Death doth not deprive the Soul of all gracious and vertuous Sense and Motion but renders it unfit for the Spirit of true Vertue Grace and Holiness to dwell in and so there must needs follow a Devorce and Separation between them And as in the Natural Life there is a Union between the Soul and Body so in the Moral there is a Union between the Soul and God Death Metaphorical is the privation of all the comfortable effects of Life whether it be Natural or Moral whilst bear Life doth still remain and the presence of all those evils that may afflict or imbitter it And all these are either 1. Temporal 2. Eternal From what hath been spoken for the explication of these two terms Life and Death you may perceive what a priviledge and unspeakable favour it is to be translated from Death to Life 1. If thou Remembrest God The sting of a Natural Death is pulled out and though thou art not 〈◊〉 from the part of the penalty of sin whereby the Body is deprived of all sense and separated from the Soul yet thou art delivered from that which is most terrible in Death 〈◊〉 the misery or Death that will follow after and it is a comfortable passage for them that Remember God to endless Joy and Happiness and sometimes a welcome Messenger to them They may truly say as Agag 1 Sam. 15.32 The bitterness of Death is past 2. They are translated from the Death of Sin to the Life of Grace and Holiness and are united unto God and are disposed by Faith and Love to that Holiness which is the Divine Perfection and the way to the highest Happiness and Honour that the Heart of Man can wish or desire Though this Life will be imperfect whilst we stay here And if there be such pleasure in the Union between the Soul and Body then there is much more in the Union between the Soul and God 3. As Death is put for Misery and the bitter and uncomfortable effects of the endless Life to come so they are passed from Death to Life The Sentence of Death that God hath passed against sin is so far revers'd And as for the Miseries and Evils of this Life though materially they may have more than other Men yet as to the formal and most essential part of them they feel them not so much as other Men because they are allay'd and sweetned 1. By the inward Peace and Comfort that God gives to those that Remember him 2. By the benefit and advantage they get by those outward Sufferings For as their outward Man is afflicted so their inward man is renewed strengthened and confirmed day by day 2 Cor. 4.16 For their light Affliction which is but for a moment worketh for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory even in the beginnings of it here ver 17.3 It lessens their short and momentary sufferings that by them they escape so much Temptation and all the â—aiâ—s of sin are become the less taking If thou art one in whose Remembrance God is advanced above all other things thou shalt not die but live and declare the works of the Lord Psal 118.17 And though the Lord may chasten and correct thee yet he will not give thee over unto Death ver 18. For God is the Fountain of Life and in his Light thou shalt see Life Psal 36.9 O what a Mercy is it to be delivered from the power of Death and Darkness and to be translated into the Kingdom of his dear Son where thou shalt grow up from one degree of Life to another till thou come to everlasting Life Col. 1.13 At thy first entrance into this Kingdom Death is sentenced and some execution is done upon every sort of Death which will be perfected as this remembrance of God grows up to perfection in thee O Death I will be thy Plague O Grave I will be thy Destruction Hos 13.14 Which as it was verified of Christ personally understood so it is of Christ mystically understood 1. As Christ overcame Death in his Person so every true Believer such are all and only they that have God in their Remembrance hath gotten some conquest over Death which shall grow up to a full Victory and therefore Paul in the Name of the whole Church doth acknowledge this mercy Thanks be to God that giveth us the victory thorough our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 15 5 7. Whilst the wicked forgetters of God are dead in trespasses and sins and dead to all soul and solid Joy and Comfort and designed to an eternal death Thou that thinkest upon God and remembrest his Love in Christ art entred into a state of Life and hast such a Promise that contains more in it than all the rich Indian Mines Because â—e hath set his Love upon me With long life will I satisfie him and shew him my Salvation Psal 91.16 If thou didst but know what a treasure is hid in thâ—â— Remembrance thou wouldst throw out every thing of thy Memory and Heart that hinders this Remembrance of God This one priviledge of being translated from Death to Life is big with a number more 1. It implies that thou art reconciled to God and he is at peace with thee and thou needest no more to fear him as thine Enemy All his Attributes of Power Justice Holiness Vengeance Majesty that sound so terrible to the forgetters of God do but the better secure thee of thine Happiness 2. It implies also thy present Justification in title of Law God hath acquitted thee by the law of Grace and Act of the Gospel from the guilt of sin and dissolved the Obligation to condemnation Who can lay any thing to thy charge if God absolve thee Who can do thee any hurt when Christ is become thy Advocate Rom. 8.33 3. With this mercy doth concur the mercy of Adoption and Sonship It 's no small Honour to be one of his menial Servants but to be a Son yea a Heir is a priviledge not easily valued and understood 4. The gift of the Spirit to dwell within thee is here also implied to mortifie all sin and to work all gracious habits that may fit thee for a state of Glory In a word 5. All real and relative Grace so far as is necessary to Salvation is thine either in Title Possession 1. The Righteousness of Imputation is thine whereby thou art made fit for Pardon and the Righteousness of Implantation is thine whereby thou art made fit for his Love and Complacency and sweetest Communion with him Secondly If thou art one that Remembrest God all things shall co-operate and conspire for thy good Every Age every state and condition of Life every Place and Company every Change and Alteration in the World Prosperity and Adversity Friends and Enemies Health and Sickness Honour and Dishonour every Relation thou art plac'd in shall help forward thy Joy and Felicity and some Foundation God is laying in every one of these whereupon to
to draw and invite this Affection And have moreover disappointed thee too often of the Pleasure and Felicity that from them thou hast expected yea and which is far worse have entangled thee in many foolish and hurtful Lusts which have afterwards betrayed thee to sad and bitter complaints But here 's an Object worthy thy strongest love that will not debase and destroy but advance thy Soul to the highest Perfection The Love of him as it is sweet in the exercise so it will end at last in unspeakable sweetness and will not upbraid thee with Folly afterwards as all other Love will be sure to do Thou mayest love other things too much and here 's the Source and Spring of all Sin and Impiety and of all absurd and unreasonable Practices For as Divine Love is the sum of Duty and all worthy and becoming Actions so Carnal Love or the Love of Creatures is the Sum of all Wickedness and all incongruous and unseemly Practice But God can never be exalted too high in thine Estimation and Affections Here thou mayest safely vent and pour out all the store of thy Love with the greatest delight and security and expatiate thy Soul to the widest extent in the Ocean of his infinite and most lovely Perfections To him thou mayest safely offer up thy Soul in sacrifice as a whole-Burnt-Offering in the Fire of Love for ever Wilt thou permit thy Thoughts any more to fly abroad into Trifles and impertinent Matters when thou hast the immense Ocean of Divine Goodness to lanch forth into and mayest lose thy self with the greatest pleasure and advantage in the depths of his infinite Perfections Here to be even drowned and swallowed up is not Death but the sweetest and most ravishing Life Hast thou not pined long enough and melted away in the Cares and Love of the World the Martyrdom which corrupt Nature prompts thee fast enough to chuse Is it not now more than Time to be wiser and to bare an Honourable Testimony to him that hath redeemed thee And to subscribe that Witness to the Truth which thou hast borne too much hitherto to Lies and Falsehood Let them be taken by thee for Fools and Madmen that torture themselves with the Love and Care of this World and take Hell by that violence that the Kingdom of Heaven should be taken by But let the main stream and current of thine Affections be ever after him in whom are all the dimensions of Perfection Some little Twilight and Glimmerings of his Ravishing Beauty thou hast seen in his Words and Works But oh how short how exceeding short have they been through thy wilful Blindness and Inadvertency But these express not the thousandth part of his wonderful astonishing Splendour and Glory Something it may be thou hast tasted of his sweetest reviving Love But oh how little in respect of what thou might'st have had had it not been for thy own wilful neglect and refusal Hadst thou gazed as much upon his Glory as thou hast done upon the fading transitory Glory of the World and studied his Perfections according to the Opportunities and Advantages he hath given thee and not loved dismal affrighting Darkness rather than the quickning trransforming Light and neglected the best use of thine Understanding and Affections in holy Meditations on God Thou might'st confidently have expected the Blessing of God in a Work so well pleasing to him and found the Treasure that would have made thee contemn all other things in Comparison Then thou might'st have had joy in the darkest Night of Affliction and such an Allay to the bitterest Cup that would have made any Condition welcome to thee Then thou would'st have forgotten all the Miseries of thy life past and remembred them as Waters that pass away Job 11.16 Then thou might'st have lyen down with the sense of the pardon of former sins yea thou might'st have lyen down and thy sleep would have been sweet to thee Then the Remembrance of thy latter End would not have been such an unpleasant Theme to thy Meditations as now it is yea the Lord would have satisfied thy Soul in Drought and made thee like a watered Garden and like a Spring whose Waters fail not Isaiah 58.11 And then with what vivacity and chearfulness should'st thou have performed all Duty and borne all Sufferings when God had once answered thee in the joy of thy Heart Considerations to provoke to the Contempt of the World Psalm 119 96. I have seen an End of all Perfection but thy Commandment is exceeding broad 1 John 2.15 16. Love not the world nor the things that are in the world if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him For all that is in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world Vers 17. And the world passeth away and the lust thereof but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever Isa 40.6 7. All flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is like the flower of the field The grass withereth and the flower fadeth because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it 1 Cor. 7.9 The fashion of this world passeth away Prov. 11.4 Riches profit not in the day of wrath but righteousness delivereth from death Eccles 1.2 and 2.11 Vanity of vanities all is vanity saith the Preacher Eccles 1.8 All things are full of labour man cannot utter it the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing Prov. 31.30 Favour is deceitful and Beauty is vain AS the Object of all rational saving Love is God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and all that standeth in subserviency to him so far as they conduce to this Noble End and Happiness of the Soul So the Object of all irrational sinful damning Love is the World and whatsoever serves to promote its interest in the Heart so far as it is Competitory with or Contradictory to the Interest of God and conduceth to the inordinate pleasing of the Flesh And thus much I intend here by the World that is any thing in the whole Creation that doth not refer to and is not subordinate unto God is to be the Object of this Contempt and Disdain First Because the World is unsatisfactory and cannot content the Mind of Man There is something still that the Soul misseth when it hath all here that it can desire It silently imagineth an Aliquid ultra when it hath gone its farthest in the Happiness and Prosperity here on Earth And it 's so far from Rest after all that it grows more hot and impatient in its desires And finding nothing to pursue after that can give content begins to fret and grow peevish when the ambitious Soul is gotten to the top of Honour he finds not the thing he expected he calls it by all the slight and contemptible Names he can invent or imagin you may as well satisfie the Appetite
the Question lest I should be too tedious The Common Directions which I shall propose are By way of 1 Consideration 2. Exercise Consider therefore 1. What a fearful and dangerous sin it is to forget God 2 What a shame it is to be unmindful of him 3. What are the benefits of preferinging God in our Remembrance before all other things For the First I have already shewed what a heinous and dangerous sin it is to forget God from whence it may be fetch'd for our Consideration I shall give a brief Recapitulation Consider then what Obligations thou sin'st against if thou shut God out of thy Remembrance 1. On God's part 1. He gave thee thy Faculties to this very end 2. And hath purposely set Heaven and Earth before thee to exercise these Faculties and to put thee in Remembrance of him 3. He hath sent his Son to put thee in mind of him 4. He hath given thee his Spirit Word and all his Ordinances to awake thee to remember him Think then what Gilt the breach of all these Obligations on Gods part will bring upon thee if yet thou shalt forget him Consider what Obligations also thou sinnest against 2. On thy own part Thou sinnest against 1. Thy solomn Vow 2. Covenant 3. Oath 4. Profession If these particulars be taken into thy consideration thou wilt not sure count it a venial sin to forget God and consequently it will be a means to bring thee to the Remembrance I am directing to Consider also the danger as well as the guiltiness of this sin 1. It may betray thee to all other sin and absurdity 2. It will provoke God to forget thee in a way of mercy 3. It will cause him to Remember thee in a way of Judgment If thon art one that dost believe and wilt consider thus much it will prepare thee for the duty we are now upon and be a help to a worthy Remembrance of him For every thing that hath the nature of a motive to a practical Duty hath the nature of a means or help to the performance of the Duty The Reason is because cause it is a necessary means to any Duty to bring the Will to a thorough Resolution Now all motives are the most proper means ro bring the Will to such a Determination So much for the first thing that we are to consider Secondly Consider also what a shame it is to forget God and to be unmindful of him Hast thou no ingenuity 1. Canst thou forget him that remembreth thee every hour 2. Canst thou forget him in prosperity whom thou wilt remember in thy necessity 3. Dost thou not blush to prefer empty unsatisfactory and transitory things in thy Remembrance before God But these things I have already insisted on and therefore do but now name them as matter of our consideration as a second sort of motives and therefore fit means to help on this Remembrance Thirdly If thou wouldst be in the number of those that exalt God above all things in their Remembrance then consider what advantage will accrue to thee by such a Remembrance I know these may be also called motives as all means by way of consideration are But yet they are all distinct and different kinds of motives and have their effect upon three several passions 1. The first sort taken from the consideration of the greatness and danger of the sin of not Remembring God are rather to fright us from the sin of forgetfulness than to draw us to the duty of Remembrance 2. The second sort are intended to work upon Ingenuity where there is any and to excite shame in those that neglect such a becoming duty 3. And the third sort taken from the benefits and advantage of this Remembrance are directly to excite Love and Desire and hereby to attract the Heart to the performance of a work so beneficial I come now therefore to propose the Benefits that will follow such a worthy Remembrance of God as a means to this duty First Consider If thou art one that Remembrest God with the most prizing valuing thoughts thou art translated from Death to Life If St. John make the predominant love of the Brethren to be so sure an evidence of this Translation 1 John 3.14 We know that we are passed from Death to Life because we love the Brethren Then much more doth the sincere love of God give us full security that we are thus advanced But the predominant love of God is implied in this Remembrance as the essential part of it according to the known Rule words of Sense and Understanding in Morallity essentially involve Affections and Actions If they go alone all moral Acts are incompleat unless they be both in the understanding and will in the Mind and Heart If therefore thou art one that thus remembrest God thou hast this grand priviledge whose name is Legion and contains such a number under it Death is a name of terror and sounds dreadful to all whose Ears it hath not stop'd and is the sum and abridgment of all that 's either hateful or fearful And therefore all the penalty that God threatneth for the breach of such a perfect Righteous Law as he gave to Man was comprized in the word Death And if it be not enough to vindicate the Law from contempt of such as do but hear it yet it will teach them at least not to despise it that feel it And as Death is a Name pregnant with Dread and Horror so Life is the most comfortable Sound and carries all that 's desirable in the Bowels of it And it is put in Scripture to signifie 1. All Happiness 2. Perpetuity And therefore it was the only Sanction that God added to his Law by way of Remuneration Do this and Live Where Life is opposed to the Death that is threatned to the Transgressors As Death therefore is comprehensive of all Misery so Life is a complication of all Happiness And as it is put for all Felicity so for Perpetuity Psal 56.7 In his favour is Life 1. Perpetuity as appears by the opposeâ—â—â— in the former part of the verse His Anger endures but a moment that is it 's short but in his Favour is Life 1. It 's lasting and perpetual Now Death is of three sorts opposed to a three fold Life 1. Natural 2. Moral 3. Metaphorical Natural Death is the privation of all sense Death Moral is the privation of all Love in the Will to Vertue and propension to Goodness for want of which Love it is dead to all vertuous Life and Action and feels no sweetness in them because the principle of that Life is wanting For Love is the Principium Vitae in morallibus Love is the principle of Life in the Moral Spiritual or gracious Life And as Natural Death doth not only deprive the Body of all Sense and Motion but renders it unfit for the Soul to dwell in and be united to and so dissolves the union between these two So Morally
no rest till it hath enforced consent and resolution to obey These Truths are of two sorts 1. Some are Physick and meerly purgative 2. Others are Cordial and such as are restorative and comforting And although there is reluctancy enough in the distempered Soul of Man to both these yet he nauseats these of the first rank most and hath the greatest enmity to them He doth not relish the second sort but he perfectly hates the first sort the reason is because these Truths which I call Medicinal work directly upon the disturbing Humour and filthy Matter that must be evacuated and east out before we can find any Gust or Savour in those other Truths that are Nutritive and Cordial What aversness is there in the corrupt Nature of Man to admit those Truths into the Heart that cross either 1. The Interest or 2. The Inclination of the Flesh and that strike all the Heart and Root of the Old Man and that teach Self-denial that is the mortification of inward Lusts and the contempt of all outward Objects so far as they feed and nourish them And will a Man ever pull out his right Eye and cut off his right Hand for his Pride and his Passion and his Intemperance and his Petulary and Lasciviousness or any other Lust to which his Nature prompts him are as dear to him as his most beloved Members and will a Man ever digest such truths as these or take them into any place of strength that are such bloody enemies to his raging prevailing Lusts and arm and mortifie them against so dear and near a part of him This can never be done till Consideration make it appear that the Man is undone for ever and had better he had never been born be he never so rich and honourable in the World in whom there is any reigning Lust or Corruption till frequent thoughts convince him thoroughly that he that saveth such a Life as this shall lose it and a better But on the other side he that kills his Corruptions and suffereth no sin to prevail but mortifieth every one of these Members that make up the Body and the Life of the Old Man he that loseth such a Life as this shall find it and prove an unspeakable gainer Mark 8.35 Let me instance more particularly in some truths that must go before a worthy Remembrance of God which can never get into the Heart and work to any purpose till they be fermented by Consideration 1. It 's an easie Truth and very obvious to Man's understanding That God is the chief Good and our true happiness consisteth in his Love and Goodness This is the master Principle and Foundation of all Religion and inspires all practical Truths and the duty depends upon them with Breath and Life and were it well thought upon it would make a mighty change and alteration in the World you may see by what it does upon some that do consider it what it would do upon others if they were not inconsiderate In that proportion that Men consider this Truth and believe it they will study to please God and resemble him in all his imitable Perfections and their Love and Hatred will imitate his They will follow after Peace and Holiness without which daily Consideration assures them they can never see God Heb. 12.14 And they will have no Fellowship with the unfruitful works of Darkness because God hateth them Eph. 5.11 None in sensu morali though not in sensu physico Where that that falls short of a ruling mastering degree in Morality is said not to be And the Scripture frequently speaks after the same rate But he that lives after the Flesh and minds earthly things and blesseth himself in all worldly happiness cannot consider the fore-mentioned Truth and therefore is guilty of this Folly because he doth not consider It 's another weighty truth That we are fallen from God and Happiness into a state of Sin and Misery and shall never know what true Happiness means till we return We were made after his Likeness at the first and whilst we kept the stamp of his Image on us were happy in his Favour and Love and all Creatures were ready at our beck and service and Sorrow and Misery stood afar off and came not near us but having now provoked God and lost his Image we are now unspeakably miserable and in the path-way to Eternal Misery And what 's the reason that there are so few that are affected at the Heart with their condition that loath themselves that cry out of this bondage and would be set at liberty and restored into favour again but because there are but few that consider it The rest of their minds are taken up with other things and with worldly vanities and such disturbing thoughts as these are at the first are not permitted to enter which if they be not frequent and serious till the Soul hath got a full sight of the evil of Gods displeasure and sin that hath provoked it and the necessity and blessedness of his Favour These Truths though they should be taken in or assented to they will lie crude and raw upon the Stomach and never digest into good nourishment and be distributed into Life and Practice Consideration must awaken the Soul out of its Stupidity and Insensibleness which is Natural to all or else it will sleep into everlasting Death 3. A third plain but necessary and important Truth is That we are undone for ever unless we feel our Sin and Misery so as to confess it with inward shame and be humbled under it into that degree of Brokenness and Contrition that Salvation by Christ is the most welcome news that ever we heard or can hear insomuch that we embrace him with the highest love and respect and do heartily consent to be governed by him till he hath subdued our Corruptions sanctified us by his Spirit and made us meet for love and favour of God again But none can ever feel the worth and necessity of Christ and renewing Grace who have not set this matter by Consideration frequently before your Eyes It 's true of the Intellectual as well as the Corporal Eye out of sight out of mind what we see not by Consideration we shall never mind nor care for You will slight the greatest Truths and lie still in any state in the World though never so uneasie rather than part with sin and come to Christ if you do not consider that your sin will be bitterness in the end and Christ will make amends for all that do or suffer for him There be many other Truths in which I might instance What 's the reason that matters of such a consequence and weight and so certain and out of doubt as Death and the Resurrection and the Glory of Heaven and the Torments of Hell should work no more and make Men solicitous about them Why do Men die before they were aware and in such a careless and unprepared state Why do they
Righteous art thou O Lord in the Sentence which thou hast passed in the Judgment which thou hast executed Psal 119.137 Thou hast poured forth thy wrath and indignation on them and given them gall and bitterness to drink for they are worthy You shall then wish that your faculty to consider were gone it will follow you so close and be such a perpetual honour to you or rather that you had never had reason and understanding to consider then you might have both liv'd and died like a beast Whereas now though you have liv'd like a beast that you must die like a man that hath Memory Reason Foresight Judgment and Affections that will all conspire together to overwhelm you with eternal shame Why had I reason will the Soul say then but to prevent this misery Why had I will to choose when Life and Death were set before me and could choose no better Had it not been a wiser course to have troubled my self a little while with some few Thoughts of it then now to feel it for ever Why did God threaten Hell and destruction in his Word and set it forth with so much Terrour to mine apprehensions but that I might consider and escape it Why did he appoint the Ministerial Office but that knowing the Terrours of the Lord they might perswade men 2 Cor. 5.11 What could nothing prevail with one but what I now feel and must forever undergo Think not to say then I had not time to consider neither had I skill to follow such a work as this It 's not so much a knowing Head as an honest Heart that 's required to this work The Truths are but few and plain that thy Heart is to dwell upon and the certainty of them is beyond all doubt and question Whatever difference of Opinion there may be in other things yet here is no controversy all are agreed that man hath an Immortal Soul that there is a Life to come That the Happiness of man lies in these two things 1. In being like to God 2. In loving him and being loved by him that sin hath made us unlike to him and therefore must be repented of That Christ will purge away their guilt and sin and renew them by his Spirit that love him and consent to be ruled by him and will take him for their Physitian That there is a day in which God will summon all the World before him and Judge them Impartially according as they have believed or not believed in Christ to everlasting joy or 〈◊〉 These things are certain in the highest 〈◊〉 and there is none that doubteth 〈…〉 but either an Atheist or an 〈…〉 are the Truths that God hath 〈…〉 in great mercy and compassion 〈…〉 commanded every one 〈…〉 Poer and Rich 〈…〉 think upon when they are 〈…〉 when they are walk 〈…〉 when they lye down and 〈…〉 they rise up and to teach them diligently to their Children and to live as those that do believe and consider them Woe to the man or woman that considers not these things good it had been for him or her if they had never been born Wilt thou not think of those things It is because thou art void of understanding and hast chose the way of destruction If thou wilt not be perswaded now to consider thou wilt forget thy latter end thou wilt forget thine Immortal Soul and God will be forgotten and a little sensual pleasure will weigh more with thee than Eternal Life and Happiness And when the day of thy dishress is come upon thee thou wilt wish that thou hadst rather forgot to eat thy Bread than these things should have been forgotten and to fill up thy measure and make thee perfectly miserable God will forget thee forever Psal 50.22 Now consider this ye that forget God lest I tare you in peices and there be none to aeliver I Have set some of the Motives before you that should stir you up to Consideration and shewed you in part what a mischief it is for this faculty to lie dead which is given us by God to quicken those that are dead to the Life of Grace and Holiness and to make them strong and lively and vigorous Christians that are quickned by the spirit of Christ and have set their affections upon things above and not upon things here on Earth This is the way that God hath prescribed for Rational Creatures to get home to God that are revolted from him and to recover their affections to the right owner that are intangled in the love of Earth and vanity If they would but consider would feed upon Swinish pleasures no longer nor suffer their Souls to be charmed with more delusion nor prefer the imaginary dream of a sluggard before the happiness of a man that is awake and whose eyes are open Consideration would shew such a man the difference between Earth and Heaven rectify his judgment in this great point viz. where mans happiness lies And tell him roundly how the world hath cheated him with more shews and phantastick pleasures and put a picture into his hand instead of real felicity It would clear his Eye-sight and make him quite of another mind than once he was when Inconsideracy had blinded him and the world had befool'd him and he would see much more reason to live in the love of God looking for the mercies of his Redeemer unto eternal Life Jude the 21. than ever he did to live in carnal love and delights Consideration would bring the world and all its pleasures as much into disgrace as ever Inconsideracy brough◠them into credit And men that snatch'd at the riches and vain glory of the world before as a sweet bit to be purchased upon any terms would after they are enlightened by Consideration suspect all its soberest pleasures and those that come in upon the fairest terms What a Confession should you have from such a man of the foolishness and madness of his former Conversation when he liv'd upon Air and Trash as other Inconsiderate men still do Such a one as Paul's Tit. 3.3 For we our selves saith he describing his state before Consideration undeceived him were sometimes foolish disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures Then you should hear him bitterly accuse and condemn the soberest course he formerly took when the World had the Supremacy in his mind and heart Strange it would be to see a man so much altered for the better and advanced to such an improvement in knowledge and vertue as by impartial sober and considerate Thoughts might be done He was it may be before a covetous busie worldling that scrap'd and dig'd his happiness out of the dirt and said it up on Earth Whose God was his belly whose glory was his shame that minded Earthly things Phil. 3.19 But now his conversation is in Heaven and there he hath laid up his Treasure And digs for Wisdom as for Silver and searcheth for it as for hid Treasure Prov. 2.4 And his delight
is among the Saints and such as excel in wisdom Psal 16.3 O what a blessing hath God bestowed upon the man or woman to whom he hath given a considering mind How quickly is such a man promoted and brought to unspeakable honour yea to find approbation with God! Such a man is quickly higher by head and shoulders as it s said of Saul than the rest of the inconsiderate doting World I have more understanding saith David than all my teachers for thy Testimonies are my meditation Psal 119.99 You that are yet captivated to the love of any thing here on Earth and like to perish in that state If you will but attentively consider what you dote upon and what you venture for it you would perceive your danger and certainly make your escape and feel the vertue of this excellent duty of Consideration And your present content would make you sick of your former delight And the Honourablest men on earth that had not feasted on this food would seem to you but vile and contemptible persons Methinks I see the man recovered by Consideration tâ—king up his parable like Balaam and saying Thus saith the man whose eyes consideration hath opened He saith who hath heard the words of God and seen the Vision of the Almighty How goodly are the Tents in which God dwelleth and the tabernacles of their hearts where God hath his habitation As the Valleys are they spread forth as Gardens by the Rivers side as the Trees of Ligh-Aloâ—s which the Lord hath planted and as Cedar Trees besides the waters Numb 24.3 4 5 6. And as Consideration would recover the dead and bring them out of the Grave of â—gnorance and Corruption and shew them the excellency of Divine wisdom and purity so that it would keep them in breath that are already translated from death to life and inspire fresh vigour and cheerfulness into all their services it would fill their hearts with a burning love to God and make their lives as a shining light before men It would strengthen their faith and fortify their hopes and put a fresh complexion upon their must withering and consumptive Graces and make their heart to abound and run over with joy and gladness By this time no doubt you see something of the worth and excellency of Consideration and what a gainful trade it is Will you therefore bend your minds to consider and spend more of your time in this work I know the corrupted heart of man is backward to this exercise though it be of such flat necessity and of such eternal advantage yea though it breed so much delight and pleasure after we have gotten some skill and made some progress in the work and have gotten some power over our own affections and can bespeak them in the most suitable moving way For cure therefore of this backwardness I have given you some quickning Considerations to stir you up to this duty and to gain the consent of your wills to this necessary duty In hopes therefore that you are convinced of the necessity of the duty and fully resolved on the performance and that you will not neglect such a duty any longer nor stand in the way of your own light and comfort I come next to give you some Help and Assistance for the more comfortable and successful management and performance of the work And First Endeavour to your power to shun all Impediments but especially those that are most likely to stupify and unfit your minds for Consideration they are obvious I need only to put you in remembrance First Take heed that you sin not maliciously 1. with Wilfulness and Presumption For Divines usually distinguish of Three sorts of Sins 1. Sins of Ignorance when through want of knowledge we transgress the Law of God and do that unwittingly which if we had known to be a violation of the Law of God we would not have done 2. Sins of Infirmity such as are committed through the unavoidableness unruliness of our Sense Phantasy or Passion which are not wholly under the power and command of Reason no not when it is truly enlightned and sanctified 3. Such as are committed with Knowledge and Deliberation when it is in our power to avoid them and will not what these are I need not inform you every one may be his own judge These last sort are called by some Sins of Malice and how much such sins as these will hinder all duty as well as Consideration there is no Christian of any experience but knows too well And therefore David prayeth especially against such sins as these Psal 19.13 Keep back thy servant from Presumptuous Sins let them not have dominion over me then shall I be upright and innocent from the great transgression If thou hast any good affection to this duty and art convinc'd that thy Soul will certainly perish without frequent serious consideration thou hast need to take heed of such sins as these Believe it these will wound thy Conscience break thy inward peace mightily provoke the Lord and draw away the Spirit from thee and fill thee with disturbing fears and besot thy mind that it shall not be fit for Consideration or if not such sins as these will dispose thee to hide thy self and get into thee dark and slie consideration as that which will discover thy shame and make thee odious to thy self Never think to bend thy mind to an impartial consideration of God and his Attributes and the Equity of Laws nor to think of thy latter end and the life to come to any purpose or to hear a right answer from thy Soul when thou puttest the question whether it be sanctified or unsanctified whilst thou givest thy consent and allowest thy self to live in any known sin I may say of Consideration as Mr. Bolton said of Prayer That it will make thee leave such presumptuous sinning Or else such sins will make thee to cast off Consideration you may as well hope to reconcile light and darkness as to bring these to any agreement Where Consideration is in any strength there will be no wilful sin or else Hell it self Art thou one that allowest thy self in the habitual neglect of any known duty Canst thou freely indulge thy self in any unjust or ungodly practice Are thy Thoughts at liberty to think vainly and wickedly without curb or controll Is thy Tongue at liberty to utter falshood and deceit to call evil good or good evil to plead any unrighteous causes or to disgrace any way that thou knowest in thy Conscience God approveth of Art thou wilfully proud or uncharitable and art thou intemperate in thy Appetite or Passions or commonly guilty of any such sin that thy own Conscience doth condemn No wonder then if Consideration be an unpleasant work to thee and if thy Thoughts turn away from him that abhorreth all iniquity but that especially which is wilful and allowed It is no marvel that Meditation is seldom or never in the word of the Lord
likewise is the splendour and dignity of the Saints set forth by a Crown and Scepter and Kings things most glorious here on Earth And this use we should wisely make of these things to put life into our Meditations which otherwise would little affect us Sixthly Lastly you must diligently read and hear the Word of God peruse the labours of those that are most skilful in the exposition and application thereof If you ask me who they are I answer use your best endeavours to know and make the most impartial enquiry The frequent casting your eye upon and opening your ear to such matters is the way to get good furniture into your memory and heart which will ever and anon creep into your thoughts and even invite and constrain you to dwell with more intentness and affection on them But you when you are reading and hearing these things that must be the Subject of your Meditations and sowing the Seed of future consideration you must drive away the Birds of Prey that would devoure the Seed that you have sown I mean all disturbing worldly thoughts and keep your mind as much retired from all other things as you are able that it may be free and open to the impressions of the Word and Spirit those especially that are unfurnished for Meditation must take this course for it is most like to prosper since it hath not only Precept but Reason to enforce it They must never expect to have their Souls byassed to and fitted for this Duty that neglect these means which the Wisdom of God hath appointed and let their thoughts scamble about and imploy their eyes and ears about any petty matters rather than in the reading and hearing of Gods Word and such explications of it as are likeliest to bring it to the mind and heart especially read and hear those passages of truth that Life and Salvation most depends on most frequently and get them as fast into your mind as you are able and a right understanding of the very tenour and chief scope of the Gospel which is to bring men to the sight of their sins and by that to come to Christ as his tractable Disciples and by Faith in Christ to Salvation which design that it might bring to pass it sets the highest motives and encouragement before us and gives us the greatest helps But above all parts of Scripture the Psalms of David frequently read will promote you in the work of consideration and teach you hâ—â— to stir up such affections as you see Daviâ— expresseth almost in every Psalm There you may see how he sets upon God sometimes sometimes stirs up his own Soul confers with God communes with his own heart that he might kindle the Fire of Gods Love in his heart which is the principal design of consideration for whether he express sorrow and contrition for his sin it is but that he may stir up hatred in his Soul against it which is the great impediment to the Love of God Or if he express and utter his complaints of the vanity of the World and the miseries of this life all is to quicken up his desires after the true happiness of his Soul and you know love is intrinsecal and essential to desire if he enlarge as he doth frequently in the praises of the Lord and display his glory and muster up his perfections and call Heaven and Earth and Sea and all the Inhabitants of them and all the Islands and Continents of the World and bring in their testimony to him and to make his Name glorious if he summon every living thing that hath breath to praise the Lord it is that he may advance the esteem and encrease the love of God in his own heart and the hearts of others and therefore from this Book you may fetch matter enough and argument for consideration to make use of for the kindling of this and all other holy and devout affections yea the very out-side I mean the phrase and expression of the Psalms is such as hath a powerful Rhetorick with it to set the heart on fire with the love of God no contemplative and devout Christian but hath had very familiar acquaintance with this Book I have told you the flat necessity of consideration if ever a man be brought to his right mind yea and how necessary it is to preserve you in the love and fear of God after you have believed if therefore you are convinced that is your duty without which you can never get the cure of your deadly distempers then you will make Conscience of the means whereby you may be brought to consideration The heart is not easily brought to delight in God and love him above all and to use the world as if he us'd it not its consideration that must change it the heart is naturally dead to spiritual things it 's Consideration that must enliven it and make it stir the heart is prone to wander from God it 's Consideration that must bring it home the heart is full of blindness and obduracy it 's Consideration that must enlighten and soften it If therefore you would not perish in blindness and obduracy and wander from God without hopes of recovery and lose the Pearl of infinite price which who so is wise will sell all that he hath to buy and purchase then use the means that must bring you to Consideration Having given you some general Directions towards the promoting of the work and duty of Consideration I come in the next place to give you some more Particular Directions 1. As to the matter 2. As to the manner 3. As to the end How this Duty is to be performed Concerning the matter of your Contemplation First The first great Object of your Consideration should be God and the Relation you stand in to him and his glorious Perfections It 's worth thy while to consider daily that he made thee out of nothing and when there are four distinct Ranks of Creatures viz. Things that have meer being without life 2. Things that have being and life such as are all Vegetables Trees and Flowers 3. Such as have being life and sense such as are Brutes and other sensitive Creatures 4. Such as have being life sense and reason when there are these four Species and Orders of Creatures he hath placed thee in the highest form and hath made the other three Ranks for thy use and service and as he hath made thee such a Creature so thou hast thy supportation and maintenance wholly from him and he is training thee up in the world for his immediate presence and for those ravishing delights that are to be enjoyed in the Beatifical Vision Canst thou possibly consider the perfection of his Nature thy relation to him as his Creature from whom all that thou hast or doest expect must be fetched thine hourly dependance on him his Authority over thee his right and property in thee his bounty towards thee and not fall down before
the Proffers of his Love Oh with what an a king Heart will the Infidel then say Why did he dye for me since I was resolved to dye for my self If he had not died for me this Death had never been so terrible as now I feel it O that any one would bring an Argument and convince me now that Christ died not for me then should I escape the greatest part of my Torment I would not torment thee with such thoughts as these now if it were not in hope to prevent such tormenting thoughts when time is past Let me earnestly entreat thee whoever thou art that art in this doleful condition either speedily to believe in Christ or believe it thine own Conscience will one day prove thy most terrible Executioner So much for the First Motive that should Teach us to prize and exercise Faith viz. Consider the Miseries of an Unbeliever But it is not my design to fright the Sinner unto Christ neither is it possible that Fear only should work true Belief and produce a justifying Faith All that I have said hitherto is to deter the Sinner from such a damning Sin as Unbelief but these be Arguments of another Nature to attract the Sinner unto Christ Consider therefore 2. Secondly What Christ hath done to draw the Heart of Sinners to him and to engage them to believe He hath given his Soul an Offering to the death and stood in the very flames of his Father's wrath that he might keep away the burning intolerable heat thereof from us and bore the grievous burden of our sins He stript himself even to the greatest Poverty and Nakedness that he might Cloth us and emptied himself that we might be filled 2 Cor. 8.9 Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that tho he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich When we were fallen into the deepest reproach and shame he made himself of no Reputation and took upon him the Form of a Servant that he might advance us to the highest dignity and honour 2 Phill. 6.7 He humbled himself to the death that he might procure our life he made a low stoop that he might lift us up when sin had cast us down He took upon him the humane Nature that he might make us partakers of the Divine Nature Heb. 2.14 compared with 2 Pet. 1.4 Forasmuch as the Children are partakers of Flesh and Blood he also himself likewise took part with them that through Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death that is the Devil and purchase for us exceeding rich and precious Promises that by them we might be made partakers of the Divine Nature It was no small Endearment of himself to us to pass by the Angels and put forth his hand to help us For verily he took not upon him the Nature of Angels but the Seed of Abraham 2 Heb. 16. He rejoyced in the habitable parts of the Earth and his delight was among the Children of Men Prov. 8.3 It 's his earnest desire that thou shouldst have the benefits of his Death and enjoy what he hath so dearly purchased and therefore he invites thee to believe in him because otherwise thou canst have no advantage by his Death If thou hast any understanding or ingenuity lay the Love of Christ to Heart and consider how unspeakably great it is it 's past words to express it it is so much beyond example let thy thoughts dwell upon it and never give over the serious consideration of his Sufferings and Death for such as thou art till thy Heart melt and yield and till thou canst with Love and Thankfulness resign thy self to him as one that doth deliberately resolve to be his Loyal Subject and Disciple Methinks after thou hast heard what he hath done for thee thou shouldst be ready to do any thing and stick at nothing that he bids thee do that thou mightst shew the most grateful resentment of his love But when he commands thee nothing but for thy greatest advantage that is to leave thy deadly Enemies and forsake thy self-destroying Courses and come unto him thy greatest Friend and live under his Government to refuse such a gracious Offer shews that thou art void of all true understanding ingenuity and sense of thy own Benefit and Advantage Hadst thou rather live under the cruel Laws of a deadly malitious Enemy and one that neither can nor will protect thee when the most dreadful storms are coming on thee Than under the Government of one that beareth the greatest love and compassion to thee and hath the greatest Wisdom to direct thee the greatest Power to protect thee and whose Laws are the most perfect Rule of Life and the greatest Tendency to the Peace Welfare and Perfection of Christ's loyal faithful Subjects Hadst thou rather serve a Tyrant and professed Enemy in Chains and Slavery than a rightful just and gracious Soveraign that hath given such Demonstrations of the most wonderful and â—â—â—pendious love to such as thou art whose Service is perfect Freedom who hath contrived all his Laws for the benefit of his true Subjects and sincere Disciples If the Love of Christ testified by such exquisite Sufferings and Death and thy own Welfare and Felicity will not prevail with thee to throw off the Yoke of Satan and the World and Flesh and to become a Believer and cause thee to say from thy Heart with those in the Prophet Isaiah 26.13 O Lord our God other Lords besides thee have had Dominion over us but by thee only will we make mention of thy Name 3. Thirdly Remember that Faith is the first Grace that brings thee into a justified state Condition All that thou hast or canst do before thou dost believe in Christ is of no avail to thy Justification and Salvation It 's Faith that unites the Soul to Christ and till it be united to him it can receive no saving benefit from him when first the sinner doth heartily consent that Christ shall be his King and Teacher and he will be his Subject and Disciple he is morally joyned and united unto Christ as the Soveraign and Subject make one Body Politick of which every Subject is a Member and the King is the Head and as the Master and the Scholars are morally united then begins our union with Christ and our participation of the benefits which he hath purchased when we first enter our selves into his School and list our selves under his Government and Protection God hath peremptorily resolved that none shall have the special Benefits of his Death but those that submit themselves to him Amongst which Justification is the first and then th◠〈◊〉 follow in their due place and order 〈…〉 by Faith we have Peace 〈…〉 〈…〉 â—â—pt 〈…〉 the 〈…〉 of Eternal Salvation 〈…〉 â—se that actually obey him so neither 〈…〉 the Means of their Justification to any 〈…〉 as by Faith and Cordial Subjection resolve to obey
go no further than the Bible Look not on the Vine saith Solomon when it is red when it giveth its colour in the Cup when it moveth it self aright At the last it biteth like a Serpent and stingeth like an Adder Prov. 23.31 32. When the World smiles most and looks the most pleasingly it usually gives the most mortal stab Let the Experience of all Ages speak out and tell us plainly how the World hath used its greatest Followers and Admirers some it hath taken from the Top of all their worldly Dignity and Glory and made the very Scorn and Contempt of all Thus it served the famous Bellisarius that great and worthy Commander under the Emperour Justinian Thus also it served Seianus the great Favorite of Tiberius and Pillippa the Catanian that was so famous in the Court of Naples Thus it used the great Darius Cyrus Craesus and the proud Bajazet with infinite others that were gotten to the height of worldly Prosperity But those that it hath used best it hath left them at last to grapple with Death and Judgment It saves none from the devouring stroke of Death It accompanies none beyond the Grave Thither if it chance to bring any of its Paramours there to be sure it leaves them Their Glory shall not depart after them Psalm 49.17 The Happiness and Felicity of the World will be sure to leave us in our greatest need These Goards will be sure to wither before the Morning of the Resurrection when we shall need most Protection from the scorching heat of God's wrath But if we go to the Sanctuary there we may more certainly learn how it hath and will befriend those that have doted most upon it and have ventured the Favour of God and their Everlasting Hopes for the World Psalm 92.7 When the wicked spring as the grass and all the workers of iniquity do flourish it is that they shall be destroyed for ever And how doth the World then stand up in their behalf when they are betrayed thereby to such a fearful Destruction It leaves them to the stroke of Justice to shift for themselves Job 20.5 6 7. The triumphing of the wicked is short and the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment Though his excellency mount up to the heavens and his head reach unto the clouds yet he shall perish for ever as his own dung All they which have seen him shall say Where is he This is the Portion of a wicked man from God and the heritage appointed unto him by God Job 20.29 Thus the World gives up its Lovers to the Wrath of God and shall come in as a Witness also to their Everlasting Confusion Ninthly The prevailing Love of any thing here on Earth is a Sin not fit to be pardoned if a Man dye in it And it is an infallible Mark of one that shall perish without Mercy yea and of one whom God hateth 1 John 2.15 Love not the world nor the things of the world If any man love the world in this predominant measure the love of the Father is not in him And James 4.4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of the world is emnity with God He therefore that will be a friend of the world is an enemy unto God Luke 14.26 If any man come to me and hate not that is love them not less his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters and his own Life much more all other things he cannot be my Disciple These are the plain Passages of God's Word that shew manifestly how every one shall be sure to speed that loveth any thing here below more than Christ No Apology can be made for such a one neither is such a one a Subject capable of Mercy if he live and dye in that state that sets so light by it and God the Author of it as to prefer such a short liv'd Trifle before him That say unto God Directly or by Consequence by Word or Practice stand thou here at my Foot-stool when the World is exalted and set up in Honour and Esteem In a word to love any Thing more than God is a Sin that the Gospel hath no pardon for if it be final because it argues an ungodly Heart and he that 's ungodly cannot be a Believer or a Christian Because the Means presuppose the End and Christianity which is the way to God presupposeth Godliness or some Love to God who is the End intended or desired And without Faith the Gospel Grant giveth no Remission of Sin Tenthly Till a Man can contemn the World in the sense before stated he is no better than a Brute so far is he from the Life and Spirit of a Christian Christianity doth not depose but always suppose Reason It doth refine and not subvert and undermine it And where a Man is not got so high as the sober use of his Reason he is not fit to be a Disciple of Christ He that follows not the Light and Guidance of his Natural Reason for the main when Sense and Passion do oppose and make head against it though he hath the distinctive Faculty of a Man yet is not a Man in Use and Exercise but a Brute And he that 's no Man be sure is no Christian But he that prefers his Body before his Soul in the main Course of his Conversation lives not so as the Light of Nature can direct him The clearest Reason doth suggest that the better part is to be principally looked after And that a Man hath a Soul as well as a Body we need not go to Scripture for an Argument as if there were no Light elsewhere to inform us There be other Topicks common to us with Infidels and Heathen Now the World is but the Accommodation of the Sensual Part And he that cannot slight and contemn this when it thwarts the Interest of his Better Part He is so far from learning that which is supernatural in the Doctrin of Christ and Salvation that he hath not learned that which is but Natural and the Object of a lower Faculty He is so far from the higher Acts of Faith that he wants the lower Acts of Reason and hath not the presupposed Matter that 's required to the Christian Faith Eleventhly The Contempt of Earth and Earthly Things lays an excellent Foundation for a cleer and piercing Understanding For nothing doth so much dull and sot the Intellect as Earthly Pleasure and Sensual Delight which makes the Flesh insolent the Passions masterless and untractable the Mind listless and unfit to search after wisdom And whilst the Soul is daily offended with the streams of a Body drunk with Earthly Pleasures the vigor and sprightfulness of it is quite extinguished And the understanding is quite perverted and knows not how to discern and judge aright when it is upon any search For nothing will enter such a perverted Mind or seem Credible that doth any ways thwart this Carnal
the way of the Righteous that is so as to approve and justifie it Psal 1. last Thou didst not lay these things to heart neither didst thou remember thy latter end saith the Prophet Esay to Babylon Isa 47.7 that is thou didst not take it into thy thoughts so as to work upon thy heart and to get thy self in a readiness for that houre For where there is or should be a Connexion Train or Series of Actions to name one is to imply all the rest but most usually where we are provoked to any duty that will require several distinct acts the whole duty is named from the leading Act as here in the Text Consider this c. An Object must first be taken into the thoughts and then be judged weighty and concerning before it can have any influence upâ—â—n the affections and life and so in the following words ye that forget God As not remembring God is the first Act to neglect of Duty and Disobedience but yet sometime the very ultimate and completive Act is named and all the rest implyed and presupposed as in all those Scriptures where salvation is promised to obedience there all the fore-going acts are understood without which it would not be true obedience Since therefore the end of this consideration and thoughtfulness to which wicked men and such as forget God are exhorted is that they may clearly discern his excellency above all things and by this discovery kindle the highest love to him in the heart and by that prepare for the readiest obedience Therefore I define forgetfulness to be the want of such knowledge and consideration of Gods essence and perfections as is necessary to produce the highest Love and Obedience 2. Note Secondly That every degree of Remembring God and thinking on him yea though it be with some degrees of Love and Pleasure Praise and Thankfulneâ—s will not acquit a man from the Dreadful Sin of Forgetfulness If the thoughts be not so frequent so magnificent as to produce a love suitable to his Nature that is Transcending all other Love whereby the soul is then prepared for the highest obebience otherwise he that is defective in this high and sovereign degree is still condemned among those that are here said to forget God So much in Answer to the first question What it is to forget God in general and for explicatâ—â— to the answer Secondly who they are more particularly that forget God To which I answer though I might reckon up as many as their are distinct and particular Sins that prevail in distinct and particular men As the Proud the Envious the Adulterous the Blasphemous And so multiply particulars to a vast number For every one of these may be properly said to forget God Yet I will confine my self to these three sorts 1. Those that remember not the great attributes of God and the Relations wherein they stand to him 2. Those that think not on his sacred and venerable word 3. Those that overlook his most observable works It s some great defect in one or all these that doth both breed and feed all other Forgetfulness of God specified in any prevailing sins whatsover because the forgetting of any these three grand points of remembrance betrays to all impiety towards God all unrighteousness towards men and all ill usage and government of a mans self which three Capital Sins imply all mortal wickedness whatsoever I shall begin with the first First Those may be said notoriously to forget God that remember not the great Attributes that are so essential to him we are not able to see his naked essence 'T is therefore by his Attributes that we come to know him at least in this Life And he that wants a competent understanding of these and that in such a measure as to Empower his understanding and will to acts that become such glorious perfections lies open unto every sensible object to be drawn away and enticed to any practice though never so wicked whereby he may come to enjoy what he doth thus Idolize for want of a better object But I will more particularly insist upon two or three of those Relations which every wicked man either 1. wants a right knowledge of or 2. doth not consider and every one that doth not consider must needs be a wicked man 1. First they consider not that God is their Creator gave them that Being and Perfections which they so ungratefully abuse to his dishonour They think not what an obligation this is to the highest Love Gratitude and Obedience What a wicked blindness is this to live and go about the world and to use the very Soul and Body that God hath given thee and yet to look no higher than thy Father that begot thee and thy Mother that brought thee forth Woe unto him that saith to a Srock thou art my Father and to a Stone thou hast brought me forth Jer. 2.27 Canst thou think that those eyes were made to look no higher or dost think that thou art solely or princiaplly indebted unto them for that Being and Wisdom that advanceth thee so far above other Creatures Such a thought yea the want of a quite contrary thought will debase thee as much below as now thou art exalted above other Creatures But yet be it never so absurd This is the woful case and condition of the far greatest part of men One would think that if the Remembrance of so plain and Confessed a Truth as this is would acquit a man of this horrid Sin of forgetting God that none would be Guilty But alas there are few that would escape notwithstanding I say again few woult escape They are not many in comparison that think so frequently and so seasonably of this truth as to get a full sight of it into the understanding till it fall down before it and after it hath recovered it self out of extasy and amazement doth use its authority to the utmost to awaken the other powers to perceive it that so nothing might hinder the love and service that such a Mercy calls for nor be able to wipe off so high an obligation if men were not so prone to forget that they are Creatures and stand in so near relation unto God that gave them their breath and being and doth support them every hour why is this knowledg so often inculcated in the word of God for this the Prophet Daniel reproveth Belshazzar and his Wives and Concubines that they praised the Gods of Silver and Gold and Brass which see not nor hear nor know and the God in whose hand thy breath is and whose are all thy ways hast thou not glorified Dan. 5.23 But what do I speak of a single person and some few others with him you may see whole Nations sadly charged with it in Scripture The Ox knoweth his Owner and the Asse his Masters Crib but Israel doth not my people doth not consider Isa 1.3 4. and if Gods own people were thus shamefully guilty what
Declaration there spoken of is improper and objective As a Dial tells what a Clock 't is 1. You may gather what time of day 't is if you look on it by the help of our Reason not any Tongue it hath to express thus much Neither hath any Creature an expliâ—â—â— desire of an Eternal Happiness that shall never fail or be interrupted And Lactantius one of the Latin Fathers that liv'd in the said Century places the Characteristical Difference and Specificial Distinction between Man and Beast not in Rationality but in Religion because some Creatures seem to do Acts that are Rational as the Elephant Hare Fox Dog but none that have any appearance of Religion or Piety Now it is a very great truth That God never made any Power or Capacity in any Creature in vain He hath given the Sun an Active Capacity to revive and exhilerate the lower World and it were unnatural if he should not put forth that vertue to that end He hath given Earthly Creatures a pasfive Capacity or Receptive Power to suck in this influence and they do and are covered over with Corn and laugh and sing Psal 65.13 And it 's universally true wheresoever there is a power that can put forth any Act that should not act according to the Power were a Monster and not a Creature God hath given the Fire a power to burn and consume when fit matter is offered and if it should spare the Wood that 's laid on it we should not count it a merciful but a monstrous act God hath made the Water to wet and moisten and if it should not do so what were it good for You would not commend this Property in Horse or Beast if they should fly in the Air or dive under Water the Fish that should shun the Water would be a monstrous and degenerate Breed And is it not as absurd and monstrous for a man that hath a Faculty on purpose to remember God yet to forget him To have a Capacity to be like God and yet not to employ and exercise it for this also is imply'd in our remembrance of him There were no sadder Spectacle in the World than Man were it not for these Acts and what is or will be consequent on them A Toad were not half so bad nor the most hated Creature no nor those that are continually hunted and pursued and live always in danger of the snare or some crafty device or other that may make them a prey to their cruel pursuers These brutish Creatures apprehend not the snare till they are caught in it nor fore-see a mischief till it is upon them nor vex themselves with the memory of what is past But Reason which is Mans proper Vtensil were it not for the service that it may do to God and his Soul make him but the more capable subject of Misery and Torment It helps him to prevent a mischief before it comes and to think on it after it's past and gone and to enjoy a calamity I may say and to chew upon an evil that 's swallowed down and past Alass alass If God gave not Man these Faculties to remember and aspire to him â—t would be far more desirable to be a Beast than a Man since then it 's past all doubt that God hath made Man for himself and given him such a high Capacity on purpose to remember him it 's monstrous and unnatural to forget him 2. Secondly And as he hath given him his Faculties on purpose to remember him so he hath displayed himself in the Firmament of Heaven as purposely to be remembered Psal 111.4 He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered And 1. That God may be remembered by them that 's the very end of them And verse 2. The works are great and magnificent sought out of all as we render it but in the Original it's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is exposed and laid open before all to take notice of And the Italian Translation renders it as it were wickedness in a man upon whom God hath bestowed Eyes to shut them perpetually and to refuse to make any use of so noble a Faculty So it is a wickedness much of the same kind when God hath set so many visible Objects before this Faculty to put him in mind of him that hath made both Faculty and Object and he makes no such use of them he hath Eyes and sees not he hath Objects and doth not understand them Judge what a wicked perversness this is We are prone to think it no great wickedness to commit such a sin as this is and to cross the very end of making our selves and other things whilst we do it not purposely and have no thought of contradiction to God in this sin But let us not deceive our selves when we have so high an obligation upon us to any Duty and are commanded to remember and think upon it and we do not though we do not purposely forget because God bids us to remember yet we are morally and reputatively guilty of thwarting and crossing the Will of God though not in quite so high a degree yet enough to undo us everlastingly unless we repent of what 's past and do otherwise for the time to come This will be but a pitiful shameful answer when God shall come to examine man by man what proficiency we have made amongst the Creatures that were made to instruct us and shall find a dunce instead of a knowing well informed Scholar Do the Heavens declare the Glory of God to the Moles that wâ—nt outward Eyes as it is usually said or to the Brutes that want the inward Eye that is understanding or to Man that is instructed with both these helps and will it be a venial sin think ye to wink with both these He that by all the Glory of Heaven and Earth is not so far enlightned so as to adore the wonderful Perfection of him that made them and to prostrate his very heart in love and reverence to him is wilfully blind and one that shall be dealt with as if he shut his Eyes against all What is there no Workmanship either in Heaven above or Earth beneath or Water under the Earth Is there nothing in the Air or bowels of the Earth that 's worth thine Observation or that can erect our blockish Heart and bring up our Affections to the glorious Artificer and Workman It 's a profound Sleep indeed into which that man is fallen and is a certain forerunner of Death when none of all these excellent Creatures that strike his sence can awaken him to any understanding reverence or love of his Excellency that hath bid all things come forth and stand in their several ranks and even gird themselves to the service of man This sin hath the higher aggravation in that there be so many various ways whereby the several Creatures would recover man to a due remembrance of God I might insist upon those four ways mentioned in the
of no other Argument though I could produce several if he died for such as deny him and crucifie him to themselves afresh and finally perish then he died no question for the rest but that he tasted Death for such is plain Heb. 10.29 Having in the verse before shewed the miserable end of those that despised Moses's Law he infers by way of interrogation Of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy of that hath trodden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despight to the Spirit of Grace and yet plainer 2 Pet. 2.1 There shall be false Teachers as the Apostle gives them warning that shall bring in damnable Heresie denying the Lord that bought them So that hence it is evident that Christ laid down his Blood as a price to redeem them that ungratefully deny him And if Christ had not died for all it could not be the duty of every man to believe in him But there is nothing more unquestionable than that every one is bound to believe and such as refuse are threatned with a more fearful destruction because they wickedly frustrate as much as in them lies such a wonderful Grace of God and withstand the highest motive to Repentance and a new life 1 Cor. 6.20 Ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie him in your Body and in your Spirit which are his The Apostle speaketh to the Corinthians in general among whom there were many unbelievers And what 's the Argument he useth to perswade them to Faith and newness of Life but because Christ hath shewed such love to them as to die for them Since he hath offered up his Body upon the Cross for you do you offer up your Souls and Bodies unto him to be instruments of Righteousness to do him service is the force of the Apostles Argument We see then that the Death of Christ and the Gift of the Spirit are obligations upon all that hear the Gospel at least to a thankful Commemoration of the love of God and a Remembrance of him There are none that live under the sound and influence of the Gospel but have the love of Christ expressed in his Incarnation Life and Death for them to move them externally by way of Argument and the powerful Spirit inwardly to check their Corruptions and prompt them to obedience in some degree and measure and if they will not think upon the one nor submit to the other but slightly regard the one and stubbornly resist the other and stiffle every good motion which they feel and keep off from any serious thoughts of the death of Christ and will not be perswaded to consider the Blood that was shed for them nor suffer his love to be shed abroad into their hearts by the Holy Spirit Let such know that their forgetfulness of God is the more heynous because it hath so fast an obligation as this to the most necessary duty of remembrance the Word also as well as the Spirit What are all the passages of Scripture but such as prepare for or directly stir up to such a Remembrance You may observe some parts of Scripture more remotely conduce to this grand duty of remembring God other parts do more immediately serve to produce it where it is wanting others to reduce and recover it when 't is lost So that one of these three ways either by conducing to it or producing or reducing of it all the parts of Gods Word conspire io this principal duty The main division of the Scripture is into the Old and New Testament But what is the design and drift of both these but to rescue or preserve a Memory of God in the World Our Saviour sums up the Old Testament in these two heads the Law and the Prophets Now what doth the Law serve for if not to mind us of the great Law-giver and to beget an awe of his Soveraignty upon the World And the main end of the Prophets and their Prophesies was to reproduce this Remembrance of God when the ungrateful People had forgot him And what can be the end of that Light that hath shined to us in the Gospel but to teach us to deny all ungodliness 〈◊〉 Forgetfulness of God and to live soberly and righteously and godly in this present evil World which we can never do without frequent and effectual Remembrance of God and our Lord Jesus Christ I might more particularly insist here and shew how all the Precepts Promises and Threatnings which are the three essential parts of Gods Word are intended to this end and will leave the Soul inexcusable that forgets him or how the several Books of the Old and New Testament which are the integral parts of God's Word oblige to this Remembrance But I think the case is so plain and clear that none of these ways of demonstration is needful to convince us That the whole Word of God is no little impulsive but presseth earnestly to this Remembrance and is therefore another great Aggravation of the sin of Forgetfulness I shall only chuse to set some of those Texts of Scripture before you that are fullest of Affection and most Pathetical and that shew how unwilling God is to forget poor sinners or that they should perish as they must needs do in their Forgetfulness of him Esay 48.18 19. With what passion doth the Lord mourn over the poor forgetful Israelites that had even now brought utter ruine upon themselves O that thou hadst hearkened to my Commandments then had thy Peace been as a River and thy Righteousness as the Waves of the Sea Thy Seed also had been as the Sand and the off-spring of thy Bowels as the Gravel thereof and Hos 11.8 When the ten Tribes were got to such a degree of wickedness that God was not remembred by them any longer but they had divorced him from them by their Idolatries and could bear no longer without disparagement to the Truth and Justice of God with what unwillingness doth he throw them off How shall I give thee up O Ephraim How shall I deliver thee Israel How shall I make thee as Admah How shall I set thee as Zeboim My Heart is turned within me my Repentings are kindled together What heart that is not desperately sick of stupidity can hear this sound and not return and recover the remembrance of him whom before he had forgot O that my People had hearkened unto me and Israel had walked in my ways I should soon have subdued their Enemies and turned my Hand against their Adversaries The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him but their time should have endured for ever He should have fed them also with the finest of the Wheat and with Honey out of the Rock should I have satisfied thee Ps 81.13 14 15. Thus you see how these and such like Scriptures Numbers of which might be gathered together and as the parts of
to have this dreg put into thy Cup and to have no God to remember thee When thy Friends fail thee and thy nearest Comforts deal deceitfully with thee as a Brook deceiveth the thirsty Traveller in those hot Countreys where Water was scarce that repairs to it for Refreshment and when he came behold it is dried up Job 6.15 What a cutting thought will it be to thee if God forget thee also Nay to come a little nearer to thee what wilt thou do when thou walkest through the valley of the shadow of death Psal 23.4 When the pains of Hell take hold on thee and the sorrows of the Grave compass thee about How wilt thou be comforted if the Lord fly from thee and thy cry will not be suffered to come into his Ears Psal 18.4 5 6. Canst thou be content to be forgotten for ever when the Righteous shall be had in everlasting Remembrance Psal 112.6 Surely thy Spirit will be overwhelmed within thee and thy Heart within thee will be filled with Desolation and Astonishment Psal 143.4 Alas alas thou canst scarce bear it If a Father a Husband or Brother or one of these thy dearest Friends look strangely on thee We may very well think that it went near Job when he complained that his Kinsfolk failed him and his familiar Friends forgot him Job 19.14 yea that his Breath was strange to his Wife though he entreated her for the Childrens sake of his own Body ver 17. And canst thou endure to be forgotten of him that 's ten thousand times a better Friend Will it not break thy Heart when he that can only help thee shall say Verily he knows thee not Mat. 25.12 Behold I cry out of wrong saith Job but I am not heard I cry a loud but there is no Judgment Job 19 7. Whither wilt thou go for help when this shall be thy case and it shall be truly said there is no help for him in his God when he who is the God of Salvation shall not hear thee Psal 68.20 Thou shalt surely speed as the forgetters of God have always done they cried but there was none to save them even unto the Lord but he answered them not Psal 18.41 Not unlikely but thou canst hold up thy Heart and keep thy Heart whoâ—e and abate nothing of thy confidence when God hideth himself whilst thou art warm in outward Prosperity and there is no want of these outward Comforts as with a Sword in thy Bones it woundeth thee not though it be said unto thee where is now thy God Psal 42 10. Thou canst pray unto God it may be if thy forgetfulness of God hath not put thee past that duty or rather put up a few lifeless words instead of Prayer and never look as David did Psal 5.3 nor care whether he send down any Prayers yea or not whilst thy Breasts are full of Milk and thy Bones are moistened with Marrow Job 21.24 And thou hast full measure of temporal Comforts Thou canst lay thee down in Peace and rest and sleep quietly if the Lord make thee to dwell safely and plentifully in this World though thou knowest not whether he remember or forget thy Soul Psal 4.8 But when the fire of thy Hearth is gone out and sin hath kindled a fire in thy Heart and Conscience then thou wilt cry out bitterly to God whom thou canst so easily forget Wherefore hidest thou thy Face and countest me for thine Enemy Job 13.24 It may be whilst thou art surrounded with outward mercies and hast a spring tide of these present comforts and the stream run full and waters of a full cup are wrung to thee Psal 73.10 When our Garâ—ners are full of all manner of store Psal 144. ver 13. and we have the priviledge of outward cummunion with God also we are content with the want and absence of God and the sense of his sweetest Love and with a negligent heartless service of him if not a total neglect And the World hath had our Hearts when we have put off God with words and wishes and a few confessions that come not from the Heart nor tend to any considerable Reformation But when the things that our Souls lust after shall be snatched away and all our dear enjoyments which we have sinfully prefered before God are gone when Creatures shall refuse to give out their Comforts any longer and our darling Delights which lie in our Bosoms and are to us as Children are to doting Parents are gone and we shall want also the outward Ordinances which serve to keep us in a deluding peace when Hophni and Phineas are slain I mean our sweetest Comforts and the Ark of God also is removed and the Glory departed from us 1 Sam. 4.11 21. Our Hearts that are so backward to feel now will then break and be overwhelmed then we shall better understand what it is both to forget and to be forgotten of God It 's the comfort of one that remembereth God above his chief joy Psal 137.6 and worth a World that though the publick Calamities be never so dreadful and a thousand fall at his Side yea ten thousand at his right Hand yet God remembereth him and though personal miseries multiply upon him and he hath neither comfort nor taste to relish it through want of health if he can say unto men I am poor and needy yet the Lord thinketh on me and unto God Thou art my help and deliverer make no long tarrying O my God Psal â—â— 17 If he hath true ground to say As for me thou upholdest me in mine integrity and wilt set me before thy Face for ever Psal 41.12 But it is the heart-break of one that hath forgotten God that distress is come upon him and God remembers him not Such a case was Saul in when he went to a Witch to raise up Samuel that he might consult a little with him and when she had brought up Samuel to him Samuel said to Saul Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up It would make a mans heart ake to hear his doleful reply And Saul answered I am sore distressed for the Philistines make War against me and God is departed from me and answereth me no more 1 Sam. 28.15 This is another woful effect and consequent of this sin those that cast God out of their Remembrance God will forget them But stay this is not all for 3. Thirdly As he will forget their Persons so he will remember their sins Amos 8.7 The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob surely I will never forget any of their works speaking of the forgetful Israelites If God would forget them wholly and neither remember their Persons nor Actions their misery would not be so fearful as now it is But this will be an intolerable thought to them that as God when he is marking out his Servants for Deliverance and Salvation he will pass them by so when he is bringing the most horrible Calamity upon the World
they cannot want instruction if they will go for it to almost every Church about them or to their knowing Neighbours and desire to be instructed It 's one of these two or both that undoes all the World uncatechised Head and an unmortified Heart He that hath an honest Heart and a willing Mind cannot want the knowledge that is necessary to Salvation and wo to them that want this knowledge for the Lord Jesus shall shortly be revealed from Heaven in flaming Fire to take Vengeance on all that know not God Shun Ignorance therefore for he that knows not God cannot Remember him Thirdly Flee Inconsideracy for next to Ignorance this is the great impediment to this Remembrance and your own Happiness Wherefore hath God given thee a Faculty to consider and bestowed Reason on thee Wherefore hath he set his Word and Works before thee Doth he not mean to draw forth thy thoughts thereby that thou mayst consider and reap the benefit and give God the Glory The most concerning weighty truth will do no good and never affect thy Heart unless they be considered Though you know and believe that God is the Spring-head from whence all your Mercies come and that he hath redeemed you by his Son and offereth to save you by his Spirit and Word if you will but come unto Christ by Faith yet if you consider not these things no wonder if you make light of Christ no wonder if you trample his Blood under your Feet and go your â—way one to his Farm another to his Merchandize and take the happiness the World will afford you though it be at the Plow and Cart in rising early and sitting up late and in the hardest Toyl and Labour rather than believe in the Son of God or spend an hour in Prayer or reading the Word of God that you may Remember him that hath made all things and to whom all the World is but a shadow Though you believe that the wicked shall be turned into Hell and all that forget God and that all that die in impenitency shall be sentenced to the Eternal Flames yet if you shut these thoughts out of your minds and will not consider them what wonder if you live as if there were no such things What though you believe that the hour is coming in which all that are in the Grave shall hear the Voice of the Son of God and come forth they that have done good to the Resurrection of Life John 5.28 29. yet if you consider not what God hath prepared for them that love him no wonder if you be weary and faint in the way Consideration openeth the Eye and softneth the Heart and maketh you feel the force and power of truth If you shut your Eyes by inconsideration the most taking Objects will never move you and the most fearful sight will never fright you Though it is impossible to perswade a Man whose Eyes are open to run into the Fire or Water or throw himself down a Precipice yet going on and shuts his Eyes will not long escape one mischief or another you will go with the Ox to the slaughter and with the Fool to the correction of the Stocks if you consider not that it is for your Life O how many are now roaring in the unquenchable Fire that would never have come there if they had but considered O how many forget God and their own Souls day after day that would not that could not do so if they did but seriously consider What madness hath filled the Heart of Man that he should be backward to nothing more than to consider whilst it may do him good and when every thought will cut his Heart he will follow the work close and do nothing else but reflect upon and bewail his misery As consideration if it be timely followed and wisely managed is the best and usual instrument on mans part to bring a foolish careless senseless sinner to his wits again So Consideration when it is too late is the greatest instrument to put him quite out of his Wits and to fill his Heart with raging down-right madness for ever You will not be perswaded to consider now what you are doing and whither you are going and why God hath made you and given you life and time but mark what a Prophet tells you that cannot be deceived 〈…〉 In the latter days you shall consider it perfectly and no tongue shall be able to perswade you to the contrary As corrupt Nature is backward to nothing more than consideration whilst the day of mercy lasteth so he is prone to nothing more after this day is past and gone and as he will not consider now so he shall not then avoid it Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see but they shall see and be ashamed 〈…〉 If you would therefore Remember God to your comfort and not to your terror shun Inconsideracy and fill your Hearts with matter from the daily observation of Gods Word and Works to feed your consideration I might insist more largely upon the hindrances and shew you what impediments 1. Pride 2. Discontent 3. and Worldliness are to this Remembrance but I wave them and proceed to the positive Directions First If you would get a comforting worthy Remembrance of God into your Heart then get your Heart deeply affected with the mischief that sin hath done you and the love and compassion that Christ hath shewed to you If you understand not what God made you at the first and for what an honourable high and noble end and how much your Nature is distorted and though you could not help it that you took such a perverse Nature from your Parents yet you have too much given your Actual Consent in that you have not bewailed and lamented your case in any considerable measure to this day If you know not what ever sin deserveth nor see so much evil in it as that it should deserve the penalty that God hath threatned nor consider what number of sins you have been guilty of and to what a degree of guilt they have been aggravated by you and what a necessity there was that you should perish everlastingly unless God should deny himself which the Apostle tells us he cannot do â— Tim. 2.13 and suffer his Justice Wisdom and Holiness to lie under disgrace and reproach if Christ had not undergone the wrath of God and so stop'd the mouth of Justice vindicated the Law of God made Transgression odious and ingag'd to bring the sinners to Repentance that should partake of the Fruits of his Death and to humble them in the sense of their former wickedness and to restore the Image of God in them again and to bring them to the love of his service again which before their Repentance and Conversion they do naturally hate and abhor If you do not understand what Christ hath done for you already and what he will do by his Spirit to the changing of your Hearts If
him and lift up thy heart to him with reverence nor feel the fire kindle in thy heart and thy self willing to be offered up as a whole Burnt-offering in that fire To offer up Body and Soul with all their several faculties and actions as a living Sacrifice to him is but thy reasonable service Rom. 12.1 As it is his end why he made thee so it should be thy end to have his works continually in thine eye his Word ever in thine heart and his praises everlastingly in thy mouth This was the resolution of David and should be thine I will sing unto the Lord saith he as long as I live I will sing praises to my God whilst I have my being My meditation of him shall be sweet I will be glad in the Lord Psal 104.33 34. Consider that he hath infinite wisdom and therefore is fit to rule thee and all the world he hath infinite power and therefore its stark madness for such a Worm to resist him one word of his mouth will undo the Body and Soul for ever one angry frown of his Countenance will make thee wither and turn that moving body of thine into a dead and lifeless Clod yea and send thy Soul into eternal misery Didst thou but consider the holiness of his Nature and how much he abhorreth all sin and wickedness wouldst thou dare to commit it with so much boldness Didst thou but consider what a piercing eye he hath to whom the darkness and the light are both alike Psal 139.12 wouldst thou think to cover and conceal thy Sins from him or use craft and subtilty to blind his eyes Thou dost not consider what he is whilst thou usest such silly shifts as these are they do but provoke a wise man that hath but a Beam of Gods infinite wisdom how much more are they like to provoke him There 's nothing like ingenuity and plain dealing and humble confessing of thy Sin when thou hast to do with him Consideration of the Divine Purity and Justice would be a very effectual defence against all unjust and unrighteous practices If thou dost but consider what antipathy there is in Sin to the Divine Nature and what an affront it is to the Majesty of Heaven and Earth it would not go down so easily nor be such a sweet morsel to thee When men begin to take off the eye of their Consideration from God then they begin to walk in darkness and know not at what they stumble What makes men so vain and wicked in their imaginations and practices but because God is not in all their thoughts by Consideration What makes the ungodly to prefer the pleasures of Sin which are but for a season but because they do not eye and consider the recompence of reward What makes men either to neglect to come to God by prayer or to put up faint and cold supplications to him but that they consider not that he is and that he is a rewarder of all them that diligently seek him Thou wouldst not murmur and repine at any of Gods Providences towards thee if thou didst but consider what Equity Wisdom and Mercy there is in all his dealings towards thee thou wouldst endure the Cross and despise the shame if thou didst but seriously consider the joys that are set before thee thou wouldst be stedfast and unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord if thou didst but consider thy labour cannot be in vain in the Lord. I advise thee therefore to consider and think more frequently what an impartial righteous Judge thou hast to do with in thy actions and how dear thou shalt pay for thy Sin one of these days if thou wilt commit it and this would spur thee forward to thy duty when thou wouldst neglect it and keep thee backward from Sinful practice when thou wouldst commit it Let my counsel therefore be acceptable to thee have God more frequently in thy Meditations consider that he seeth and knoweth thy ways that he abhorreth all wickedness both of heart and life that he is the Governour of the World to whom all these things are as nothing that commandeth the Beings of Heaven and Earth that hath the Winds and the Sea and Men and Devils in the Chain of his Providence that was from all Eternity and is the same for ever and ever but thou art of yesterday and knowest nothing Job 8.9 Thou mayst resist the will of his Command and Precept because it is to try thee but thou canst not withstand the will of his purpose what he doth will peremptorily shall come to pass The Counsel of the Lord standeth for ever the thoughts of his heart to all Generations Psa 33.11 If thou lovest thy own Soul let God be continually before thy eyes it is because thou knowest him not that thou art so unlike him it is because thou art not acquainted with him that thy heart is so void of love to him it is because thou understandest him not that thou dost so little fear and reverence him And why hast thou so little knowledge and understanding of him but because thou considerest him not Didst thou but well consider his Omnipotency thou wouldst fear him more than all the world beside Didst thou but consider his Veracity thou wouldst take his word for the greatest security and give more credit to it than if thou hadst the word and Oath of the most trusty and sufficient men thou wouldst certainly believe the threatnings thereof and foresee the accomplishment of the promises thereof as if they were already made good and steer thy life according to the most wise and excellent precepts thereof Consider but his faithfulness and thou wilt see no reason to distrust him They that know thy Name saith the Prophet David will trust in thee for thou Lord hast never forsaken those that trust in thee Psal 9.10 Thou wouldst venture thy life and all thy comforts upon his Word come what will thou wouldst trust in the Lord and do good Psal 37.3 And whilst thou art intent upon thy duty wouldst not fear though men and Devils should combine against thee and the more experience thou hast the more thou wouldst be confident and say It 's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man It 's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in Princes Psal 118.8 9. Do but consider that he is a Spirit and thou wilt abhor a meer bodily service and tremble to let thy lips go when thy heart imagineth deceit and is not imployed in his worship and thou wouldest worship him in spirit and in truth John 4.23 24. Therefore men worship him they know not how nor care not in what manner because they worship they know not what Ver. 22. Men would not dare to offer up to him the Sacrifice of fools if they did but consider with whom they have to do Eccles 5.1 Neither would they come with dead hearts before the living God This is the
first thing that I recommend to your Consideration as being most worthy of it viz. The Nature and Attributes of God with application to your Affection and Practice Secondly The next thing that is worthy of your serious thoughts and daily consideration is wherefore you were born into the world Can any man that hath not laid his reasoning Faculty quite asleep think that he was made to live forty or threescore years in the world and then to die like a Brute and there 's an end of the Story He that will take the pains to consider and make use of the light that 's offered to him both in Nature and Scripture shall find that Man was made for something else and that he is worse than a Brute that looks no higher I take it for granted that no man can think that such a Noble Creature as Man is was made by chance by a happy conjuncture of a few fortuitous Atoms that jostled together and met at last into such an orderly shape as if all had been contrived with the greatest wisdom imaginable Nor do I think that any one that hath not quite lost his understanding can imagine that he grew out of the Earth as Grass or Trees much less will he say that there was no first Man but that there hath been a Succession of Reasonable Creatures from Eternal Ages If therefore he could not possibly come into the world any of these ways then he must be made by a Wisdom far higher than his own and that can be none but God These things being supposed can any man in his wits think that God made the highest and best of his Creatures here on Earth with such Faculties and endued him with understanding and put such desires into him that nothing in this world can satisfie to live a little while below and torment himself and to rule and domineer over the other Creatures and devour them and live as he list and then after he is dead to be had no more in remembrance Surely he might have plaid at such a Game as this without Reason he might have satisfied his lusts and took his ease and never have missed this Faculty that doth but chastise him for his brutishness and help to make him more miserable than those that want it It is most certain that God hath design'd him for a higher end even for the service of himself an Eternal life with him hereafter It 's most worthy of your serious consideration that you may be fully satisfied and know whether you have done this work If indeed you can think after you have well considered that it s no matter how a man lives so he can but enjoy a little mirth and laughter in the world then you may cast off all other care if you will and study how to live merrily and Crown your selves with Rose-buds before they be withered If any man can consider and reason impartially and think it is the wisest way to enjoy the pleasures of Meat and Drink and Lust and Ease he shall have my consent to take his course Who would envy a man that was made to live above the Stars and to out-shine the Sun in all its glory that will chuse rather to go to Grass and to feed with his Cattel All the difference is that he hath a little more Wit than a Cow or a Horse and therefore can do more mischief than one of them but his pleasure is but brutish and of no higher a stamp than theirs O consider that though you may stifle your Reason and smother the Light that teacheth you to live soberly righteously and godly in this present evil world you shall not always prevail against it if you will not let it speak now it will speak whether you will or no and cry out bitterly against you hereafter Consideration would roundly and quickly tell you that you were made to know love and obey God that made you for a while in this world and then be removed to the sight and enjoyment of himself other things sublunary were made for the service of Man but Man for Gods immediate service his very Constitution and the make and frame of all his faculties proclaim thus much What should he do with an Immortal Soul to walk up and down the world with if he were not to live in another world Why should he be put to School among the visible Creatures and be under the discipline and instructions of his Maker day and night which other Creatures are not partakers of if he were not training him up for a higher State Alas God delighteth not in cruelty nor in making this life a burden to us it is that he might prove us and try us and wean us from things temporary and awaken us to seek out for that happiness that indeed we were made for Job therefore takes it for a high favour to be thus severely educated What is Man that thou should'st magnifie him saith he or the Son of Man that thou should'st set thy heart upon him and that thou should'st visit him every morning and try him every moment If this were not in order to a future good why should he not complain rather that God hath made him in a worse condition than the Beasts they enjoy pleasure without any remorse and lay them down in their Dens and are secure but Man vexeth himself with a thousand cares and frighteth himself with as many fears and seeth evil before it comes and feeleth it after its past and gone which Brutes cannot do But as Earthly Parents if they are wise will train up their Children with more severity than they will their servants and others that they bear not such a respect to so the most wise and gracious God useth a more severe Discipline towards Man whom he intendeth to a greater honour than towards the rest of his Creatures he letteth them take their course whilst he tyes Fetters and Bands upon men and tyeth them by his Laws to Noble and Worthy actions and scourgeth them with his Rod when they deviate and wander from the way of life and happiness as if he would even constrain them to be happy O why do we no more pursue our own happiness when God doth even entreat us and spur us on by so many encouragements and hath made us for this very work and business Shall God be more solicitous for our welfare than we are for our own O poor deluded sinner thou mistakest thy work and business and where thy happiness lies when thou art pleasing thy flesh and greedily hunting after the pleasures thereof Thou thinkest that fleshly pleasure or worldly gain is godliness but it will prove quite contrary in the end and thou wilt then know when it is too late that godliness is the greatest pleasure and gain I know it 's natural to thee to thirst after happiness seek it then in the way that God hath prescribed or thou shalt never purchase thy desire though thou
did intentionally lay down his life for all yet none shall reap the fruit and benefit of his sufferings and satisfaction but such as are broken in heart for their iniquities and come believingly unto him to bind them up again and heal them 5. What more certain than the vanity of all things here below and their utter insufficiency to satisfie the Soul of Man and make it happy Every one that is not wilfully blind may see how ridiculous the Competition is between God and them The greatest Epicures and those that dote most upon the world and admire its glory will confess thus much when they come to die and their eyes are then opened for the most part whose very Reason and Understanding as well as their affections were wholly captivated to its deluding pleasures all their life-long Ask them now which is better the Favour of God or the Pleasures of the World and they will not then stick to tell you there 's no comparison between them you shall have a free and a full confession from them But yet though the World be such an empty thing and not worthy to be laid in the balance with the Favour of God and an Interest in Christ yet it is a great question whether it is so indeed in thy Estimation and Affections Let thy practice and the course and tenour of thy life decide the case Which doest thou study and endeavour to serve and please most Which doest thou labour most after the Food that perisheth or the Food that endureth Which doest thou make the most careful provision for this life or the life to come It concerns thee as much as the Salvation of thy Soul comes to to put this as much out of doubt as it is past doubt that the World is altogether vanity 6. How sure is it that Death will shortly come and part thy Soul and Body and give thee thy mortal wound and turn thy flesh into corruption Not a man but must shortly make his Bed in the Grave and be forgotten as a dead man out of sight and leave his substance to those that come after This is a clear truth and hath a sound confession from all the world the experience of all our Forefathers is a clear proof But yet though this truth is so fully attested by the confession of all the living and the experience of all the Dead yet it is a very great doubt whether thou dost remember and consider thy latter end and improve thy life as that which will not always last Wo to thee if this be not as certain as the other 7. Nothing more sure than that there is a Publick Audit at which all men must give up their Accounts a general day of Oyer and Terminer where every one must undergo an impartial Tryal and Examination But it is uncertain whether thou dost sincerely believe such a day and dost make answerable preparations and whether thou dost live as in the sight of thy Judge it behoves thee to consider 8. It 's matter of greatest certainty that there is a State of unspeakable happiness for Believers and that there is a State of endless and unsufferable misery to which Unbelievers shall he condemned and when men are arrived thither their condition is unalterable there 's no possibility that they should lose the one or ever be released from the other These are all matters of the highest certainty all the doubt is whether thou hast lived under the power of these Truths by frequent Consideration and whether they had such influence on thee as things of such certainty weight and worth should have You see what is certain and what is doubtful and uncertain in all these particulars and in both respects they will deserve thy attentive heedful thoughts and thy most impartial Consideration The things that are certain will never make their due impression upon thy heart nor operate according to their worth nor put thee upon answerable practice till they be again and again considered The things that are uncertain will never be resolved till they be frequently considered Men regard not the Judgment to come because they will not be brought to consider the certainty of it and how much it doth concern them Men slight the Torments of Hell and Joys of Heaven because they will not consider the certainty of them Would any one fall in love with the world if he did but consider how certainly it will deceive him Would men live so improvidently and spend their strength and time so impertinently if they did but seriously consider that they must certainly die and speed Eternally as they have lived Would men set up their own will for a Law and live to themselves and put the fear of God out of their hearts if they did but consider that God is certainly their Maker and Soveraign and that they owe perfect subjection to his Person and obedience to his Laws Would men live so absurdly and forget their main Errand in the world and the principal business of their lives if they did but consider that God certainly sent them into the world for this very end and purpose to serve him and live in love and obedience to him In a word would men wipe their mouths after so much Rebellion and Disobedience to God as if they were Innocent and be so impenitent and unaffected with their sins if they did but consider how certain it is that without Repentance there 's no hope of pardon and that they must smart for their sin here by Repentance or else hereafter in Eternal misery and desperation and that Christ will be a Saviour to none but those that thus smart for their sin and feel its intolerable burthen and fly unto him by Faith as their only refuge O if we did enough consider the great certainty of these things they would have another effect and operation on us than usually they have upon the best of us much less would they suffer us to live in such Atheism and contempt of Christ and Salvation as the most of men live As sure as thou sinnest now thou shalt be judged for it and that to Everlasting Condemnation if thy serious Repentance step not in between as sure as thou livest now thou shalt shortly die and as sure as thou treadest upon the Earth so sure shalt thou lie down in it e're long and be trodden under foot Look up and behold the Heavens above thee that glister with so many Stars of light as sure as they now hang over thy head so certainly shall they be under thy feet e're a few years more be past If thou hast laid up thy Treasure in Heaven I mean if thy chief joy and delight be there if there be any trust in the Lord any truth and certainty in his Word these things which I have recommended to thy frequent Consideration are Truths of the highest certainty and importance the flattering World may deceive thee thy false dissembling heart may deceive thee
Prov. 2.10 11 12 13. If the hope of a little worldly gain will put the Merchant upon such difficult tedious yea and dangerous Voyages and to expose himself to the raging boystrous Seas and Winds and to go visit the Savage and Barbarous Nations that he may bring back a little fading Treasure would not the hope of far better and greater gain put Sails to thine endeavours and quicken thee to Consideration It 's certain that if thou doest account Wisdom and Grace better than Gold and Silver it would do so In this spiritual Trade of Commerce with God by Meditation there is less of danger and more of profit and advantage Though I confess the profit is quite of another kind but yet such as will yield thee more pleasure and content than any worldly gain and Emolument can do yea mayest thou not expect a Harvest far more desirable to a man that is not brutish in his affections after one Months exercise of this Duty though but one half hour in a day than the poor industrious Plow-man can after ten times as much spent in a dirty and unpleasant labour And yet how chearfully doth he rise to the Plow and Cart before the day break and despise his rest and ease for a small Crop which he expects and it may be when all is done his hopes are drowned by unseasonable Showres and too great a glut of moist and rainy weather or else they wither through too great an excess of heat and drought But God will not fail to water thine endeavours if thou wilt bend thy mind daily to Consideration and Crown thine endeavours with a blessing How indefatigably will a poor man thresh and toil all the day and year long for a poor contemptible Livelihood And would'st thou not take an hours pains every day to live a glorious happy life for ever if thou didst but hope for such a Reward Certainly they expect no such Reward or else value it at a lower rate than their worldly ease and pleasure that will not consider upon such terms as these and they are like to neglect or faint in the work of Consideration that do not address themselves to it with such hopes as these I have done with the Directions that concern both the matter and manner of this Duty of Consideration and now come In the last place to tell you what End you should propose to your self in the exercise of this Duty The Ends that you should propose are these two First That you might get and grow in the love of God joy and delight in him praise and admiration of him gratitude and thankfulness to him and so God may be more highly advanced in your heart and affections Secondly And that you may grow up to a more habitual firm and setled resolution of obedience to his Laws and submission to his Providences and so God may be more highly exalted in your life and practice First The first great End that you should aim at in the exercise of Consideration is that you may provoke and strengthen those good affections of love to God delight in him admiration of him thankfulness to him and so to raise his Authority in your heart Not that I exclude any other holy affections either of the Irascible or Concupiscible Faculty whereby the Soveraignty of God over Soul and Body is made more glorious and sensible Neither do I except any Acts of the Understanding such as are esteem and admiration of him assent to his Word and Truth both in Nature but especially in Scripture whereby way is made for these higher and more Noble affections of Love Joy and Praise But you must see that all the other affections be guided to and end in these especially Love For this is the Leading Act or Affection of the Soul that vertually contains yea and commands all the rest and doth enthrone the Object to which it is mainly devoted in the heart and sets the Crown upon its head and offereth up the whole train of affections that come after it to its devoir and service S. Austin seems to maintain that love is the only passion that doth agitate us and hath its operation in us for all the passions that molest our Souls are but so many disguized Loves our fears and desires our hopes and despairs our delights and sorrows are Countenances which Love puts on according to the Events of good or bad success And as the Sea carries different Names according to the divers parts of the Earth which it washeth so doth Love change her Name according to the different state wherein she finds her self His words are Amor inhians habere quod amatur Cupiditas est Idem habens eoque fruens Laetitia est Fugiens quod ei Adversatur Timor est Idque cum Acciderit sentiens Tristitia est The truth is as most now grant there are no Passions or Affections of the Soul that are distinguished from it self but the Soul it self is thus variously denominated according to the various Objects about which it is exercised yea the Understanding and Will are no otherwise distinguished than by their Objects and are not Faculties really distinct But the same Soul as it sees apprehends and discerneth either truth or falshood it 's called Understanding and as it chuseth or refuseth good and evil it 's called Will. But though you suppose this yet there are two Primitive and most Essential Acts or Affections of the Will and those are Volition and Nolition commonly called Love and Hatred of which all the other Affections have a Spice and from whence they are derived All the Passions which are usually ascribed to the Concupiscible Faculty flow from Volition or Love and all that are commonly reckoned as Retainers to the Irascible Faculty flow from Nolition or Hatred These be the two Acts whereby the Soul cleaves to its most endeared Object wherein it placeth its rest and happiness and whereby it fights against all Adversaries that would take it out of its arms or hinder it from fruition These are therefore the main Affections that you should endeavour more and more to root and fortifie by your Meditations even love to God and hatred of all that stands in any competition with or contradiction to him Now since the World with its Pleasures Profits and Honours is the cursed Trinity in Vnity that most opposeth God and that is most likely to draw your Soul first to slight and then to rebel against the Blessed Trinity in Vnity your great intention in the work of Consideration must be to fortifie and strengthen your love to the last and your hatred to the first to hold to the one and despise the other Mat. 6.24 For you cannot serve God and the World because their Commands are quite contrary and whilst you do fulfill the will of the one you do ipso facto slight the other Indeed where two Masters stand in subordination one to the other there we may serve and please them
both but then they are not two but one Master so long as the Commands of one do not cross but promote and further the Commands of the other In this case God and the World may both be loved So long as our love to the world doth not exceed those bounds which God hath set and we love them no farther than as they further us in his service For instance friends may help us forward towards Heaven and quicken us to our duty and friends may incumber discourage and hinder us in our obedience to God The first sort one may and must love for that very end the second sort we ought to slight and despise so far as they are such a snare to us Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee I hate them with a perfect hatred I count them mine Enemies saith David though it may be some of them might be his friends by birth and Alliance or pretence Psal 139.21 22. Not but that we own some kind and degree of love even to such as these but not a love of Complacency which is the most proper sort of love and the highest degree we may look upon them with a love of Benevolence and Compassion desiring their Repentance and Reformation if they are such Enemies of God as are curable And the reason is because there is some mixture of good with all their wickedness and this we must love them for So we should examine all other worldly comforts and see how far they kindle and how far they extinguish the love of God in you and so far you must love or hate them Well in the exercise of Consideration you must still have one eye to this affection of love and see that it grow stronger and stronger and another upon every thing that you seem to love too much whether it be meat or drink or apparel or friends or credit or health or life it self to disparage them and lessen your esteem of and affections to them and think what a vast difference there is between any worldly comfort here on Earth and God the Author of that and all other comforts I mean no other disparagement than such a one as makes them know their place and keep their rank and lays them at the feet of him that ought to be a thousand times dearer to us And so the Apostle counted all things dung and dross in comparison with Christ but not otherwise Phil. 3.8 Now the more distinct and certain knowledge you have of God the more you are like to love him for he is such an Object that if he be once thoroughly known he cannot but be loved Nature and Reason it self will sufficiently assure you that his Word is the highest Demonstration of the truth of any thing he affirmeth and cannot possibly be false The more therefore you are perswaded that the Scripture or Bible is his Word wherein he hath made the plainest Discoveries of himself the more clear and certain apprehensions of God you are like to have It will be therefore very subservient to the love of God to confirm and strengthen your assent to the Truth or Divine Authority of Scripture and to make that sometimes the immediate design and business of your Meditations to which end you must have Arguments at hand to prove Scripture to be the Word of God and to enforce your assent Hereby also you will have some considerable advantage to the exercise of all those other affections that must help to kindle and encrease the love of God in you such as are Repentance and Faith in Christ for there you have the fullest discoveries of the odiousness of Sin and the necessity of Repentance and the Excellency of Christ and Faith in him who took our Flesh and died for this very end that he might reconcile God to us and us to God and recover our affections to him that the world had abus'd and drawn away and as the exercise of Repentance will promote the love of God in you by mortifying that which is contrary to it so Faith in Christ much more for the more we love and subject our selves to him who is the Wisdome of the Father and the highest pledge of his love to sinful man the more we are like to love the Father himself that both sent him and accepted the satisfaction that he offered to him in our behalf And then lastly the more we are exercised in the praises of God the more we are exercised in love it self for this is an immediate effect of love So that it should be one end of Consideration to exercise and quicken those affections viz. 1. Assent to the truth of Scripture 2. Contempt of the world and all its pleasures as it fights against God 3. Repentance for all former sins and present unfitness to the love and service of God 4. Faith in Christ 5. Love to God directly 6. Praise and thankfulness to him Not that I exclude other simple or mixt affections but because I intend anon to give you some help for the better exercise of these particularly which I intended at first for my own private use Secondly As it must be the end of Consideration so to actuate and strengthen these or some other holy affections towards God and so to advance him in your heart so it must be your last end to strengthen your resolution of obedience to him both active and passive and so to advance him in your life and practice This should and would be the last end of your daily Consideration if it be right As it is Gods end when he requireth the Heart that he might have the Life also for he knows that the life and practice will be suitable to the heart which is the great Principle of them so it must be our end also in the exercise of our Meditations to promote the Kingdom of God in our heart that we may the better honour him in our life Remember therefore in the daily exercise of this Duty that you grow more resolved for Obedience For as love to God will be the fruit of your Meditations if they be serious so Obedience will be the fruit of your love if it be sincere And as you are never like to do or suffer the Will of God with chearfulness and to grow in Obedience unless you grow stronger in deliberate purpose and resolution so you are never like to grow in resolution if you do not grow in the love of God I am next to give you some assistance towards the daily exercise of the Six forementioned Affections one whereof belongs to the Understanding the other to the Will FINIS Books Printed for and sold by Jacob Sampson next Door to the Wonder Tavern in Ludgate-Street POlitical and Military Observations of the Court and Camp of France during the late Wars in Flanders Germany c. Sacramental Meditations upon divers select places of Scripture wherein Believers are
him when their obedience is required so that the subjection of the Heart to Christ and a deliberate purpose to serve him sincerely and constantly all our days is the first Foundation of our Union with Christ and specâ—â— Relation to him from whence Justification doth immediately flow And what a Mercy and Priviledge that is none but such as reap the Fruit of Justification perfectly in the other life can throughly tell Blessed is he whose Transgression is forgiven and whose 〈◊〉 is covered yea again Blessed is the Man 〈◊〉 David unto whom the Lord imputeth not Iniquity and in whose Spirit there is no Guile Psal 32.1 2. But as the Man is miserable and wretched for the present that is not justified so wo to him if he die in an unjustified state And this if he want true Faith he will certainly do Justification is the Act of the Supreme Rector none hath Authority to do it but he only and none can effectually remit or renounce the Penalty but he only who alone is both the Kingdom and the Power And this we have the Testimony of his certain and infallible Word that he will not do but upon the Condition of Faith and an unfeigned subjection to his Son which alone is the effectual Means to bring them off from their Sins and to reduce them to their Obedience to God Never hope to be justified till from the sense of your vile Nature and corrupt Inclinations and proneness to rebel against God and obnoxiousness to his just displeasure you do thankfully fly to Christ as your only Remedy and take his Person for your Ruler and his Laws and Example for your Rule and his Spirit for your Sanctifier For these are the only Terms on which a Sinner is made a true Member of Christ's Church and consequently justified and pardoned 4. Fourthly There 's no way whereby we can bring more honour to our Redeemer than by Believing For hereby we give him the Glory 1. Of his Love and Mercy and all the ways whereby he hath demonstrated his Bowels and Compassions towards us in his wonderful Condescention to be made like to us in the Assumption of our Nature in subjecting himself to the Law yea and to the Miseries of his Life Poverty Reproach and Shame and that in such a degree as never any one of us endured or could endure in suffering the most pitiful Usage the most sarcastical Taunts the most bitter Agonies and the most ignominious cursed Death and all to bring us into a salveable condition if we will believe Now as there can be no greater Affront nor Provocation given to him than to slight and make void his Grace and Mercy so unspeakably great so we can do him no greater honour than to close with it and accept it and be saved by it and so stand as the Eternal Monument of his Love 2. We hereby give him also the Glory of his Sovereignty that by his own Merit and Conquests as well as the Free Donation of God is advanced to the right hand of God and hath the Supreme Sovereignty and Lordship over all things both in Heaven and Earth And therefore he tells us Matth. 28.18 All Power is given unto me in Heaven and Earth And Paul tells us that to this End Christ both died and rose again and revived that he might be Lord both of Dead and Living Rom. 14.9 And Phil. 2.8 9 10. Because Christ was obedient even to the Death of the Cross Therefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a Name which is above every Name That at the Name of Jesus every Knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth Matth. 11.27 All things are delivered to me of my Father and so Luke 10.22 Now to believe on him is practically to acknowledge his Sovereignty that he is Lord of all Acts 10.36 That he is gone into Heaven and is on the right hand of God Angels and Authorities and Powers being made subject to him 1 Pet. 3.22 When we subject our selves to him by Faith we own him whom God hath made a little lower than the Angels and crowned him with Glory and Honour and did set him over the Works of his hands and hath put all things in subjection under his feet 2 Heb. 7.8 9. Did we know what a Blessing and Priviledge it is to come under his Protection and live in subjection to him we should need no other Argument to perswade us to believe As we honour him so we ease our selves and rid our selves of those Fears that we are otherwise exposed to and therefore our Saviour that he might comfort his Disciples exhorts them John 14.1 Let not your Hearts be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me When we believe we do in effect say He hath satisfied the Justice of God and he hath given Sinners into his hands and laid the Government upon his shoulders and that he can save to the utmost all that come unto God by and through him since he ever liveth as an immutable and everlasting Priest to make intercession for them Heb. 7.25 3. Hereby we give him also the Glory of his Skill when by Faith we bring our diseased Souls to him with confidence of a Cure For that is one of the Chief Ends of Faith that we may be purified from all our Corruptions and perfect Holiness in the Fear of God 2 Cor. 7.1 As it was one of Christs great Ends in dying so it should be ours in believing that we might be saved from our sins Matth. 1.21 It must be a skilful Physitian indeed that knows how to free the Soul of Man from such a Mass of Corruption from such a Chronical and Inveterate Disease that 's made up of such a complication of Distempers It must be no less than a Divine Skill indeed that must raise such an Earthly Mind that must Cure a Heart so full of Contradiction to the Will of God and that must tame the Affections to God that are grown so carnal It must be one that knows all the windings and turnings of the Heart and is throughly acquainted with its Pulse and all its secret Motions that can Cure its Selsishness and take it off from its inordinate pursuit of Earthly Things and make it submissive to the Will of God that can dispel the darkness of Mans Mind and heal the Confusion of his Thoughts and awaken him to an impartial Consideration of Things and fortifie Reason against the Flesh and rectifie his Judgment both as to present and future things and recover him out of Delirancy and Madness O how much do holy Souls admire his skill whom he hath perfectly recovered and how much will they that are now languishing in Selfishness and Pride and the doting Love of this World and under all that Litter of Corruptions wherewith their Souls are daily disquieted when he shall have restored them to Integrity again and to their right Mind Come unto him
the Mansion where it dwells and like that cruel Emperour rips up the Womb that bare it and is both the Malefactor and Executioner yea and the very Death also that is inflicted I mean that I may avoid Metaphors and speak properly That Sin is both the meritorious efficient I and formal Cause of a great part of our Sufferings and Calamity though not in its formal yet in its material Consideration And as a Beast that being confined within its right Pasture by some Pale or Fence doth by the same violence break the Fence and hurt it self and get into more Feeding so doth every sinner by the same Transgression violate God's Law and his own Welfare and is both Active and Passive in the same inordinate Action For it 's one great End of God's Law to tye Mens hands that they should not hurt themselves So that God's Honour and Man's Safety do enter the very definition of all his Laws so great is the Wisdom of our Supreme Law-giver But the foregoing Similitude is but lame and doth not fully express the formal Effect of Sin as I may call it Tradition to Sin is threatned as the most fearful Judgment in Scripture Now God alone that can remove the Cause can also free the Sinner from the sad and woful Consequents and then Happiness will be the Result For he that is freed from all Evil whatsoever and yet hath an immortal duration must needs be happy For without the blessed Fruition of God such a reasonable Soul as Man hath that can see backwards and forwards and hath the Passions of Hope Fear Love Joy cannot possibly be at rest and cease from self-tormenting Thoughts and Actions Since therefore it 's God only that can supply all the Necessities of a rational Creature it follows that he only is the most suitable and proper good to such a Creature and therefore is principally and as far as is possible to be desired and loved This is the Third Reason why it is so highly congruous and doth so well beseem a reasonable Creature to love God above all Secondly As it is most highly Congruous and Reasonable so it is the Highest Dignity and Honour that a Rational Creature is capable of If Honour be truly to be estimated either by the Nobleness of the Act for which any one is honoured or the Persons in whose Esteem we are advanced both these ways be united to God above all things in Love is the highest honour that a Creature can ever arrive to unless it be to exchange sincerity of Love for Perfection or to add further degrees to this Love till it comes to its ultimum quod sic or vertical Point 1. There 's no Act that can put a greater Lustre upon the Agent than that which is directly exercised upon God especially in the way of Love For the Object as it gives Specification so it gives Worth and Nobleness to the Act and that reflects it upon the Faculty first and then upon the Agent whose Faculty it is For as the Act is more glorious that 's exercised about a Kingdom than that which is exercised upon lower and baser things so that Faculty is more noble that 's capable of doing such an Act than that which is capable only of doing the other Acts And by consequence he that steereth or governeth a Ship is more honourable than he that rows it Or rather a Prince is more honourable than a Plowman because his Acts are conversant about a nobler object This being past dispute it follows that the Servant of God is far more highly dignified than any other Servant whatsoever Now Love being the principal Part of his Service because it is the Service of the Heart which he chiefly requires It 's therefore the highest Honour to Love him with the whole Heart 2. And God esteems that Person most highly that thus loves him because All the Promises of the Gospel are made to such which are the highest Expressions of God's Bounty and Love And those whom he doth most richly endow and favour them he doth most highly honour Particularly 1. God dwelleth in them here 2. And they shall dwell with God hereafter Now what greater Honour can there be than Familiarity and Co-habitation with the Fountain of all Honour And as to love God superlatively and above all is 1. Most Reasonable 2. Most Honourable So Thirdly It brings in the greatest Profit and Advantage For hereby First If this Love prevail over all other Love it ascertains to us 1. That Relative Grace which consists in Pardon of all Sin Justification of our Persons Peace and Favour with God or Friendship with him and Sonship to him and Right to Heaven 2. And also to all Real Grace whereby every Christian is shaped and fashioned to the Divine Nature and Similitude And therefore may confidently expect that in the use of Means the Holy Spirit should enable him to thrive and bring forth the Fruit of a sounder Knowledge in Spiritual Things of Patience Humility Meekness Self-denial Temperance Brotherly Love and Charity every one of which is a Jewel of inestimable worth In a word He hath a sound Title by the Free Charter of the Gospel to all that Christ hath purchased and procured by the Merit of his Blood And as his Love encreaseth in the Degree and Measure and groweth towards Perfection so it doth encrease the Measure of every Grace And then Assurance which is the Consequent of an higher Measure of Grace than ordinary Christians aspire to usually flows in And then such a Measure of Boldness and Confidence in our Addresses to God as doth usually fill the Heart with daily Comfort Secondly And as this prevailing Love doth gather strength so Peace at Home and inward Calmness and Tranquility doth encrease And this is a continual Feast sweeter than all the troublesome disturbing Pleasures of the World The more any Soul is conscious to it self of a prevailing Love to God and that he hath the Supremacy in his Heart the more all his Faculties do unite and conspire to Quietness Rest and Peace For there 's nothing that puts a Man into Tumult and Disorder but the greedy desire after something that looks like Happiness but when it 's gotten proves no such thing and vexeth the Soul with Frustration and continual Disappointment Now the more the Soul is in love with God the more it is acquainted with the true happiness and is the less in danger to be diverted by false and lying Promises And when once the Soul hath got this Harbour it will stir no more out so as to forsake it but silently feeds on continual pleasure and dwells at ease as the Psalmist expresseth it Psal 25.13 And knows that all farther labour is vain unless it be to grow more deeply rooted in love And this Peace and inward Joy is always the Companion of Assurance in some sensible degree however it may perchance be wanting to those and altogether imperceptible that have the
weakest and lowest measure of true or prevailing love to God Thirdly And as this Love encreaseth all troublesome slavish Fear and sad Expectations do scatter and fly away Who that hath the interest in God that such a love doth entitle to need to fear Sickness or Poverty or Crosses or Death it self considerably if he knows he is united to one so firmly that hath Life and Death in his hands and hath the Command of all Creatures in Heaven and Earth and Hell The Sleep of such a Man must needs be sweet His Food though never so course cannot but refresh and comfort him And all his Comforts are Comforts indeed because none of them are disturbed with those Raving Mad and disturbing Passions that every Man void of this love of God cannot be free from more or less How quietly doth such a Man lie down and rise up because the Lord when he thus loves maketh him to dwell continually in safety Psal 4.8 Fourthly As this Love encreaseth Temptation will lose its force and grow weaker and weaker How little will Riches and Honour and worldly Pleasures draw that Man to commit sin and displease God that feels the love of God and the sweet Consequences of it in his Soul and also knows that he hath or may have enough in him They may tempt a Fool and one that hath little or no experience of the love of God and that wants something to set his heart at rest and quiet But he that is rich already and truly happy will not easily catch at shadows but study to keep what he is possessed of and which he knows to be Treasure indeed He may in a short fit of inconsideracy perhaps forget God and his Soul and give some ease to Temptation in such an hour but he will quickly return again And then when he remembers God again he will be troubled Psal 77.3 And his folly will cost him dear And his Soul will cleave the faster afterwards to God when he hath been better taught by so bad experience Fifthly As this love encreaseth all base and sordid love will slink away and depart with confusion and shame Who will love a Harlot that is deformed when he may honestly enjoy sweeter and better love Sure none but a perverted distempered Mind Who will feed upon Husks when he may have the most pleasant wholsome and delicious Fare None but one that hath lost his Reason And who will dote upon a Trifle when he may have a Crown and Kingdom to be delighted with Certainly so far as a Man feels he loves God he disdains the love of other things that will not consist with him And he will abhor the Motion that 's back'd with the greatest worldly Preferment that would draw away his heart from God Had he not tasted how good and gracious the Lord is and how happy a thing it is to live in Unity with him He might perchance hearken to every deluding Pleasure that courts his Affections But after he hath received the love of God into his heart and felt what a reviving Cordial it is the Pleasures and Honours of the World come too late and seem but Dung and Dross when they are laid in the Scales with that No Man saith our Saviour having drunk old Wine straightway desireth new for he saith The old is better Luke 5.39 You know that famous Marquess Galeoc Carac was moved with indignation at such an offer as that Cursed are they saith he that think all the Gold and Silver in the World worth one day's Communion with Christ And thrice wicked are they that would wed Mens Affections to the World and divorce them from Christ When there is a plain Competition or Contradiction between God and any worldly happiness the presentment of such a happiness to a gracious heart and one that truly loves God looks like a motion from the Devil and provokes him to fly in the face of him that makes it and to abhor such a Sollicitor Let me live saith such a one in Poverty and Raggs rather than forgo what I now enjoy Let those that never felt the love of God in their hearts feed upon Trash if they please I have a better Dyet Better is a little with the fear of the Lord and his favour than the greatest treasure without it Prov. 15.16 Better is a dinner of Herbs where this love is than a stalled Ox and hatred therewith vers 17. It 's but a ridiculous foolish thought to think to draw an experienced Saint away from the love of God by Silver and Gold and a little gaudy Apparel and delicious Fare and two or three fair Words and some few more slight Courtesies the World can do for him when he sees the vast difference between an immovable Rock and a Reed shaken with every wind And that there is none in Heaven but God and none upon the Earth that his soul can desire in comparison of him Ps 73.25 The Law of thy Mouth saith David is dearer to me than thousands of Gold and Silver more to be desired than Gold Psal 119.14 yea than the most solid refined Gold sweeter also than the Honey and the dropping of the Honey-comb Psalm 19.10 And iâ— the Law was so lovely and excellent in his esteem much more the Law-giver I conclude therefore that the Love of God is the best Antidote against all base and poisonous love whatsoever and will not permit the World with any of its Pleasures to prevail where it is It will cast this Bond-woman with her Sons and not suffer them to be Co-heirs with God and his Son Gal. 4.30 Since therefore O my Soul it is so highly consonant to that Reason that is in thee and conduceth so much to the highest Honour and Perfection and brings in such incomparable Advantage Why art thou so backward and averse to this sweetest Imployment which is so sweet 1. In the very Exercise 2. And sweeter the more it is exercised 3. And makes all other Duty sweet easie and pleasant which for want of this Quickuer goes on but dully sometimes and is quickly tyred And so much as this warm Affection is wanting all thy Services will wax more and more chill and cold till at last if that spark go quite out I mean as to the exercise there will be a stop in all Duty and all will be frozen up And if the Pulse of this Affection cease to beat towards God all Devotion and Exercise of Piety towards him will suffer a Deliquium and be in a fainting Fit and Swone Why then is thy heart no more transported with this Love David felt so much pleasure and sweetness in this Work that he could not forbear to provoke others to partake with him in this noblest delight by a most Patherical Invitation O Love the Lord all ye his Saints for the Lord preserveth the Faithful Psalm 31.23 Thou canst love other things too sensibly that have not half the force and strength that this Object hath
yea a little Pet or Discontent will turn all into Gall and Bitterness and make him most angry with those that study to please him most Fifthly To shew yet further how worthy they are to be contemned Consider They are gotten with much difficulty Kept with much care and trouble Lost with much sorrow 1. It 's not one of many that gets the Riches of this World some indeed are born to them but how many are defeated of their hopes before they grow up And what doth their Birth-right serve for but to make them the more miserable This is all the Priviledge they have by being born of Rich and Noble Parents that perchance fall into Poverty or Disgrace before their Children are ripe And for the rest how many Difficulties do they pass before they get them into their Possession It may be Twenty or Thirty Years they are subject to the Will and Humour of those that give them And when they have done all it may be they are disinherited and put to hard shifts But of those that are not born to them they are more hardly gotten It costs them many a weary day and many a restless watchful Night much Sweat and Pain to get a poor little Portion And yet the greatest part of the Price by which they are usually purchased is yet behind Whilst they are venturing after Riches they too frequently lose God and their Souls if not by a plain and open yet by a secret and virtual renouncing of them though not by gross and manifest wickedness yet by a sinful and dangerous neglect of God and their Souls And yet of those that thus labour for them the greatest part do not succeed 2. But yet after they are once gotten Are they not too often wrecked with Cares and Thoughts how to preserve and keep them They are fain to bear the Blows of them that are above them Eccles 5.12 And the Envy and Discontents of those that are under them and the Cheats and Circumvention of those that have more Wit And 3. Which is the most ponderous Aggravation of their Vanity As Men are sick for them so are they sick of them and yet they count it death to part with them First they are sick of desire before they get them and then they are by and by sick of Fruition But it cuts them to the heart to have the morbifick matter removed And yet whether they consent or not when all is done and the utmost diligence is used to defend them they must part at last and the owner must leave them or they will leave the owner Sixthly They are the great Snares and Temptations of Mens Souls What is it that draws any Man to sin against God and destroy his own Soul but the sweet Bit of worldly Pleasure or Profit No Man would swear or lye or deal deceitfully or live idly or drink and whore but for the pleasure and advantage that he expects in so doing Who would covet and care for the World and labour so painfully to get it into his Possession if he did not dream of Happiness from it And yet it is but a Dream And every Promise that the World makes of true Content and Felicity is but a Lye And he that 's over credulous in such a Case as this is worse than mad True it is the World hath something in it that 's fitted to the pleasure and delight of Flesh and Blood in an ordinary Course of Providence And we being so prone to please yea and over-please this Part we are in great and contirual danger from the World And wilt thou so much esteem and seek after that that will destroy thee if thou learn not to slight and contemn it Hast thou sped so well already O my Soul that thou should'st be still tampering with it Hast thou so well quit thy self already and escaped the Thrusts it hath made at thee Hath it made no breach in the Conscience No Wounds in thy Heart Hath it begot no strangeness nor Jealousie between God and thy Soul Hath it not sadly wounded thee in thine Intellectuals and much perverted thine Understanding Hath it done no Mischief to thy Will and Affections but helped them Heavenwards to the only Place of their Rest I would it had thus dealt with thee But such a Friend it never was nor will be whilst it 's loved for its self Seventhly The World is God's great if not only Competitor and therefore in so much deserves to be contemned Though the Devil and the Flesh fight against God both of them and use the World as their chief Weapon yet by way of object to Man's Soul there 's nothing but God and the World openly pretend to be Man's Happiness The Devil doth but set this Bait before us when he tempts us unto sin He dare not appear himself to draw any by his own proper and innate beauty who is almost known of all to be so monstrous and deformed and whom every one that is not himself become a Monster hath a natural instinct to hate and abhor Indeed there be some few such that he hath gotten so wholly into his power through the just and fearful permission of God for their wicked Rejection and Contempt of him that they take him for their Ruler and Guide to Happiness for want of a better and swear Fealty to him But I believe it is with some secret Reluctancy and Regret But however I here understand World in so large a sense as to involve all Creatures in its Latitude And what doth it not seem a ridiculous thing and odious Competition for the World or Devil to stand against God and compare their Worth and Excellency with his Let them shew their own if they will vye with him Or let them bring something that 's lasting and satisfactory Let them shew something that will answer all the hopes and expectations of Man Something that will help him in every streight and necessity Nay that will free him from all such streights and necessities if they would have the honour of rational love and esteem What shall Dung and Dross lye in the Scales with an Eternal weight of Glory Shall it put any one but a Fool to debate which he shall chuse when there is such an unspeakable difference Art thou so void of Understanding and so much forsaken of common Reason that any thing shall seem desirable to thee that 's laid in the Ballance with the Fountain of all Goodness O let thine Heart abhor its former Guiltiness in this kind and henceforth boyl up with Hatred and Contempt against such an Usurper that would be preferred before God Resolve and that fixedly never to hearken to such an impious and absurd Motion Eighthly The Love of the World is but meer Flattery and Deceit It is not to be trusted when it makes the most fair and faithful Promises and gives the strongest security to Performance Job Haman Manasseh Zedekiah and Jehoiakim are proof enough of this to
Brutish Pleasure It 's difficult if not impossible to see clearly in the Dust of Riches and Smoke of Honours Besides Earthly Love betrays to Ease Softness and Intemperance which are very inconsistent with an acute understanding But the Contempt of such sensual Pleasures inspires the Mind with true Accuracy and gives it a piercing Eye For having now no hankering thoughts or desires after these things it 's always fit to consider and fix seriously upon any proposed Object and to see things in their proper Evidence because there is nothing to bribe the Understanding and so it becomes impartial in its search and examination Twelfthly This forementioned disdain of the World and its Pleasures makes a most ready way to inward Peace and Quietness For these Sensual Baits are the Inciters of our Passions and when they are up there is no Rest nor Quiet That Man is like to be sedate calm and undisturbed that doth not much care for any of these changeable Comforts There will be a pleasant silence in the heart when it is not provoked by the insolencies of the Flesh which then will domineer whilst it hath there sensual Accommodations but grows tame and tractable when it is pretty well weaned and weakened through the want of them if other Necessaries do concur Why art thou so patient O my Soul under the Rage and domineering Power of the Flesh and its head-strong Lusts Why doest thou so frequently Consent to the Love and Pursuit of such poor short and uncertain Felicity that fills thee with so must disturbance and alienates thee from God and doth so much destroy all thy future Hopes Lastly It may help forward this Contempt of the World to consider seriously the vanity of Man who is the Noblest Part of it Verily every Man saith David at his best Estate is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All manner of Vanity as it is in the Original Psalm 39.6 A Helpless Friend and a Toothless Enemy And therefore he that trusteth Man maketh a broken Reed his Confidence And he that hath an inordinate Fear of Man feareth a shadow * Isa 51.12 and v. 7 8. Isa 2.22 Who art thou saith the Prophet that art a fraid of a Man that shall die and of the Son of Man that shall be made as Grass There 's no sadder Spectacle in the World than Man if this were his best condition and he had all he were to look for in this life A Toad or the most hated Creature no nor those that are continually hunted and pursued and live always in danger of the Snare or some cruel Device to take away their Lives are not half so sad a Spectacle as Man is I mean without the Grace of God These Brutish Creatures neither apprehend nor fear the Snare till they are caught in it nor foresee a Michief till it is at hand nor vex themselves with the Memory of what is past But Reason which is Man's proper Vtensil makes him but the more capable Subject of Misery and Torment and helps him to suffer a Mischief before it comes and to feel it a long while after This is such a Faculty as teacheth him to improve his Sufferings and Calamities which no other Creature that wants it can do and to chew upon an Evil when it 's swallowed down and past Should a Believer fear the Frowns of such a silly Creature or regard his Favour when he would threaten or tice him from his Duty I conclude therefore It 's better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in man yea it is much better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in Princes Psal 118.8 9. Consider then O my Soul what a meer Juggle and Delusion is the Pleasure of this World with which thou hast so often suffered thy self to be couzened and deceived What Luggage is the Riches And what a Blast is the Honour thereof Yea what a Dream and meer imagination is all that here Men dote upon Is it for this that Men swear and deceive couzen and lye sweat and run about with foolish heat and diligence Is this the Reward of all the busle and stir they make Is this all the Recompence of their bold Adventures against God and their own Souls Have they no more for all their restless Nights and Days for all the Cares and Fears with which they have so often pierced themselves Have they no more for Their Salvation for A Life of Immortality for God and for Their Souls which they have thrown away for a little slippery uncertain pleasure which stings even whilst it 's tasted and wounds so deep afterwards Wonderful that ever Men that have an Eye of Reason to discern thus much should yet suffer themselves to be so besooled And should prefer the pleasure of Delirancy and madness before that of Sobriety That ever Reasonable Creatures should suffer themselves to be entangled in Vanities which are more brittle than Glass more light than Smoak and more swift than the Wind That they should feed so greedily and fat themselves with these poisonous destroying Pleasures and go with the foolish Ox to the slaughter and with the Fool to the Correction of the Stocks Till a Dart strike through their Liver not considering that it is for their Life O what madness to nourish this Carrion and Dung-hill of thy Body and to neglect forget and despise thy Soul Is it possible that thou shouldst so Adore a Prison or Fetters as to balance them with the Love of thy dearest Saviour Who can shed Tears enough or Weep sufficiently for such a Sin as this viz. The forsaking of God and the chusing of Lyes instead of him O what horrid Phantasms will appear one Day and present themselves to their sight that proceed on and dye in such a sin as this When the Pleasures which they have chosen shall stand in Array before them and upbraid them into the deepest shame and silence And the objects with which they have committed Folly so often shall stand forth and say I am the Pleasure which thou hast loved more than God I am the Ambition to which thou wast a slave I am the Wealth that was the Aim of all thy Actions I am the Dung and Dross to which thou didst espouse and wed thine Affections Behold the Sins thou hast begotten on me Behold thy deformed loathsome Iniquities which thou didst not only love but prefer before the Life which thy Saviour did both live and teach With such dreadful Complaints able to rend Rocks and Marbles shall they that have loved any thing here on Earth more than God and their Souls lament over their sins that will come upon them like an Armed Man and fight them with its gastly Looks If thou Love any thing then O my Soul see that thou love it for God and for the reference that it hath to the Life Eternal The Joys of Heaven are without their Parallel and Example And as they are here above our Experience so
Earth move about and the Heavens to stand still which if it be supposed yet must be the effect of an infinite Power It 's the description that 's usually given of a wise Man That he is one that wonders at nothing because they suppose Ignorance to be the Cause of wonder And therefore the more we know and understand any thing the less we wonder at it But yet for all this I may take the boldness to say That he is a wise Man indeed that wonders not at every thing Especially if he be one that hath Wit enough to see the impregnable Difficulties that stand in the way and hinder a distinct and perfect understanding of any the least of God's Works And this is another Confideration that will do good service in provoking us to the Praises of the Lord if it be weighed with an undisturbed silence and attention 2. As it will advance a Heart in Praises and Thanksgiving to God and help on this noblest part of God's Worship to behold these Three great Attributes of his Wisdom Goodness and Power as they shine forth in the Works of Creation and Providence about the unreasonable Creatures So 2. It will elevate a Soul yet higher and make it more fit for the work of Thankfulness and Praise to ponder these Attributes as they are made glorious in and about the reasonable and intelligent Creatures And here I shall pass over the Angels the most noble Creatures which God hath made And because this is an Argument most likely to move us with the greatest force Let us more particularly insist upon his Goodness towards us 1. In giving us a Nobler Being than he hath done to any other visible Creature He hath stamped his Image upon Man more lively than he hath done upon any Creature if you look on him barely in his Natural Capacity as consisting of a Body and Soul The one Corruptible The other Incorruptible The first he hath in Common with other Creatures but the other is a peculiar Glory that God hath put upon no other Creature here below besides himself And yet in his very Body he far surpasseth all his Fellow-Creatures If you consider well the Comeliness and Propoâ—ition of Parts the well mixing of the Humours that give the Colour and the pure lively Spirit that gives Air and Motion to the several Parts his erect stature and the symmetry of the whole To say nothing of Speech that 's peculiar to Man alone all other Creatures must submit and bow before him But as to his Moral Capacity There 's no other Creature here below that hath any Lineament of his Maker's Image but Man only He alone was intended to represent his Maker in Righteousness and true Holiness and had a Capacity first to be honoured in his Service and to be made happy in his Eternal Enjoyment The rest of the Creatures as they have their Face downward so they have no disposition to look so high as to their Maker nor any tendency of love or desire towards him For God having made them uncapable of any such Acts or Habits expects no such Service at their Hands But God made Man for his own immediate Service and therefore gave him a Nature suited to that imployment He did not only bestow on him the Faculties of Understanding and Will but endued them with the knowledge and love of God that by the exercise of these Acts he might find out the Rest and Happiness that he doth so indefatigably seek after 2. He gave him Seigniory and Dominion over this lower World Psalm 8. As all things were made for his use and service so they were given into his hand to dispose of And they had no power to cross his Command or disobey till he had rebelled against his Maker They were all ready at his service to go and come at his beck and to execute his pleasure to their utmost strength and capacity Gen. 1.28 And God blessed them that is Adam and Eve and said to them Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth and subdue it and have dominion over the Fish of the Sea and over the Fowl of the Air and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth See also Gen. 2.19 20. And Man wanted not the Faculty to discern the Nature and Vertue of every Creature and for what uses they might serve Yea the Inferiour Heavens were made to accommodate him and every way God dealt with him as a Bountiful Lord and most Liberal Benefactour The Sun was made to enlighten him and the Heavens to chear him and make the Earth fruitful with their Influences which was to bring him forth it s various Productions for his several uses and occasions And who that hath the Heart of a Man and not of a Beast can think of such Munificence and Bounty which God hath exercised towards him and not abhor ingratitude And even feel himself delighted in the Praises of his so great Benefactour 3. When he had undone himself and had involved his Soul and Body in Misery unspeakable the Lord did not utterly forsake him as he deserved but he set his Wisdom a work to contrive a way how to salve the honour of his Justice and yet save the miserable Rebels from destruction When we were all fallen short of the Glory of God he found out a Method to recover us into Happiness again And when no Creature in Heaven or Earth could do such a Favour for us the Son of God became Man and dyed for us that he might satisfie offended Justice and vindicate the honour both of the Law and Law-giver and procure Terms of Peace and Favour for us O what a Remarkable Sentence is that which should be engraven upon the Heart of every sinner When we were without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly Rom. 5.6 This is a faithful saying indeed and worthy of all acceptation 1. highest and most thankful entertainment that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners 1 Tim. 4.9 10. We had been now bound hand and foot and shut up in outward darkness and had been Fuel to the Wrath of God and the Flames of Hell which are kindled thereby and had been tormenting our Souls with the bitter remembrance of our sin who are or may be comforted with the blessed Tydings of the Gospel What a comfortable Thought should it be to us when we lye down and when we rise up to remember that Christ is risen from the dead and become the first-fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15.20 To understand which Text of Scripture it 's necessary that we be informed that sin having brought a Curse upon Man and upon the Earth for his sake and all the Fruit it brought forth the Sacrifice of the First-Fruits among the Jews to which the Apostle here alludes was appointed by God as a Means whereby the whole Harvest might be sanctified and secured and the Curse removed Which First-Fruits were a Type of Christ by