please my self but to be enabled to serve and please thee to make one offering of my self and all my actions to thee my Lord. Oh! it s the only sweet life to be living thus and daily learning to live more fully thus it is Heaven this a little scantling of it here and a pledge of whole Heaven this is indeed the life of Christ not only like his but one with his it is his Spirit his Life derived into the Soul And therefore both the most excellent and certainly most permanent for he dieth no more and therefore this his Life cannot be extinguisht hence is the perseverance of the Saints Because being one Life with Christ alive unto God one for all for
of a ready memory nor rich invention acting it self in the performance these may draw a neat picture of it but still the life is wanting The motion of the Heart Godwards holy and divine affection makes prayer real and lively and acceptable to the Living God to whom it is presented the pouring out of thy heart to him that made it and therefore hears it and understands what it speaks and how it s moved and affected in calling on him It is not the guilded Paper and good writing of a Petition that prevailes with a Man but the moving Sense of it and to the King that discerns the heart heart sense is the sense of all and that which he alone regards listens what that speaks and takes all as nothing where that is silent all other excellence iâ— prayer is but the outside and fashion of it that is the life of it Though Prayer precisely taken is only petition yet in its â—uller and usual sense it comprises the vent of our humble sense of vileness and sin in the sincere confession and the extolling withal and praising the holy name of our God his excellency and goodness and thankful acknowledgment of received mercies Of these sweet ingredient perfumes is the incense of prayer composed and by the divine fire of love ascends unto God the Heart and all with it and when the Hearts of the Saints unite in joynt prayer the Pillar of sweet smoke goes up the greater and fuller Thus says that Song of the Spouse going up from the Wilderness as Pillars of smoak perfumed with Myrrh and Frankincense and all the Powders of the Merchant and as the word there signifies streight Pillars like the tallest streightest kind of trees Indeed the sincerity and unfeignedness of prayer makes it go up as a streight Pillar no crookedness in it tending streight towards Heaven and bowing to no side by the way Oh! the single and fixed viewing of God as in other ways it is the thing makes all holy and sweet so particularly in this Divine Work of Prayer It is true we have to deal with a God who of himself needs not this our pains either to inform or excite him he fully knows our thoughts before we express them and our wants before we feel them or think of them Nor doth his affection and gracious bent to do his Children good wax remiss or admit the least abate and forgetfulness of them But instead of necessity on God's part which cannot be imagined we shall find that Equity and that singular Dignity and Utility of it on our part which cannot be denied 1. Equity that thus the Creaturesignifie his homage to and dependance on his Creator for his being and well-being takes all the good he enjoys or expects from that Sovereign Good declaring himself unworthy waiting for all upon the terms of free goodness and acknowledging all from that Spring 2. Dignity Man was made for communion with God his Maker 't is the Excellency of his Nature to be capable of this end the happiness of it to be raised to enjoy it Now in nothing more in this Life is this communion actually and highly enjoyed than in the exercise of prayer that he may freely impart his affairs and estate and wants to God as the faithfullest and powerfullest Friend the richest and lovingest Father may use the liberty of a Child telling his Father what he stands in need of and desires and communing with him with humble confidence admitted to so frequent presence with so great a King 3. The Vtility of it 1. Easing the Soul in times of strait when it is prest with griefs and fears giving the vent and that in so advantageous a way emptying them into the bosom of God The very vent were it but into the Air gives ease or speak it to a Statue rather than smother it much more ease poured forth into the lap of a Confident and sympathising Friend though unable to help yet much more of one that can and of all Friends our God the surest and most affectionate and most powerful so Isa. 63. 9. both compassion and effectual salvation exprest In all their affliction he was afflicted and the Angel of his presence saved them in his love and in his pity he redeemed them and he bare them and carried them all the days of old And so resting on his Love Power and gracious Promises quiets it self in God upon this assurance that it s not vain to seek him and that he despiseth not the sighing of the poor 2. The Soul is more spiritually affected with its own condition by opening it up before the Lord more deeply sensible of sin and ashamed in his sight in confessing it before him more dilated and enlarged to receive the mercies suited for as the opening wide of the mouth of the soul that it may be filled more disposed to observe the Lord in answering and to bless him and trust on him upon the renewed experiences of his regard to their distresses and desires 3. All the Graces of the Spirit in Prayer are stirr'd and acted and by acting strengthned and increased Faith in applying the Divine Promises which are the very Ground that the Soul goes upon to God and Hope looking out to their performance and Love particularly expressing it self in that sweet converse and delighting in it as love doth in the company of the Person loved thinks all hours too short in speaking with him Oh how the Soul is refresht with freedom of Speech with its beloved Lord and as it delights in that so it is continually advanced and grows by each meeting and conference beholding the excellency of God and relishing the pure and sublime pleasures that is in near communion with him looking upon the Father in the face of Christ and using him as a mediator in prayer as still it must is drawn to further admiration of that bottomless love that found that way of agreement that new and living way of our access when all was shut up and we to have been shut out for ever And then the affectionate expressions of that reflex love to find that vent in prayer do kindle higher as it were â—ann'd and blown up rise to a greater and higher and purer flame and so tend upwards the more strongly David as he doth profess his love to God in Prayer in his Psalms so no doubt it grew in the expressing I will love thee O Lord my strength Psal 18. and Psal. 116. doth raise an incentive of love out of this very consideration of the correspondence of prayers I love the Lord because he hath heard and resolves thereafter upon persistence in that course therefore will I call upon him as long as I live And as the Graces of the Spirit are advanced in prayer by their actings so for this reason further because prayer sets the soul particularly near unto God in Jesus Christ 't is then in his presence and being much with God in this way it is
united by that purest and strongest tie as you are one in your head in your life derived from him in your hopes of glory with him seek to be more one in heart in fervent love one to another in him Consider the combinements and concurrences of the wicked against him and his little flock and let this provoke you to more united affections Shall the Scales of Leviathan as one alludes stick so close together and shall not the Members of Christ be more one and undivided you that can resent it stir up your selves to bewail the present divisions and fears of more suit earnestly for that one Spirit to act and work more powerfully in the hearts of his people 2dly The eminent degree of this love 1. It s eminency amongst Graces above all 2. The high measure of it required fervent love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a high bent or strain of it that which acts strongly and carries far 1. 'T is eminent that which indeed among Christians preserves all and knits all together therefore called Col. 3. the bond of perfection all bound up by it How can they pray together advance the name of their God keep in and stir up all Grace in one another unless they be united in love how can they have access to God or fellowship with him who is love as St. Iohn speaks if instead of this sweet temper there be rancours and bitterness amongst them so then uncharity and divisions amongst Christians doth not only hinder their civil good but their spiritual much more and that not only lucro cessante as they speak interrupting the ways of mutual profiting but damno emergente it doth really damage them and brings them to losses preys upon their Graces as hot withering winds on Herbs and Plants where the Heart entertains either bitter malice or but uncharitable prejudices there will be a certain decay of spiritualness in the whole Soul 2. Again for the degree of this love required it is not a cold indifferency a negative love as I may call it or not willing of evil nor a lukewarm wishing of good but fervent and active love for if fervent it will be active a fire will not be smother'd it will find way to extend it self 3. The Fruits of this Love follow 1. Covering of evil in this verse 2. Doing of good verse 9. c. Covers This from Solomon and here as it s represented to be thus done as a main act of love so love is commended by it as a most useful and laudible act of it covers sins and a multitude of sins Solomon saith as the Opposition clears the Sense hatred stirs strife aggravates and makes the worst of all but love covers a multitude of sins delights not in undue disclosing of Brethrens failings doth not eye them rigidly nor expose them willingly to the eyes of others Now this commends charity in regard of its continual usefullness and necessity this way considering human frailty and that in many things as St. Iames speaks we all offend so that this is still needful on all hands what do they think that are still picking at every appearing infirmity of their Brethren know they not that the frailties that cleave to the Saints of God while they are here doth stand in need of and call for this mutual office of love to cover and pass by who is there that stands not in need of this if none why are there any that deny it to others there can be no society nor entertaining of Christian converse without it giving as we speak the allowance reckoning to meet with defects and weaknesses on all hands covering the failings one of another seeing its needful from each to another Again as the necessity of this commends it and the love whence it flows so there is that laudible ingenuity in it that should draw us to the liking of it 't is the bent of the basest and worthlessest Spirits to be busie in the search and discovery of others failings passing by all that is commendable and imitable as base Flies readily sitting on any little sore they can find rather than upon the sound parts but the more Excellent Mind of a real Christian loves not unnecessarily to touch no nor to look upon them rather turns away never uncover their Brothers sore but to cure it and no more than of necessity must be for that end would willingly have them hid that neither they nor others might see them This bars not the judicial trial of scandalous offences nor the delation of them and bringing them under due censure the forbearing of this is not charity but both iniquity and cruelty and this cleaves too much to many of us they that cannot pass the least touch of a wrong done to themselves can digest twenty high injuries done to God by prophane persons about them and resent it not and such may be assured they are yet destitute of love to God and of Christian love to their Brethren which springs from it The uncovering of sin necessary to the curing of it is not only no breach of charity but is indeed a main point of charity and the neglect of it the highest kind of cruelty But further then that goes certainly this rule teaches the veiling of our Brethrens infirmities from the eyes of others and even from our own that we look not on them with rigour no nor without compassion First Love is witty in finding out the fairest constructions of things doubtful and this is a great point Take me the best action that can be named pride and malice shall find a way to disgrace it and put a hard visage on 't Again what is not undeniably evil love will turn all the ways of viewing it till it find the best and most favourable 2. Where the thing is so a sin that this way of covering it can have no place yet then will love consider what may lessen it most whether a surprize or strength of tentation or ignorance as our Saviour Father forgive them for they know not what they do or natural complexion or at least will still take in humane frailty to turn all the bitterness of passion into sweet compassion 3. All private reproofs and where conscience requires publick delation and censure even these will be sweetned in that compassion that slows from love if such a sore as must not be let lie covered up least it prove deadly so that it must be uncovered to be lanc't and cut that it may be cur'd this to be done as loving the Soul of the Brother Where the rule of consciences urges it not then thou must bury it and be so far from delighting to divulge such things that as far as without partaking in it thou mayest thou must veil it from all eyes and try the way of private admonition and if the party appear to be humble and willing to be reclaimed then forget it cast it quite out of thy thoughts that as much as may
The Apostle St. Paul 2. Timoth. 3. 2. tells that in the last days Men shall be covetous slanderers lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God But how from whence all this confluence of evils The spring of all set first and that is the direct opposite of Christian love they shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lovers of themselves This is it that kills the love of God and the love of our Brethren and kindles that infernal fire of love to please themselves riches make Men voluptuous and covetous c. Truly whatsoever become of Mens curious compute of times this wretched selfness and decay of love may save us this labour of much Chronological debate in this and the certain character of them conclude these to be the latter times in a very strict sense All other sins are come down along and run combined now but truly uncharity is the main one as old age is a rendevouze or meeting place of maladies but especially subject to cold diseases thus is it in the old Age of the World many sins but especially coldness of love as our Saviour foretells it that in the last days the love of many shall wax cold as the diseases of the youth of the World was the abounding of last Gen. 6. so of its Age decay of love and as that heat called for a total deluge of waters so this coldness for fire to the kindling an universal fire that shall make an end of it and the World together But they 〈◊〉 are the happy Men and have the advantage of all the World in whom the World is burnt up before hand by another fire that Divine Fire of the love of God kindled in their hearts by which they ascend up to him and are reflected from him upon their Brethren with a benign heat and influence for their good Oh! be unsatisfied with your selves and reâ—dess till you find it thus your hearts possest with this excellent grace of love that you may have it and use it and it may grow by using and acting I could methinks heartily study on this and weary you with the iterated pressing this one thing if there were hopes in so wearying you to weary you out of these evils that are contrary to it and in pressing this grace to make any real impression of it upon your hearts besides all the further good that follows it there is in this love it self so much peace and sweetness that aboundantly pays it self and all the labour of it whereas pride and malice do fill the heart with continual vexations and disquietness and eat out the very bowels wherein they breed Aspire to this to be wholy bent not only to procure or desire hurt to none but to wish and seek the good of all and for those that are in Christ sure that will unite thy heart to them and stir thee up according to thy opportunities and power to do them good as parts of Christ of the same body with thy self Verse 10. 10. As every man hath received the Gift even so minister the same one to another as good Stewards of the manifold Grace of God THIS is the rule concerning the Gifts and Graces bestow'd on Men and we have here 1. Their difference in their kind and measure 2. Their Concordance in their source and use 1. Different in their kind that exprest in the first clause as every one hath received Then again in the last clause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 various or manifold Grace where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is all one with the former 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and largely taken in all kind of endowments and furniture by which Men are enabled for mutual good One Man hath Riches another Authority and Command another Wit or Eloquence or learning and some tho' eminent in some one yet have a fuller conjuncture of divers of these We find not more difference in visages and statures of body then in qualifications and abilities of the mind which are the visage and stature of it yea the odds is far greater betwixt Man and Man in this than it can be in the other Now this difference accords well with the accordance there exprest in their common spring and common use For the variety of these many gifts suits well with the singular riches and wisdom of their own giver and with the common advantage and benefit of the many receivers And in the usefulness of that variety to the receivers shines forth bounty and wisdom of the giver in so ordering all that diversity to one excellent end so this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here commends that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Apostle speaks of Eph. 3. 10. There is such an admirable beauty in this variety such a symmetry and contemperature of different yea of contrary qualities that speaks his riches that so divers gifts are from the same Spirit A kind of embroidering of many collours happily mixt as the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies as it s in the frame of the natural body of Man as the lesser World and in the composure of the greater World thus in the Church of God the mystical Body of Jesus Christ exceeding both in excellency and beauty And as there is such art in this contrivance and such comeliness in the resulting frame so 't is no less useful and that commends mainly the thing it self and the Supream Wisdom ordering it that as in the body each part hath not only its place for proportion and order but each its use and as in the World each part is beneficial to another so here every mans gift relates and is fitted to some use for the good of others Inser 1. The first thing meets us here is very useful to know that all is received and received of gift of most free gift so the words do carry Now this would most reasonably check all murmuring in those that receive least and insulting in those that receive most whatever 't is do not repine but praise how little soever it is for its a free gift Again how much soever it is be not high minded but fear boast not thy self but humbly bless thy Lord for if thou hast received it how canst thou boast 2. Every man hath received some gift no man all gifts and this rightly considered would keep all in a more even temper as in nature nothing altogether useless so nothing self sufficient this would keep the meanest from râ—pining and discontent that have the lowest rank in most respects yet something he hath received that is not only a good to himself but rightly improved may be so to others likewise And this will curb the loftiness of the most advantaged and teach them not only to see some deficiences in themselves and somâ— gifts stand lower in far meaner Persons which they warâ— but besides the simple discovery of this it will put them upon the use of what is in lower persons not only to stoop to the acknowledgment
but true willingness of heart so this willingness should not arise from any other but pure affection to the work not for filthy gain but purely from the inward bent of the mind As it should not be a compulsive or violent motion by necessity from without so it should not be an artificial motion by weights hung on within avarice love of gain the former were a wheel driven or drawn going by force the latter little better as a Clock made go by art by paces hung to it But a natural motion as that of the heavens in their course a willing obedience to the Spirit of God within moving a Man in every part of this holy work that 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his mind carried to it as the thing he delights in loves to be exercised in it There may be in a faithful Pastor very great reluctances in ingaging and adhereing to the work upon a sense of the excellency of it and his unfitness and the deep apprehension of those high interests the glory of God and the Salvation of Souls and yet he enter into it and continues in it with this readiness of mind too that is with most single and earnest desires of doing all he can for God and the flock of God only grieved that there is in him so little suitableness of heart so little holiness and acquaintance with God for enabling him to it but might he find that he were satisfied and in attendance upon that goes on and waits and is doing according to his little skill and strength and cannot leave it is constrained indeed but all the constraint is that of love to Iesus and for his sake to the Souls he hath bought and all the gain sought is to gain Souls to Christ which is far different from the constraint and that gain here discharged yea is indeed that very willingness and readiness of mind which is opposed to that other constraint this without this within that other gain is base filthy gain this noble and divine Inf. 1. Far be it from us that necessity and constraint be the thing that moves us in so holy a work The Lord whom we serve sees into the heart and if he find not that primely moving accounts all our diligence nothing And let not base earth be within the cause of our willingness but a mind toucht with Heaven It is true the tentations of earth with us in matter oâ— â—gain are not great but yet the heart may cleave to them as much as if they were much greater and if it do cleave to them they shall ruin us as well a poor stipend and glebe if the affection be upon them as a great Denary or Bisâ—oprick if a Man fall into it he may drown in a small brook being under water as well as in the great Ocean Oh! the little time that remains let us joyn our desires and endeavours in this work bend our strength to him that we may have joy in that day of reckoning And indeed there is nothing moves us aright nor shall we ever find comfort in this service unless it be from a cheerful inward readiness of mind and that from the love of Christ thus said he to his Apostle lovest thou me then feed my Sheep and feed my Lambs love to Christ begets love to his peoples Souls that are so precious to him and a care of feeding them he devolves the working of love towards him upon his flock for their good puts them in his room to receive the benefit of our services which cannot reach him in himself he can receive no other profit from it It is love much love gives much unwearied care and much skill in this charge How sweet is it to him that loves to bestow himself to spend and be spent upon his service whom he loves Iacob in the same kind of service endured all and found it light by reason of love the cold of the nights and the heat of the days seven years for his Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because he loved her Love is the great endowment of a Shepherd of Christs flock He says not to Peter art thou wise or learned or eloquent but lovest thou me then feed my Sheep The third evil is ambition and that is either in the the affecting of undue authority or the overstraining and tyrannical abuse of due authority or to seek these dignities that suit not with this charge which is not Dominium but Ministerium Therefore discharg'd Luke 22. There is a ministerial authority to be used in discipline and more sharpness with some than others but still lowlinâ—ss and moderation predominant and not domineâ—ring with rigour rather being examples to them in all holiness and especially in humility and meekness wherein our Lord Jesus particularly propounds his own example But being ensamples Such a pattern as they may stamp and print their Spirits and carriage by and be followers of you as you are of Christ and without this there is little or no fruitful teaching Well says one either teach not or teach by living so the Apostle exhorteth Timothy to be an example in word but withal in conversation that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the best printed copy But this pares off will some think all encouragements of learning No advantage no respect nor authority Oh! no it removes poor worthless encouragements out of the way to make place for one great one that is sufficient which all the other together are not that is Verse 4. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear ye shall receive a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away THou shalt loose nothing by all that restraint from base gain and vain glory and Worldly power No matter let them go for a Crown that weighs them all down that shall abide for ever Oh! how far excellent A Crown of Glory pure unmixt glory without any ingrediency of pride or sinful vanity or any danger of it And a Crown that fadeth not of such a flower as withers not not a temporary garland of fading flowers such as all here are Wo to the Crown of pride Isa. 28. 1. Though it is made of flowers growing in a fat valley yet their glorious beauty is a fading flower but this fresh and in perfect lustre to all eternity May they not well trample on base gain and vain applause that have this Crown to look to They that will be content with those let them be doing but they have their reward and it s done and gone when faithful followers are to receive theirs Joys of royal pomp marriages and feasts how soon do they vanish as a dream that of Ahazverash that lasted about half a year but then ended and how many since that gone and forgot But this day begins a triumph and a feast that shall never either be ended or be wearied of still fresh new delights all things here the choicest pleasures cloy but satisfie not Those
can turn the chase in an instant still cleave to him when the whole powers of thy Soul are as it were scatter'd and routed rally them by believing draw thou but into the standard of Jesus Christ and the day shall be thine for victory follows that standard and cannot be severed from it yea though thou find the smart of divers stroaks yet think that often a wounded Souldier hath won the day believe and it shall be so with thee And remember that thy foiles through the wisdom and love of thy God may be ordered to advance the victory to put courage and holy anger into thee against thine enemies to humble thee and drive thee from thine own imagined strength to make use of his real strength and be not hasty think not at very first to conquer many a hard conflict must thou resolve for and often be brought very low almost to a desperate point that to thy sense 't is past recovery then 't is his time to step in even in the midst of their prevailing let God but arise and his enemies shall be scattered Thus the Church hath found it in her extremities and thus likewise the believing Soul Knowing that the same afflictions c. There is one thing much troubles the patience and weakens the Faith of some Christians that they are ready to think there is none yea there was never any beloved of God in such a condition as theirs Thus sometimes they swell even their outward trials in imagination but oftner their inward which are most heavy and pressing to themselves and the parallel of them least discernable by them in others Therefore the Apostle St. Paul breaks this conceit 1 Cor. 10. and here is the same truth The same afflictions c. Inf. We had rather hear of ease and cannot after all that is said bring our hearts to comply with this that tentations and troubles are the Saints portion here and that this is the royal way to the Kingdom Our King led in it and all his followers go the same way and besides the happy end of it is it not sweet even for this simply because he went in it yet this is the Truth and taken altogether is a most comfortable Truth the whole Brotherhood all our Brethren go in it and our eldest Brother went first Verse 10. But the God of all grace who hath called us into his eternal glory by Christ Iesus after that ye have suffered a while make you perfect stablish strengthen settle you HIS Divine Doctrine and Exhortations the Apostle closes with Prayer as we follow this rule in publick after the Word preached so St. Paul frequently so Christ himself Iohn 17. after that Sermon in the preceding Chapters it were well if both Ministers and People would follow forth the same way more in private each for themselves and each for the other and the want of this is mainly the thing that makes our preaching and hearing so barren and fruitless the Ministers of the Gospel should indeed be as the Angels of God going betwixt him and his People not only bringing down useful Instructions from God to them but putting up earnest supplications to God for them In the 10th of St. Luke the Disciples are sent forth and appointed to preach and in the 11th we have them desiring to be taught to pray Lord teachus to pray and without this there can be little answer or success in the other little springing up of this Seed though Ministers sow it plentifully in preaching unless they secretly water it with their prayers and tears And People truly should keep some correspondence in this duty and that if other engagement will not perswade even for their own advantage for it returns unto them gainfully if much of the Spirit be poured forth on Ministers are they not the more able to unfold the Spiritual Mysteries of the Gospel and build up their People in the knowledge of them Oh! that both of us were more abundant in this rich and sweet exercise But the God The Prayer suits the Apostle St. Paul's word in his direction to the Philippians Chapter 4. 6. 't is supplication with thanksgiving prayer with praise In the prayer or petition consider the Matter the Stile The Matter or thing requested in divers brief words which though they be much of the same sense yet are not superfluously multiplied for they both carry the great importance of the thing and the earnest desire in suiting it and though it be a little light and unsolid to frame a different sense to each of them nor are any of the ways that such kind of Interpreters have taken in it very satisfactory to any discerning judgment yet I conceive they are not altogether without some profitable difference as the first perfect carries more clear than the rest their advance in victory over their remaining corruptions and infirmities carrying them on towards perfection Stablish hath more express reference to both the inward lightness and inconstancy that is natural to us the counterblasts of persecutions and tentations and to outward oppositions and imports the curing of the one and support against the other Strengthen the growth of their graces especially gaining of further measures of those graces wherein they are weakest and lowest And settle though it seems the same and in substance is with the other word stablish yet it adds somewhat to it very considerable for it signifies to found or fix upon a sure foundation and so indeed may have an aspect to him who is the foundation and strength of Believers on whom they build by faith Iesus Christ in whom we have all both victory over Sin and increase of Grace and establishment of Spirit power to persevere against all difficulties and assaults he is that corner foundation stone laid in Sion that they that build upon him may not be ashamed that Rock that upholds the House founded on it in the midst of all winds and storms First Obs. These have in them that which is so primely to be sought after by every Christian perseverance and progress in Grace These two here interwoven for there be two words importing the one and two the other and are interchangeably plac'd this is often exhorted them as their duty and accordingly ought they to apply themselves to 't and use their highest diligence in it not to take the beginning of Christianity for the end of it to think it enough they are entered into the way of it and sit down upon the entry but to walk on to go from strength to strength and even through the greatest difficulties and discouragments to pass forward with unmoved stability and fixedness of mind To be aiming at perfection this we shall still fall exceedingly short of but the more we study it the nearer to it shall we come the higher we aim the higher shall we shoot though we shoot not so high as we aim Inf. It is an excellent life and it is the proper
us himself with treaties Christ proclaims your liberty and will you not accept of it think though you are pleased with your present Thraldom and Prison it reserves you if you come not forth to this other Prison that shall not please you these chains of spiritual darkness in which you are unless ye be freed will deliver you up to the chains of everlasting darkness wherein these hopeless Prisoners are kept to the Judgement of the Great day But if you will receive Jesus Christ presently upon that Life and Liberty and Blessedness is made yours If the Son make you free ye shall be free indeed When once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah There are two main continuing wonders in the World the bounty of God and disloyalty of Man and the succession of times is no other but new additions of these two One grand example is here set before us an Oecumenical Example as large as the whole World much patience and yet invincible disobedience Here two things in the instance The Lord 's general dealing with the World of the Ungodly at that time 2. His peculiar way with his own chosen Noah and his Family He waited patiently for all the rest but he effectually saved them Obs. 1. The time designed thus in the days of Noah Many great and powerful Persons in these days that overtopt Noah no doubt in outward respects as in their stature the proud Giants and they begot Children mighty men of old men of renown as the Text hath it And yet as themselves perisht in the Flood their Names are drown'd They had their big Thoughts certainly that their Houses and their Names should continue as the Psalmist speaks Psal. 49. And yet they are sunk in perpetual Oblivion And Noah's Name who walkt in humble obedience you see in these most precious Records of God's own Book still looks fresh and smells sweet and hath this honour that the very Age of the World is markt with this Name to be known by it in the days of Noah That which prophane ambitious Persons do idolatrously seek after they are often remarkably disappointed of would have their names memorable and famous yet they rot they are either buried with them or remembred with disgrace and rotting above Ground as Carcases un-innterr'd and so are the more noisom as little credit to them to be mentioned as for Pilate that his name is in the Confession of Faith But the name and remembrance of the righteous is still sweet and delightful as the name of Abraham the Father of the Faithful and of Isaac and Iacob their names is embalmed indeed that they cannot rot embalm'd with God's own Name Eternal that name wrapt about theirs the God of Abraham Isaac and Iacob Thus Noah here mentioned as preferr'd of God and so in the Second Epistle as a Preacher of Righteousness and Heb. 11. among these worthies whose honour is that they believed this is only a name a small thing not be mentioned in comparison of their other Priviledges and especially of that venerable Life and Glory which they are Heirs to and indeed it is a thing they regard very little yet this we see that even this advantage follows them and flies from the vain ungodly that hunt and persue it The Lord 's dealing with the wicked in those times before he swept them away by the Deluge is in these two 1. Long suffering and withal clear warning long suffering Exod. 34. long forbearing to be angry as the Hebrew Word is in his Name which supposes a great provocation and the continuance of it and yet patience continuing and in this appears the goodness of God considering how hateful sin is to him and how powerful he is to punish it were it if it pleased him in one moment to cut off all the Ungodly high and low throughout the whole World yet he bears and forbears to punish Oh! what a World of sin every day in Nations in Cities and Villages yea in Families that he doth not strike with present Judgement and not only forbears to punish but multiplies his common mercies on them Sun and Rain and fruitful Seasons Yea there is so much of this that it falls under a gross misconstruction yet he bears that too Because sentence against an evil work is not speedily executed therefore the hearts of the Sons of Men is fully set in them to do evil Because there is not so much as a word of it for the time so the word is this greatens and fills the heart of Man and makes it big to do evil And not only is the Lord 's long suffering mistaken by the Ungodly but even by his own that should understand him better and know the true â—ense of his ways yet sometimes they are misâ—ed in this point beholding his forbearance of punishing the workers of iniquity instead of magnifying his patience they fall very near into questioning his Justice and Providence Psal. 13. Ier. 12. Iob. 21. c. Our narrow hasty spirits left to their own measures take not in these larger views that would satisfie us in the ways of God and forget the immense largeness of his wise designs his deep reach from one Age to another yea from eternity to eternity consider not how easily he can right himself in point of Justice when he will that none can make escape from him how loose soever their guard seem and how great liberty soever appears in their present condition 2. That as he can most easily so he will most seasonably be known in executing Judgement and that his Justice shall shine the brighter by all that patience he hath used by the Sun of Prosperity 3. We think not how little that time is to him that seems long to us to whom a thousand years are as one day a long time of the Churches distress and their Enemies Triumph in these seventy years of the Babylonish Captivity and yet in God's Language a moment a small moment However in the closure the Lord always clears himself he is indeed long suffering and patient but the impenitent abusers of his patience pay interest for all the time of their forbearance in the weight of Judgement when it comes upon them But thus we see the Lord deals thus he dealt with the World in the beginning when all flesh had corrupted their way yet sayeth he their days shall be one hundred and twenty yeaâ—s Let us leaâ—n to curb and cool our brisk humours towards even sâ—ubborn finners be grieved at their sin it s our duty but think it not strange nor fret at it that they continue to abuse the long suffering of God and yet that he continues ever abused by suffering them zeal is good but as it springs from love if it be right so it s requiâ—ed by love and carries the impressions of that love to God and so a complacency in his way liking it because it 's his and love to men
so as to be pleased with that waiting for them in possibility at least of their being reclaimed knowing that however if they return not yet the Lord will not lose his own at their hands Wilt thou said these two fiery Disciples that we call for fire as Elias Oh! but the Spirit of the Dove rested on him that told them they knew not what Spirit they were of you speak of Elias and you think you are of his Spirit in this motion but you mistake your selves that comes from another spirit than you imagine instead of such sudden Jâ—stice without you look inward and see whence that is examine and correct within you When you are tempted to take ill that goodness and patience of God to sinners Consider 1. Can this be right to differ from his mind in any thing is it not our only Wisdom and ever safe Rule to think as he thinks and will as he wills And I pray you does he not hate sin more than you do is not his interest in punishing it deeper than yours And if you be zealous for his interest as you pretend then be so with him and in his way for starting from that sure you are wrong 2. Consider did he not wait for thee what had become of thee if long suffering had not subserv'd his purpose of further mercy of free pardon to thee and why will thou not always allow that to which thou art so much obliged would'st thou have the Bridge cut because thou art so over Sure thou wilt not own so gross a thought Therefore esteem thy God still the more thou â—eest of his long suffering to sinners and learn for him and with him to bear and wait But this was not a dumb forbearance such as may serve for a surprize but continual teaching and warning joyned with it as before We see they wanted not preaching of the choicest kind he the Son of God by his Eternal Spirit went and preached to them it was his Truth in Noah's mouth and with that we have a continued real Sermon exprest in this Verse while the Ark was preparing that spoke God's mind and every knock as the usual Observation is of the Hammers and Tools used in Building preach'd to them threatning aloud designed Judgement and Exhorting to prevent it and therefore that word is added that the long suffering of God waited or expected expected a believing of his Word and returning from their wickedness but we see no such thing followed they took their own Course still and therefore the Lord took his they had polluted the Earth with their wickedness now the Lord would have the cleansing by Repentance that being denied it must be another way by flood and because they and their sins remained one they would not part with them therefore was one work made of both they and their sins as inseparable must be cleansed away together Thus impenitency under much long suffering makes Judgement full and compleat I attest you hath not the Lord used much forbearance towards us hath he not patiently spared us and clearly warned us and waited long for the Fruit of all hath any thing been wanting have not Temporal Mercies been multiplied on us have not the Spiritual Riches of the Gospel been opened up to us And each of you for your selves consider how it s with you after so much long suffering of God that none of you can deny he hath used towards you and so many gracious Invitations with that patience have they gained your hearts or do you still remain Servants to sin still Strangers to him and formal Worshipers I beseech you think on it what will be the issue of that course Is it a light matter to you to die in your sins and to have the wrath of God abiding on you to have refused Christ so often and that after you have been so often requested to receive Salvation after the Lord hath followed you with intreaties hath called to you so often why will ye die yet wilfully to perish and withal to have all these come in and accuse you and make your burden heavier would you willingly die in this estate if not then think that yet he is waiting if at length you will return this one day more of his waiting you have and of his speaking to you and some that were here with you the last day are taken away since Oh! that we were wise and would consider our latter end tho' there were neither Sword or Pestilence near you you must die and for any thing you know quickly why wear you out the day of Grace and those precious Seasons still as uncertain of Christ yea as indiligent after him as you were long ago as you love your Souls be more serious in their business this was their undoing they were all for present things they eat and drank they married in a continued course without ceasing and without minding their after-estate they were drowned in these things and that drowned them in a Flood Noah did eat and drink but his main Work was in that time the preparing of the Ark. The necessities of this Life the Children of God are tied to and fore't to bestow some time and pains on them but the thing that takes up their Hearts that which the bent of their Souls is set on is their interest in Jesus Christ and all your wise designs are but a pleasing madness till this be chief with you Others have had as much of God's patience and as fair opportunity as you whose Souls and Christ have never met and now know that they never shall they had their time of worldly projects and enjoyment as you now have and followed them as if they had been immortally to abide with them but they are past away as a Shadow and we are posting after them and within a while shall lie down in the dust Oh! how happy they whose hearts are not here trading with vanity and gathering vexation but whose thoughts are on that blessed life above trouble Certainly they that pass for fools within the World are the only Children of wisdom that have renounced their lusts and their own wills have yielded up themselves to Jesus taken him for their King and have their minds resting on him as their Salvation While the Ark was a preparing Obs. 1. The delay of the Lords determined Judgement on the ungodly was indeed long-suffering towards them but here was more in it to Noah and his Family the providing for their preservation and till that was compleated for them the rest were spared Thus the very forbearance that the ungodly do enjoy is usually involv'd with the interest of the godly somthing of that readily goes into it and so it is in a great part for their sakes that the rest are both spared and are furnisht with common mercies The Saints are usually the scorn and contempt of others yet are by that love the Lords carries towards them the very Arches Pillars of States
long time hearers of the Gospel whereof Baptism is the seal and most of us often at the Lord's Table What hath all this done upon us ask within are your hearts changed is there a new Creation there where is that spiritual minâ—â—dness are your hearts dead to the World and 〈◊〉 and alâ—ve to God your Consciences purged from dead works What mean you is not this the end of all the ordinances to make all clean and to renew and make good the Conscience to bring the Soul and your Lord into a happy amity and a good correspondence that it may not only be in speaking terms but often speak and converse with him may have liberty of answering and demanding as this Word hath both That it may speak the language of faith and humble obedience unto God and he may speak the language of peace to it and both the language of the Lord each to other That Conscience alone is good that is much busied in this work in demanding and answering that speaks much with it self and with God this is both the sign that it is good and the means to make it better That Soul will doubtless be very wary in its walk that takes daily account of it self and renders up that account unto God it will not live by guess but readily examin each step before hand because it is resolved to examin all after will consider well what it should do because it means to ask over again what it hath done and not only to answer it self but to make a faithful report of all unto God to lay all before him continually upon tryal made tell him what is in any measure well done as his own work and bless him for that and tell him too all the slips and miscarriages of the day as our own complaining of our selves in his presence and still intreating free pardon and more wisdom to walk more holily and exactly and gaining even by our failings more humility and more watchfulness If you would have your Consciences answer well they must enquire and question much both before hand whether is this I purpose and go about agreable to my Lord's will will it please him ask that more and regard that more than this that the most fâ—llow will it please or profit my self fits that my own humour And not only the bulk and substance of thy way and actions but the manner of them how thy heart is set sâ— think it not enough to go to Church or to pray but take heed how yea hear consider how pure he is and how piercing his eye whom thou servest Then after again think it not enough I was praying or hearing or reading it was a good work what need I question it further No but be still reflecting and asking how it was done how have I â—heard how have I prayed was my heart humbled by the discoveries of sin from the Word was it refresht with the promises of grace did it lye level under the word to receive the stamp of it was it in prayer set and kept in a holy bent towards God did it breath forth real and earnest desires into his ear or was it remiss and roving and dead in the service So in my Society with others in such and such Company what was my time and how did I follow it did I seek to honour my Lord and to edifie my Brethren by my carriage and speeches or did the time run out in trifling vain discourse when alone what 's the carriage and walk of my heart where it hath most liberty to move its own pace is it delighted in converse with God are the thoughts of heavenly things frequent and sweet to it or does it run after the earth and the delights of it spinning out it self in impertinent vain Contrivances The neglect of such inquiries is that which entertains and increases the impurity of the Soul so that Men are afraid to look into themselves and to look up to God But Oh! what a foolish course is this to shift off that which cannot be avoided in the end answer must be made to that all-seeing Judge with whom we have to do and to whom we owe our accompts And truly it would be seriously considered what makeâ— this good Conscience that makes an acceptable answer unto God That appears by the opposition not the puting away the filth of the flesh then it is the puting away of Soul â—ilthiness so then its the renewing and purifying of the Conscience that makes it good pure and peaceable In the purifying it may be troubled which is but the stirring in cleansing of it which makes more quiet in the end as Physick or the launcing of a sore and after it is in some measure cleansed it may have fits of trouble which yet still add further purity and further peace so there is no hazard in that work but all the misery is a dead security of the Conscience remaining filthy and yet unâ—tirred or after some stirring or pricking as a wound not thoroughly cured skin'd over which will but breed more vexation in the end it will fester and grow more difficult to be cur'd and if it be cur'd it must be by deeper cutting and more pain than if at first it had endured a thorough search O My Brethren take heed of sleeping unto death carnal â—ase resolve to take no rest till you be in the Element and place of Soul rest where solid rest indeed is rest not till you be with Christ though all the World should offer their best turn them by with disdain if they will not be turned by throw them down and go over them and upon them you have no rest to give me nor will I take any at your hands nor from no creature no rest for me till I be under his shaddow who endured so much trouble to purchase my rest and having found him may sit down quiet and satisfied and when the World makes boaâ—t of their highest contents I will 〈◊〉 them all with this own Word my beloved is mine and I am his Towards God The Conscience of 〈◊〉 is never right at peace in it self till it be rightly perswaded of peace with God which while it remains â—ilthy it cannot be for he is holy and iniquity cannot dwell with him what Communion betwixt light and darkness so then the Conscience must be cleansed e're it can look upon God with assurance and peace This cleansing is sacramentally performed by Baptism effectually by the Spirit of Christ and the blood of Christ and he lives to impart both Therefore here is mention'd his resurrection from the dead as that by virtue whereof we are assured of this purging and peace Then can it in some measure with confidence answer Lord though polluted by former sins and by sin still dwelling in me yet thou seest that my desires are daily more like my Christ I would have more love and zeal for thee more hatred of sin that can answer with St. Peter