stand in the way of their affected exaltation Yea soul and all shall be ventured in this game Rise they must and rise they will if they can procure it Whatever become of Heaven they must have Earth Seeing it is their God their End perfas aut nefas it must be had As the Common-wealths man saith Salus populi suprema Lex esto and the Christian saith The pleasing of God is the supream Law so the worldlings maxime is that the Interest of the flesh is the supream Law And are these men Crucified to the world 3. If the world were a Crucified thing in your eyes you would not so much overvalue the Rich and vilifie or neglect the Poor as you do An humble Godly man that walks the streets in a thred bare coat may pass by you without the least respect but if a shining gallant were in the place how observantly do you behave your selves If a poor man though never so wise or pious have any business with you how cold is his entertainment how strange is your deportment towards him and how slightly do you shake him off But if they be rich and honourable in the world you are their servants and no respect is too much for them nor no entertainment too good Wisdom and Piety cloathed in raggs may pass by you unobserved when a silken sot is bowed to like an Idol As reverently as you now speak of Peter and Paul and Christ himself now you hear them magnified and see not their outward appearances as they did that conversed with them on earth I make no doubt but if you had lived in those daies and seen them of so low a presence and walk up and down in so mean a gâ—rb attended or regarded by few but the poor you would have set as light by them as others and looked at them as poor contemptible fellows if not as the filth and the off-scouring of all things and if you had not laid hands on them as too sawcy reprovers of you at least you would have given them one of Iulian's jeers or Hobbs his scorns It was this worldly Spirit that caused the Jews to be such obstinate unbelievers and to persecute Christ and his servants Men reverence not the face of the poor And this is it that continueth them in their unbelief to this very day We have many of their own writings and disputations against Christ published by themselves and we find this the very sum of all their reasonings Shew us a Messiah that fetcheth us from captivity that gathereth the whole Nation of the Iews to Judaeâ— and restoreth them to their antient possessions and dignities with much more and makes the Nations stoop to them and serve them and sets up again the Temple and the Law and we will believe in him as the true Messiah but in no other will we believe For though they cannot deny but the prophesied time of the Messiahs coming is past yet taking it for granted that this only is his true description they say they must look more at the description then the time and to salve the Prophesies they do believe that the Messiah did come about Christs incarnation but is somewhere â—id with Henoch and Elias and will appear when the Jews do mend their lives and are worthy of him Thus a worldly carnal mind that blindly admireth worldly things and favoureth not the things of the Spirit nor discerneth the excellency of the Hevenly riches doth make them to be open Infidels and make the Turks adore their Mahomet and makes the nominall bastard Christian to set so light by the true Riches of the Gospel and only to honour the name of Christ for they cannot receive the things of God because they are Spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. Were not you worldlings you would discern more matter for your admiration reverence and love in the poorest heavenly minded man then in the greatest Prince on earth that is ungodly But you have the Faith of Jesus Christ the Lord of Glory with respect of persons For if there come into your Assembly a man with a gold ring in goodly apparrel and there come in also a poor man in vile rayment you have respect to him that weareth the gay cloathing and say to him sit thou here in a good place and say to the poor stand thou there despising the poor and committing sin by respect of persons as if you believed not that God had chosen the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him Iam. 2. 1. to the 10. Obj. But must we not honour the gifts of God Riches are his gifts Answ. Yes according to their nature and use Riches are a gift which he giveth even to his enemies and to those that must perish for ever and few that have them come to heaven But Holiness is a gift which he giveth to none but his beloved and is the beginning of eternal life Which then should be most honoured Obj. But would you draw men to despise Dignities and Authority Answ. Authority is one thing and worldly Riches is another We reverence Authority more then you do We look on it as a beam from God as participating of somewhat that is Divine I look on a Magistrate as Gods officer and one that deriveth his Authority from him and I no more acknowledge any Power which is not efficiently from God as the supream Rector of the universe then I acknowledge any naturall Being which is not efficiently from God as the author of nature and the first Being I look at a Magistrate as ultimately for God as a man authorized to do his work and none but what is ultimately his So that as his office is so humane as to be also participatively Divine and he is so an humane creature as to be by participation Divine so the Reverence and Obedience which I owe to a Magistrate is by participation Divine And therefore though I judge not peremptorily that those Antients were in the right that made the fifth Commandment to be the last of the first Table yet I doubt not but our Moderns are less likely to be in the right that confine it only to the second Table And as I think it standeth so between the two as in several respects to belong to each so I rather think that it more principally belongeth to the first You see then the difference between a true Christians honouring of Magistrates and yours You honour them but for your worldly Ends and because they are able to do you good or hurt But we honour them as Gods officers speaking and acting for him and from him by his Commission and we obey their Power as participatively Divine but as they can do us good or hurt we less regard them And this honour and obedience we owe them not for their wealth but their Authority and if the meanest man have this Authority he shall be honoured and
not yet gasping under the pangs of death nor laid in the dust as still as stones You see their beauty and glittering attire but you see not the pale and ghastly face that death will give them nor the skulls that are stript of all those ornaments you smell their perfumes but you smell not their putrefaction you see their lands and spacious houses and sumptuous furniture but you see not how narrow a room will serve them in the grave nor how little there they differ from the most contemptible of men Nay more you see them with Ahab going forth to battle and leaving the Prophets with the bread and water of affliction but you see them not yet returning with the mortal blow you see them in their honours and abundance but see them not on Christs left hand in judgement you see them cloathed richly and faâ—ing deliciously every day but you see them not in bell torments wishing in vain for a drop of water to abate their flames you hear them honoured and hear their words of pride and ostentation but you hear them not yet crying out of their folly and bewailing their loss of present time and lamenting in vain the unhappy choice that now they make Sirs believe it future things are as sure as present These things are no fables because they are not visible yet You see not God and yet he is the Principal Intelligible object you see not your own Intellectual souls and yet you know you have them by the Intellection of other things You see not your own eye-sight and yet you know that an eye-sight you have by the seeing of other things If there were not an Invisible God there would have been no visible creatures Visibles are more vile and are for I visibles that are more noble Our visible Bodies are for our Invisible Souls This visible life is the womb of everlasting life that is Invisible we are hatched by the Spirit in this shell till we are ready to pass forth into that glorious light that here we see not I beseech you Gentlemen awake and be not so lamentably deceived as to think that your honourable Pleasant Dreams are the only Realities O no! it is the last awaking hour that will shew you the now unconceivable Realities You are now but as in jest in your pomp and pleasure but you shall then be in good sadness in your pains and loss if Sanctifying Grace do not prevent it by putting you out of your feasting vein and making you in good sadness to be men of Real Faith and Holiness and lay about you for the Real Ioies Believe it Sirs the life of Christianity is not a bare Opinion It is a living by faith upon a life invisible and so serious resolving a Belief of the Truth of the everlasting blessedness as purchased and given bâ— Iesus Christ to persevering Saints as effectually turneth the affections and endeavours of the man to the Loving and seeking it above all this world It s one thing to take God and heaven for your portion as Believers do and another thing to be desirous of it as a reservè when you can keep the world no longer It s one thing to submit to Heaven as a Lesser evil then hell and another thing to desire it as a greater Good then earth It s one thing to lay up your Treasure and Hopes in heaven and to seek it first and another thing to be contented with it in your Necessity and to seek the world before it and give God that the flesh can spare Thus differeth the Religion of serious Christians and of Carnal worldly hypocrites But I shall break off my Admonition and end with some Advice Direct 1. Look upon this world and all things in it with the fore-seeing eye of Faith and Reason and vallue it but as it deserves And then you will neither be eager after it nor too much delighted in it nor puft up by it nor will it so prevalently entice you to venture or neglect eternal things Did you know and well consider but what an empty fading thing it is you could never be satisfied with so poor a portion nor quiet your souls till you had assurance or sound hopes of better things Nor would you take such pleasure in childish trifles nor debase your selves to be so inordinately imployed about such low and sordid matters while God and your eternal happiness are laid by You take not your selves for the basest of men much less for bruits or ideots O then do not make your selves the basest and do not unman your selves and brutifie your immortal souls A heathen could say Nemo alius est Deo dignus nisi qui opes contempsit If you would be Rich choose that which will make you Rich indeed make sure of his favour that is the absolute Lord of all and then you can want nothing whatever you may be without And if yet you thirst for worldly Riches or inordinately Love them and tenaciously keep them from your Masters use remember that this discovereth your disease and therefore should mind you rather to cure it then to feed it It is not money nor any thing in this world that will cure such an empty depraved soul. As Seneca saith If a sick man be carried about whether in a bed of gold or a bed of wood his disease is carried with him It is not a golden bed that will cure a diseased man Nor is it all the gold or honour in the world that will help such a deluded soul as thinks this world will make him happy Get but the cure of your Carnal minds and a little will serve you For it is your sinful fancy that would have much and not your nature that needs much Saith Seneca Si ad naturam vives nunquam eris pauper si ad opinionem nunquam eris dives Exiguum natura desiderat Opinio immensum He is not the poor man that hath but little but he that would have more Nor is he the Rich man that hath much but he that is content with what he hath If you pray but for your daily bread be not such hypocrites as by the bent of your desires to cross your prayers The nearest way to Riches saith the Moralist is the contempt of Riches and saith the Christian to be Rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which God hath promised all that Love him Jam. 2. 5. The greatest Riches are got proportionably on the easiest terms Loving the world will not procure it but Loving God will procure the everlasting fruition of his Love Millions love the world that miss of it but no man misseth of God that Loveth him above the world Buy not these gawds then at a dearer rate then you may have the Kingdom If you have not enough make sure of heaven and that will be enough for you and get a cure for your diseased minds which is easier and more profitable then to fulfill them No man saith Seneca
commendation but may possibly be as injurious to his Moral Honesty as any other sort of Tyranny and might have learned of his chiefest Master Seneca de Tranquil Anim. that the free City of Athens could less endure Socrates then the Tyrants and did put him to death whom they had tolerated Nunquid potes invenire urbem miseriorem quam Atheniensium fuit cum illam triginta tyranni divellerent Mille trecentos ciâ—es optimum quemque occiderant Socrates tamen in medio erat Et imitari volentibus magnum circumferebat exemplar cum inter triginta dominos liber incederet Hunc tamen Athenae ipse in carcere occiderunt Et qui tutò insultaverat agmini tyrannorum ejus Libertatem libera civitas non tulit Gentlemen for the Lords sake for your souls sake for the Churches and the Gospels sake for your Countries sake and the spritual and corporal good of thousands awake now from your sloth and selfishness from your Ambition Voluptuousness and sordid Worldliness and give up your selves and all that you have to God by Christ and to the Common Good and make the best of all your faculties and interest for the high and noble Ends of Christians And convince all self-conceited founders or troublers of the Common-wealth that you have hit the way of a true Reformation without any alteration of the form by correcting your selves the principal Materials And let them see by your seeking the weale of all that your form is as truly a Common-weale as theirs and that they absurdly appropriate the Title to their own If you deny us this on you shall lie the blame and shame and not on our want of a Popular form But because I have gone so far with you by perswasion though yet I doubt whether indeed you will be perswadedâ— I shall not leave you till I have added the â—â—st part of my task which is to set some Rules and Matter for Good works before you that if you are but willing you may set your money to the happyest usury and that upon the best security 1. For General Rules Aime at no lower an ultimate End in your Charity then the Pleasing of God and move from no lower a first moral Principle then the Love of God within you Seek not self while you seem to Deny it Give and do good to Christ in his servants 2. Consider therefore of mens Relations to Christ and understand where his Interest lyeth in the world Avoid both their extreams that would have you do Good to none but Saints and that would have you do it to all alike As God hath a special Love to his children and yet doth Good to all his mercy being over all his works and as he is the Saviour of all men but especially of them that Believe so must you Love all men as men and Saints as Saints and do Good to all men but especially to them of the houshold of faith Gal. 6. 10. The New command of special Love must not be thought to abrogate the old Commandment of common Love even of Loving our neighbour as our selves You must do Good to a Disciple in the name of a Disciple and to a Prophet in the name of a Prophet Mat. 10. 42. and yet take the wounded man for your neighbour that you see lie in your way Luke 10. 30. I know the Serpentine seed had rather you would kick against the Pricks and tread down Christs interest then there to lay out your greatest Charity But its God that you have to reckon with who judgeth not as they The Philosopher being asked Why all men were more ready to give to the halt and blind then to Philosophers answered that They thought they might come to be halt and blind themselves but were never like to be Philosophers So I may say of many that would be content that you feed the common poor with bread but the Disciples of Christ with stones They think they may be poor themselves but they are never like to be Christs Disciples Nay some of them such as Clem. writes in his mock fides divina will perswade you that its a sottish thing to conceive that any have Christs Spirit now that work not Miracles and that he hath no Church Ministry or Saints that is that Christianity is not the right Religion unless it had present Miracles to warrant it And then you might be excused rather for your uncharitableness to it then for your Charity But wisdom is justified of all her children And the mouths of her enemies will be quickly stopt and they shall then know that Christ is Lord and Iudge without either faith or further Miracles 3. When you have two Good works before you prefer the Greater and choose not the less 4. Caeteris Paribus let Works of Spiritual and everlasting concernment be prefer'd to those that are meerly temporal 5. And let Works for the Publick Good of Church or Common-wealth be preferred before private Works 6. Let God have All in one way or other even that which your selves and families receive Take it but as your daily bread to support you in his service Do not limit God or tie him to any part Take heed of Reserving any thing from him or of halving with him as Ananias and Saphira He deserveth and he expecteth all That which he hath not you have not but Satan hath it You lose it if you return it not to him And now in the Conclusion I shall presume though I foresee I may incurr a censure for it to give you a Catalogue of some of those good works which are seasonable in our daies by which you may make your reckoning comfortable And do not think that God is beholden to you for it if you perform them all but take it as the happyest bargain that you can make and thankfully take the opportunity while it is offered you remembering that there is no such security nor advantage to be made of your money in any way as for God and that it is more blessed to Give then to Receive Say not another day but that you had a price in your hands if you have not an Heart you must suffer with the unfaithful A Catalogue of seasonable Good Works presented to them that are sanctified to God and dare trust him with their Riches expecting the everlasting Riches which he hath promised and are zealous of Good Works and take it for a precious Mercy that they may be exercised therein 1. ENquire what persons burdened with children or sickness or on any such occasion labour under necessities and relieve them as you are able and find them fit And still make advantage of it for the benefit of their souls instructing admonishing and exhorting them as they have need If you give them any annual gift of cloathes bread or money engage them to learn some Catechism withall and to go to the Minister and give him an account of it Some I know that set up a monethly Lecture to be
amicably defending the Truth against the unnecessary Oppositions of divers Learned and Reverend Brethren 4o. One sheet for the Ministry against the Malignants of all sorts A winding-sheet for Popery One sheet against the Quakers A second sheet for the Ministry Justifying our Calling against Quakers Seekers and Papists and all that deny us to be the Ministers of Christ. Directions to Iustices of Peace especially in Corporations to the discharge of their duty to God written at the request of a Magistrate and Published for the use of others that need it The Crucifying of the world BY The Cross of CHRIST GAL. 6. 14. But God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Iesus Christ by whom the world is crucified to me and I unto the world SECT I. EVER since mankind had a being upon earth the malicious apostate spirits have been their enemies If it was the will of our Creator that we should be Militaries in our Innocency and keep our standing and attain our Confirmation and Glory by a Victory or else come short of it if we lost the day No wonder then that our lapsed condition must be militant and that by conquest we must obtain the Crown But there is a great deal of difference between these combats In our first state we were the sole Combatants against the Enemy our selves and we fought in that sufficient strength of our own which was then given us and by our wilfull yielding we were overcome But since our fall we fight under the banner of another who having first conquered for us will afterward conquer in us and by us All the great transactions and busâ—es of the world which our Fathers have reported to us which have filled all the Histories of ages and which our eyes have seen or our ears have heard of are nothing but the various actions and successes of this great war and all the persons in the world are the souldiers of these two Armies whereof the Lord of Life and the Prince of Darkness are the Generals The whole Inhabited world is the field The great on-set of the Enemy was made upon the person of our Lord himself And as oft as he was assaulted or did assault so oft did he overcome In the wilderness he had that first appointed conflâ—ct with Satan himself hand to hand Through his whole life after he was assaulted by the inferiour sort of enemies And a leader in his own Army even Peter himself is once seduced to become a Satan Mat. 16. 22. and a Traytor Iudas is the means of his apprehension and then the blinded Jews and Rulers of his Crucifixion and there had he the last and greatest Conflict in which when he seemed conquered he did overcome and so his personall war was finished When the Captain of our salvation was thus made perfect through sufferings Heb. 2. 10. that he might bring many sons to glory his next work was to form his Army which he did by giving first Commission to his Officers and appointing them to gather the common souldiers and to fill his bands No sooner did they set themselves upon the work but Satan sendeth forth his bands against them Persecutors assault them openly and Hereticks are Traytors in their own Societies and make mutinies among the souldiers of Christ and do them more mischief by perfidiousness then the rest could do by open hostility The first sort of them took advantage 1. By the reputation of Moses Law and the zeal of the blinded Jews for its defence And 2. from the dangers sufferings and fleshly tenderness of many professors of the Christian faith which made them too ready to listen to any Doctrine that promised them peace and safety in the world and as they were themselves a Carnall Generation that looked after worldly glory and felicity and could not bear persecution for Christ and so were enemies to his Cross while they profest themselves to be his Disciples so would they have perswaded the Churches to be of thâ—â—â—â—me mind and to take the same course as they that so they might not be noted for carnall and cowardly professors themselves while they brought others to believe the justness of their way but rather might have matter of glorying in their followers instead of being either sufferers with the true Christians or rejected by them whose profession they had undertaken These were the persons that Paul had here to deal with against whom having opposed many arguments through the Epistle in the words of my Text he opposeth his own Resolution God forbid that I should glory c. The words contain Pauls renouncing the carnal disposition and practise of the false Apostles and his professed Resolution of the contrary Where you have 1. The terms of Detestation and Renunciation God forbid or be it far from me 2. The thingâ— Detested and Renounced viz. To glory in any thing save the Cross of Christ. His own positive profession containeth 1. His Resolution to Glory in the Cross of Christ. 2. The effects of the Cross of Christ upon his soul which being contrary to the disposition and doctrine and endeavour of the false Teachers is added as a Reason of his abhorring their waies and as the ground and principle of his contrary course Hereby the world was crucified to him and he to the world The difficulties in the words being not great I shall take leave to be the briefer in their explication The verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth not only externall boâ—sting but first internall confidence and acquiescence By the Cross of our Lord Iesus Christ we are to understand both his Cross as suffered by him and as considered by us and as imitated by us or the Cross we suffer in conformity to him For I see no reason to take it in a more restrained sense By the world is meant the whole inferiour Creation or all that is objected to our sense or is the bait or provision for the flesh or by the tempter is put in competition with God both the things and the men of the world To have the world crucified to him doth signifie 1. That it is killed and so disabled from doing him any deadly harm or from being able to steal away his affections as it doth they that are unsanctified 2. That he esteemeth it but as a dead and contemptible thing So that this phrase expresseth both its disabling and his positive contempt of it The other phrase that Paul was crucified to the world doth signifie on the other side 1. That his estimation and affections were as dead to it that is he had no more esteem of it or love to it nor did he further mind or regard it so far as he was sanctified then a dead man would do 2. It signifieth that he was also contemned by worldly men and lookt on as his Crucified Lord was whom he preached This is said to be done by Christ or by his Cross For the relative may relate to either antecedent
it executed its deceits We must give it the Gall and Vinegar of penitent tears and threatned judgements The vvorld thus despised and rejected Christ making him a man of sorrows and acquainted with our griefs they hid their faces and esteemed him not Isa. 53. 3. He had no form or comeliness in their eyes and when they saw-him there was no beauty that they should desire him Vers. 2. So must we despise and reject the world and hide our faces from it and not esteem it disdaining even to look upon its pomp and vanity and to observe its gawdy alluring dress or once to regard its enticing charms We must think it all into a loathsom vanity till there appear to us no form or comeliness in it nor any beauty for which we should desire it and wonder what they can see in it that so far dote upon it as to part with Christ and salvation to enjoy it The world did even triumph over a crucified Christ and shake their heads at him and say He saved others but himself he cannot save And we must triumph through Christ over the crucified world and say This is it that promised such great matters to its deceived followers that men esteemed before God and glory and now as it cannot save them from the dust or the wrath of God so neither can it save it self from this contempt that Christ doth cast upon it Cast down this Idol out of your hearts and say If he be a God let him help himself Lastly the world when they had crucified Christ did bury him and rowl a stone on his Sepulcbre and seal it up and watch it with souldiers to secure him from rising again if they could And we must even bury the crucified world and be buried to the world and lay upon it those weighty considerations and resolutions and seal thereto with Sacramentall obligations and follow all this with persevering watchfulness that may never permit it to revive and rise again And thus must we learn from the Cross of Christ how the world is to be crucified as it used Christ we must use it For it is the whole course of Christs humiliation that is meant here by his Cross the rest being denominated from the most eminent part and therefore from the whole must we fetch our pattern and instructions by the direction of the Allegory in my Text. SECT V. BUT it will not be unprofitable if we more particularly and orderly acquaint you with those Acts which the crucifying of the world to our selves doth comprehend over-passing those by which Christ did it for us on the Cross till anon in the due place 1. The first act is To esteem the world as an enemy to God and us and so as a Malefactor that deserveth to be crucified And this must not be only by a speculative-conception but by a true confirmed practical judgement which will set all the powers of the soul on work It is the want of this that makes the world to Live and Reign in the hearts of so many yea even of thousands that think they have mortified it A speculative Book-knowledge that will only make a man talk is taken instead of a practical knowledge Almost every man will say The world is a great enemy to God and us but did they soundly and heartily esteem it to be such they would use it as such Never tell me that that man takes the world for his deadly enemy who useth it as his dearest friend Enmity and deadly enmity will be seen Here is no room to plead the command of loving our enemies at least no man can think that he must love it with a Love of friendship and therefore with no love but what is consistent with the hatred of a deadly enemy This serious deep apprehension of Enmity is the very spring and poise of all our opposition We cannot heartily fight with our friend or seek his death There must be some anger and falling out before we will make the first assault and a settled enmity before we will make a deadly war of it This apprehension of enmity consisteth in an apprehension of the hurtfulness of the world to us and of the opposition it maketh against God and our salvation and of the danger that we are in continually by reason of this opposition So far as men conceive of the world as Good for them so far they take it for their friend and love it For no man can choose but love that which he seriously conceiveth to be Good for him This complacency is clean contrary to the Christian hostility But when we conceive of it as that which we stand in continual danger of being everlastingly undone by this will turn our hearts against it It undoes men that they have not these apprehensions of the world and that deeply fixed and habituated in their minds For it is the Apprehension or Iudgement of things that carryeth about the whole man and setteth awork all the other faculties Quest. But what should we do to be so habitually apprehensive that the world is our enemy Answ. 1. You must be sure that you lay up your treasure in heaven That you are so convinced by Faith of the Glory to come and of the true felicity that consisteth in the fruition of God as that you take it for your Portion and make it your very End And when once you have laid up your Hopes in heaven and see that there or no where you must be happy this will presently teach you to judge of all things else as they either help or hinder the attainment of that end For it is the Nature of the End to put a due estimate upon all things else And it is the property of the chief Good to denominate all other things either Good or Evil and that in a greater or lesser measure according as they respect that chiefest Good For there can be no Goodness in any thing else but the Goodness of a Means And the means is so far Good as it is apt and useful for the attainment of the End If once therefore you unfeignedly take God and Glory for your end and felicity you will presently fall upon enquiry and observation what it is that the world will do to help or hâ—nder that felicity 2. And then you need but one thing more to the discovery of the Enmity and that is the Constant experience of your souls A real living Christian doth live for God and is upon the motion to his eternal home There is his heart and that way his affections daily work When he findeth his soul down he windeth it up again and straineth the spring of faith and love And therefore his life and business being for heaven he cannot but be sensible of the rubs that are in his way and take notice of those things that would stop him in this course Whereupon he must needs find by constant experience that the world is that great Impediment and so must
breasts are dry which we thought would have refreshed and satisfied us When we see that the world is an empty thing a cask a picture a dream a shadow we turn away from it and look no more after it but look for content in something else As a child that seeth a painted Apple may be eager of it till he try that it is favourless and then he careth for it no more or if a beautiful crab deceive him when he hath set his teeth in it he casteth it away So when a Christian findeth the folly of his former expectations and tasteth the vexation of the creature which he was so greedy of and withall is acquainted by a lively faith where he may be better away go all his expectations from the world and he promiseth himself no more content or satisfaction in it This is a notable part of Mortification As it is the Hopes of some Good that sets men awork in all endeavours so take down their Hopes and all the wheels of the soul stand still If it were not for Hope we say the heart would break And therefore when all our Hopes from the world are dead the very Heart of the old man is broken and all his worldly motions cease Then he saith It s as good sit still as labour for nothing I despair of ever having contentment in the creature I see it will not pacifie my conscience it will not save me from the wrath to come it will do nothing for me that is worthy my regard and therefore let it go I will follow it no further It shall have my heart no more Before he had many a promising delightful thought of the creatures which he could not reach He thought with himself If I were but thus placed and settled once if I had but this or that which I want if I were but here or there where I would be if I had but the favour of such or such an one how happy were I how well should I be I would then be content and seek no more But when faith hath mortified us to the world we see that all these were foolish dreams we knew not what it was that we Hoped for and then we give up all such Hopes for ever Such pleasing thoughts of any worldly thing while you want it or of any place or Condition which you are absent from and such promises and hopes from any worldly state or person or thing doth manifest that so far you are alive to the world and is a folly of the same nature with theirs that Idolize the world when they do enjoy it For one man to say If I had this or that I were well and for another that hath it to say Now I am well Soul take thy Rest do both shew the same Estimation and Idolatrous Love to the world in their hearts though one of them have the thing which he loves and the other hath it not And to be so pleased with the very fancy and conceits of those worldly things which they never had seems worse then to be pleased with it when they have it I pray you lay this well to heart that I say to you Despair utter Despair of ever being contented or well in the world or made happy by the world in whole or in part is the very life of Christian Mortification It is the nature of a Carnal heart to keep up his worldly Hopes as long as possibly he can If you beat him from one thing he runs to another and if he despair of that he looks after a third and thus he will wander from creature to creature till Grace convert him or Judgement condemn him If he find that one friend faileth him he hopes another will prove more faithfull and if that prove a broken reed he will rest upon a third If he have been crost in his Hopes of worldly contentment once or twice or ten times or an hundred times yet he is in Hope that some other way may hit and some more comfort he may find at last But when God hath opened a mans eyes to see that the whole world is Vanity and Vexation and that if he had it all it would do him no Good at all and that it is a meer deceitful empty thing and when a man is brought to a full and finall Desparation of ever finding in the world the Good that he expected then and not till then is he Crucified to the world and then he can let it go and care not and then he will betake himself in good earnest to look after that which will not deceive him When a worldling is in utmost poverty or in prison he may part with all his worldly contentment at the present but this is not to be Crucified to the world For still he keeps up his former estimation of it and Love to it and some Hope perhaps that yet it may be better with him Yea if he should Despair of ever being Happy in the world if this proceed not from his Disesteem of it and the change of his Affections but meerly because he would have the world but sees he cannot this is far from the nature of true mortification 4. If we are Crucified to the world our Delight in it is Crucified It seemeth not to us a matter of such worth as to be fit for our Delight Children are glad of toyes which a wise man hath no pleasure in To have too sweet contentful thoughts in the creature and to apprehend it as our Good and to be rejoyced in it is a sign that so far we are not Crucified to it It is not able to Glad a mortified heart so far as it is mortified though the Love of God that is manifested by it may make him glad And this is it that Paul disclaimeth in my Text God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of Christ. If he were the Lord of all the honours or wealth of the world he would not Glory in them If he had all the Pleasures that the flesh can desire he would not glory in them If he had the common applause of all men and every one spoke well of him if he had all things about him suited to a carnal hearts content yet would he not glory in it No more then a grave and learned man would glory that he had found a counter or a pin Ier. 9 23. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom nor the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches but let him that gloryeth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord that exercise loving kindness judgement and righteousness on the earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. Jer. 4. 2. The Nations shall bless themselves in him and in him shall they glory Isa. 41. 16. Thou shalt rejoyce in the Lord and glory in the holy one of Israel Isa. 45. 25. In the Lord shall all
the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory The world is too low to be the joy of a Believer His higher Hopes do cloud and disgrace such things And as these forementioned Passions in the Concupiscible so also their contraries in the Irascible must be Crucified E. G. 1. A man that is Dead to the world will not Hate or be much Displeased with those that hinder him from the Riches or Honours or Pleasures of the world He makes no great matter of it and taketh it for no great hurt or loss And therefore rather then study revenge he can patiently bear it when they have taken away his coat if they take away his cloak also He doth not swell with malice against them that stand in the way of his advancement or hinder his rising or riches in the world He will not envy the precedency of others nor seek the disgrace or ruine of them that keep him low No more then a wise man will hate or seek to be revenged of him that would hinder him from climbing up to the top of a steeple or that will take a stone or â— bush of thorns out of his way 2. A man that is Crucified to the world will not avoid or flie from any Duty though the performance of it cross his worldly commodity or hazard all his worldly interest He seeth not reason enough in worldly losses to draw him to the committing of sin to avoid them An unmortified man will be swayed by his worldly Interest That must be no Duty to him which casteth him upon sufferings and that is no Good to him which would deprive him of his sensual Good And that shall be no sin to him which seems to be a matter of Necessity for the securing of his hopes and happiness in the world Whatever is a mans end he puts a Must upon the obtaining it and upon all the Means without which it will not be attained I Must have God and Glory saith the Believer whatever I want and therefore I Must have Christ I Must have faith and love and obedience whatever I do And so saith the sensualist my life and credit and safety in the world Must be secured whatever I miss of and therefore I Must avoid all that would hazard or lose them and I Must do that which will preserve them whatever I do The worldling thinketh there is a Necessity of his being sensually happy or at least of preserving his life and hopes on earth But the mortified Christian seeth no Necessity of Living much less of any of the sensual provisions which to others seem such considerable things And hence it is that the same Argument from Necessity draweth one man to sin and keepeth another most effectually from sin He that hath carnal Ends doth plead a Necessity of the sinful means by which he may attain them And he that hath the Ends of a true Believer doth plead a Necessity of avoiding the same sins which the other thought he must needs commit For Heavenly Ends are as much croft by them as earthly Ends are promoted by them We find a rich man in Luke 18. 23. that had a great mind to have been a Christian And if he had lived in our daies when the door is set a little wider open then Christ did set it there are some that would not have denyed him Baptism but would have let him in But when he heateth that the world must be renounced and Christ tells him of selling all and looking for a reward in another world he goes away sorrowful for he was very rich The man would have had pardon and salvation but he must needs be Rich or at least keep something And they that are so set upon it that they must and will be rich do fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition 1 Tim. 6. 9. And he that maketh hast to be rich shall not be innocent Prov. 28. 20. But the Crucified world is a dead and ineffectual thing It cannot draw a man from Christ or duty It cannot draw a man into any known sin so far as it is Crucified It is as Sampson when his hair was cut its power is gone Thousands whose hearts were changed by grace could sell all and lay the price at the Apostles seet and could forsake all and take up their Cross and follow a Crucified Christ to the death and could rejoyce in tribulation and glory that they were counted worthy to suffer though he that was unmortified do go away sorrowful Worldly Interest doth command the Religion and life of the unmortified man because it is the predominant Interest in his heart But its contrary with the mortified Believer His spiritual Interest being predominant doth Rule him as to all the matters of this world 3. If you are Crucified to the world your care for worldly things is Crucified It is not in vain that Christ expresly commandeth his Disciples Take no thought for your life What ye shall eat or what ye shall drink nor yet for your body what you shall put on Mat. 6. 25 31. And Phil. 4. 6. Be careful for nothing And 1 Pet. 5. 7. Casting all your care on him for he careth for you I know this is a hard saying to flesh and blood and therefore they study evasions by perverting the plain Text and would null and evacuate the express commands of Christ by squaring them to that carnal interest and reason which they are purposely given to destroy But you will say Must we indeed give over caring I answer 1. You must be in care about your own duty both in matters of the first and second Table and how to manage your worldly affairs most innocently and spiritually and to attain the Ends propounded in them by God But this is none of the care that is now in Question 1 Cor. 7. 32. There is a necessary caring for the things that belong to the Lord how to please the Lord and that even in your worldly business But 2. You may not care for the creature for it self nor for the meer pleasing of the flesh As it may not be Loved for it self so neither may it be cared for for it self And 3. When you have used your utmost care or forecast to do your own duty you may not be Anxious or Careful about the issue which is Gods part to determine of As God himself appeareth in Prosperity or Adversity you may and must have regard unto the issue But for the thing it self you must not when you have done your own duty be any further careful about it God knoweth best what is good for you and how much of the creature you are fit to manage and what condition of body is most suitable to the condition of your soul And therefore to him must the whole business be committed When you have committed your seed to the ground and done your duty about it you must have
by it is evident that this is a damning errour for any man to feign a Christianity to himself that excludeth Mortification or is separable from it in a capable subject When men look at a predominant fleshly interest or worldly mind as they do at some particular sin consistent with true faith I say this is an errour about the very Essence of Christianity and which hazards their salvation 2. And that it is the end of the Cross of Christ and his Doctrine to Crucifie the world to us and sanctifie us to God I have already manifested in part and shall now further manifest 1. It is the end of Christ and his Cross and Doctrine to recover Gods Interest in the souls of men But it is by mortification as a part of true sanctification that Gods Interest in mens souls is recovered Therefore c. As God could have no lower ultimate end then himself in our Creation so neither in our Redemption Christ himself as Mediator is but a Means to God who is our End he is the way to the Father and no man cometh to the Father but by him Joh. 14. 6. He is the Truth that revealeth the Father and the Sun of the world which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world Joh 1. 9. revealing to us both the End and Means That as there is no light in the earth but what is communicated by the Sun which enlighteneth some by the Moon at midnight and some by its direct approaching light at the break of day before they see the Sun it self and others by its glorious rays when it is risen and visible to them and hath also in it self an objective sufficiency to enlighten those that shut their eyes or want eye-sight by which they should receive it Even so is Christ the Sun of the Redeemed World which actually affordeth all that Light to all which they do possess even some to all that have the use of Reason which hath a tendency to recovery and he hath an Objective sufficiency to the saving illumination of those that through their own fault are never so illuminated The pure Godhead is the Beatifical Light to be enjoyed for felicity The Mediator is the Mediate Light to shew uâ— the way to God And in these two consisteth Life Eternal to Know God the Beginning and End who himself hath no Beginning or End and to know Jesus Christ whom he hath sent to â— call us to himself Ioh. 17. 3. Whether he that is now to us Mediâ—tor acquisitionis will also hereafter be Mediator fruitioâ—is and whether the glorified do only see the Godhead in the glass of the glorified body of Christ and of the most glorious effects which then they shall partake of or also shall immediatly beheld it in it self and see Gods essence face to face I shall not presume to determine while Scripâ—â—â—â— seems so silent and learned conjectures are so much at odds But as he is the Redeeming restoring Mediator it is that we speak all this while of Christ And â—o his Office is to recover Gods Interest in the souls of men Now his Interest lyeth in our Estimation and our Love And these the world hath dispossest him of It is therefore the work of Christ to pull down this Idol and set up God in the throne of the soul. And therefore though faith be the principal Mediant using Grace yet Love is the most principal finall enjoying grace and more excellent then faith as the end or that act which is next the end is more excellent then the means 2. It is the End of Christ his Cross and Doctrine to Heal us and to save us to Heal us of our sin and to save us from it and its destroying fruits But by sanctification and so by mortification doth Christ thus Heal and Save us If health be worth nothing the Physician and all his Physick is worth nothing The Health of the soul objectively is God and formally is its Holiness or perfect Disposedness and Devotedness to God of which anon These therefore doth Christ come to restore And therefore he comes to call us off the Creature and bring our affections back to God 3. It is the End of Christ his Cross and Doctrine to conquer Satan and destroy his works and with him the rest of the enemies of God and of our salvation But the world is one of these enemies and the Means by which the Devil doth prevail therefore it is Christs End to overcome the World and cast it out of the hearts of men Luk. 11. 22. Ioh. 16. 33. 1 Ioh. 3. 5 8. He was manifested to this end to take away our sins and destroy the works of the Devil And therefore he causeth his followers to overcome him 1 Ioh. 2. 13 14. And herewithal observe that it is essential to the Relation to respect the End to the Physiâ—ian that he be for the health of the Patient and to Christ the Redeemer that he be the Saviour of his People from their sins and the Restorer of their souls to the Love of God So that Christ is denyed and made no Christ where Mortification and Sanctification are denied He is not believed in as Christ where he is not believed in for these Ends. And therefore he that cometh not with this intent to Christ that he may restore the Image of God upon him and bring him off from the Creature unto God that he may live to him doth not come to Christ as Christ and is not indeed a true Christian. The Doctrine of Christ doth lead us from the world in these several parts of it and by these steps How the Cross doth it I shewed before 1. It declareth to us what God is and what man is and so that God is our absolute Owner and Governour and that he is the only Primitive simply necessary being and that man was made by him and therefore for him and disposed to him 2. It declareth to us that the state of our integrity consisted in this closure of the soul with God 3. It sheweth us that our selicity consisteth in his Love and in the fruition of him by a mutual complacency 4. It sheweth us that our first sin was by turning from him to Carnal self and to the world 5. And that this is our lost estate wherein both sin and misery are conjunct to Adhere to self and Creatures and to depart from God 6. It sheweth us what Christ hath done and suffered to Reconcile God to us and open us a way of admission into his presence and how far God is Reconciled to us and thus Revealeth him in the face of a Mediater as Amiable to our souls that so we might be capable of loving him and closing with him again For if he had remained in his wrath he would have been the object of our hatred or meer terrour at least and not of our Love And no man can Love him that is not presented to him and apprehended by him
obeyed by us as well as the richest 4. If the world be Crucified to you How comes it to pass that you are so tenderly sensible of every loss or dishonour that doth befall you If you are wronged in your estate what a matter do you make of it If a man should deprive you but of a few pounds you can hardly put it up but you must go to Law for it or you must seek revenge Or if you pass it by you think you have done some great meritorious act If one slander you or dishonour you how sensible are you of it How it sticks upon your stomacks as if you had lost your treasure Death is not sensible If you were Dead to the world and the world to you these things would all seem smaller in your eyes and you would have more ado to remember them then now you have to forget them You could not be so sensible of a loss or an injury if you were not too much alive to the world And if you be Poor what an impatient complaining life do you live as if you wanted your treasure or your God and if you grow rich or gain how glad are you Were you Dead to the world and the world to you you would be more indifferent to these matters and Poverty and Riches would not seem so much to differ as now they do but Godliness with contentment which is Profitable to all things would seem to you the Great Gain 1 Tim. 4. 8. 6. 6. Obj. But may not a man go to Law to recover his own or to right his own Reputation if he be slandered Answ. Distinguish carefully in all your wrongs between Gods Interest in them and your own Your own you must forgive but Gods you cannot If he have intrusted you with talents for his service and any would fraudulently or violently deprive you of them you must look after them as your Masters stock If a wound in your name or state disable you from doing God service you must use all lawful means to heal it that you may be in a capacity of serving him again And if your children or others have remotely a right in what you are defrauded of you may look after their right And you must not remit the crime as oft as you remit the injury For that God hath imposed penalty upon and the Rule is good that the Punishment of the notoriously vicious is a Due to the Common-wealth because of the Necessity of it to its good In a word therefore if you could do these things you might your selves resolve when it is lawful to go to Law or seek your Right and when not 1. If you can well distinguish between Gods Interest and your own 2. And be sure you forgive all your own injuries 3. And that you watch your hearts narrowly leâ—t they pretend Gods cause and intend your own 4. And be able by the consideration of circumstances to discern in probability whether Gods Interest will be more promoted by going to Law or passing it by But alas how rare a course is this Of all the suits that are before you at this Assize I fear there are few that are commenced unfeignedly for the Interest of God! If the Lord himself should ask both Plaintiff and Defendant Do you follow this suit for Me or for your selves What answer think you they must make if they speak the truth But of this anon HAving thus given in my General charge against the carnal worldling and some Evidence of his guilt I shall now give you the Quality and Aggravations of your crime in several Articles as followeth 1. You are Guilty of Idolatry which is high Treason against the God of Heaven That which hath your highest estimation and dearest affection and chiefest service is your God But this the world hath therefore it is your God That which hath the most of your Hearts is your God But it is the world that hath the most of your hearts You know that the main drift of your life is for the world And that which hath the main bent of your life hath your heart If Reason be no Evidence you cannot refuse Scripture Col. 3. 5. Mortifie therefore your Members upon earth and one is Covetousness which is Idolatry Eph. 5. 5. For this ye know that no whoremonger nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an Idolator hath any Inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God The case is plain in Scripture and in the effects The world hath that Love that God should have that Care and Trust and Service which belongs to God and therefore it is your God I do therefore here on the behalf of God indite every worldly carnall sinner of you at the Bar of your own conscience as a Traytor against the Lord that made you and against the Son of God that did Redeem you And what greater sin can man be guilty of besides the Blaspheming of the Holy Ghost He that would have another God would have the Lord to be un-Godded and to lose his Soveraign Power and Goodness And is such a man fit to live in his sight Why wretched Traytor If he be not thy God thou canst not expect to live by him or be sustained preserved and provided for by him Thou canst not live an hour without him and yet wilt thou cast him off Wouldst thou pluck up thy own foundation and cut off the bough on which thou standest Wouldst thou fire the house thou dwellest in and sink the Ship that keepeth thy self and all that thou hast from sinking Relations are mutual If he shall be no God to thee be it known to thee thou shalt be none of his People If he shall be no Father to thee thou shalt be none of his child And wretched soul what wilt thou do without him It iâ—â—â—e that keeps thy soul in thy body while thou art serving his enemy Thou wouldst be in Hell within this hour if his Mercy did not keep thee out And is this thy requital of him He hath but one Trinity of enemies the flesh the world and the Devil and wilt thou turn to these and forsake him by whom thou livest Why I tell thee the Lord must be thy God or thou must have no God indeed The world is like the Heathens Idols that hath eyes but cannot see thy wants ears but cannot hear thy cries hands but cannot help thee in thy distress All thy Riches Dignities and Pleasures are silly things to make a God of They may have the room of God in thy heart and in that sense be thy God but indeed they are no more God then a mawkin is a man nor no more able to help and save thee Wouldst thou then have a God or no God If thou wouldst have no God thou wouldst have no Helper no Governor no Preserver nor no Happiness And dost thou think that thou art sufficient for thy self What! Canst thou live a day without God Canst thou save
with that which should be your food you turn your daily blessings to your bane by dropping your Poyson into the cup of Mercies which bountiful providence putteth into your hands There is not a surer way in the world to undo you then by Turning to the creature and forsaking God You cry for more of the world and you are unsatisfied till you have it and when you have it you do but destroy your souls with it by giving it your hearts which must be given only unto God What a stir do men make for temptation and destruction What cost and pains are men at to purchase them an Idol and to make provision for the flesh to satisfie its desires when they confess it to be the greatest enemy of their souls Like a man that would give all that he hath for a coal of fire to put into the thatch even such is your desires after the world and the use you make of it 8. What abundance of precious time and labour do you lose which might and should be better spent Doth not this world take up the most of your care and strength and time You are about it early and late It is first and last and almost alwaies in your thoughts It findeth you so much to do that you have scarce any time so much as to mind the God that made you or to seek to escape the everlasting misery which is near at hand It hath taken up so much of your hearts that when God should have them in any holy duty or service for his Church you are heartless When you shall see your accounts cast up to your hands as shortly you shall see it though you will not now be perswaded to do it your selves and when you shall there see how many thoughts the world had in comparison of God and how many hours were laid out upon the world when Gods service was cast by for want of time and how near the creature was to your heart while God as a stranger stood at the door And in a word how the world was your daily business while the matters of God stept in but now and then upon the by you will then confess that you laboured in vain and that your life and labour should have been better employed Hath God given you but a short uncertain life and laid your everlasting life upon it and will you cast all away upon these transitory delights How short a time have you for so great a work and shall the world have all Oh that you did but know to how much greater advantage you might have spent this time and labour in seeking God and an endless Glory One thing is needful make sure of that and waste not the rest of your daies in vanity What wise man would spend so precious a thing as Time is upon that which he knows will leave him in Repentings that ever it was so spent The world doth rob poor sinners of their time but when they see it is gone and they would fain have a little of that time again to make preparation for their everlasting state it is not all the world then that can bring them back one hour of it again Certainly such a loss of time and labour is no small aggravation of a worldlings sin 9. You are also guilty of the high contempt of the Kingdom of Glory while you prefer these transitory things before it Your hearts and lives speak that which you are ashamed to speak with your tongues You are ashamed to say that Earth is better for you then Heaven or that your sin is better for you then the favour of God but your lives speak it out If you think not your present condition better for you then heaven why do you choose and prefer it and why do you more carefully and laboriously seek the things of earth then the Heavenly Glory If your child would sell his inheritance for a cup of Ale you would think he set light by it And if he would part with father and mother for the company of a beggar or a thief you would say he had no great love to you And if you will venture your part in heaven for the pleasures of sin and will part with God for the matters of this world would you have him think that you set much by his Kingdom or his love O the unreasonableness of sin the madness of worldly fleshly men Is it indeed more desirable to prosper in their shops their fields and their pleasures for a few daies or years then everlastingly to live in the presence of the Lord Shall Christ purchase a Kingdom at the price of his blood and offer it us freely and shall we prefer the life of a bruit before it Shall God offer to advance so mean a creature to an heavenly station among his Angels and shall we choose rather to wallow in the dung of our Transgressions Take heed lest as you are guilty of Esau's folly you also meet with Esau's misery and the time should come that you shall find no place for Repentance that is for Recovery by Repentance though you seek it with tears Contempt of kindness is a provoking thing For it is the height of ingratitude And especially when it is the greatest kindness that is contemned As it will be the everlasting imployment of the Saints to enjoy that felicity and to admire and praise that infinite Love which caused them to enjoy it So will it be the everlasting misery of the damned to be deprived of that felicity and to think of their solly in the unthankful contempt of it and of the excellency of that Kingdom which thus they did contemn God sets before you Earth and Heaven If you choose earth expect no more And hereafter Remember that you had your choice 10. To make short of the rest of the aggravation of your sin and sum it up in a word Your Love of the world is the sum of all iniquity It virtually or actually containeth in it the breach of every command in the Decalogue The first Commandment which is the foundation of the Law and especially of the first Table is broken by it while you make it your Idol and give it the Esteem and Love and Service that is due to God The second third and fourth Commandments it disposeth you to break While your hearts and ends are carnal and worldly the manner of your service will be so and you will suit your Religion to the will of men and your carnal Interest and not to the will and word of God The name and holy nature of God is habitually contemned by you while you more set by your worldly matters then by him His holy daies you ordinarily violate and his Ordinances you do hypocritically abuse while your hearts are upon your covetousness or sensual delights and are far from him while you draw near him with your lips Worldlinys will make you even break the bonds of natural obligations and be
world do set as light by such in inconsiderable vanities And if the dead in sin can bear so easily the greatest misery that man on earth is ordinarily capable of as the slavery of the Devil the guilt of sin the curse of the Law the danger of damnation c. what wonder then if they that are Crucified to the world can bear a little poverty or sickness or reproach which is to the other but as the prick of a pin or the scratch of a thorn to a deadly poyson or a stab at the very heart 3. But yet this is not all Your inordinate love of any thing in the world will not only embitter your lives but it will be the horrour of your souls at death and judgement And therefore as ever you would leave the world in peace and as ever you would appear before the Lord your Judge with comfort and as ever you desire that the creatures should not be your Tormentors take heed that you do not over-love them now but see that they be Crucified to â—ou You cannot possibly be sensible now what a pang of horrour it will cast you into at the last when you shall see the world leaving you and see what it was that you ventured your souls and their everlasting welfare for O with what grief and tearing of heart do earthly minded persons part with the world When you are dying that one thing that had your heart will more torment your hearts to remember it then all things else will do Nothing is such a terrour to the thoughts of a a dying covetous man as his money and lands and worldly wealth Nothing so vexeth the ambitious as to think on that shadow of honour which he did pursue Nothing doth so torment the filthy fornicator as the remembrance of that person with whom he committed the beastly sin All other persons or things in the world will not then be so bitter to you as those that stole your hearts from God but at judgement and in hell the remembrance of them will be a thousand fold more bitter And who would now prepare such misery for themselves and glut themselves with that which they can no better digest or bear What wise man would not rather be without the drunkards cups then be fain to spue it up again and part with it with so much sickness and disgrace And why should you desire to be drunk with the profits or pleasures of the world when you know before hand with how much shame and trouble of conscience you must cast it up again at last 4. But yet this is not the worst but if you will needs live to the world you must take it for your portion and look not for any more And therefore as ever you would not be deprived of your hopes of eternal life and be put off with the earthly portion of the wicked see that the world be Crucified to you and you to the world How poor a portion is it that worldlings do possess Even like Nebucadnezar that had his portion with the beasts Daâ— 4. 15. How soon will all their portion be spent and then they will feed with swine yea and be denyed these very husks For they are set in slâ—ppery places and are brought to desolation in a moment Psal. 73. 18 19 20. O how much better a portion might you have had if you had not refused or neglected it when you had your choice Me thinks in your greatest pleasures and abundance it should astonish your souls to think This is my portion I shall have no more When you are past this life and entring into Eternity then where is your â—ortion Alas saith Conscience I have had it already I cannot spend it and have it too You know what you have now but what shall you have hereafter to all eternity Your Portion is almost spent already and what will you do then Oh then to think that the Eternal glory of the Saints might have been yours it was offered as freely to you as to them but you have lost it by preferring the world before it and that after a thousand convictions of your folly O what a cutting thought will this be Luke 16. 25. To remember that you chose your good things in this life will be a sad Remembrance when all is gone The Lord is the protion of his Saints inheritance Psalm 16. 5. even their portion for ever Psalm 73. 26. their portion in the Land of the living Psal. 142. 5. and this was it that encouraged them to labour patience and hope Psalm 119. 52. Lam. 3. 24 25 26. But for the worldling The heaven shall reveal his iniquity and the earth shall rise up against him the increase of his house shall depart and his goods shall slow away in the day of wrath This is the portion of a wicked man from God and the heritage appointed to him by God Iob 20. 37 38 39. If you can be content with such a Portion make much of the world and take your fleshly pleasures while you may But if you hope for the everlasting portion of Believers away with the world and Crucifie it without any more ado and set your hearts on the portion which you hope for SECT XX. HAving said as much as is suitable to the other parts of this discourse to perswade you to be willing to Crucifie the world I shall next give some Directions to those that are perswaded and tell you by what means the work may be done And I beseech you mark them and resolve to practise them Direct 1. OBserve and Practise the Direction intimated in the Text. It is the Cross of Christ that must Crucifie the world to you It s thither therefore that you must repair for help An Infidel may fetch such weapons from reason and experience as shall wound the world and diminish his esteem of it and make it less delightful to him But it is only the Cross of Christ that can furnish us with those weapons that must pierce it to the very heart Or if the Unbeliever were deprived of all earthly delight and brought into despair of ever receiving more comfort from the world as it is with many of them in some extremity and with all at death yet he himself is not Crucified to the world Though his delight in it be gone yet his love to it is not gone Though he be out of Hope of ever having content in it yet his desires after it are the same If he call it vanity and vexation as the Believer doth it is because it denyeth him his desires Not because he takes it heartily for an Enemy but for an unkind Lover that dealeth hardly with him that hath given it his heart If he look upon it as Dead and unable to help him yet doth he behold it as the carkaise of a friend with grief and lamentation It is his greatest trouble that the world cannot give him that which he would have And therefore he
is trying what it will do for him as long as he hath any hope As the poor Infants in Ireland lay sucking at the breasts of the corpse of their mothers when the Irish Papists had slain them so will these poor worldlings still hang upon the world even when they find that it cannot help them and when it will scarce afford them a miserable life but with much labour and suffering they hardly get a little food and cloathing So that their affections are still alive to the world even when to their sorrow they look on the world as dead or almost dead to them But the Cross of Christ will teach you to Crucifie the world in another manner As Christ did voluntari'y contemn it and shew that he set so little by it that he could be content to be the most despicable Object upon earth in the eyes of men so will he teach you also voluntarily to contemn it and set up your selves as the Butt which all the arrows of malice and despight shall be shot at So that though you have naturally a desire of the preservation of your lives and from that may say Father if it be thy will let this cup pass from me Yet shall you have a far greater desire of Pleasing Enjoying and Glorifying God which shall cause you from a comparative Judgement to say Yet not as I will but as thou wilt Much more shall you be enabled to despise the unnecessary matters of the world and to mortifie your inordinate and distempered affections The Cross of Christ will shew you Reason though such as the worldly wise call foolishness even such Reason as none but a Teacher come from God could have revealed for the leading up your affections from the world and it will point you to the higher things that do deserve them This Cross is the truest Ladder by which you may ascend from earth to heaven When in this wilderness and as without the gate you are lifted up with Christ on the Cross of worldly desertion and reproach you are then in the highest road to Glory and if you faint not shall be lifted up with him into the throne For if you suffer with him ye shall also reign with him Rom. 8. 17. And to him that overcometh he will grant to sit with him in his throne even as he also overcame and is set down with his Father in his throne Rev. 3. 21. And as the Cross of Christ is Teaching so also is it Strengthning As the touch of his garment stayed the poor womans issue of blood so will a touch of the Cross by faith even dry up the stream of your inordinate affections that have run out after the world so long When a worldling mourneth over the Dead world as having lost his chiefest friend the Cross of Christ will cause you to rejoyce over it as a conquered enemy and to insult over the carkaise of its vain glory and delights For its one thing to have an angry God by providence to kill the world to them and another thing to have a gracious Father by his Spirit to Crucifie us to the world and the world to us by the changing of our â—â—â—imation and affections Set therefore a Crucified Christ continually before the eye of your souls See what he suffered for your adhering to the creature and what it cost him to loose you from it and bring up your souls again to God Can you still dote upon the world intangle your affections in its painted allurements when you consider that this is the very sin that killed your Saviour and which the blood of his heart was shed to cure Look up to that Cross and see the fruits of worldly love If you see a man that hath surfeited on unwholsom fruits lie groaning and gasping and trembling in pain and at last must die for it you will take heed of such a surfeit your selves It was we that took a surfeit of the creature and the Lord that saw there was no other remedy to save our lives did by a Miracle of mercy and wisdom derive upon himself the pain and trouble and groaned and sweat and bled and dyed for our Recovery And will you feed and surfeit again upon the creature Look up to that Cross of Christ and see the enmity of the world unto your Head And will you take it for your friend See how it used him and will you expect that it should deal contrarily with you Did it hang him up among Malefactors and will it set you on a throne or dandle you in its lap Did it pierce his side and will it heal your wounds Did it reach him Gall and Vinegar and will it reach you milk and honey If it do yet trust it not For the milk is but to prepare you for that sleep in which it may destroy you without resistance for you must next expect the hammer and the nail as Iael used Sisera Iudg. 4. 19 21. There is not so clear a glass in all the world in which you may see the world in its just complexion and proportion as the Cross of Christ. There you may see what its worth and how to be esteemed by the estimate of one that never was deceived by it but had a perfect knowledge of its use and value When you have so long beheld that Cross by faith as that you can be contented to be hanged between heaven and earth and become the most forlorn and despicable creature in the eyes of men and to be stript of all the comforts of life and life it self for the sake of Christ and for the Invisible Kingdom which by his Cross was purchased for you then are you throughly Crucified to the world and the world to you by the Cross of Christ. Direct 2. BE sure that you receive nâ—t a false picture of the world into your minds or if you have received such an one see that you blot it out and think of the creature truly as it is The most are deceived and undone by mis-apprehensions As if a man should dote on an ugly harlot because of a painted face or because he seeth a beautiful picture which is falsly pretended to be hers The world in it self is vanity and insufficiency As opposite to God it is poyson and enmity to us But most men conceive of it as if it were the very seat of their felicity and so are enamoured of they know not what If men did not entertain false apprehensions of God and his holy waies as being against them or hurtful to them or needless and uncomfortable they could not be so much against them as they are And so if they did not entertain false apprehensions of the creature and the waies of sin they could not be so much for them nor embrace them with so much delight For they draw in their fancies some odious picture of the blessed God and his waies and therefore they are averse to them And so they draw in
censure them because they cannot prove them to be such Deceivers When yet the very bent and course of their lives proclaimeth them worldlings to almost all men but themselves who by the just but heavy judgement of God are given over to that blindness as not to see that damnable sin in themselves that the enemies of Religion see with scorn and their most impartial friends do see with lamentation but seeing it are not able to remedy for worldliness is the commonest badge of an Hypocrite and where there is a false heart at the bottom and but an hypocriticall faith and an hypocriticall love to God and the life to come there will be no effectual resistance of the world but all exhortations do come upon so great disadvantage with such souls that usually they are lost and leave them as they find them If any covetous scraping earth-worm whether he be Gentleman Tradesman or Husbandman do feel his conscience at the reading of this begin to stir I beseech him if there be any hope of such hypocrites to hearken to it in time and regard a little more the warnings of his friends and not to be so stiffly confident of his innocency nor yet to think himself free from hainous gross and scandalous sin as long as he is a covetous worldling If covetousness be idolatry and the sin of those with whom we may not so much as eat and if the covetous shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven and be such as the Holy Ghost doth joyn with thieves and the vilest sinners who then but an Infidel can think that it is not a scandalous sin and such as will be the damnation of all that be not throughly cured of it See Eph. 5. 5 6 7. 1 Cor. 5. 10 11. Psal. 10. 3. 2 Tim. 3. 2. 2 Pet. 2. 14. Luke 16. 14. Mark 7. 22. 2 Tim. 3. 2. Ier. 8. 10. 6. 13. David prayeth God to encline his heart to his testimonies and not to covetousness Psal. 119. 36. and now men think they may be enclined to both and that they have found out the terms of reconciling heaven with earth and hell I marvail these men will not see their own faces when the Prophets and Christ himself do hold them so clear a glass Ezek. 33. 31. They come unto thee as the people cometh and they sit before thee as my people and they hear thy words but they will not do them for with their mouth they shew much love but their heart goeth after their covetousness Mat. 13. 22. He that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choak the word and he becometh unfruitful I know the men that I am now speaking of have many excellent gifts and in other respects do seem the forwardest for godliness in the Countrey but the more is the pitty that men of such parts should be rotten-hearted hypocrites and damned for worldliness after so much pains in duties For an heathen may as soon be saved as a worldling When they have prayed and preached and cryed down prophanness let them hear what the Lord saith to them Luke 18. 22 23 24. and there see again their faces in that glass Yet lackest thou one thing even such an one as none can be saved without even a Love to God and Heaven above earth sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come follow me And when he heard this he was very sorrowful for he was very rich And when Iesus saw that he was sorrowful he said How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God Set not then so high a value on a full estate Let your conversation be without covetousness and be contint with such things as ye have and trust your selves on the security of his promise who hath said I will never fail thee nor forsake thee Heb. 13. 5. It is not for nothing that Christ himself hath given you so many and so terrible warnings to take heed of this sin As Luke 12. 15. Take heed and beware of covetousness for a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth As if he should say While you think you are securing your well-being you do not secure your Being it self When you have done all to provide for the delights of your life you are never the surer of life it self Read the following passages in the Text and let them warn you or condemn you If such admonitions as these will not take from the mouth of him whom you call your Lord and from whom you profess to expect your Judgement What have we then further to say to you or how should our warnings expect entertainment with you Yet I shall do that which is my duty and leave the success to God I do therefore again in the name of God advise and warn you to Take heed of having too pleasant thoughts on a prosperous state Long not after fulness and plenty in the world Be not too eager for accomodations to your flesh A Coffin of two yards long will shortly hold it and be room enough for it And will nothing but well built houses adorned rooms the neatest cloathing and plentiful possessions serve you now How sad a mark is this of a soul that never had a saving taste of the everlasting riches Away foolish children and stand not building houses with sticks and sand Home with you to God and remember where you must dwell for ever When you have feathered your nests and made them as you would have them you must leave them before you are well settled and warm in them And if it comfort you to think that you leave them to your children remember that you leave them the fruit of your sins and bequeath to them the snares that undid your souls that so they may become the heirs of your wickedness and be deceived and destroyed by the world as you have been This is your great care for them and this is your kindness to them I have told you once already from God that this your way is your folly though your posterity be like to approve your sayings because you do so much to make them of your mind Psalm 49. 13. For though your inward thoughts be that your houses shall continue and you hope to leave a name behind you yet man being in honour abideth not but is like the beasts that perish When he dyeth he shall carry nothing away his glory shall not descend after him though whiles he lived he blessed his soul and men praise them that thus do well to themselves yet shall they go to the generation of their fathers and shall never see Light Man that is in honour and understandeth not is like the beasts that perish Vers. 11 12 17 18 19 20. Though the ungodly prosper in the world and encrease in riches yet he
then satisfie one Whence also comes the Theevery the Lying for the sake of Commodity the over-witting and over-reaching of each other but from this sin Whence is it that most Ale sellers and Vintners will make a trade of poysoning souls and will nourish that odious vice which is the ruine of mens bodies the impoverishing of their families the dishonour of God and the shame and danger of the towns and Common-wealths in which they are committed but only for the love of a sordid gain And were it not more for fear of men then God the most of them by far would make the Lords day their chief Market-day for they care not to rob even God himself for this unprofitable gain And it s well if Butchers and many other Tradesmen would not do the like if the Laws of the Land and the severity of Magistrates did not restrain them This is the Love they have to God and eternal Glory Thus you may see whether they are dead to the world or rather to Christ Gehezi thought himself wiser then his Master when he went after Naaman for his prize And Achan thought himself wiser then all Israel when he hid the gold And Saul thought it wisdom to spare Agag and the best things from destruction But the Leprosie taught one and the stones taught another and Gods rejection taught the third to know that by experience which they would not learn by the warnings of the Lord. The like may be said of contentious Law-suits the common effects of Covetousness and Revenge and so of all other unlawfull gain If indeed you are dead to the world do not so much as tell a lie to get all the riches of the world Remember also the commands of God Lev. 19. 13. Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour neither rob him the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night And 1 Thes. 4. 6. That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter because that the Lord is the avenger of all such as we also have forewarned you and testified And 1 Cor. 6. 7 8 9. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you because ye go to Law one with another Why do ye not rather take wrong Why do ye not rather suffer your selves to be defrauded Nay you do wrong and defraud and that your Brethren Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God These lessons would be better learnt if covetousness did not stop mens ears But it s a befooling stupifying vice It makes men lose themselves for gain For as Austin saith Avarus antequam lucretur seipsam perdit antequam aliquid capiat capitur And all this is for the pleasing of their fancy that they may have more then they need For Avarus est caecus credendo enim dives est non videndo Amas pecuniam O caece quam nunquam videbis caecus possides caecus morituruses c. Idem And when they pretend Necessity it is but the voice of Covetousness For saith the same Austin Non est in carendo difficultas nisi cum fuerit in possidendo cupiditas Et alibi Pauperiorem se judicat abundans quia sibi deâ—sse arbitratur quicquid ab aliis possidetur toto mundo eget cujus non capit mundus cupiditatem 6. IF you are Crucified to the world let us see it by your improving all for God and not employing it to the pleasing of your flesh Use all that you have as men that must be accountable for them Remember that you receive them from your Master for his use Resolve therefore so to expend and employ them as may most further his service Look about you and see what good is to be done and then consider how far you are furnished and enabled to do it and accordingly lay out the talents which you are entrusted with Seek after such work and do not stay till it be brought to your hand If you love Christ indeed me thinks you should not stay for an invitation to do him service nor should you need that men come a begging to you to awaken your charity when you know before that it is a charitable and necessary work that is before you Two sorts of persons I would especially direct this advice to First to the rich and powerful in the world Secondly To all that are professors of Religion For the first sort let them consider that their Riches are snares to them and will prove a certain means of their damnation if they devote them not to God Tythes and Oblations and First-fruits were devoted to God under the Law but all is expresly devoted to him under the Gospel Which was expressed by the Primitive Christians selling all and laying down at the Apostles feet For as Life and Immortality is brought to light more abundantly in the Gospel So also is the means of obtaining it and the duty which we owe to him that giveth it And as Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ and the greatest mercies are revealed by the Gospel So the greatest holiness comes by Christ and the greatest obligations are laid on us in the Gospel Especially to self-denyal and an hearty Devoting our selves and all we have to God I beseech you observe the distinction which Christ useth Luke 12. 21. between Laying up Riches to your selves and being Rich to God and how dreadful the Application is If almost all your Riches be expended on your selves and yours or laid upin store as for provision for your flesh its plain then that you Lay up riches for your selves and so are concluded by the sentence of Christ among the miserable fools that are there described But if you are Rich to God you will study to improve your Riches for God and often bethink your selves which way they may be employed to his greatest service He that cannot spare his wealth for the service of his Redeemer and the good of his Brother and the furthering of his own salvation is very far from being Crucified to the world 2. And it is not only the great ones that have need of this advice but all in their places that are entrusted with Gods Mercies Think not your selves excused from works of Charity because you have but one talent for one talent must be proportionably improved as well as ten or else you will be condemned as unprofitable servants People of the lower rank do commonly think that God requireth nothing of them but to receive what others give them and to labour for themselves And when they have reviled sufficiently at Rich men for worldliness they often shew themselves as worldly by denying their mites and by unmercifulness to those that are poorer then themselves as the Richer do by denying their larger proportions The scarcity and defectiveness of charitable works with all sorts of men from the highest to the lowest even those that seem more forward in verbal devotions do shew us too evidently how common
perswade you to part with it to supply his wants At least you will never be perswaded to part with all and follow Christ till the Belief of a Treasure in Heaven do perswade you to it Luke 18. 21 22. Can you say from your hearts Let all go rather then the Love of God And in a case of tryal do you certainly find that There is nothing so dear to you which you cannot part with for God and the hopes of everlasting life This is a sign of an effectual Faith For neither nature nor common grace did ever bring a soul so high 3. It is also a certain evidence of unfeigned Love For wherein is Love so clearly manifested as in the highest adventures for the person whom we Love and in the costlyest expressions of our Love when we are called to it Then it will appear that you Love God indeed when there is nothing else that you prefer before him and nothing but what you lay down at his feet When the greatest professors that love the world do shew that the love of the Father is not in them 1 Iohn 2. 15. So far as it is loved 4. To be Crucified to the world and alive to God is the very Honesty and Chastity and Iustice of the soul. This is your Fidelity to God in keeping the holy Covenant that you have made with him in Christ. This is your keeping your selves unspotted from the world and undefiled by it When the friends of it live in its Adulterous embracements Iam. 4. 4. Thus do you give the Lord his own even both the creature and your hearts when worldlings do unjustly rob him of both This is the great command and request of God Prov. 23. 26. My Son give me thy heart Give him but this and he will take it as if you gave him all For indeed the rest will follow this But if you give the world your hearts God will take all the rest as Nothing Benefit 2. THE second Benefit is this If you are truly Crucified to the world Your minds will be free for God and his service When the minds of worldlings are like imprisoned hampered things What a toylsom thing is it for a man to travail in fetters or to run a race with a burden on his back But knock off his fetters and how easily will he go and take off his burden and how lightly will he run Do you not feel your selves that the world is the clog of your souls and that this is it that hindereth you from duty and hindereth you in duty and keepeth you from the attainment of an heavenly conversation When you should chearfully go to God in secret or in your families the world is ready to pull you back Either it calleth you away by putting some other business into your hands or else it dulleth and diverteth your Affections so that you have no heart to duty or no life in it or else it creepeth into your Thoughts in duty and taketh them off from the work in hand and makes you do that which you seem not to be doing And if you shake off these thoughts and drive them out of your way they are presently again before you and meet you at the next Turn But in that measure as you have Crucified the world you are freed from these disturbances The Apostle Peter describeth the miserable estate of Apostates 2 Pet. 2. 20. to be like a bird or beast that had escaped out of the snare that he was taken in and after is taken in the same again Having escaped the pollution of the world c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are again entangled therein as a beast in a snare that cannot escape or help himself So 2 Tim. 2. 4. its said no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. So that you see that the world is a snare that entangleth mens souls and holdeth them as in captivity The table of the wicked becometh a snare to them and so do all the bodily mercies which they possess But the mortified Christian may look back on all these dangers and say Blessed be the Lord that hath not given us as a prey to their teeth Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers the snare is broken and we are escaped Psal. 124. 6 7. Oh with what ease and freedom of mind may you converse with God in holy Ordinances when you are once disâ—entangled from this snare Now that which formerly drew off your hearts and clog'd your affections is Crucified and dead that enemy that kept your souls from God and was still casting baits or troubles in your way is dead As the Apostle saith of sin Rom. 6. 7. He that is dead is freed from sin So I may say of the world He that is dead to the world in that measure as he is dead to it is freed from the world Let us therefore lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us and then we may run with Patience the race that is set before us Heb. 12. 1. This makes a poor Christian sometimes to live in more content and comfort in the depth of adversity then he did before in the midst of his prosperity because though his flesh hath lost his soul hath gain'd though he want the fleshly accommodations which he had yet the world is now more Dead to him then before and so his mind is freer for God and consequently more with him How blessed a life is it to converse with God with little disturbances and interruptions A runner in a race is willing to be rid of his very cloathes that should cover him and keep him warm because they are a burden and hinderance to him in his race But the lookers on would be loath to be so stript Take away prosperity from an unmortified man and you take away the comfort of his life When if the same things be taken from the mortified believer he loseth but his burden How readily will that man obey that is dead to the world when he is commanded to do good to relieve the poor according to his power to suffer wrongs to let go his right to forgive and requite evil with good to forsake all and follow Christ. When to another man these duties are a kind of impossibilities and you may as well perswade a Lyon to become a Lamb or a beast to die willingly by the hand of the Butcher as perswade an unmortified worldling to these things They think when they hear them These are hard sayings who can bear them Or at least they are duties for a Peter or a Paul and not for such as we There is a very great part of Christian obedience that will be easie to you when you are Dead to the world which no man else is able to endure nor will be perswaded to submit to Benefit 3. ANother Benefit of this Crucifixion is this The
of heaven in it The stones and earth are useful for you to tread upon though they are unfit for you to feed on or too hard to rest upon So though the world be unfit to Rest or feed your souls it may be made a convenient way for you to travail in It is unmeet to be Loved but it is meet to be Used when you have learned so to use it as not abusing it When self is throughly down and denyed and God is exalted and your souls brought over so clearly to him that you are nothing but in him and would have nothing but in and with him and do nothing but for him then you shall be able to see that glory and amiableness in the creature that now you cannot see I or you shall see the Creator himself in the creature Benefit 10. WHEN once you are truly Crucified to the world You will have the honour and the comfort of an heavenly life Your thoughts will be daily steeped in the Coelestial delights when other mens are steept in Gall and Vinegar You will be above with God when your carnal neighbours converse only with the world Your thoughts will be higher then their thoughts and your waies then their waies as the heaven where you converse is higher then the earth When you take flight from earth in holy Devotions they may look at you and wonder at you but cannot follow you for whither you go they cannot come till they are such as you You leave them groveling here on earth and feeding on the dust and striving like children or rather like swine or dogs about their meat When you are above in the Spirit on the speedy wings of Faith and Love beholding that face that perfecteth all that perfectly behold it and tasting that Joy which fully reconcileth all that fully do enjoy it which we must here contend for but none do there contend about it What a noble employment have you in comparison of the highest servants of the world How sweet are your delights in comparison of the Epicures O happy souls that can see so much of your eternal happiness and reach so near it Were I but more in your condition I would not envy Princes their glory nor any sensualists and worldlings their contents nor desire to be their partner I could spare them their troublesom dignities and their burdensom Riches and the unwholsom pleasures which they so often surfet on and the wind of popular applause which so swelleth them Yea what could I not spare them if I might be more with you O happy poverty sickness or imprisonment or whatever is called misery by the world if it be nearer Heaven then a sensual life and if it will but advantage my soul for those contemplations which are the imployment of mortified heavenly men Yea if it do but remove the impediments of so sweet a life I know by some little too little experience I know that one hours time of that blessed life will easily pay for all the cost and one believing view of God will easily blast the beauty of the world and shame all those thoughts as the issues of my dotage that ever gave it a lovely name or turned mine eye upon it with desire or caused me once with complacency to behold it or ever brought it near my heart O Sirs what a noble life may you live and how much more excellent work might you be employed in if the world were but dead to you and the stream of your souls were turned upon God Had you but one draught of the Heavenly consolations you would thirst no more for the pleasures of the world Yea did you but taste of it as Ionathan of the honey from the end of his rod 1 Sam. 14. 27. your eyes would be enlightened and your hearts revived and your hands would be so strengthened in your spiritual warfare that your enemies would quickly perceive it in your more resolute prevailing opposition of their assaults And experience will tell you that you will no further reach this heavenly life then you are Crucified to earth and flesh God useth to shew himself to the Coelestial inhabitants and not to the Terrestrial And therefore you will see no more of God then you get above and converse in Heaven And if faith had not this elevating power and could not see further then sense can do we might talk long enough of God before we had any saving knowledge of him or relish of his Goodness And doubtless if we must get by faith into Heaven if we will have the reviving sight of God then we must needs away from earth For our hearts cannot at once converse in both Believe it Sirs God useth to give his heavenly Cordials upon an empty stomack and not to drown them in the mud and dirt of sensuality When you are emptyest of creature-delights and love you are most capable of God And fasting from the world doth best prepare you for this heavenly Feast Let Abstinence and Temperance be imposed upon your senses but command a totall Fast to your Affections And try then whether your souls be not fitter to ascend and whether God will not reveal himself more clearly then before It may seem a paradox that the vallies should be nearer Heaven then the Hills But doubtless Stephen saw more of it then the high Priests And Lazarus had a fairer prospect thither from among the dogs at the Rich mans gate then the Master of the house had at his plentiful table And who would not rather have Lazarus's sores with a fore-sight of Heaven then the Rich mans fulness without it yea with the fears of after misery A Heavenly life is proper to the mortified Benefit 11. MOreover those that are Crucified to the world are most fruitfull unto others and blessings to all within their reach They can part with any thing to do good with They are rich to God and their Brethren if they be rich and not to themselves If a mortified man have hundreds or thousands by the year he hath no more of it for himself then if he had a meaner estate He takes but necessary food and rayment he shunneth intemperance and excess Nay he often pincheth his body if needfull that he may tame it and bring it into subjection to the Spirit and the rest he layes out for the service of God so far as he is acquainted with his will Yea his necessary food and rayment which he receiveth himself is ultimately not for himself but for God Even that he may be sustained by his daily bread for his daily duty and fitted to please his Master that maintaineth him If they have much they give plenteously If they have but little they are faithfull in that little And if they have not silver and gold they will give such as they have where God requireth it But the unmortified worldling is like some spreading trees that by drawing all the nutriment to themselves and by dropping on the rest
so as that we give the Glory to God and not to our own corrupted wills 6. And when we are called hereto we must do it very cautelously as Paul doth 1 Cor. 4. 4. I know nothing by my self yet am I not hereby justified Signifying that we do it with holy intentions for the good of the hearers and the honour of God as he doth 1 Cor. 4. 1 2 6 8. to the end And 2 Cor. 2. 5 6 c. 1 Cor. 9. throughout 2 Cor. 3. 1 2 c. And we must so do it as to confess it is like to folly it being the custom of proud fools to be boasters of themselves And so Paul when he is called to mention his priviledges calls it his folly in this sense 2 Cor. 11. 1 17 19 23. lest others should be encouraged to sinfull boasting by his example if he did not brand it by the way with the note of folly though it was but materially so in him being the matter that folly is by others exprest in but formally in the proud 2 HAving told you How we may Glory in our own Mortification I shall next give you the proof of the point that we may so do And first it is proved by the example of Paul himself both here in my Text and in many other places 2 Cor. 5. 11 12 13. 2 Cor. 11. throughout 2 Cor. 12. throughout Vers. 5 6. Of such a one will I glory yet of my self I will not glory but in mine infirmities that is not in any thing that seemeth to advance me in the eyes of the world lest it should seem a carnal Glorying or men should be drawn thereby to overvalue me but in such things as men rather pitty or villifie for even my worldly meanness and contemptibleness and sufferings for Christ though before God these are honourable and therefore I will glory in them openly as secretly I may do in all other graces So it followeth For though I would desire to Glory I shall not be a fool for I will say the truth But now I forbear lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be or that he heareth of me And so Vers. 9 10 11. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me that is that my Glorying may magnifie that Power of Christ that is manifest in sustaining me and not my self therefore I take pleasure in infirmities in reproaches in necessities in persecutions in distresses for Christs sake for when I am weak that is in the flesh and the eye of the world then am I strong that is in the Spirit and the work of Christ I am become a fool that is like a fool in Glorying Ye have compelled me For I ought to have been commended of you For in nothing am I behind the very chiefest Apostles though I be nothing Yea 1 Cor. 9. 15. he saith he had rather die then any should make his glorying void concerning his self-denyal for the advantage of the Gospel 2. I also prove it thus We may and must glory in the blessed effects of the blood of Christ. Or else we shall not give him his honour But our own Mortification is one of the blessed effects of the blood or Cross of Christ therefore we may must glory in it 3. We may and must glory in the certain tokens of the Love of God But our own Mortification is one of the certain tokens of the Love of God therefore we may and must glory in it 4. We may and must Glory in Christ dwelling in us and the effects of his indwelling For if we may glory in Christ Crucified then also in Christ as our Head to whom we are united and from whom we receive continual influence and communication of graces But our own mortification is the certain fruit of Christ dwelling in us therefore we may glory in it 5. We may glory in the image of God upon our souls For as it is our glory so it is the livelyest representation of God himself But our Mortification is part of Gods Image upon us therefore we may glory in it 6. We may glory that we are the temples of the Holy Ghost and that the Spirit of Christ is in us and we may glory in his fruits and works But our Mortification is a principal fruit of the Spirit which sheweth that he dwelleth in us therefore we may glory in it 7. There is no doubt but Christians may glory in the cessation of their sin against God and that as to the dominion of sin they do not dishonour him by breaking his Laws abusing his Son his Spirit and his Mercies as formerly they did But all this is conteined in our Mortification therefore we may glory in it 8. No doubt but we may glory in the Honour of God when his wisdom and goodness and power are demonstrated to the confusion of his foes and the encouragement of his people but this is done in the Mortification of his Saints In them he conquereth and in him that loveth them they are super-victors Rom. 8. 37. If we must glorifie the workman as such then must we also glorifie the work If Moses and all Israel must sing such a song of praise to God for overthrowing Pharaoh and his Hoast in the red Sea much more must we sing his praise that conquereth Satan and all our corruptions And the work it self must be magnified in order to the Conquerours praise If Deborah must sing Gods praises for the conquest of weak men much more must we for the conquest of the world by faith and for subduing the powers of darkness to us There is more of Gods love and power seen in the Spiritual victories of a poor mortified Christian that is taken no notice of or despised in the world then in the bodily conquests of the famous Princes of the world who most of them perish everlastingly after all because they are conquered by the world and their own flesh Though it be the design of the Devil and the slanderous world to obscure or villifie the work of grace on the souls of the sanctified yet must it be the care of Believers to counter-work them and maintain and manifest the lustre of that grace to the glory of the author He that magnifieth the Cure doth honour the Physitian but he that slighteth or disregardeth it doth dishonour him To debase the work of Creation is a reproach to the Creator yea to over-look it and not admire and magnifie it is an injury to him To villifie the work of the Redeemer is horrible insidelity and ingratitude and to slight it and not to magnifie it is damnable And must it not be so then to villifie or not to magnifie the works of the Sanctifyer Why should it not be our duty to magnifie the work of Sanctification as well as the work of Creation and Redemption Especially when it is the end which the other
the way to that Mat. 5. 3. Blessed are the poor in Spirit It is not Blessed are the worldly rich Nor Blessed are the Glorified only But the reason is For theirs is the Kingdom of heaven that is in title but not in possession ver 2. Blessed are they that mourn And why are mourners blessed For they shall be comforted Luk. 6. 24 25. Wo unto you that are Rich for ye have received your consolation Wo unto you that are full for you shall hunger Wo unto you that laugh now for you shall mourn and weep Wo unto you when all men speak well of you c. that is Wo to you that place your comfort and felicity in Riches and Fulness and Mirth and the Applause of men Yea though you possess the things you desire yet wo to you because you shall miss of the true and durable felicity Thus also run all the rest of the blessings in Matth. 5. Blessed are the meek Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness Blessed are the merciful Blessed are the pure in heart Blessed are the peace-makers Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake that is When you are so firm in the faith and so far in love with me and the heavenly reward that you can bear all these revilings and slanders and persecutions you are Blessed even when the troubles are upon you So that you see here that our present Blessedness consisteth in Mortification to present things and Hope of future And from the future the Reason of our present blessedness is fetcht They which hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled The merciful shall obtain mercy The pure in heart shall see God The peace makers shall be called the children of God The persecuted shall have the Kingdom of heaven Indeed to the meek it is promised in present that they shall inherit the earth as Psal. 37. 11. had before said that is It shall afford them accommodations for a travailer which is all that is desirable in it or can be expected from it For godliness hath the promise of this life and of that to come 1 Tim. 4. 8. Yea moreover there is a special promise to the meek above those godly persons that are most wanting herein For their passage through this world to heaven shall ordinarily be more peaceable and quiet to them then other mens They do not so molest their own minds and vex themselves nor make themselves troubles nor provoke others against them as the passionate do and commonly they are either loved or pittyed or easilyer dealt with by all So that you may see throughout the Gospel that our present blessedness is in Mortification and Hope as the way to our future blessedness which consisteth in fruition And therefore it is a a very great errour in Believers when they overlook the blessedness of a Mortified state and can see little in any thing but sensible fruition and rejoycings When you are low in afflictions and grieved for your corruptions and fill the ears of God and men with your complaints though you have not then the joyful sense of the Love of God yet me thinks you might easily perceive your Mortification And will that afford you no refreshing Do you not feel that you are Crucified to the world and your desires after it are languid and life-less Can you not truly say that the world is Crucified to you and that you look on it but as a Carkass as an empty lifeless and unsatisfactory thing Would you not gladly part with it for more of Christ Could you not let go credit and wealth and friends so that the Kingdom of God might be more advanced within you and you might live more in the Spirit by a life of faith Could you not be content to be poor in the world so that you might but be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which God hath promised to them that love him Why do you not then consider what a blessed condition you are in and that your Mortification is a Mercy that leadeth to salvation and as sure a token of the Love of God as your most sensible joyes Did you ever mark and conscionably practise that command of Christ Mat. 5. 12. to the persecuted reviled slandered Believers Rejoyce and be exceeding glad mark what a frame your Saviour would have you live in for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you So when you are poor and afflicted and have hearts that set light by earthly things in comparison of God and Glory you have cause to Rejoyce and be exceeding glad though you live under sufferings for thus it hath been with the true Believers that have gone before you SECT XXVI I Come now to the second Branch of the Observation which is that When Believers Glory in their own Mortification it must be as it is the fruit of the Cross of Christ that so all their Glorying may be principally and ultimately in Christ and not in themselves They must take heed of ascribing the honour to themselves or of resting in themselves but all their observation of the graces that are in them must be in pure respect to him that is the fountain and the end that we may thankfully acknowledge our receivings and admire the eternall Love which did bestow them and the compassions and merits of our Crucified Redeemer and the powerfull operations of his Spirit in our souls and so may be carried out to Love and Duty in the sense of our receivings and may live to the praises of him that hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light And that you may see how great reason there is for this and so may be kept from glorying in your selves I shall open the cause to you as it lyeth both on Christs part and on ours What he is to us and what we are to our selves Consider 1. It was Christ and not we that wrought our deliverance by the wonderfull work of our Redemption Long enough might we have layen in prison before we could have paid the utmost farthing and long might we have born the wrath which we deserved before we could have done any thing to merit or any way procure our deliverance Had we wept out our eyes and prayed our hearts out and never committed sin again this would not have made satisfaction to God for the sin that was past Long enough might we have lain in our blood if this compassionate Redeemer had not taken us up and undertaken the cure Had he turned us off to any creature we had been left helpless Had we looked on the right hand for some to deliver us or on the left we should have found none Besides him there is no Saviour Isaiah 43. 11. Acts 4. 12. And moreover the way he hath
you By this then you may perceive in whom you should glory 8. Moreover without Christ you cannot make use of the Grace that he hath given you The life and comfort of your grace is in the exercise To draw forth your Faith and Love and Joy into exercise is the way to encrease them and to shew you experimentally their nature truth and worth and to attain their ends And without Christ you will never do this You may lie as if you were dead and dry and withered if he do but withdraw his quickning influences For without him you can do nothing Judge then by this in whom you should glory 9. Yea further as you cannot do these of your selves so neither can you go to Christ your selves for strength to do them You will not so much as move a hand or lift up your voice to cry for help For the nature of sin is to make the sinner willing of it and unwilling to be delivered from it You would rather God would let you alone and thus you would continue 10. Yea more without Christ you would not so much as understand and be sensible of all this misery and disability in your selves You will think your selves well when you are next the worst and give no one thanks that would pitty or help you So that lay all this together and judge in whom it is that you should Glory 11. And indeed the very nature of all your graces if you have any will lead you from a glorying in your selves to a glorying in Christ. Repentance will lay you low and make you vile in your own eyes and loath your selves for all your abominations Ezek. 36. 31. Self-denyalis a great part of the new creature Faith leads you out of your selves to Christ. Love will carry you quite above your selves to God And so it is with other graces To live in your selves upon your selves and to your selves is the state of the unsanctified To live in Christ and upon Christ and to Christ is the state of all his living members So far then as you are new creatures this Law is written in your hearts and I have the less need to teach you this lesson and perswade you to the practice of it because you are really taught of God to Glory in Christ and not in your selves 12. To conclude even Nature and Common Reason may teach you that you have little cause to glory in your selves For it may easily tell you that you have nothing of your selves and therefore nothing that is originally your own Who knows not that we have our being and all the means of our well-being and every thing that is worth the having from God alone As Nothing could not make itself to be Something so neither can that dependent Something uphold it self or carry on it self unto its End What hast thou which thou hast not received And if thou hast received it why shouldst thou glory as if thou hadst not received it 1 Cor. 4. 7. To such poor empty unworthy worms as we are one would think it should be an easie thing to know that we have nothing but what we have of God For whence else should we have it In him we live and move and have our being and of him and by him and for him are all things and therefore to him must be the praise for ever Rom. 11. 36. Not therefore to our selves but unto him must we give the glory Psal. 115. 1. Though Nature cannot lead us to Christ it may tell us that we are creatures and have nothing but from the bountifull hand of our Creator It is therefore against this Nature and Reason to Glory in our selves Use. SEE then that you abhor all self-advancing thoughts And receive no Doctrine that gives the glory of Christ unto your selves They are miserable that are made irreligious by their pride But they are more miserable because more uncurable that make themselves a Religion by their pride and frame to themselves both Doctrines and Devotions whose tendency and use is to keep alive this devilish sin You do not believe well nor repent well nor pray well nor do any Christian duty well if you be not more humble in and after it then you were before It s a sad case for a man to preach himself and pray himself into hell and to strengthen the bonds of sin and Satan by his devotions And yet proud Devotions are as ready a way to this as you can devise If you read or confer or preach or pray with a mind that is lifted up and glorieth in it self you do but serve the Devil with the name of God and his holy Ordinances And therefore we have seen by sad experience in a multituâ— of sects and horrible delusions of late in this Land that none run to such dreadfull outrages in sin nor go so far against the Lord as proud self-conceited professors do As you love your souls take heed of being conceited of your own understanding or worth and of being proud of your supposed holiness or abilities What fearfull ends have we seen of such If indeed thou art a Christian thou must become as a little child and learn of Christ to be meek and lowly and be a servant to all And lay thy self still at the feet of Christ as sensible that all the sin is thine but the good is his from whom thou didst receive it Thou canst destroy thy self but in him is thy help Thou hast the skill and ability to set thy own house on fire but it s he that must quench it or repair it Thou art wise to do evil but thou hast no knowledge to do good but what he giveth thee Thou hast the art of stabbing thy self but not of curing thy self He must do that for thee or else it must be undone You can snarl and ravel the state of your own souls but it s he that must untye the knots which thy folly and carelesness have tyed Thou canst with Ionas raise the storm and cast thy self over-board but it s he that must provide the Whale to receive thee and bring thee to the Land Remember therefore that though thou be a vessel of mercy it is the fountain that filleth thee and not thy self Thou canst scarce more dishonour thy qualifications and actions and consequently thy self then to say they are thine own and originally from thy self For sure all that is thine and from thee will be like thee and therefore must be weak and bad as thou art When ever therefore thou gloriest in thy graces do it but as the beggar gloryeth in his alms that ascribes all to the giver or as the patient gloryeth in his cure that ascribeth all to God and the Physitian or as a condemned rebel doth glory in a pardon which he ascribeth to the mercy of his Prince I durst not have told you as I did before of the duty of Glorying in your Crucifixion to the world without adding this caution to tell
that way That 's your chief honour which is most your own and least borrowed from others The deserving Son of a beggar is more truly honourable then the undeserving Son of a Lord. Glory rather that you are born again not of the flesh but of the Spirit not of corruptible seed but incoruptible the word of God that endureth for ever Your first birth how noble so ever makes you but children of wrath and slaves of Satan But your new birth is the truly honourable birth which makes you partakers of the Divine Nature the Sons of God the heirs of Heaven and Co-heirs with the Lord Jesus 1 Pet. 1. 23. Iohn 3. 6. 1. 12. Rom. 8. 17. 8. Have you friends that love you and are able to countenance you and are daily tender of you and helpful to you Bless God for them but glory not in man For Cursed is is he that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and withdraweth his heart from the Lord Jer. 17. 5. Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils for wherein is he to be accounted of Isa. 2. 22. Your best friends are uncertain and quickly lost and may turn so unkind as to break your hearts Or if their minds prove constant their lives are uncertain and the dearer they were to you with the greater grief you will lay them in the grave Or if you fall your selves into sickness they will prove but silly comforts to you They can but look on you and be sorry for you but that will not ease your pain nor succour you Oh how much more cause have you to glory in such a friend as Christ that will save you from sin and wrath and Hell In such a friend as God Almighty that can rebuke your diseases by a word Or make them tend to the cure of your souls and that will stick to you when others leave you with whom you must dwell in heaven for ever 9. Have you the pleasantest meats or drinks that your appetite desires the easiest lodgings the easiest lives the pleasantest recreations or companions Glory not in them These are the most desperate bait of the Devil and the common ruine of the world To take your fill and please your flesh and fit your lives to its desires is the very way to hell and the property of the slaves of Satan Your sweet meat will have sowre sauce If you live after the flesh you shall die but if by the Spirit you mortifie the deeds of the body you shall live Rom. 8. 13. You know what became of him Luke 16. that was cloathed in purple and fine linnen and fared deliciously every day It s a heavy case to have your portion and all your good things in this life Rejoyce rather that you have conquered the desires of your flesh and have brought it into subjection That you are Masters of your appetites and can eat and drink to the glory of God and that you can deny your ease and endure hardness as a soldiour of Christ That you have pleasanter recreations in the waies of life and sweeter comforts then the flesh can have any and that you have delights that are more durable and meat to eat that others know not of Rejoyce that you have conquered the flesh your greatest enemy and so have escaped the greatest danger For there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. 10. Have you the love of your neighbours and do all men men speak well of you Glory not in it as any of your felicity For it will be wo to many that are as well spoken of as you The world is not so wise nor so good that a man should much rejoyce in its good word Are they learned men that extoll you yet do not Glory in it They may boast you into Pride and Hell but they cannot add a cubit to the stature of your worth They see not the state of your soul and therefore you may be miserable when they have said their best Are they godly men that admire you and speak well of you yet Glory not in it as any certain Evidence of your felicity They speak as they think and may easily be deceived They are not your Judges As their hard thoughts cannot condemn you so their good thoughts or words cannot justifie you with God Oh Glory rather in Gods approbation who knows your heart to whose judgement it is that you stand or fall who judgeth not by outward appearance but in righteousness If he say Well done good and faithfull servant his words will be life to you but a thousand others may say so and do you no good at all but hurt 11. Are you famous for Learning and have you great parts in knowledge and utterance Glory not in it as any of your felicity or evidence thereof There are learneder men then you in hell the greatest knowledge of common things hath much sorrow and sheweth you so much of your ignorance and what is yet beyond your reach that it disquiets you the more Much more may you Glory that you know Christ Crucified and that you know your interest in the Love of God and can Love him whom you know without which all your knowledge would make you but as sounding brass or a tinckling Cymball Of all these together I may say Ier. 9. 23 24. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts let not the wise man Glory in his wisdom neither let the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches but let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweh me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness judgement and righteousness 12. Have you spiritual mercies as well as corporall Take heed in what respect you Glory in them For example 1. Have you abundant and excellent means of grace Have you Ministers and holy Ordinances and Christian Communion in the purest order Glory in them as Gods mercies and helps to higher things But not as your felicity or a certain Evidence of it For many are first in these respects that will be last in respect of life Eternal The greatest fall is from the highest Mercies And many that had the chiefest place in the Church will have the â—orest place in hell Abominable Sodom will scape better then many hearers of the Gospel But Glory in this that you have the Spirit of the Gospel and that Christ within you that is preached in the Gospel 2. Have you much understanding in the Doctrine of the Gospel and are you eminent teachers of it to others Glory in it as an opportunity of serving your Lord and doing and getting good But not as a certain Evidence of a good estate For many shall say Lord have we not preached in thy name whom Christ will not own because they were workers of iniquity Mat. 7. 22. And he that knoweth his Masters will and doth it not
shall be beaten with many stripes Luke 12. 47. But if your Love and Obedience be answerable to your knowledge glory rather in that 3. Have you done many works of mercy to others Have you given all you have to the poor have you converted many souls Are you publick mercies to the place where you live Give God the Glory of so great a mercy But take heed of giving the Glory to your selves And take not the outward works alone so much as for certain Evidences of your happiness 4. Have you extraordinary experiences of Mercy and extraordinary feelings of comfort in your selves Rejoyce in in them as Gods mercy and give him the Glory But remember that these are no certain Evidences of your safe condition Many have been wonderfully saved from death that will not be saved from hell And many large comforts have ended in eternall sorrows 5. Have you a living faith and a soul abounding in the Love of God and emptyed of Self in Christian humilty and exercised in holy walkings and conflicts for Christ and looking with hope to the Joy that is set before you What then shall I say to you Glory in this blessed work of Grace this image of Christ this heavenly nature and conversation and this foretaste and earnest of everlasting life But sure I need not bid you give not your very Graces the Glory due to Christ. For this were to prohibit you a contradiction it is the nature of them all to carry you to Christ and to cause you to deny your selves You cannot exercise these Graces but you must do it Do I need to desire you that you make not your own faith the matter of that Righteousness which must answer the Law when faith it self is a Receiving of another for our righteousness Or need I advise you that you trust not in your Love and Evangelical Obedience as a satisfaction to Gods Justice or the matter of that righteousness which must answer the Law when that Love and Obedience is nothing else but a Love to him and an Obedience of him that hath satisfied for us and is become our righteousness Do I need to perswade the humble so far as they are humble not to be proud of their own graces or works or the self-denying not to glory in themselves The nature of the new creature and the annointing that is in you doth effectually teach you all these things and you have already learned them Yet because you are sanctified but in part you have still need of warning and therefore I require you that you objectively abuse not these Graces of Christ for actively you cannot seeing Grace is that as Austin defineth it qua nemo malè utitur Should you think you merit by denying merit or should you think you have somewhat to Glory in with God because you have denyed your selves and your own worthiness or should you trust in those acts as the matter of your Iustification against that Law whose nature is to distrust in all that is your own and thus to trust in Christ alone you would be guilty of the most sacrilegious robbing of Christ and of an impious abuse of the most precious graâ—â—s contrary to their nature and ends and of the most absurd and sensless abuse of your very Reason by palpable contradiction To conclude I now beseech you all take heed of your Glorying internally and externally Let the blinded worldling glory that he hath the world but do you glory that you need it not and can be without it and are heirs of a better world Let sensual wretches glory in the pleasing of their flesh but do you glory that you are able to deny it its desires and to please your Lord. Let the deluded ambitious ones glory in their honours but learn you to pitty them in the height of their prosperity and glory in the durable prerogatives of the Saints Let natural men glory in their health and natural Life but glory you in a readiness to die and be with Christ and in the Believing expectations of the Life everlasting Let hypocrites glory in their evading of sufferings But do you glory in tribulations and infirmities and that you are accounted worthy to suffer for Christ. Let Phariseâ—s glory in their superstitions and ceremonies and self-righteousness but glory you in Gospel simplicity and in the righteousness of Christ Isa. 45. 24 25. Surely shall one say In the Lord have I righteousness and strength even to him shall men come c. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory Iâ—r 4. 2. The Nations shall bless themselves in him and in him shall they glory Let the pomp and fulness of a flattering world be the glory of the worldling But let the despised humility and hopes of true Believers in the lowest ebb of worldly accomodations be our greater glory For God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty and base things of the world and things that are despised hath God chosen and things that are not to bring to nought things that are that no flesh should glory in his presence But of him are ye in Christ Iesus who of God is made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption that according as it is written He that Glorieth let him Glory in the Lord. 1 Cor. 1. 27 28 29 30 31. And believe this As Carnall Glorying is childish against our own reason and daily experience and will shortly make all that used it ashamed so the spiritual glorying of the mortified Believer is also rational and manly and will never make him ashamed but end in the perfect endless glory Fix then your resolutions with this mortified Apostle God forbid that I should Glory save in the Cross of our Lord Iesus Christ by whom the world is Crucified to me and I unto the world FINIS This was reached â—t an Asâ—â—ze at â—orcester before the â—udges and therefore here are these passages suited to that occasion Leg. Eâ—as Epist. ad Alphons valet de annuli sui â—iâ—â—llo Cl. Alex. Paedag. l. 2. c. 1. The whole Book is worth the reading by such