casting up mire and dirt in them and in the face of the truth and this irksomnes abides long if God see good to enlarge Satan according to his malice Others are discouraged through want of Ministry to follow on that little seed of grace which is cast into them which is ready to dye for lacke of quickning and advice and so living in desolate places and destitute of powerfull meanes are long ere they come to any setling and strength in a promise not knowing that where ordinary meanes faile God himselfe will not bee wanting to perfect what hee hath begunne Others meet with discouragements from such as should encourage them and so they fall the more sadly upon them When the Spouse had dallyed with her beloved through ease and carnalll tendernesse security and selfe-love lo in following after him she was met by the Watchmen Cant. 5.6.7 who buffetted her These should have encouraged her Even Ministers are oft great affronts in the way of poore soules rating and scorning them for their singularity especially when they through errour light upon such as thinking better of them So doe Parents Guardians Masters lay offences in the way of their children orphans servants some threatning to dis-inherit them or to disgrace them others by their snibbing and chiding or over-bearing them doe blast that bud which else would blossome and beare Others also hoping to see examples of many others as zealous as themselves to encourage them and finding that the Gospel prevails little in these dayes the Spirit growes straitned people wax dead and sottish and all their devotion stands in hearing Sermons Alas they quaile and pull in their horns like snails and are afraid they have been too forward and therfore wax as lazie and loose as others except God rouze them up by some sad crosse and make them to see that there must be more resolution in them if they look after salvation each tub must stand upon his own bottome Others resting upon their good duties and performances and thinking religion to consist therein chiefly when they feele small inward life from thence but ebbings and flowings grow at last to suspect their bottome but alas how long is it ere they can reforme their error and take a right course So that by these few instances it may appeare that the difficulties of many who begin fairly are very tedious so that they finde not the worke of conversion so easie as they expected Conclusion of all with admonition I conclude therefore as before let not such be dismaid nor give over the work of God but remember God is now trying them whether there bee soundnesse or no in them to continue and if they will wait meekly his leasure after hee hath taught them to deny themselves he will be found of them as here of Naaman and reveale himselfe to them at last more then at first Vses 2 Secondly this should also teach those who have obtained mercie already Instruction Christians must looke for difficulties as well in their progresse as in their entrance much lesse to wonder if they meet with sundry affronts in their course of Christianity For if this be done in the green tree how much more in the dry If novices who are so unfit for trials meet with so many rubs to keep them from faith how much more must they looke for them whose strength is greater Therefore consider I pray you and know God will try all upon whom he hath bestowed any speciall favours and blessings One way or other sooner or later the Lord will lay stops and blockes in your way to try what is in you and whether all that hee hath done for you can prevaile so farre with you as to think him worth the cleaving and clinging unto with faith and confidence Gen. 22.2 Esay 38. Job 1. Gen. 39.7 2 Sam. 16.5 25. Matth. 26.69 Abraham must be tried by Isaac Hezekiah by the Embassadours Iob by losse of all hee hath Ionah by the errand to Ninivee Ioseph by Putefâ—rs wife David by Shemei by Nabal by Mephibosheth Peter by the Damosell and others of the Saints by other trialls whether God be above their carnall delights whether their hearts be lowly whether they can deny their wealth their will whether they be that in secret which they are openly what meeknesse patience equality of heart is in them Professors in their novicery looke not to meet with many troubles whether they bee sound and resolved to stick to God or no. None shall want their trials Alas many a poore soule entring upon profession lookes but from hand to mouth how he may hold fast the promise and live according to knowledge but lo in a short time after troubles arise in the married estate sicknesse losses enemies pursuits wrongs such as hee expected not On the other side A none of them the Lord perhaps armes some strong corruption to pinch and gall him which he knowes not how to be rid of or stings him by unthankfulnesse of such as owe most love by unfaithfulnesse and aloofnesse of such as have been greatest friends by the sad revolts and scandals of such as for their owne ease and private ends renounce that love to Gods cause and that zeale to the truth which they have testified Sometimes by false aspersions and reports staining them and unjustly depraving them behind their backes otherwhiles by bad times frowning upon them and turning their prosperity into affliction Againe perhaps the Lord tries others by some hard duty beset with great difficulties so that either they must forfeit conscience or else some desirable thing which they are loth to forgoe Oft-times the Lord tries some by company pleasure liberty occasions of sudden wrath distemper worldlinesse and infinite it were to mention all By these he would let men see all that is in their heart he will either discover their grace that he may trust them for ever after or else their halting self-ends hollownesse pride love of themselves strong poysons of heart breach of covenant and so humble them subdue their sinnes for them in due season that they may not deceive and destroy their owne soules And what wonder Doe wee thinke that God is willing to lose his cost or to harbour such under his roofe as he knowes not what to make of Such as under colour of Religion maintaine a great deale of loose scurfe within them Is it for the glory of God to owne such No surely he will put them to it one time or other that hee may by this meane separate the pretious from the vile and their owne hay and stubble from his owne Pearles and Jewels I grant we thinke otherwise and hope to escape in a mist and to carry our course even and faire God will try his to separate the pretious from the vile without any great trials or affronts and the rather because perhaps wee have long made a shift to goe on smoothly with praying in
without satisfaction made which Divinity passes my skill and I thinke savours more of Socinianisme and Humanity then Divinity I returne In respect either of the Fathers cutting off his plea and finding out a mercy in the bottome of his brest exceeding justice and revenge or the consent of the Sonne to admit of those conditions of obeying and suffering for the purchase of peace and abolishing enmity Col. 1. it is most strange unlikely and difficult But considering that he to whom all things are easie would apply and bend himselfe with all his power wisdome and truth to bring his good pleasure of free saving to passe and would devoure all difficulties therefore nothing could be hard but all easie to such love so armed and attended God so loved the world saith Saint Joh. 3.12 that he gave his onely Sonne But otherwise in it selfe it was a great thing Iacobs toile in heat and frost was great though love made it sweet And so to end though it cost Christ an infinite price yet being freely offered to us it cost us nothing its easie Reason 4 Fourthly the dispensation is easie In respect whereof the Lord doth not restraine nor limit his grace In respect of the dispensation of it and the efficacy of this price I speake now of his revealed will not secret but offers it by the Ministry of the Gospel to all sorts without let or barre That whosoever will submit himselfe to his way and dispensation with humblenesse the Lord will be found ordinarily by such without putting difference He doth not sh oll out or discourage any as if hee did not intend it to them he doth not reject any who reject nor him nor forsake any conceive me rightly who forsake not him And their rejecting or forsaking proceeds not from his decree working it but from their malice and unbeleefe procuring it But as for the Lord 2 Cron. 16.4 hee doth not forestall or prejudicate the spirit of any man to his dispensation but freely generally and fully offers to all sorts of sinners the benefit of his grace and pardon who doe not basely and treacherously withdraw themselves and cavill against his simplicity The Lord doth not put difference in his offer saying to such or such an one I offer it to such and such I doe not he offers alike to all and although some conditions go before the actuall application of the promise yet those conditions are wrought in the soule by the offer in all who doe walke with God in the wâ—y of his Ordinances except they fight and resist the same So then whosoever doth not despise the counsell of God Luke 4. and thinke himself unworthy of salvation but shew himself of the number of them who are drawne and perswaded to accept it he shall assuredly partake it So much for the fourth Fifthly to come a little nearer that is to the reall efficacy of working Reason 5 grace and the obedience of faith that 's easie also For why The condition of faith is easie to such as belong to election When as the Lord hath brought the soule under the condition of faith partly by loading the same under her misery partly by the presenting to her the sweetnesse gainfulnesse and faithfulnesse of the promise and partly by removing all such barres and lets as might disswade the soul from it then hereby to such a one it becomes easie to beleeve And to say the truth to these its onely easie in the true kinde and proper sense of easinesse For why These are exempted from the common sort of hearers to whose thoughts the very conceit of faith is a difficult thing much more the enterprise For alas Naturally what in all the world is so harsh and unwelcome to our carnall disposition as to obey the Gospel Not to preach to heare to give away our wealth to sacrifice our children to keepe the Law are so hard as this But to such as the Lord hath brought under the authority love and conduct of the word and the Spirit of grace working thereby he makes it sweet and easie Others plod and take on make a bungling worke of it Esay 63.12 Psal 23.3 as we see untidy servants goe awkely about their businesse which neate and skilfull ones dispatch at once but the Lord conducts these as a shepheard leads his sheep into the greene pastures and as those Israelites were led by the pillar of fire and cloud through the wildernesse If a traveller be set right on his journey his ease is in his guide As Isaac seeing Iacob bring venison so soone asked him how he came so quickly by it Hee told him because the Lord thy God brought it to his hand So hee had no need of Esau his hunting Now briefly it shall not bee amisse to shew by what steps the Lord makes this worke easie and familiar to his people First Cernaine particulars of this holy ease The first as he giveth them a sweet view of this worke of obeying the Gospel that is a cleer familiar conceiving thereof so that it is not an intricate and wearisome object As Salomon describes the way of the fluggard to be an hedge of thornes which no man is willing to medle with So also the Lord brings the soule unto the doore of hope shewing it an entrance and a possiblenesse of escape working a knowledge of it and withall an hearty and close aime and sympathy to it Hosea 2. It so plants the soule under the promise that the droppings of Gods myrrhe oile and balme do not light beside it but right into it When a man hath got the promise of a lease he is sure of the next vacancy So men that lay in for an advouzon waite for the next avoidance It is a good ease for a poore Scholar in the University to be made a Probationer of the next Fellowship as in some Colledges they use for then hee waites in hope and is eased of the hazard of missing Such Probationers and Candidates of heaven doth the Lord first make his poore people that so having an inckling of his meaning they goe on with sweetnesse because heaven is theirs in the grant and reversion As once an holy man told mee that the Lord intimated his heart with this thought that if he would seeke him faithfully in the meanes he would save him A marveilous priviledge So that looke when any grace falls from God they are the parties whom it will light upon this takes off an exceeding deale of bondage and makes meanes sweet So it was to them of Ninivee Jona 3.7.8.9 Judg. 14. Jer. 4.3 who upon this hint from God applyed themselves to the meanes very carefully This causes the heart to plow with Gods heifer to finde out his riddle and to see into the mystery of the promise and therefore to plow indeed and fall to worke to rend up the fallow grounds of her proud rebellious nature selfe and scurffe to hunger after
with a love farre above whatsoever a friend an husband a father a guardian can affect the persons of their friends wives children or orphans If the love which they utter bee greater must not the duty of love be so which they owe them So then God will have the people to tender esteem and honour the Minister It s a charge which no time no prescription can alter Reason 2 Secondly as they are thus to embrace him for his very message sake and the honour of his calling So also in respect of the outward service he performeth as man to man Who goeth to warfare upon his owne charge Who can attend the word and the world too Should they that serve at the altar and attend to reading be compelled to forsake their places and play the drudges Plow and sow runnâ— to mill with their sacks and to market with their wallets to get in their owne provision Shall Gods annointed ones upon whose head the oile of the consecration of their God hath beene laid and are separated from men to the use of God and the service of his Church returne to bee common worldlings trade and trafficke in earthly affaires all the weeke long and on the Sabbath with prophane hands attempt holy things Is is not meet that the be borne out of all other charges See Heb. 13.17 that they may closely attend to Gods worke unto which who is sufficient Yes verily Shall shepheards souldiers watchmen Embassadours all need their support for their travell and shall a Minister be left to his owne charge Were it for the Kings honour to send his Embassadour to Venice and there to leave him so destitute of meanes and provision that he should be compelled to turne Merchant or Factor to maintaine himselfe What basenesse were that Should hee worke with his own hands as Paul who therefore made tents because he needed neither study nor provision How dishonourable were it Read that choice Text for this Heb. 15.27 Thirdly the Minister of God his maine worke is the saving of the Reason 3 soules of those that heare him to turne people to the living God 1 Tim ult Act. 26.8 from their Idolls to beget them to God to convert them to travell of them a new till Christ be formed in them to marry them first and after to present them as a pure virgin to the Lord Jesus to beare them upon his shoulders to heale them of their diseases to keepe them from the Wolfe Lion and Beare to comfort them at the heart and to declare unto them their righteousnesse with a thousand such like spirituall offices and can any affection love cost maintenance equall that tender regard of a Minister of the eternall soules of Gods people No verily Nay not so only but they are sacred pledges of the peoples welfare Reason 4 that so long as they abide among them they carry them as under the safe conduct and banner of God The fire shall not burne them nor waters drowne them nor wrath of God consume them While Moses and Aaron were among the Israelites with their mediation betweene God and the people carrying Gods gifts downe to them and their prayers and sacrifices up to him how safe were they While Noah that Preacher of righteousnesse lived upon earth what waters could hurt it Was it drowned till hee was taken into the Arke They are even the hostages of safety to their people Those that stand in the gap and lye in ambush for them howling betweene porch and altar for them Spare thy people O Lord whom thou hast bought Joel 2. Numb 14.15.16 What shall the heathen say saith Moses if thou bring thy people into the wildernesse to destroy them Such advocates and impleaders are they at the barre of heaven for their welfare They are the Dogs of the great Shepherds flocke to shelter them from the wild beasts of Heresie Schisme Prophanenesse and Atheisme and from vengeance provoked thereby They with their Censors stand between the dead and the living to stay the plague They are the pillars to hold up and hold forth the truth of God and to preserve it incorrupt and unspotted till the comming of Christ They are the Swords and Axes of God to cut downe and destroy the wicked and enemies of the Church that mouth of Christ out of which the sword of two edges proceeds either to defend or destroy They are as Abrahams Iobs Samuels and Daniels great stakes props to uphold the great building and frame of the Church as they said to David Thou art worth tenne thousand of us So are these if they be such as they ought persons pickt out one of a thousand 2 Sâ—m 18.3 And shall not this honour of theirs procure them love and honour at their peoples hands deservedly Yes without question Not as though all they can returne can equall the cost and worth of the Ministers labours Philem. 8. for the worke of conversion deserves the returne of the soule in thanks but to declare the obedience of their heart to him that commands it and the thanks which they inwardly beare and would testifie in a far other kinde if it were in their power Psal 16.2 And lastly that the due which in deed wee owe to God save that our goodnesse cannot reach him may in the descent of it fall upon his Minister whom he hath made his instrument of doing good and his Attorney to receive our acknowledgement The reward is rather an honourable then an equall recompence So for Reasons Proofes Gal 6.6 1 Cor. 7.9 The Scripture is plentifull of proofs for it Let him saith Paul that is taught in the word communicate to him that teacheth him in all good things And the same Apostle purposely handling the point Doth any man plow and sow or plant and not looke to eat of the fruit thereof Doth not the Law meaning the perpetuall equity of it say Thou shalt not muzle the mouth of the oxe which treadeth out the corne And he that serveth at the Altar must live upon the Altar Doth God take care for oxen or saith he it altogether for our sakes Surely for ours that he who soweth in hope should thresh also and bee partaker of it If a man should sow wheat in his field would he not looke at least to reap a crop answerable to rye or barley If we sow spirituall things is it wonder if we receive carnall So also againe he implieth in Rom. 19 15. That they deserve speciall entertainment in a speciall kinde as one who brings news of an inheritance out of a far Country Beautifull are the feet of them that bring glad tidings though dirty and dusty yet deserve washing and annointing How much more they who bring the Gospel to the people of God and say to Zion Thy God raigneth And our Saviour addeth Matth. 10. The labourer is worthy his hire not welcome only but maintenance also He that receiveth you receiveth me and he
others to take warning by See and tremble at the examples of Ahabs ruine upon contempt of Micaja Those Jewes in Egypt for despising of Ieremy 1 King 22.32 Jer. 44. the whole Nation of them both then and after for rejecting the Prophets Christ and his Apostles and rather make use of such to prevent destruction Briefly peruse these Texts Jer 26.18 Josh 22.17 c. A second branch of Terror may reach to such 2. Branch as will first qualifie their Minister in his charges counsells and then they will obey him but not till then It is irkesome unto them to obey him in the Lord in matters of conscience For why Their hearts are licentious carnall and prophane There be other Ministers which will do the like to their people till they have made them like to themselves And yet they thinke it a disgrace to live otherwise then lovingly and curteously with their Minister What course then take they Surely this they will first try whether they can by policy by kind offices feasting and entertaining of him pull him into their company and draw him into the fellowship of their pleasures games and merriments These they thinke will be least suspected and having snared him by these then they seeke by degrees to fetch him into the Ale-house People that will seem to love their Minister that they may luâ—ke in their sins odious to drinke and be a good fellow Then they inject a suspition and jealousie into his minde against such as feare God and oppose them in their base evills Then to whet his tongue in the pulpit against them to flesh and encourage themselves in their liberties and lusts And so by these meanes having baned him and made him for their turne they will obey him good reason For they have first made him sure enough and for their tooth they have taught him to be a meet Cooke for their appetite and to dresse their meat their owne way with the sawce that likes them best therefore they may well venture to eat of it Oh base creatures Doe ye first crooke the rule by which you are to write and doe ye then write after it Thus it was with him 1 King 21. who being sent for Micaja to Ahab would needs teach him his lesson by the way Let I pray thee thy words be sutable to the words of the foure hundred Prophets and then my Master will surely doe as thou biddest him Doe thou flatter and claw him and then he will obey thee So doe many to their Ministers Note They will prescribe him what truths hee shall teach them and what he shall balke they will tell him what method he shall use be much in discourse and little in application preach smooth and pleasing things and then they will heare him But oh wofull people Is this to heare him or to obey your lusts When Iehoiada was dead the Text tells us that his Princes came to Ioash 2 Chron. 24.17 and finding him a facile and flexible man they ingratiated themselves with him by gifts and rewards by praises and flatteries till they had drawne his spirit away from God to Idolls and to serve their own base turne Oh say they We are all thy loyall subjects and friends willing to be thy servants But we see that except thou hearken in the point of Religion to thy people they will scarce continue in their loyall obedience Wherefore it is much for thy safety and honour to yeeld to them and else it will create much trouble in thy Kingdome And even thus fares it with people of this ranke towards their Minister For the love of their lusts what will they not doe Oh Sir say they we see you are a man of worth and learning and you make us good Sermons we should be glad to live and love together and we hope you will be faire and curteous to us We love to keepe our Church and live honestly Indeed we are shy of them that are so zealous and precise in their preachings as to scare their good people we would be loath the hearts of your Parish should be alienated from you which we see will be if you be against our liberties pleasures and good fellowships Hitherto we have lived well and like kinde neighbours and we hope you will further rather then hinder it and so doing we shall live in peace and good will with you Oh how such smooth persons fret like a canker How easily doe they prevaile with such as are not armed with prevention Alas they are taken and snared by such baites and that little sparkle of good which seemed to be in them is soone quenched But to finish this Use beware O Minister of God lest thou be deceived with such cunning of men and as for them that do so entice them that they might the more securely live in their lusts Woe be unto them they may seeme to make a league with hell to provide a safety and immunity to their lusts But the Lord will breake their league and put a spirit of division betweene them so that they shall be as bitter enemies as ever they were friends and all because their union was cursed and tyed by the band of their lusts As Sampsons Foxes were tyed by their tailes with firebrands to doe mischiefe but not with the band of grace and love which would have held for continuance So much for this point of Terror Now a second Use may be Reproofe of sundry sorts And first Vse 2 of all such hearers as professe to love the Minister of God Reproofe 1. Branch Lovers of the Minister in generall yet conâ—ealing their doubts and cases from them reproved and comply with him in generall but still hold off aloofe in point of counsell and advice concerning their particular actions Doubts they have many touching their estates to Godward also many difficulties they meete with in their course in matters of weight but they will never acquaint their Minister with any of them he shall bee one of the first of them that shall bee last acquainted wiâ—h them Partly through folly strangenesse and darkenesse of their spirit partly through base feare lest their wants should be discovered and especially because in truth they are not willing to bee eâ—sed thereof but still to stagger and are resolved to consult with flesh and bloud rather then to be ruled by knowledge Such as these the Minister shall never heare of till sorrow and repentance compell them to utter their folly when they see they have overshot themselves in their bargaines or marriages till conscience beginne to sting them for their unjust and unwarranted courses or God crosse them with losses shame enemies then too late they come for counsell which if they had sought for in season all this had beene prevented Others when they have taken their owne course and bound sure 2. Branch such as first vow and then enquire doe badly then for fashion they will
you as your eyes have done â—ew that J know in our Country for their estate had fairer meanes nor suffered a greater decay Yet God hath ingrafted your Honour into another stocke and therein turned the streame of former prosperity upon your selfe againe the onely remnant of that family you have seene upon how weake shoulders the faire necke of all outward welfare stands of which the Lord may speake with more reason then that bloudy Emperour to his wife O pulcra cervix sed cum ego voluero Nero ex Suet. abscindetur Oh faire necke but when I please it shall be cut off And why doe you survive such as are gone save to be an instrument of happinesse to your posterity that from that holy oile of the Spirit which runs downe your head the skirts of your cloathing might bee wetted and your hopefull off-spring consecrated to God The great respect which your Grandfather Father and Mother of worthy memory shewed to that reverend servant of Christ my Predecessor the remembrance also of your first childhood and education being so neare to my dwelling Your Honors frequent salutes and invitations by sundry who have travelled this way that I would visit you But above all that blessed report of your Grace which as the Panthars breath to all the beasts of the Forrest hath made your name sweet and savoury in the Church of God all these have emboldned me by so good an occasion as this is ere I leave the world to soder up my errors and incivilities by prefixing your name to this my Dedication Plin. Nat. hist Aelian There is a creature which the Historians call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one dayes life dead as soone as bred Well may many bookes claime this name now a dayes whose breeding costs longer time then their life amounts to For why Each humor fancies what hee likes some books of Poetry some of story and delight which humors while they last bookes sorting with them are catcht up but when they are downe bookes lie by Novelty takes up and laies downe as shee pleaseth Books of practice above all other find least entertainment From all such my appeale is to your protection under God It hath pleased him to exercise my pen in sundry kindes of Treatises which have not escaped the hands of the better and more solid sort of readers and that with some fruit I have now thought fit to make the like triall in publishing some of those my last Lectures which I preached at my last farewell to publicke The perusall whereof with your loving acceptance of them I leave to your Christian diligence and Gods blessing Not doubting Right Honourable but that God having made you a reall patterne of those things which here I write he will also make you a willing Protector of the Book it selfe and no small encouragement to many both to peruse and practise what they reade if God shall make them as fruitfull in the reading as they were in the preaching I shall have double cause of rejoycing In which hope I humbly take my leave remaining Your Honors by due desert much obliged DANIEL ROGERS From my Study Wethersf this 16. of May. 1641. TO THE RELIGIOVS AND IVDICIOVS READER Christian Reader IT s with Books as with Trees These Section 1 although they have many under-branches and water-bowes Yet they have some Master and chiefe ones into which the maine sap of the root is carried Those have sundry points and parcells contained in them of lesse consequence but some mainer and more principal Doctrines into the which their whole strength and stream runs So is it with this Book As many occasionall and lesser matters offer themselves herein so there are others of great importance purposely handled as in the list of particulars thou hast them presented unto thee But above all the rest that which was the first motive to induce me to chuse this Text and to spend my whole years pains about it was That it seemed to contain in it very pregnant and plentifull overtures and occasions of discovering Self and carnall Reason to the hearts of my Auditors How dangerous a rocke it was to all who sailing in the sea of this world towards heaven be not very skilfull and wary marriners to espie and shun it to wit that when they seem to have escaped all other occurrents which might stop their course yet falling upon this unhappily split their hopes and make shipwracke of all In this argument therefore thou shalt perceive that a great peece of my travell in these Lectures is improved It shall not be amisse therefore a little to prepare thee for the coneiving of this notion of Selfe and her opposite Self-deniall that it may the better appeare to thee in what sense it s especially handled in the Treatise following Section 2 Selfe and Self-deniall are tearmes not easily understood except wisely discerned and distinguished into their severall Branch 1 meanings and exceptions And first Self is taken in a good construction for that appetite of the soule Pure Selfe considered in her pure naturals and in this sense it s nothings else save the desire of the whole man in her severall faculties naturall sensible and reasonable to maintaine and preserve it selfe in the integrity of her estate And thus each creature not man alone hath an instinct planted in it by God to affect and ensue the meanes of it owne safety and support as that Orator speakes in which respect it s stiled by this name of Selfe not because its the whole being of the creature but a faculty neerly touching the sustaining of her particular being Plants Beasts have this disposition to savour what is for them to shunne what is against them much more man It was a peece of Adams wisdome and perfection and still would be in us as it was in him blamelesse if somewhat had not come betweene It s the same whereof Paul speakes No man ever hated his owne flesh but nourished and cherished it Now the contrary to this Selfe is Self-deniall which although it is of all other the eminentest grace in other respects yet in this is the most eminent vice for what is so hideous as for a man to throw off nature and deny it the due meanes of life health and prosperity Even an unaturall cruelty and worse then to maligne or hurt another yea this self-Selfe-love is so good that its the standard of all offices of love concerning our neighbour Doe as you would be done to Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy selfe And were not this sinlesse the holy Ghost should teach us to be mercenaries by perswading us to obedience by so many arguments taken from our selves cloathing grace in the colours of gaine safety health to our navill marrow to our bones good name long life and the like Branch 2 But this is not the Selfe we meane Selfe therefore in a second difference is that which is called corrupt Selfe Corrupt Selfe
for the deed 2. Looke upon thine owne grace and hide my defects 3. Betrust me with the principles of sincerity and faith working by love which will make a little goe a great way 4. Make my lusts to be my clogs as Sauls armour to David 5. Make the yoke of hard dangerous disgraced solemne duties and crosses to be tollerable pag. 374 People exhorted to love honour and support their Ministers How that may bee pag. 392 People that will seeme to love their Minister that so they may snort in their sinnes odious pag. 400 Popish Martyrs against the Scriptures not to be regarded notwithstanding their pretended selfe-deniall 415. Popish falshood in all their wayes pag. 415 People must be sincere and open to receive good counsell pag. 425 Poore men have a priviledge above the rich in this That they may bee reproved pag. 425 Proud harts terrified by Gods resisting pag. 468 Plead hard for faith if once wee bee under the condition pag. 481 Promise must be pleaded for sanctification as well as pardon pag. 511 Perseverance in beleeving breeds assurance pag. 513 Promises must bee beleeved according to their nature and kinde 567. Reasons of it Popish abusers of promises terrified pag. 579 Preposterous appliers of promises reproved pag. 582 Promises must be beleeved according to the utmost extent of them wherin it stands in three things 1. A promise must bee sounded to the bottome 2. Wee must draw out of the wells of salvation 3. The promise must not bee given over though wee be long held off pag. 583. 584 Physitians must know themselves to be only instruments of providence for such as God will have to recover pag. 588 People are very fond in magnifying the outward instrument neglecting God ibid. Popish Miracles and Cures what they are to be thought of pag. 590 Pelagian spirits which cavill at the freedome of the grace of God far from the true spirit of cure and conversion 869. So are Popish spirits likewise pag. 870 Prayer for healing the numb palsie of the spirit of our times necessary pag. 886 Q. Quarrellers against the Minister for not comforting the distressed sinfull pag. 456 R. Rebellion in all whom God meanes to save shall worke greater humiliation in them pag. 60 Repentance goes not before faith pag. 103 Religious Selfe how dangerous Vide Selfe Rationall carriage not simply to bee condemned pag. 209 Religion stands more in wanting somewhat then in having pag. 237 Religion is like an harmony pag. 250 Religion grounded upon most sound foundations pag. 253 Religious servants yet failing in faithfulnesse are to bee blamed 306. Their trickes and qualities ibid. Resigning up of the soule to God is one chiefe work of faith pag. 500 Revolters from their first zeale and grace of conversion are in a sad case pag. 871 S. Scriptures filled by the holy Ghost with rarities and wonders and why Two causes pag. 2. 3 Sensible and outward objects the meanes by which God workes upon us ibid. Scriptures bark and outside not to be rested in but the scope and sense pag. 6 Soveraignty of Gods will and pleasure must cause us first to confesse it 14. 2. To lye humbly and quietly under the conviction of it 15. in sundry particulars 1. By considering the root of this soveraignty ib. 2. Bee content that God dspence his grace according to his owne measures 16. 3. Iudge not God in the effects of soveraignty as in the sinnes penalties or snares of the wicked ibid. 6. Nor for punishing the sinnes of parents upon their posterity 17. 7. Doe the uttermost that lies in thee to obey ibid. 8 Be charitable to others a farre off ibid. 9. Break thy hard hart hereby lay down thy pride and rebellion 18. Then the â—â—use soveraignty is free to save as well as destroy 19. Look not at election but at the tree offer ibid. Assay to beleeve and that upon sound warrant by venturing upon the promise 20. 21. Lastly know this is the greatest honour which thou canst doe to God pag. 22 Straits and extremities are Gods season to pull downe a proud heart 29. In how many respects See the reasons ibid. Straits both publick and personall do but little humble men in these times pag. 36. 37 Straits doe make hypocrites onely to counterfeit 33. Not to be trusted ibid. Straits are very unpleasing to flesh we are lâ—â—th to heare of them lest wee shouâ—d humble our selves and profit bâ— them pag. 38 Shun not straâ—ts for first it is bootlesse and then they câ—nnot bee mâ—ssed 39. Pray for â—n holy use of them not to awe thee violently but change thy heart pag. 40 Signes and Sacraments why used by the Lord in effecting spirituall things pag. 85 Sacraments differ from common signes ibid. And why 1. To stop mans bold inventions 2. To assure weake faith of his sincerity ibid. Suspect trials bee comming upon us when our state is calmest pag. 96 The manifold snares in the way of Gods people should make them watch and bee armed ibid. Selfe the main enemy to rob the soule of grace when all is done 98. and why because most inward and immediate pag. 101 Selfe in the root of it is nothing but the instinct of old Adam and the frame or vent of a corrupt heart ibid. Selfe of two sorts either opposite Selfe to Christ or mixing Selfe with Christ ibid. Selfe opposite what ibid. Of how many sorts it is ibid. Five named Prophane selfe Naturall selfe Carnall selfe Creature selfe Religious selfe ibid. Selfe prophanenesse described ibid. Self natural or civill described pag. 164 Carnall selfe or savour of the flesh what The sorts of it many ibid. Selfe sensuality or in the Creature what pag. 111 Selfe-religion what The branches of it three pag. 115 Mixt selfe in what particulars it discovers her selfe 121. Ten or twelve mentioned Nature of mixt selfe discerned in foure things 1. Familiarnesse 2. Generalnesse 3. Violence 4. Tenaciousnesse pag. 127 Selfe supports her selfe by false comparisons pag. 128 Satan imbarkes himselfe more deeply in Selfe then in other corruption pag. 129 Self deludes by Gods just giving her over to her selfe pag. 129 Selfe may be discerned by three degrees or properties ibid. Passages of Selfe may bee conceived three wayes 1. By the ground 2. The carriage 3. The scope pag. 131 Selfe is but flesh in all the worke of Law and Gospel and how pag. 132 Carriage of Selfe is sutable to her ground which appeares in foure things 1. Her instinct 2. Her eagernesse 3. Her endeavour 4. Her disappointment ibid. The ends of Selfe and her scope is sutable to the ground and carriage pag. 138 All seekers of salvation must abhorre Selfe and how 1. In discerning her trickes divers of them mentioned 139. Shee will deny herselfe in somewhat to satisfie herselfe in other things 2. To mask sin under holinesse 3. To defile it selfe in that it knoweth 4. Pretence to seeke God but intending it selfe 5. To offer God more service then he
to deny thy selfe or else thou art foiled For Selfe is as the wife in the bosome It is hard to deny a friend a neighbour especially if importunate as him in the Gospel who came by night for loaves how much lesse a wife Nay Selfe is yet neerer unto us then a wife It comes alway with a bribe a gift in the hand sweetnesse of lust is as butter in a Lordly dish This bribe unhappily prospers wheresoever it goes except thou deale harshly with it as hee with Iehorams messenger it will prevaile Stoppe thine eares as the Adder In vaine is the net laid for that which hath wing Dally not with her as Eve with the serpent Sampson with Delila If she fell in innocency how wilt thou stand in corruption Peremptory folke are best in a good cause and she is the most chaste wife who hath the most denying behaviour Seventhly There is enough in God to make amends for denying Selfe That which Selfe falsly promiseth God both justly and duly promiseth and peformeth To joyne any thing with God is to joyne a candle to the Sunne or water to the Ocean And as hath beene said it is the way to make us hated of God and men of God for lacke of integrity of men for lacke of wickednesse In things confused no man knows his owne To expect reward from two Masters is to lose our labour from both So much be said for motives To adde some meanes of getting selfe-deniall First then labour to make somewhat else thy selfe beside thy selfe else thou wilt never deny thy selfe For Selfe cannot oppose Selfe in the particular of opposition no more then Satan can Satan If once grace come in place and stead of Selfe then all old Selfe life and the comforts of it shall go for new Selfe else God and all shall goe for house and land favour of men and liberties lusts and will of the flesh So Paul calleth grace himselfe It is not I but sinne in mee q. d. a stranger an excrement No matter what become of flesh if spirit once bee Selfe Get this sound judgement what deserveth to bee Selfe and all is well the old house shall downe that a new may bee set up Secondly be armed with sound resolution against the strong error of the world which maintaines godlinesse to be meere losse True it is that persecutions follow Christianity howbeit even with such persecutions afflictions Maâ—k 10. a Christian shall have an hundred fold As God can fill the soul with bitternesse in abundance so can he fill with joy and comfort an heart which wants 1 Cor 1. When my afflictions abounded then did my consolations abound also As a man may be in Paradise accursed so in prison an happy man Ruben what got hee in defiling of Bilha Surely shame he lost both birthright to Ioseph Kingdome to Iuda and Priesthood to Levi Hee was strength and excelleny but lost all And what got Salomon by denying himselfe in his petition Both that he asked and that which he asked not Thirdly consider what ever it be which thou seekest without God cannot doe thee any good When God bids honour wealth any creature do thee good it shall else not They are instruments and workes only by the agent as the saw by the hand of the mover They comfort us onely by a borrowed comfort And so on the other side nothing can hurt no not Shemei except God bid him and when the curse is gone forth yet it shall be both causelesse and fruitlesse except God send it Those that do so Idolize the creature yet finde it oft their snare yea the favour of Princes proves their snare and so they are forced to say If God had beene chiefe this or that had not been Fourthly stirre up sundry graces of God in thy soule First knowledge secondly faith thirdly the love of God For the first consider God in his worth We use to say Let such a friend speed he is worthy only knowing of God and his gift will make him prized and Selfe despised See Psal 73.20 They that know thee shall love thee 1 Cor. 1.12.13 See the place Secondly faith see that catalogue of selfe-denying Saints who refused to enjoy pleasures in Pharaoh's Court endured the spoyling of goods c. How came they by this By faith they did it Faith Conquers Selfe by the same power whereby shee overcomes the world for the world within is the chiefe world See 1 Tim. 4.10 Thirdly love When Paul was so disswaded from Suffering hee answers What doe you rending my heart thus I am ready to goe and to suffer losse of all for Christ all is dung and drosse to him The love of Christ compells us the Greek word is hemmes us in as in a pinfold that we can goe no way out of it 1 Cor. 13. Love is bountifull she seeks not her owne but Christs she suffers all things endures all things And to these adde Stirre up wisedome and be able to conclude that in denying thy selfe is true safety peace gaine in the contrary is nothing but sorrow repentance if not here yet in a season unwelcome See Matth. 16. end viz. when Christ shall come with his Angels Selfe shall prove thy plague thy bane if thou yeeld to it as Amnon to Tamar there will be no end of yeelding 2. Branch of Exhortation Get the Spirit of grace The second branch of exhortation is this Labour to get that Spirit of grace which God hath annexed to his covenant and promise that it may not bee naked and empty but accompanied and mixed with efficacie and power in the hearts of the hearers This Spirit opposeth Selfe in all the elect and suffereth it not to make the word to goe without effect and to defeat them of their hope It is such a spirit in the soul as taketh them off from their owne spirit of Selfe presents so really the good things which God hath given us 1 Cor. 2. that it causes the soule willingly to relinquish all home contents and with Caleb Numb 14. to turne the greatest yron charets Anakims and difficulties of beleeving into encouragements and perswasions I might save for envie compare it with the spirit of New England not that all who goe that voyage deny themselves for among many that doe some seek themselves but I say to the spirit of such as goe thither For as many of them are discontent with the conditions of Old England thinking it a burthen to live here where they cannot hire one acre of ground but it must cost them money but there they imagine they may bee rich the first day and occupy as much ground as they please and live contentfully In a word here they finde abundance of sad affronts and discouragements which there they hope to bee rid of Now having in their intentions knockt off themselves so resolved from the Old Englands their native soile and apprehended strongly the new Simil. as their Paradise who should
discovery of Grace in the effects of that discovery and the end of it For the first of these The Spirit of Grace is all for Grace in the discovery of the mystery of it the amplenesse largenesse height depth and length of it to the poore soule that it may appeare in all the excellency and fulnesse freedome bounty unchangeablenesse and wel be teamingnesse thereof that no corner of it may lie hidden from the heart of a sinner so farre as may further him in the bottoming of the soule in mercy This is a singular and peculiar act of the Spirit tending to this end that the soule may not stagger about the sufficiency of Grace which God offers unto her but may behold the power of the Priesthood of Christ once offering up himselfe as a compleat and spotlesse sacrifice and satisfaction for the sins of the elect needing no more to be offered able to procure from the Father endlesse wel pleasednesse and acceptance also a free offer of reconciliation and to create in the soule alone and of it selfe without any antecedent free will liking and cooperating of Selfe a most sufficient clearing of conscience from guilt and feare yesterday Heb. 10.3 Heb. 13.8 to day and for ever This cannot sinke into the heart of an hypocrite he cannot bee perswaded that there is enough in the Lord Jesus alone to discharge him in the Court of heaven the offer and promise are empty notions with him to sway all his strength upon neither dare hee rest thereupon with peace without a further addition of his owne feelings But the Spirit of Grace grounds the poore soule in this as the maine worke of all that so all the building may subsist thereon and makes sure retreat and refuge for her in the midst of her distresse that her foundation may not be shaken I wish that the method of that Epistle to the Hebrewes especially in the 7.8.9.10 Chap. might well be observed to the understanding of this act of the Spirit Secondly the Spirit of Grace doth not onely offer such a light to the soule but lets it in by her owne working into her setting the soule on worke to concurre with his revealing light and shewing it both that the Lord will conferre no lesse then all this Sufficiency upon a needing soule and therefore shee may without presumption take and partake them from his hand It sheweth her that it is the endlesse matchlesse Grace of God that he can find in his heart to pardon her yea to cast love upon her not only when she seems zealous and affectionate for Self can make her beleeve that but even when she is basest in her owne eies and under the conscience of her guilt when she is in her bloud when her originall loathsomenesse her actuall wickednes of thoughts of words of wrath hypocrisie and the like doe lye as a burthen upon her yet then even then marke what I say he hath love in a corner of his heart for such an one such as he will have herselfe confesse to be causlesse on her part yea such as if he had no more aime at being knowne to be loving then to love for any amiable thing in the object he would never shew to any Nay more lest the Spirit of Grace should leave any thing behinde him he doth offer to create the gift of faith in the soule Esay 5â— 19 to claspe upon this gift of mercy and includes this gift in the offer as knowing that it were in vaine to offer the one without working the other And hereby he causeth the soule to lay hold upon his strength and ablity to save as having received a ransome sufficient which is no other saving the writing of his covenant in the fleshy tables of her heart Esay 27 4.5 prepared by himselfe for the nonce And moreover that all this hee hath done of his owne free will and motion without any former principle acting him to intend it or concurring with him to create it I say he hath done it of himselfe as judging it meet for himselfe to doe whatsoever we bee and for the glory of his Name No entreaty of men or Angels no difficult tearmes of perswasion caused it but it flowed naturally from him as most honourable to his Majestie to doe Fifthly the Spirit of Grace stayes not here but proceedes to accommodate the soule to embrace this power of God for to what end should the Lord be willing to do it in her for her except she also felt sutable inclinations wrought in her soul towards it And therefore he moves her sadly to digest this grace offered to count it no light nor strange thing no nor yet beyond the soules apprehension but as on the one side hee causeth it to be most weighty pretious and to be highly valued so on the other side he makes it familiar sweet clear and evident not a thing above the clouds nor under the earth farre fetcht but neere the soule put into her bosome Rom. 10. belonging to her not to bee rejected or thrust away from her except she will perish These together with the infinite benefite of receiving it and the endlesse losse in forgoing it as being the onely remedy doe marvellously stablish the thoughts upon it and ravish the affections with it so that layes a most sad charge upon the poore soule upon paine of forfeiting her peace for ever not to passe it by slightly deadly and formally but to view and meditate of it savourly deep y unwâ—ariedly with admiration till by this mirrour of beholding the Lord with open face she be transformed to the gloriousnes of this gracâ— and carried 2 Cor. 3. end yea left in the streame thereof by the Spirit of the Lord. This for the first of the three particulars The second is the effect of this presenting worke of the Spirit And that is union The second worke the effect hereof viz. Union Whereby the Spirit of Grace shewes the soule into what a condition she is translated by faith in the promise That is she is made one with the Lord Jesus thereby and really partaker of all his good things true peace contentment in blessings crosses all conditions freedome from all former garboiles feares enemies joy in God and his salvation never to be divorced from him any more This causes the soule to shake off that wearisomenesse of Selfe never settled that bottomelessenesse never grounded that inconstancy and vanity never at rest and why Because it had no reall good to fasten upon and to determine those restlesse desires of hearts But now the Lord Jesus himselfe both in his present grace and hope of glory to come runues in her streame or rather turnes hers into his so that looke what Selfe was to her before emptily and barrenly now Christ is in her stead Christ is the Selfe of the soule he is all in all to her acts her comforts her staies her quickens her guides upholds
he might pitty and succour those who are tempted And surely wonderfull use there is of this grace For alas in these troubles many a poore soule though not wilfull yet is not her owne because it is overpowred with the violence hideousnesse and irkesome of temptations without feares and unsustained horrors within so that for the time it hath no power of fastning upon counsell be it never so strong nay the stronger it is the harder to enter It must be time and stanching the bloud and waiting by degrees putting in here a droppe a line a little and there a little into the soule which must winne such an one to some hope by degrees Some texts observe for this Elihu seeing Iobs state sore snarled by his prejudicate friends and by the self-self-love of his own heart that it was hard to reduce all to a mediocrity applies himselfe in the spirit of singular modesty and meeknesse to be a mediator between them Job 32. Behold saith he I will not deale harshly in misjudging thee but be unto thee as thine owne soule this was the next way to redresse his sorrowes So Paul to the Galathians when he had sharpely reproved them yet seeing many of their weake mindes entangled tells them My little children of whom I travell againe till Jesus Christ be formed in you They had fallen into the hands of false teachers who had made their state more dangerous Gal. 4.19 And what doth hee Meekely and lovingly he bestowes the paines to travell againe of them Simil. A woman hath enough of breeding her fruit once and bearing it once but wee should count her a very tender mother which should beare the paine twice and fellow-feele the infants strivings and wrastlings the second time rather then want her child So Paul here is content to beare the paine twice of travelling for these Galathians hee meanes not a second birth but a second travell to reduce them home to Christ from their errors and to sympathize them so far for their good till they felt Christ againe revived in themselves after a former miscarriage and false conception So in Gal. 6.1 The Apostle againe doth require those Galathians which were strong to restore in the spirit of meekenesse such as were fallen the word is set in joint Be meeke and worke in the bone with much oile that so it may returne againe into the socket with lesse paine And Ezekiel tells us Ezek. 34.16 that this is one peculiâ—r property of a true shepheard that hee seeke up the lost and suffer not the bitten or broken to perish but carry it home upon his shoulder tender it dresse it and binde it up againe These and the like places shew with what spirit the Lord wishes such to go to work even so be it with us in Gods fear limpe with the halting lispe with the stuttering sit still and be silent a while till deepe affliction can speake out helpe forth the words of the distressed which sticke in the passage be tender and pitifull till God draw the heart by these cords of a man Hosea 11.4.13.2 and be as the Master of the cattell who taketh off the yoke and layeth meat unto them yea as the Lord Jesus who would not breake the brused reed Matth. 12. nor quench the smoking flax till judgement brake forth into victory Iron and steele come not to an edge without much oile Thirdly 3. Branch apply counsell and remedies with all wisdome and seasonablenesse speake a word in due season Now here the maine worke lieth But some may aske and say how should I performe this duty I answer The variety and difference of estates admit no rules in generall onely to satisfie the desirous I will instance in a few kindes and shew what remedies most fitly agree with them Observe wisely and discerne the estate of the afflicted Rules for this and that will be a great helpe to tell a qualified counsellor how to judge both of the malady and medicine For as it is in bodily diseases each one hath his severall symptomes which are not easily concealed So it is here A wise man will discover the sore by the behaviour of the party both for the kinde the measure the continuance of it and accordingly apply himselfe First then let it be one caveat 1. Discerne and separate mixt sorrow from â—â—â—gle that we observe whether the dolor bee single and simple or mixt and compounded If it be simple the trouble is the lesse But if mixt that is partly temporall and that first and chiefe partly spirituall The way is first to separate the one from the other and not to multiply spirituall comforts to such a one for his disease admits none because the roote is carnall And although it have ceased also in part upon conscience yet at the second hand Here then labour to lessen and diminish carnall and worldly griefe if it can by any meanes be removed as if it be a crosse upon the name body or state see if that can be effected and then you shall see if there continue any sorrow if it doe not it was meerly carnall and no spirituall in it if that cannot be removed then labour to divert the heart from the outward to the spirituall and that thus First shewing that this without the other is fruitlesse That the soule may bee as miserable without it as with it That love or hatred stands not in it That it may easily deceive a man about his sorrow That God either sends it as a needle to draw the thred of godly sorrow after it by the stirring of the spirit or else to leave the soule worse and that if it vanish as it came it will be so That the nature of it is deadly for worldly sorrow causeth death If these motives scatter the carnall sorrow and the spirituall remaine then it is from God And then the counsell is strive not to remove it at first but to ground it well upon the word that it may seaze kindely and so deale with it accordingly as in the rules following 2. Rule Discerne diabolicall temptations from inward The next is discerne diabolicall injections and temptations from the troubles arising from our selves Here the counsell is strive by all means to resolve the party that the Divell shall pay for his own sin Suggestions terrifying the spirit from Satans malice are none of ours Judge them by the disproportion to the souls disposition their unwelcomenes their irkesomenesse desperatenesse and tenaciousnesse And if a poor soul can truly say they are none of hers although she cannot be rid of the insulting of this god of flies yet by praier for riddance constant detesting to have fellowship and consent with them whether thoughts against God his word the Ministry Heaven Hell Providence Religion or lusts and vile affections the Lord will weaken them and not suffer thee to bee held under temptation And to say truth violent externall causes
sent them meat and support from unknowne places they might have either famished Luke 16.3 or beene urged to dig or beg for their livings And what measure is to be expected here from you God knoweth but it is no other like but the most will fulfill the sins of their forefathers in this kinde and verifie the Proverb No penny no Pater noster Speciall Reproofe 1. Against partiall lovers of the Minister But I must confine my Reproof to some order For I see that which is spoken in generall and to all is spoken to none First then here are reproved all partiall lovers and esteemers of the Minister such as love not directly out of the judgement of a Ministers calling and labours but out of humor and conceit Such a Minister they say they love and can well affect but as for others their edge is not so much toward them Why Are they not as faithfull zealous Ministers of God as the other Yes verily Why then do you carry so partiall an affection between them occasioning both emulation between the Ministers themselves and provoking others by your examples for such one doth a great deal of hurt in a congregation to partiality and basenesse this way But know O man whosoever thou art that what ever content thy giddy humour may give it selfe in such a course thy conscience if thou have any left will one day take on with thee Poore wretch that which is done according to God is done equally Unequall affections are from selfe and self-ends and therefore must looke for no reward from God they have all the reward they shall have already Looke to thy selfe therefore betime and repent get thine hide-bound spirit enlarged in thee be not straitned in thy bowells to such as are large toward thee 2. Passionate lovers Secondly it reproves all passionate lovers of the Minister onely so long as the pang holds in a gare and heat they will runne ride and take any paines for the getting and countenancing of a Preacher But why Hoping to tye him to their owne girdle So long as this hope lasteth they will be formost in procuring him dwelling meanes and account and who but he But let him once come neer and touch their disease to the quick and shew himselfe a true friend indeed to search and heale their sores Oh then They turne as deepe enemies then all love is forgotten then they must fall as low as the earth who before were lifted up to heaven Alas whom sought yee when yee sought Ministers Such as might sooth and flatter you Matth. 11.8 Reeds shaken with the winde Are they therefore become your enemies because they tell you the truth Surely then are you sicke of some such malady as must be strongly purged If God love you he will heale you with better Physicke then you seek A third sort there are who love indirectly and for by base ends 3. Lovers indirectly not for the end of the Ministers labours but if they can please themselves in his wit memory elocution if they like the phrase quaintnesse and carriage of his matter to tickle their eare or if his company bee merry and joviall apt to correspond with their humours if he bee usefull to them in any other kinde then they can love him But if these accidentalls be wanting the oile failing their love wanzes also Others there are 4. Lovers for vain-glory who will shew themselves forward for the Minister that their zeale may be noted and it may appeare that they are especiall men above others and so they seeke the opinion of men in that behalfe But if they see others as forward or more forward then they so that they are not like to have the repute and name of it then they are cold yea dead in the nest shewing that they sought themselves more then God in their love and therefore although they should have all their will and win the spurs without any contradiction yet their love would not prove effectuall to their owne good except God do change both it and them in a speciall manner Fifthly all formall verball and fulsome lovers of the Minister 5. Formall and verball lovers who will not deny him good tearmes good salutations complements yea praises behinde his backe but there they rest and goe no further If they be urged to any reall respect and acknowledgement they vanish presently for you must know words cost them nothing therefore they can afford them good cheap but more they will not beteame Countenance assistance maintenance and the like are burthensome to them Rather they pull away from them that which is their due defraud them of that right which is not in their power lawfully to deny that with all the secret subtilty cunning and devices which possibly they can and thinke that the best gotten goods which is fleeced from him All bread of deceit is sweet but especially the bread of sacriledge but as all stollen bread shall become the bane of the theefe so above all other shall this Oh say they its good reason that the Minister should be regarded and we hope he lives well and where he is worth a score of pounds would he were worth hundreds God stir him up many friends we should be glad to see him prosper and many such good morrowes but as that empty barren companion in Saint Iames who bids the poore be warme and fed and cloathed as if he were all made of mercy yet neither cloathes feeds nor warmes his backe belly or flesh so fares it with these lovers Oh the world is full of such empty and hypocriticall dissemblers Sixtly such as care not what cost they bestow upon their lusts 6. Lovers of their pastimes and sports better their sports and pastimes pricking up their children in vaine fashions maintaining a sort of loose and rude servants that spend their time in guzling and drinking Their Hounds and Hawkes they care not what they give for In a word for their own ease and ends to game and spend upon their riotous appetites they care not what course they take give up their house-keeping and cut off all charges which can bee and more then they ought till they make themselves odious But presse them to doe any thing for a poore Minister who preaches painfully upon small allowance Oh how hardly it comes off from them It s death and as the cutting off a joint to be drawne to such a service 7. Scant lovers Again others perhaps will afford him some poor and dry pittance but there is all It s as water taken out of a pit not out of a fountaine when they have done their devotion all is finished They add not assisistance countenance maintenance and honour as thinking all too little but stint themselves within very narrow bounds will stir no further Let no liberall people in the City or Country be offended Endlesse it were to speake of all These may
serve for a taste by the paw you may judge of the Lion Oh! that this Reproofe might so pierce them that they might fall upon themselves and reprove themselves bitterly for their more then heathenish unnaturall unthankefulnesse Papists may condâ—mne us for our disregard of our Ministers This blinde generation of Papists shall rise up in judgement and condemne us Protestants yea many of us noted for our zeale For what cost doe they refuse to be at to maintaine their Priests and Jesuits in their bravery nay what fines would they not be willing to pay for the liberty of their Religion But alas We who professe a better and seeme zealous for it have no such principle of love in us Our Religion must stand alone and defend her selfe or else she may sinke or swim for us It s the mercy of God to our Kingdome to keepe the hearts of our Qâ—een and Kings of blessed memory and noblenesse of heart in the defence of the truth of God without toleration and imbezeling and long may the Lord so rule and dispose of their spirits For it s to be feared if they we were but brought to the triall who would give most for their Religion they for their Priests or we for our Ministers they would out-bid and outdrop us many of us even wealthy Gentlemen and others I will not tax all as much as Crownes or Royalls outbid brasse farthings The Lord shew us our disease and to what issue it would come if God prevented it not Vse 3 Thirdly this point is Exhortation to all who are convinced of this Truth People exhorted to honour and support the Minister That they practise this duty of love to the Minister of God If you would truly be free from all these aspersions as what good heart would not shake her lap of such dung Do not only abhor the treachery inconstancy basenesse and unthankfulnesse of hollow lovers Doe not onely abhorre the love of your selves lusts and appetites more then God or his Minister But especially learne this mystery of loving a Prophet for himselfe and in the name of a Prophet for his message sake Get an heart knit to him in a close band of amity which no sword can cut in two no time occasion or danger interrupt Let it not bee a love of teeth outward or outward signification but a child-like loyall reverend and sacred love without dissimulation Let the very joy of his message goe as dâ—epe into thy soule How that may be effected as these bad properties goe into the spirit of the contrary Lin not till the Minister of God have as well kindled a fire in thy heart of sound love and affection as set up a flashing light in thy mind of knowledge and understanding which may vanish though for a time thou seeme to rejoice in it Brethren if we desire your love pardon us this wrong for you shall fare the better If once this Epistle be written or engraven in thy heart with the pen of a Diamond the characters thereof will be indeleble It s no letter of inke and paper but written by an Adamant claw of the Spirit which knits you faster then Ionathan was knit to David This will make you close and faithfull and you will goe under a woods side into a wildernesse to renue your covenant No message can so pierce into your spirit as this If your Lawyer should by his skill and pleading win the day at Law for you if the Physitian should recover you of a deadly disease if your spokesman should prevaile in a great marriage of many thousands None would sticke so deepe nor deserve such love as the message of reconciliation and the cure of spirituall leprosie causing the flesh of thy soule to returne againe as the flesh of a little child This will make thee doe great things for the Prophet this will ingratiate and make him as one of a thousand unto thee Shall any thing now part him and me Act. 8. Thinke we that the Eunuch as speedily as Philip was snatcht from him carried him not away with him in his heart Should mony travell feare or danger ever have separated them Oh brthren let this example here of Naaman soke as oile into our spirits And before you depart hence beg it of God that he would teach you the obligation of a soule to his Minister And then we will give up our selves as Paul speakes first to the Lord and then to him in a league of faithfull amity Make but this sure that we have received his message Rom. 18. and then there needs no more That will be a principle within to dictate and direct the rest be the fruits greater or smaller so that love be the guide all shall be well The odds which Paul to Philemon speakes of Thou owest me thine owne soule And that which our Saviour speakes of To give a cup of cold water we know is very large and different yet where love is the roote both are accepted with God and all the steps which passe betweene Love may be trusted for the measure for shee hath an instinct which teacheth her what to doe shee can purge the heart of scantnesse and straitnesse and enlarge it with opennesse and freedome If Popish and ungrounded love be so full and free shall love truly rooted be barren Shall error bee more powerfull then truth No no The favour of love that comes from a soule redeemed with the pretious bloud of Christ excells all other respects whatsoever and carryes more demonstration with it And if love beare the sway a true Minister of Chrst will be as free to impart himselfe to the poorest and meanest of his congregation who can make him little requitall as to the richest and best yea although he be at some cost with them also as in some cases of distresse and visiting of the sicke it may be expected from him The loadstone which drawes his heart in pitty and compassion being the grace and necessity of the parties rather then his own advantage But to returne to the people in a word The duty urged give your hearts openly and freely next to God to his Minister for his worke sake Lately I read a story of the afflicted state of Belgia thralled under Philip of Spaine and Don Iohn of Austria his brother of whose tyranny the poore Province being weary they chose by common consent the Prince of Orange for their defendor and protector and meeting him in a solemne assembly at the Towne of Gaunt presented him with a golden heart opened with this Motto engâ—aven about it SINCERITY And truly brethren to apply this I say the true present of a soul won to God by the peace of reconciliation is an heart though not of gold yet more pretious even made of love and opennesse with sincerity of affection without this we cannot receive the Minister of Christ aright we may blear his eyes with false colours but God is not
mocked It behooves us to hope the best of all whom we cannot convince of the contrary But except this principle be ingrafted first all other shewes will vanish and a false heart must one way or other bewray her selfe This open sincere heart is the best present for a Preacher and that which will doe great things if need be as Naaman was here ready to do It saith to the Minister there is mine heart take that in pawn and the rest will follow But an iron close hollow heart is poison to a Minister The Jesuits begged of King Henry the fourth of France that he would bequeath them his heart in token of his esteeme which they keep in a golden cup in one of their Chappell 's Let us doe so to the Minister of Christ and as I said let not Fryers and Jesuits prevaile more with their votaries for their hearts then faithfull messengers from heaven with their people That which is well for the present among us brethren I commend If the Gospel had not some friends it could not be so well as it is onely take heed that bad times eclipse it not But I speake as I doe because daies of peace are not as daies of trouble among some good hearts of sincerity many are hollow and the best may amend and learne to bee confirmed to doe that they doe upon grounds of conscience And I desire the Lord that without prejudice wee might heare this truth and receive it Aske thine heart whence is it that my affections are so blunt and dead towards Gods Minister The more I am loved the lesse I love 2 Cor. 12.15 What Did his message never pierce my soule Did it never convince me to be a ranke enemy of God by nature That the wrath or favour of the Almighty was my life or death Did it never convince me of this that the Lord Jehovah hath in the bloud of his owne sonne devised offered sealed up a reconciliation and that for me Alas what wonder if the hearth of that Altar be cold whereon Gods fire was never kindled O Lord work the sense of the message of immortality and life in me by the Spirit of grace and then I shall behold the honour and worth of thy Minister with a spirituall eye and that common base judgement of the world shall vanish Then shall his feet be beautifull his face and voice pretious and his love above the love of any earthly object Job 33. Then shall I call him with Elihu one of a thousand For where one Minister cares for reconciliation himselfe or teacheth it to others some others doe not so they have the fleece what care they whether men sinke or swim Oh! Now I see it s a rare grace for a Minister to prise a soule to tremble at the losse of it to value it at the price of the bloud of the eternall God and the losse thereof as the spilling of the heart bloud of Christ Oh Lord Didst thou meane a poore soule so well as to give him a part in this bloud And to send me tidings thereof by the messenger of peace thy Minister sealing up that unto me on earth which in heaven thou hast granted me My goodnesse my thanks cannot reach thee but it shall fall upon thy Minister whose blessed voice thou hast caused to sound in mine eares and to convey thy love into my soule I hope I shall not forget such a Levite all my dayes So much for this Use Fourthly and lastly this point is for Instruction to teach us what duty Vse 4 we owe to God himselfe Instruction If we owe the Minister great things what owe we to God himselfe If to the Minister a poore mortall worm we owe such honour and reverence what then owe wee to God himselfe If we should doe great things for the instrument of our peace who is the messenger onely of glad tidings What then owe we to him that is the fountaine of it and him that sends it from heaven to us What should seeme great unto us for such kindnesse How should wee carry our lives liberties soules and selves in our bosomes ready to lay downe for him What cost what price is so great which should part the Lord and us Gen. 23.15 As Ephron said to Abraham touching the price of Machpelah its worth so many shekels of silver but what is that betweene me and thee So should we say Oh what is my best treasure worth Lord in respect of losing thy love and communion God will have his servants do some singular thing for him Some shreds I doubt not we should beteame him what great thing would we doe for him What vertue goes out of us What streames of our love and affection goe to him from whose springs all proceed unto us What singular thing doe we for him who gave his Sonne to save enemies and his Minister to bring us newes of it Servants who attend royall Benefactors love to seale their loyall love by some undeniable exploit and marke of extraordinary service As those worthies of David would breake through an hoast of enemies to fetch him water 2 Sam. 23.15 so great an hazard that David thought it a present meet for God And all to teach us that he whom great things do become to give deserves the greatest from us even the very neglect of life it self if he aske it When I read of the strange adventures of men for the pleasing of their Lords and Commanders methinks it shames us Christians It s recorded of the souldiers of Charles the fifth who hearing that he desired a way to be made for his army over a certaine broad River then beset with the ships of the enemy They put their swords in their mouthes and drew those ships surprised to the shore and conveied over the army in them What was this but for the pleasing of a mortall man But when as one day the soule shall be summoned before God and demanded by the Judge what singular thing hast thou done to put it out of question what love thou bearest to me What a wofull regret will it be when it can bethink it selfe of nothing save shreds and parings We could beteame that God should straine himselfe to a demonstration of some great thing for us If it were to make the Sunne stand still or goe backe ten degrees to worke some miracle or shew some signe from heaven of love to us that it might appeare how great we are in his bookes And we make small account of small blessings which others share in with us who are lesser then the least But what doe we picke out to resalute him withall How doe we curtall him of his ordinary dues rather Gen. 22.2 as thinking much of that The Lord bad Abraham do a great thing for him even kill his son and he was ready to do it and the Lord said Now I know that thou lovest me indeed But if he should put us to
such selfe-deniall or try us with hard duties we rather would hang downe the head with that young man and goe away sorrowfull So that he might say of us I have tried thee now and found that thy wealth thy liberty wife children are dearer to thee then my selfe I will trust thee no more Oh how should we tremble at this How should our base penurious scanty hearts even stinke in our nostrills and shame us Act. 3.3 when that creeple looked stedfastly upon Peter and Iohn all he gaped after was a penny or two of almes but they bestowed more then he desired and healed his lamenesse How thinke wee was hee astonished 1 King 3.15 And how was Salomon ravished when he had Gods answer Even so which of us brethren that belong to God can deny but that he hath given us more then ever we could aske or thinke But what have we done for him Have we found out singular things for him Deniall of our selves forgoing of our wills lusts pleasures for him Nay have we not taken our uttermost liberty in them A good wife husband child recovery out of sicknesse have deserved more from us then ever we rendred But what can we say when his Christ is yet unpaid for 1631. Now this deare yeare which of us makes it our season to doe great things for God We know that we doe for his members wee doe for him Where is the man who fellow-feeles this hard pinching yeare and these prises of corne and victualls If you of the poorer sort would doe great things for God even live by faith and set up the promise and alsufficiency of God above your hungry bellies and empty purses hee would doe great things for you But brethren let the sinnes of the poore goe looke we to our owne and amend them Be wee really pinched in the feare of God with their present miseries Say not with that churle shall I take my flesh and bread and give it these beggars 1 Sam. 25. No give a portion to six and to seven the necessity of the time craves some singular thing Common service stinkes in Gods nostrills in a season of speciall duty If now we come in with our common stuffe our sinne shall be as great as our denying them altogether at another time Oh! it were a great thing if we would even feele a pinch in our owne selves while this pinch lasts and abridge our diet our apparrell much more our feasts and excesse in an holy sympathy of their pinch and let our pinching and sparing from our selves become a reliefe of theirs and a bound to their refreshing Else wee shall pay full dearly for our basenes Sell a groat a test on yea two if need be cheaper then every churle Pinch your selves in your prises sell your corne eat your meat and put up gaines with lesse sweetnesse more pinching of sorrow then at other times If it were not Lord thou knowest for this pinching time I would not be so scanty to my selfe as I am but seeing I cannot abound my selfe Satan who seeks thy bloud can prevaile for more then Christ who shed his bloud for thee but I am prone to be scanty to others therefore I will chuse to scant my selfe that I may bee enlarged to others Let his good brethren be that singular thing wherein we declare our selves to God And if we do this in love and be sutable in other the like we shall have the reward of such as doe great things for God when as others doe little or nothing at all Remember Satan himselfe requires it and obtaines it at the hands of his servants So much for the ground of this second Argument Now I come to the inference upon it The which is The second branch of this Argument the application and urging of this truth upon their Master If thou wilt do such great things out of thy love to the Prophet then shew it by reall obeying his counsell q. d. else all thy shews are naught worth The point is True love and honour to a Prophet Doctrine True love and honour of Gods Prophets appears in our obeying them stands in obeying his voice We see in common experience if a man have a friend whom he seems to thinke highly of yet if that friend perceive that in any case of importance and weight his friend will sooner hearken to any stranger then to him and that he shall be of his court but others of his counsell What will he doe thinke himselfe regarded No he will conclude surely this man slights my counsell and followes his owne wayes whatsoever I say therefore for my part I leave him to them who can sway him more with their counsell then I can How much more then is it thus with the Minister If he see his people court him in their carriage complement with him in speech and curtesies but still abide the old men reforme nothing amisse goe on still in their course what shall he conclude Surely this I see this people loves me not for I can prevaile with them in nothing their owne waies they will take though I teare my tongue to the stumps therefore surely they love me little or not at all But let us see first some Reasons then some Scriptures to prove the point and so come to some use First they who love from the heart will obey from the heart because Reason 1 there is a reciprocall affection of people to Minister as well as of Minister to God and Christ Now the Minister out of a loyall heart of love to God and Christ doth as he is bidden God saith If thou love me feed my lambes and my sheep else pretend no love to colour thy sloth and negligence Even so should the Minister of God say to the people If you love me obey my counsell and do as I teach else colour not over your falshood with pretences As the Minister is to carry himselfe to God so are they under God to carry themselves to him It will bee smally to their comfort if all the obedience lye upon his shouldiers for although he hath saved his owne soule yet no thanke to them Ezek. 18. But when there is a reciprocation of affection with the fruit of obedience then shall neither grudge at other Both stand in equall obligation to obey if both performe it there is mutuall cause of joy and love but if one be faithfull to God and the other unfaithfull to him there will be unequall drawing in the yoake and great cause of complaint Secondly there is an holy judiciousnesse and wisdome in love compelling Reason 2 the people to consider that the Minister presseth that he doth upon them not as from himselfe but as from God it s nothing to him what they doe or doe not he is but a servant he is set over them for good and to give an account to God for them hee shall have his recompence for his worke
and his labour is with God if then for conscience he seekes their welfare and counts it his crowne if they obey Esay 49.4 its equall and righteous that they requite love for love duty for duty That they set his crowne upon his head by their faithfull obedience The businesse concernes themselves very sadly for the Minister preaches not comforts not exhorts not for his owne ends but for theirs If then he be for them and not himselfe shall they be able to answer it if they be not for their owne soules Alas what shall the discouragement they afford to the Minister hurt him Shall it not redound to them See Heb. 13.17 That were smally to their comfort He is from God and as in the stead of Christ doing his Embassage As Ieremy speakes to those rebells Chap. 44. Lo I am before you you may answer me as you will But know that he who sent me will not be so easily answered 2 Pet. 1.16 he will pay ye home for your rebellion If the Minister be bound to follow God and not cunning devises and fables of his own head and must give a strict account thereof to his Master Woe be to them that perceive not nor lay to heart What a solemne account will lye upon them if they dispise that message which he delivers upon such tearmes He hath saved his soule but thy bloud shall be upon thine owne head True love then is judicious see 2 Cor. 5.14 and as in all other things so in this she is loath to offer any measure to the Minister which she is loath God should offer herselfe Reason 3 Thirdly love is marveilous tender He then that loves his Minister is very sensible of that griefe and discontent which must needs smites his heart when he sees his labours slighted 1 Cor. 13. especially if he be a man wholly set to seek Gods ends in preaching A good heart will say I warrant you it stings the heart of him who teaches us soundly to behold in us slight acceptance Oh this will breed bad bloud This will load him with sorrow and he hath no whither to goe for ease but to him who set him on worke And the Lord will take his wrongs to heart and count them his owne and that will prove sad for us Oh! let us not provide so ill let us not cut downe the onely prop we stand on let us condole him in his heavinesse and remove the cause of it that so his heart being joyed may procure a good errand to heaven in our behalfe and bring downe a blessed answer from God unto us Reason 4 Fourthly love is given to esteem highly of that which it loves unites it and strengthens it selfe in the object delighted in she sets it up in her heart exceedingly and good cause why for love proceeds from some convinced amiablenesse and worth in the thing loved and that reflects backe honour and esteeme Now if it be so then love of a Minister will breed honour to him under God neither under his worth nor above it but sutable to it contrariwise if there be small or no love what will the answer be Tush what is he He is but a man as others yea and perhaps a weake one a man of passions and frailties So then marke A lovelesse heart despiseth a Minister shames him is as rottennesse to his bones thwarts the doctrine makes all that behold him in the mirror of such people to thinke they have a Minister of like disposition to themselves else for shame they would not be so base I conclude then true love will devise with her selfe what will grace and magnifie the Minister and his labours and finding that nothing will do it so much as the obeying of his voice they will force and compell themselves out of the meer nature of their love to obey him to the uttermost cost it them never so much the setting on as face answers face in water Proverb so doth the life of an hearer who loves his Minister answer his labours Love must needs destroy it selfe if it should disesteem her object therefore she honoureth that as she would support herselfe So much for Reasons This point first affords Terror to all basely minded men who live Vse 1 in the utter hatred and scorne of their Ministers thwarting Terror Two or three Branches vexing and crossing them to the uttermost in stead of obeying Such as Jer. 44.16 openly tell him The word of God which thou spakest unto us we will not heare it Such as live at open defiance with the Minister asking Shall this fellow reigne over us No Shall we be tyed to his girdle We scorne it Let us cast his cords from us Psal 2.12 What Lord shall controll us Our tongues our spirits and wayes are our owne Shall he teach us to marry to buy sell keep company use our liberties Shall he come among us to forestall our pleasures our wills and lusts They that live at open defiance with their Ministers are odious Cannot wee tell as well as he what is good for us He serves us and lives upon us and shall we maintaine our servant to be in our tops Oh base wretch He is thy servant for thy good but made so by God not a slave but a free honourable Minister of reconciliation not to serve thy humours but to controll them And as I said before then they will runne and ride and lay their purses together nay set on all the mastives of the Country against them to worry them out But oh wofull creatures Reproach of Ministers shame and spots of assemblies you need not to hunt them out Read but that in Mica 2.6.7 and there you shall finde God himself will doe it for you You say prophesie not But I say Ezek. 3.26 they shall not prophesie unto such lest they take shame I will not suffer their faces to be covered with such confusion as to be plagued with such I will rid them from among such and carry them to a people that love them As for these haters of them when as once their shepheards are gone I will come in among them and worry them that worried these And I will let in a flood upon them of woe when my Noa's are taken into mine Arke That which they sought for revenge of my Minister I will inflict as a revenge upon them and when they see themselves left to be consumed by those lusts of theirs which they scorned to be rooted out by him then they shall roare for very anguish some here under penury rags shame diseases and impenitency some in hell but then one houre of a faithfull Minister shall not be given them if they had the world to give for it Beware lest seeing the fearefull examples of vengeance in Scripture for contempt of the Minister besides daily experience of the sudden end of scorners and persecutors will not draw you from your trade God make you examples for
their owne soules and therefore must be renounced But to proceed Exhortation Obedience to the Minister urged This point in the third place affords exhortation to Vse 3 all who desire to approve their love to the Minister of God that they do as entirely obey his voice in all things that God by him convinces them of as they would be loth to forfeit the repute of their love It s almost counted as treason now to strive with the Priest he is thought halfe a Publican who lives in any contest with the Minister or is ill affected to him and yet he or she are as rare to be found almost as black swans who obey their Minister for Gods cause Therefore as we would love him or God rather in him so be we sure we obey him Wherein you will say I answer since the holy Ghost hath traced out the way himselfe I will insist in his owne steps Esay 50.10.11 2 Cor. 5.20 6.1 One solemne proofe of obeying the voice of the Minister is to beleeve Gods promise Receive not the grace of God in vaine Be reconciled to God Who is among you saith Esay that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice of his servant that walketh in darkenesse and hath no light Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay himselfe upon his God Let him not compasse himselfe about with sparkes nor walke in the light of his own fire which he hath kindled Marke This is a sound triall of obeying the Minister Some Instances of the obedience of love if we shall deny our owne wills and carnall reason reject all our false colours and exceptions and embrace the promise of the Gospel to beleeve and be saved This is the weightest charge that God hath given him to urge and it is the greatest seal which we can set to his Ministery if we beleeve it In this one obedience we lay the foundation of obeying all the rest It s like Naamans obeying Elisha to wash and be cleane if Naaman had obeyed twenty other charges besides what had it booted him But in this he obeyed all Doe not then sullenly abide in thy darkenesse and unbeleefe still because thou art darke but the rather abhorre that rebellious proud heart of thine which would keep thee in bondage or staggering and come to Gods promise his light and heat and that shall comfort thee quicken thee humble and enlarge thee As Naamans heart grew enlarged to God and the Prophet by his obeying that one charge so that he thought nothing too deare for them so shall thine It will make thee free to obey not as he being crossed to goe away sorrowfull but to lye downe at his feet saying Speake Lord for thy servant heareth So also be exhorted not to rest here but proceed to other obedience Doth he desire thee to seal to his Ministery by living amiably and subjectly in thy marriage husband and wife each to other Doth hee charge thee to acquaint thy selfe with God in secret To set up his worship in thy family To keepe bounds in the use of thy lawfull liberties and not to take thy uttermost To fellow-feele the miseries of the distressed To serve God in thy time Mourne for the abominations of all states and the miseries which they have justly procured Oh then obey him Hee hath warrant to enjoine thee this taske hee himselfe obeyes with thee and suffers as thou dost Wilt thou leave him as an owle in the wildernesse and not beare him company So againe put case that he entreats thee from God to lay aside thy peevishnesse thy wrath thy worldlinesse Doth he tell thee they are the ey-sores of his Ministery It vexes his righteous heart to behold them It joyes him to see them subdued in thee Oh comfort him in renouncing them 2 Cor. 6.11.12.13 Thou knowest how to sting him and how to cheere his heart His honour and content rests in thy hand it is in thee to sadden or to solace him Be not so cruell as to destroy thine owne chiefe prop under God If he shall say O deare friend as you love me obey me in reforming and purging your family and children of their abuses their running out to drunken companies and unseasonable meetings their garish attires and proud fashions I tell you its your and my dishonour that in other things you seeme Religious but in these as loose as others Perhaps ye will not openly set up Mâ—y-poles and Morris-dauncings to fret me but you will suffer your servants to breake the Sabbath which your selves would seem to keep What shall we thinke of this Surely to say no more you shall give mee leave to know my friends from my foes in these your doings How can you say you love me Judg. 15.16 when your heart is not with me Urging of the Exhortation Brethren shew what kindnesse you please in other regards to your Minister pay him his dues send him what gratuities you will but know if he be a Minister of Christ the maine scope of his heart and pitch of his ambition is to sit neer your hearts in the power of his commands and Ministery Tokens of our love to the Minister in other kinds are no markes of sound love except obedience follow all other things are but the killing him with kindnesse and breaking of his head to give him a plaister if you obey not from the heart love is alway content to be taught and to obey not to teach or prescribe be content then to love him as he from God shall appoint thee and not as thou thy self wouldest and put case thou shouldest perswade thy Minister thou lovest him by some other marks it were his folly to thinke so but it is neverthelesse thy sinne When thy Minister comes first to thee he findes thee a man of a double heart to God he strives to draw thee to sincerity and plainnesse he findes thee very ignorant and seekes to breed knowledge of God and thy selfe in thee he findes thee a man of an inconstant frame and not to be trusted or proud ambitious and vaine-glorious or perhaps contentious covetous stout wilfull and rebellious and labours to change thee thou saist thou lovest him Jerem. Doth his love then prevaile with thee to reforme these vices or art thou still the same man so that he may hope as soon to alter the skin of a Black-more as to alter them Then I say thou liest for thou lovest him not As that young man comming to Christ told him many things that he did and had done from his youth But our Saviour answers him yet one thing remaines Sell all and all is well so say I to thee in thy paying of tithes in thy friendly assistance and countenance thou dost well but one thing still remaines obey him and then it will appeare that the other are not done to blanch and daub over thine hypocrisie but from an heart of love and obedience I have
known some loose professors who have sought to exceed all other their neighbours in the love of a godly Preacher and who but they in their running riding assisting of him They have been as his right hand of trust and service But lo in a short time these fellows bewray that which lay secret to wit an uncleane covetous voluptuous heart and what then Surely all men see evidently that these clave to the Minister for their owne base ends and to conceale their vices A speciall watchword to all Ministers of God to beware how farre they engage themselves in the love of any professors A caveat to Ministers See Joh. 2.24.25 Ministers reproach themselves in ascribing too much and trusting too far such as they know not who make toward them in speciall relation Try them throughly in their obedience as well as their pretended love or else the time may come when as their basenesse shall discredit your persons and Ministery farre more then all their love could prevaile If when all is done they are so subtill that we cannot espy them the sinne shall be theirs wee have saved our owne soules and may wash our hands in innocency because we have done our duties When all is done therefore this will hold water if we obey Heb. 13. So saith the Apostle Obey them that are set over you And Paul I beare you witnesse you obeyed the forme of doctrine delivered unto you And againe you received our doctrine not as the word of man but as the word of God Every good hearer should say to his Minister as Elisha did to Gehazi 2 King 5. end Went not thy spirit with me when I ranne after the man So did not the spirit of my faithfull Pastor goe with me when I was in such a company recreation or worldly businesse Me thought it curbed me from lightnesse and vanity from deceit from sinning in my tongue or in any disguisement of intemperancy or cousenage or covetousnes to think if he now saw me how should I be ashamed to do thus Oh! he loves me tenderly my souls welfare and should I grieve him thus 2 Cor. 3.2 This is indeed to be the Epistle of the Minister written in our hearts approving our love unto him to purpose Not that there is not a stronger motive then this to awe and draw people from good to evill for there is an holy Spirit of annointing which is given to all good ones which hath shed the love of Christ into their hearts and filled them with the length and bredth of it this should hem in the soules of beleevers for so the word is 2 Cor. 5.7 and compell them to watch over themselves This must bee the chiefe Monitor in the Schoole of Christ If the voice of this great Prophet be not obeyed for it selfe the voice of the servant as he is called Esay 50. will be little worth For what wonder if they disobeyed the voice of Moses the messenger of God Heb. 2.2.3 who rebelled against that holy Spirit which set him on worke and vexed it all those forty yeares as it is Esay 63.11 No it must be the spirit of the Master which must make his Steward esteemed The love of the Lord Jesus must make the love of the Minister compulsive else it will prove nothing but slavish feare or to avoid base shame as we see in many a drunkard or swearer who for the presence sake of a sinfull man will for an houre or two bite in their qualities which yet they tremble not to commit in the presence of God all the yeare long Conclude this point then and say I pretend love to my Minister how shall I demonstrate it really As Cornelius did Act. 10. It s said he fell downe and tooke Peter by the feet in token of excessive love and respect But what was this all No surely But this that he tells him They were all ready to hearken to whatsoever the Lord said unto them by him This was a sure marke love and feare make reverence and thence comes obedience When love is solid it workes by feare and causes a loathnesse to doe any thing which might grieve the Minister it sits like Mary at the feet of the Minister ready to obey And that not onely in slight matters to remove some sinne which may be spared 1 Sam. 15. as Saul that killed the leane cattell and the baser sort of Amalek but even the belovedst lust and most pretious vice even the fat cattell and the King himselfe True love abhorres common evidence its painfull it will be singular and aske Matth. 5.47 Joh. 21. what singular thing doe I to approve my love When our Saviour would try Peters love he askes him Lovest thou me more then these As some think he meant of his nets occupation as others of his fellow Apostles Both will do well Love thy Minister by obeying more then others yea love him more then thy nets thy beloved trade thy lusts which bring thee in the greatest gaine thy sweet usury thy gaming thy deceit which others who love him not would as soone lose their lives as forgoe The forfeit of these will import strongly that thou lovest not him for any by respect but as he is a Minister of God I remember a story of Pope Pius the fifth one that was reputed as humble as a proud Pope might be who being told of a base fellow that had much abused him in a Pasquill answered I sustaine two persons one of a poore Monk another of Christs Vicar if thou hast railed upon me as a Monk I pardon thee if as Pope I must punish thee So there is no true Minister of Christ who lookes at himselfe as a man but at the honour of him whose servant he is and to whom he desires all the peoples obedience should be derived Try therefore whether thy lusts can draw thee stronglier then he if two loadstones draw both together the iron will goe to the strongest So let thy love goe to him from thy lust Fleire not in his face nor beare him faire in hand when as yet thine heart goes another way Doe nothing behinde his backe which thou wouldest not doe before him In all thy doubtfull matters consult with him let him come within thy bosome know thy secrets and hide nothing from him wherein he can informe thee for he is for God and Christ 1 Cor. 5.20 as a faithfull Embassadour for thy good Doth he tell thee O my friend I perceive your zeale quales shrewdly in this Laodicean age you heare oft but sleep much at Sermons you jangle so much of earthly businesse upon the Sabbath that I feare you meditate little Or you are zealous but you grow not in knowledge wisdome tendernesse to manage your zeal aright from rashnesse and censoriousnes Or you are noted to be full of words or a busie body Or you are given to flout and jeere when you are in company Or you are bold to
dally with women Or you are too idle in your calling and runne up and downe needlesly Or you faile in compassion to the poore or doe small good with that you have you are hard and sore in dealings or make no conscience of keeping promise in all which respects the Gospel suffers and the Lord with your own credit and Ministery lye at the stake I beseech you if you love me as you professe to doe amend these I say obey him in all and be earnest with God and him to make thy love effectuall herein that thou maiest appeare not to love in word but in deed and truth And so much for this Exhortation And for the Minister one word let me adde Vse ult Ministers must love only for procuring obedience to the truth That which in the greene tree is not to be suffered how much lesse in the dry If people must not equivocate with their Minister much lesse may he with them Doe not seeke favour with the people and seeme to love them to any other ends save to draw them to obey thy Doctrine If thou wilt needs seem great with them improve al thine interest for God and their good Seeke not to idolize thy selfe in any mans heart and affections for thine own ends that thou mightst either magnifie thy person above other Ministers or get the reputation of some great person as Magus did or enlarge thine estate and preferments But in all let it appeare 2 Cor. 12.14 that thou seekest them not theirs and as a servant of Christ thou seekest to set up him though with thine owne abasement As thou usest thy selfe so will it appeare in thy course what thou aimest at and if once people smell what thou seekest thou shalt both draw flatterers enough as being meet covers for thy cup and deterre all that make conscience from honouring thee from the heart For why Under colour of serving thy Master thou tradest for thy selfe and discoverest thy self to bee a meer Sycophant not caring which end goes forward so thou canst worke thine owne ends Not much unlike those timeservers the Princes of Ioash who came and did him great homage but why To draw his heart from God to Idolls and their owne purposes and those leaguers in France in King Henry the fourth his time for the aliening of his heart from the Protestant Religion which proved the ruine of them both But of this in the next Argument Lastly here is Consolation to all such as second their affection to the Vse 4 Minister of God with entire and sincere obeying his voice Comfort Thou canst doe little for thy Minister perhaps but this thou doest thou obeyest him It s a signe unto thee that thy love is sincere unto him and which is better to the Lord himselfe to the message he brings nay it s a signe thy heart is in love with the truths of God his commands threats and promises It argues thou lovest all the Ministers of God without dissimulation or partiality a rate gift and hardly found for each man will have his owne Paul Cephas or Apollo Nay to conclude 1 Cor. 3.4 it s a signe that there are many graces in thee saith purging thy conscience humility and selfe-deniall all saving gaces This obeying is above all sacrifices and fat of lambes yea more to be rejoyced in then so many Jewells Could but I prove this in you my beloved who throng to heare and looke me in the face to pull out my words out of my mouth I should not need to comfort you or praise you Matth. 11.19 Wisdome is justified by her children your selves should praise you in the gates though I were silent Luke 1. And as the babe sprang in the wombe of Elizabeth when Mary came neare her so should your hearts leap in your bosomes while you heare me speake and as those two Disciples going to Emmeus Luke 22. so should you beare me witnesse this day and say Did not our hearts burne within us while he applied his doctrine But well may this use come in the last place for they are fewest whom it may truly concerne And so much for this second Argument of the Servants drawne from his love to the Prophet Now I come to the Third And that is couched closely but effectually in these words How much more when he saith unto thee 3. Argument The sincerity of the Prophet Wash and be cleane As if they should say Alas What seekes the Prophet in all this his charging thee to wash in Jorden What doth he expect a reward of thee Doubtlesse then he would not so effectedly have kept in and refused to talke with thee he would then have sought thy face as a Prince bringing great gifts flattered and fawned on thee for his owne vantage But now behold Explication of the ground he simply and sincerely tells thee Gods message looking at nothing else That which he urges is nakedly this that for thine owne good thou mightst wash and be cleane If he had sought from thee some great matter for himselfe though no doubt thou wouldest easily have yeelded to that also yet then he might with more colour have beene suspected But now since he hath no further reach then thy cure and welfare entirely desiring thy good and loath to see thee returne home with thy disease why shouldest thou not yeeld to him and wash Shall he seeme more heartily to wish thy happinesse then thou thine owne That were to be doubly blindefolded with passion neither to see his love nor to wish thine owne good This being their argument it affords us this observation Sincerity in a counsellor claimes acceptance That its a strong motive to all who are not perversly led by their own self-love to hearken to counsell when it shall appeare that he who gives it is sincerely affected to the party counselled without any respect to his owne advantage And in very deed it is that argument by which throughout the Scriptures the holy Ghost pleads audience 1 Sam. 12.3 Samuel being to urge the Israelites to repent and return againe into covenant with God and to contest with them for their Rebellion beginnes with this argument Behold here I am witnesse against me before the Lord Whose Oxe or Asse have I taken Whom have I defrauded or oppressed Of whose hands have I taken bribes to blinde mine eies q. d. If it were thus my mouth might be stopt in my conviction The Apostle Paul Act. 20.31.23.34 being to presse those Elders of Ephesus to tread in his steps and to conceale nothing of Gods truth from his Church urges his owne patterne I have coveted no mans silver gold nor apparell yea your selves know that these hands have ministred unto my necessities and to yours who have been with me and by this rule he bids them proceed pleading that golden speech of Christ It s a more blessed thing to give then receive The same Apostle 2 Cor.
our pleasure If they see that we are all for gold and gaine little caring for a flocke save for the fleece raking all from them to fill our purses and coffers and letting their soules goe to hell I pray tell me will they care for our preachings or counsells If wee shall now and then come in with a quaint Sermon or two and speake like Angels shall our counsell prevaile When they see our lives will they heare our words Shall not some poore simple Preacher far inferiour to us in learning or parts sway more with the conscience then a thousand such as we Cease therefore our owne base ends doe not fret against them who are above us in honesty but equall them in sincerity and then wee our gifts and counsells shall beginne to perswade and as a needle draw the thred of conviction after them Feed we the flocke of Christ not of constraint for base lucre or our owne ends but of a ready minde and then the worke will succeed and prosper 1 Pet. 5.4 Parliament men 〈◊〉 Patriots The like I may say to such as when occasion serves are employed in weighty matters of Church Common-wealth I am perswaded there be many good Patriots in this Land who wish well to the publicke good but what is that which hath hitherto hindred Simil. They say there is a fish called therefore Echeneis which will take hold of a ship and stop the passage of it And there is a weed whins I thinke which will cause the plow which rends up most weeds to stand still and I thinke no lesse but that this selfe-love is the fish and weed which hath thus long in secret prejudiced the effect of our Parliaments where Sages sit to consult but they have not cast out this Davus as I may call it which disturbs all such and such abuses I could reforme thinkes one and seeke to reduce improptiations to the right of the Church but then I must restore many my self and that will pinch Such Lawes I could wish but then perhaps I should be the first that should suffer If such a Minister were in my Parish as made conscience he would spy out my base wayes and reprove them and then I should be noted and so it were better to live under a worse that I may still sleepe in a whole skin The truth is this selfe-love is the canker which ruines States and Common-wealths whiles each man lookes at the consequence of good Lawes not at their goodnesse what hurt will redound to my name and state not what good may accrew to the publicke And hence it is that although for their owne liberties and the outward welfare of the subject each one is ready to strike in yet for those things which concerne the honour of God the welfare of his Gospell and purging out abuses they are fearefull to medle Oh they feare they shall hereby bring their names in question and thus private ends crosse the publicke Oh if men in authority had sincerity sutable the North winde doth not so drive away raine as they might suppresse sin And when inferiours perceive the honest bent of governours to make and execute Lawes neither turning to the right hand nor the left neither looking at flattery feare or foolish pitty Oh how would they quaile and tremble If in our Townes and families it were thus that Headborrowes would consult and governe according to this rule not looking at their owne ends a squint but with a single eye what might not be done Whereas the most like well a good order and punishing of the unruly in generall till it come to my sonne daughter servant tenant or kinsman and then they have the disease in the nose called touch me not then their wine is water and their silver tin and their zeale turnes to ashes Others love and like order but they will not stir themselves they love to spare their travell their purses or the note of others they love ease and thereby sinne goes unpunished or foolish pitty marres the City and sinne growes so rife by custome that its past remedy To conclude if husbands would sincerely counsell their wives Husbands and Parents without selfe respects and parents their children and Masters their servants what housholds should we have But when husbands are affraid to distaste their wives and chuse rather to endure ill fashions the losse of the worship of God in family then displeasure of their wives parents chuse rather to lay the bridle on their childrens neckes then to crosse them seeking their owne ease with their ruine as Ely and David did and Masters care not how servants spend the Sabbath or carry themselves so their worke goe forward how should it be chosen but God and Religion must be cast out of the family So much shall serve for Admonition Vse 4 Next whereto as I conceive Exhortation may be added That as I have warn'd them against base respects Exhortation to sincerity in Counsell so I might perswade all sorts and especially such as whose counsell amounts to the greatest good or deepest evill to sincerity and faithfulnesse And once againe my brethren Ministers consider you shall never be able to convince by the sincerity of truth and the word till you adde sincerity of conscience and intention of the peoples good Evidence of truth from God and evidence of sincerity for God must as Aaron and Hur alway prop up your Ministery on both sides as Moses arme from flagging Ministers doe not alway prevaile when they doe thus but never when they doe otherwise Act. 26.27 Excellent was that speech of Paul to Agrippa Oh I desire that thou wert not almost but altogether as I am excepting my bands He wishes him well with integrity of love So thou were a through Christian let the chaine rest upon me I seek thy soul no ease to my self I know there be many of us who have shot those gulfes which I spake of in the Use before And I know that we would many of us abhor to crooke the rule of Truth to flatter others in their lewdnesse and sinne for our owne bellies hopes or purposes and to hold correspondence with our betters by corrupt consciences I know we dare not to curry favour and shunne the opinion of singularity sow pillowes under mens elbows cry peace peace in their ears against the word which were to put out theirs and their owne eyes both Matth. 23. ◠Jam. ult that both leader and led might fall into the pit But yet there is even in us another dreg of Selfe to bee purged out We are men of passion as Elia was and when the Divell sees that we will close with our calling be painfull or that we will not easily be seduced to open ambition epicurisme company pleasures and covetousnesse all which nourish false ends then he hath another bait for us That we may couch Selfe under our best reproofes and sometime pitch upon them with
and it shall not be restored Nay the Lord Jesus our great Prophet hath even stript and emptied himself of all his excellency and glory to make us rich and glorious Philip. 2.5 He craves nothing of us in all his counsells and dispensations but to beleeve and be saved he sought not to please himselfe but us even to be murthered for enemies if we obey him to be sure he hath deserved it doubtlesse for the base and ungodly none would dye But when we could not profit him but were traitors hee shed his bloud for us all to breake our hearts Give him but faith and obedience and take the fat of Rams to thy selfe he taskes thee not to the cost of Jewish worship or Popish wast Doe but maintaine his Ministers and poore Saints and there is all he tyes thee too Oh then if thou heare not the voice of this Prophet so faithfull in all his house who seeks thine ends in his owne how shalt thou be able to stand before him Oh! thou shouldest stoope and say Lord thine honour and ends shall be dearer to me then mine owne salvation And thy Ministers shall prevaile the rather for thy sake for they urge us to be reconciled in thy Name Vse 6 To draw therefore to an end let this be Instruction to all that enjoy the mercy of a sincere Minister and Counsellor 2. Branch Thinke not that God doth enjoine him to be faithfull and leave you to your liberty to bee hollow to looke between the fingers and to escape in a mist except you get an heart of candor and simplicity it will little boot him to teare his tongue to the stumps and kill his spirits in plaine reproofe and counsell No as I told you in the former Doctrine so now shortly I touch upon it and hasten to an end Doe as those Dutch did to their new elected Prince of Orange present a sincere Minister with a sincere heart better then that golden open heart which there I spake of as rich as it was A man may be faithfull and yet mistaken by unfaithfull hearers Therefore let people also be meet and apt tinder to take this sparkle People must be sincere and open to receive counsell 1 Pet. 2.1 and kindle by it let them bring all ingenuity and humblenesse of heart to embrace it that so it may be well bestowed else he doth well but thou shalt pay for it To this end take Saint Peters counsell Casting away all superfluity of maliciousnesse prejudice distemper and envy As new borne babes covet the sincere milke of the word that you may grow thereby Receive it as it is it is sincere and take it sincerely His similitude is very pithy Simil. A new borne babe looks simply and only at the milke that it may be nourished and grow Though it bee the child of a Prince and sucke the brest of a meane nurse yet it turnes not away in disdaine but takes the brest without any more adoe So I say to you Take heed of curiosity conceits partiality fulsomenesse if the milke and nurse be both cleer and sincere descant not but like a babe covet and embrace it to thrive and grow by it Alas what should it boot thee to conceit that the Minister means thee worse then he speaks Or what should it boot him to doe so If his words may beare a good as well as a bad construction why shouldest thou fasten a bad Is it not an heathenish sinne Rom. 1. to construe all in the worst part Ezek. 18. If he do ill and I take it well my bloud not be shed but if his counsells be sincere and I perverse my soule shall pay for it Rather thinke although he should not be sincere yet the reproofe is just rather then cavill against him being upright however if thou be sincere to thy head it shall be as balme for to snort in thy sinne were deadly Psal 141.5 And say that a Minister should erre on which side were it better for thee to erre whether in smiting thy impostume or smoothing thee Once an enemy wounded the side of another that fought with him and let out a sore which neither love nor money could doe Put case thou wert under the Ministery of a dawber and flatterer Poore peoplâ— have a prâ—viledge above the rich in this that they be reproved were it not a plague It is not the priviledge that meane persons have above the noble the great and mighty that the former may have sincere counsell when the other cannot come by it It is not their commodity but thine though it were to be wisht to be theirs most of all but alas it is denied them They cannot say as forelorne Nero did have I neither foe nor friend to stab me For they have enemies to kill them by flattery but few friends to wound them in love As of late it appeared in a great man being in discontent who visited a Minister and desired counsell from him The Minister dealing very roundly and home with him the Gentleman wondred professing that no friend in the world had ever said so much to him and thanked him for it This argues that great ones meet with little plaine dealing If it be then the priviledge of the meaner sort to be sincerely counselled who should bee such a foole as to forfeit it by his frowardnesse Put case that sincerity see cause to deale more roughly and sharply with us then we expected and put some vinegar into our sores yet we know that milke sodden well â—â—ough it run over is better then raw so it is better to be told of our 〈◊〉 too much then murthered with flattery say we therefore to a sincere Minister loving friend here is my heart hand and all I am as thou art and my horses as thine mine heart is as open to reproof and counsell as thine is to give it I dare not nourish a lowring heart against thee Lastly this affords Consolation to all sincere Counsellors For why Vse 7 Their counsell is not frothy and light in the ballance but weighty deserving audience 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 Counâ—â—â—â—â—â—â—â—â—b Let them therefore count it their requitall to themselves in that their vertue is in it self contentfull For why A faithfull counsellor shall be honoured at last more then a flatterer whose words goe downe into the bowells to rot them when as the other heale the inward parts What although sincerity is justled to the walls hated pursued to the death As Iohns plainnesse by Herod Micaja's by Ahab I doubt not but when the arrowes stucke in Ahabs sides Micaja was honoured first or last it will be so There is none so desperate but at a time they adore sincerity and call it a jewell Even our very enemies being Judges our faithfulnesse is honourable Let us therefore hold on our practice and not be discouraged Had these servants thinke we any cause to repent them of their counsell when they saw him cured
is one Heb. 4.13 to whom all things are open and manifest his word is quicke and as a two edged spirit dividing betweene the soule and spirit the joints and marrow the thoughts and intents of the heart Dally not therfore with him It s fearfull to fall into his hands He will not spare us but will punish our sins And Heb. 10.31 if we call him father who judgeth without respect of persons 1. Pet. 1.17 passe we the whole time of our dwelling here in feare For our God is a consuming fire This in generall In speciall The command of the Gospell to beleeve in Christ is most solemnly to be â—beyed make conscience of the most solemne command of the Gospel to beleeve in the Lord Jesus close with this command It is the most soveraigne and indispensable of all other Obey this and obey all for in this stands the obedience to all the rest The Lord hath ingaged all his glory and honour upon this one That the most vile miserable sinner living who is willing to come in with his load pinching him to hell shall finde ease Whether it seeme so or no this is the truth he hath purposed to magnifie all his Attributes in shewing mercy to such an one He will have it knowne that he can doe that which flesh cannot even love the most hatefull enemy in the world that is weary of his enmity This he hath set down with himselfe from eternity in time hath declared it to his Church by giving his justice a full discharge in the blood of his Sonne Hee is the upshot of promises and therfore looks that he be beleeved yea for a recompence hereof that he hath made all Yea and Amen in him 2 Cor. 1.20 Joh. 3.33 he desires but to be beleeved counting them that doe so to seale that he is true and calling the rest lyers Consult not now with flesh and reason Say not that this word is farre from thee Rom. 10.8 it is neere thee it is offered and pin'd to thy sleeve Esay 1. Luke 5.7 that thou mightst beleeve it consent and obey this and the worst is past As Peter sayd to Christ At thy command I will cast in though I have cast all night and catcht nothing So say thou I have long traded with mine owne inventions devotions and duties but now at thy command I will try what thy promise is worth and cast my selfe wholly upon it for pardon grace and life If I perish I perish Venture so and prosper Secondly proceed to other commands The same Lord of commands bids us love one another for love fulfilleth the Law Joh. 14. Jam. 3. 1 Tim. 1. All other commands issue from faith the end thereof being love out of a pure and good conscience and love unfained Feare this command also The person of man who is thy immediate object of love may perhaps seeme contemptible to thee for what can he doe unto thee whether thou love or love not But he that made thee and him too and hath planted you both in the body of his Church under Christ the head he it is who bids thee love thy neighbour love him by reproofe and murther him not love him by counsell example admonition compassion lowre not upon him curb selfe-love passion indignation wrath envie revenge slighting of him disdaining him Thinke with thy selfe it is not for nought that all the commands are said to bee done in this one of Love Thinke not that all shall be well if thou canst but beleeve in Christ Matth. 25. know that the Lord Jesus himselfe who will call for faith at his comming Luke 18.8 will call for love also The want of love and the due carriage of thy heart toward others is a spirituall solemne command of the Gospel as well as faith and one day will appeare to be so when God shall call thee to the Barre and convince thee how little fruit of love hath ever proceeded from thee Therefore close with this charge also look not upon man but upon that God who hath bound thee to him by this chain of love and who will hold himselfe wronged in the violation of it lay a more solemne charge upon thy spirit in this kinde then ever and feele thy soule to lye under the authority of this command as well as the former And what more should I say From these two well-springs proceed all the streames of Commands concerning God Man and thy selfe Hence issueth a Command of a close keeping the Sabbath ordering thy conversation aright Eph. 5.15 Jam. 1. ult hence comes that charge of walking circumspectly as wise keeping thy selfe unspotted of the world Hence it is that thou art forbidden to have thy course in covetousnesse to have any fellowship with the unfruitfull workes of darknesse Hence also it is that thou art bidden Redeeme the season Heb. 13.5 Eph. 5.11.16 Mat. 16.26 1 Pet. 3.9 Walke wisely toward them who are without To take up thy crosse daily to deny thy selfe to live by faith to sanctifie God in thine heart and make him thy feare And the like I might say of the rest for it were endlesse to speake of all Conceive of them all as comming from one rule of righteousnesse And know it hee that requires one urges all Perhaps thou wouldst thinke it equall to obey the Magistrate obey thy Parents keep the Sabbath but know it the same God commands thee to preach in season and our to execute the righteous judgements of God to be subject to thy husband to teach thy children the feare of God These are speciall ones and lesse welcome but if thou obey not them thou doest but play fast and loose with God in the generals For all sound obedience to God is equall and uniforme I know what flesh will say T is tedious to be so tied and tasked to be held to it from day to day never out say not I could be content to fast and pray one day to redeeme liberty for many I could walk close for a Sabbath so I might be mine owne man all the weeke But know that the law of love takes no thought for continuance it is no violent compulsion as a slave to ply his worke but as naturall as for the fire to burne or the sparkes to flye upward Let the Law bee once written in thy heart Jer. 31.31 and it will teach thee holy wisedome love and delight to accommodate and apt thy selfe to each one in speciall equally and constantly Simile The Law and Art of musick in the minde acts the fingers ends to such a nimblenesse and presentnesse of service as is admirable And if the writing of letters and characters upon Fringes and Frontlets were so powerfull as to prompt a man to the obedience of each occasion what then is the law of grace written in each faculty of the minde and will in the reines and the spirit of the Soule But here I cease
a mercifull and skilfull Physitian Tell me now what man or woman is there living who having such a cure of such a Physitian would or could or hath the heart to turne away from him like a blocke insensible and â—naffected wâ—th such a favour There is no such man breathing I thinke But this is common if any get such a rare cure all is too little to make recompense though he should sell himselfe to his shirt he hath no power to do other he thinkes the same evill would take him then If he see that no reward will fasten upon the Physitian but he will needs bestow it freely the more his purse is discharged the closer his heart is knit his affections are up in armes his tongue is loosed Oh! what love is this what moved his heart thus to me what a man of men is he what admiration have I him in O how I love him what is there which I would not do for him run ride spend for him suffer for him expose my selfe to any hazard maintaine his quarrell by any weapon O how he commends him in all companies and blazeth his name farre and wide till he have raised up as great fame abroad as reputation at home Aske him why he doth so he will answer That I am I am under God by him I was a dead man worse I could not be he hath restored mee to health and I am better I thinke then ever I was and therefore I must alway count him my preserver I remember in the Roman story I have read of a certaine spectacle upon the Circk or Theatre of Rome where among other sports condemned persons were to fight for their lives with wild beasts it fell out so that a man before time passing through the wildernesse met with a lyon And looking for no other then death fell downe for feare An illustration of the point But the poore Lion approached to him with much moane and held out his foote to the man which foot of his by reason of a thorn or some such like thing sticking deep therein had so rankled and swell'd that it was like to hazard the lyons life The man with all his Art and skill fell to his Surgery and so wrought that he pull'd out the thorne out of the Lyons foote by the rootes The poore beast feeling her aile and danger gone fawnes upon the poore man and makes all the love that a dumbe creature could possibly to him leads him out of the forrest and there leaves him and sets him at liberty It was the lot of this lyon after to be taken and to be sent to Rome for a present and it was the worse lot of the man to commit a great Robbery and being condemned to the Theatre to fight what lyon must be brought forth to fight with this man but this lyon The man all amort and despairing of life this preserved lyon knowes his Surgeon comes to him fawnes upon him again and by no meanes could be pull'd from the mans side and embraces but to bring the man to mind of the cause he puts forth his foot heal'd of the thorne The people defeated of their expectation turn'd their sporting humour into admiration asking the caytiffe the reason of so marvellous an accident The man publiquely opens the history as it were wrought whereupon cruelty being turn'd into astonishment pity they decreed a statue to be set up in the Market place for eternall memory of the fact of a Lyon embracing a man over the Lyons head with this title Behold a Lyon the saviour of a man over the mans head Behold a man the Physitian of a Lyon I have beene too long but the workes of God are not to be neglected I would but shew you the spirit of a cure even in a dumbe creature what then is it in a reasonable But what comparison is there betweene either and the spirit of cure in the spirituall soule and conscience converted Oh! no tongue can utter it onely we may admire it Proofes of the Doctrine 1 In examples Examples in our Saviours story we have many of the spirit of bodily cures How many did our Saviour cure of whom it is said he was faine to charme them from telling it abroad yet they could not but so much the more blazed it to make him famous Others were no sooner healed but arose and ministred unto him others could not so part with him but followed him But one of all others will best serve our turne and that is the blind man Joh. 9. Ioh. 9. who though he had but poore seede sowne in him of any faith as appeares after yet from this spirit of the cure of his blindnesse did strange things magnifyed Christ call'd him a Prophet wondred that those who had their eyes should not know him when the enemies of Christ like hornets came about his eares to deface the miracle and the doer of it yet strong was the spirit of this cure in the man that he could not endure their malice though he knew their spite and rage and the danger of it as well as his parents yet he would not spare them an inch What saith hee 12 13 14 15 16. verses Will ye be his Disciples That were fitter for you then to smother such a miracle From the beginning of the world to this day was it never heard of that any opened the eies of the blind Oh! how it affected him Surely it might have become one of his strongest Apostles thus to have defended him But the spirit of a cure and the love of such is stronger then death at least then Excommunication And when the Lord Jesus met him he added the spirit of a better cure and of conversion These hints I have given you for familiar explication of the nature of that I speake of But to leave these let mee come to the Doctrine it selfe to ground it out of the Word to give you a few Reasons and so come we to Use 2. Grounds of the Scripture Ier. 2.2 3 4. For the first of these read Jerem. 2.2 I remember thee and the kindnesse of thy youth and of thine espousals when thou wentest after mee in the wildernesse c. He speakes of that first marriage love which passed betweene himselfe and his people who tooke it kindly that God had brought them out of Egypt bondage and the red Sea and made a song of his mercies and were found of him so many at least as knew him aright Noting that this first love is as precious to God as early fruits of the spring apples peares plums pease or the like are to the taste of man as being the most pure and dainty of all Zach. 12.10 And that which Zachary in Ch. 12.10 calls the spirit of grace compassions and mourning is sutable hereto by which the grace of God uttered it selfe in those who were converted as we see it fulfilled in the Church Act. 2. who
questions Prayers confessions and the like who doth not wish himselfe in their case except it be some errant blocke who discovers his brutishnesse all are ravisht to see such early beginnings The Lord knowes the fittest way to worke upon men Sooner will a young novice by his active spirit of the cure stir up others then some solid and grave Disciples because the spirit of the one is more stirring active and drawing than the other Fourthly there is in the cure of the soule converted to God Reas 4 such an irresistible power and impotencie From that irresistible power of Grace in the soule especially in the first turning home of it that there is no choaking quenching or damping of it It resembles her originall Seed leaven mustard-seed are things of an active and encreasing nature Leaven in a little while will sowre all the lump Hence are those expressions of the Saints Thy Word was in mee as coales of fire in my bosome Can a man carry them there and not be burnt I would have kept in thy words saith David but such was the nature of them that they would not be concealed I had no rest nor peace till I had uttered them to Congregations Peter could not hold Christ in his bosome till he had uttered himselfe to Nathaniel That woman of Samaria had fire in her bosome when she went to tell her kindred citizens the news of Christs discourse The love of God workes in the breasts of his Saints as it first wrought in his owne he having conceived it once could not cease till it had discovered it selfe to poore sunken Adam and hee would rather chuse to make his onely Sonne a Masse shame then he would not expresse it Even such is the same love having once wrought in them it is as the new wine in the caske which must have vent or else it will breake It is like Josephs affection to Benjamin all must be had out from him Gen. 45.14 and he must utter himselfe to him and fall upon his neck with a kisse and teares The newer any thing is the more forcible So is it with love The Apostle hath a sweet word to expresse it The love of Christ constraines us 2 Cor. 5. The word signifies 2 Cor. 5.14 gathers us up together as a beast hemmed in a Pinfold hath an appetite after liberty so the spirit of love finds it selfe straitned till it breake out And 1 Cor. 13. love is bountifull and working 1 Cor. 5. full of affection hopeth all things endureth all things and the like The fifth God is the God of order and loves sutablenesse of Reas 5 Age and Temper youth naturally is hot and full of expressions God is the God of order it is comely for young ones to be so their lusts were so before grace therefore grace must be so also I restraine not this heat to meere youth for if God do convert elder ones as Naaman there is a spirituall youth or first age even in them also grace at the first is most operative be the yeares what they may be but especially when grace falls upon tender yeares as for the most part that is the season ere the soule be sapped in lewd customes then it quickens those hot spirits which it meets with to singular expressions Reas 6 Lastly by this spirit the Lord provides matter and argument of convincement For the due convincement of such as after may wax luke-warme and loose and inward checke for time to come if at any time his people shall revolt from this grace of first conversion The Lord knowes our mold and fashion just Psal 103. We seem at our first setting forth to the journey so trimme and so prepared that no troubles nor difficulties shall daunt our resolution But by that time wee have travelled a while what with the ill way what with ill weather bad successe and what with our owne weary and crazie spirits within we waxe unto ward and stagger whether we should goe forward or no. The Lord knowes how many waies this first spirit of the cure flagges and wanzes in us sometimes the abundance of iniquity causes the love of many to waxe cold this degenerate formall world is ready to quench our spirit the presidents of many zealous and painfull professors who are turned drunkards uncleane worldlings Epicures and sinfull wretches 2 Pet. 3. ult do shake us The errour of the wicked puls us from our stedfastnesse feare of some men flattery of others but especially a cursed heart on the one side giddie presuming venturous on the otherside slavish fearfull and distrustfull distempers us so that although we keep from grosse evils yet we are far from that frame of zeale closenesse and watching which we have found onely peace from Now when it falls out thus and that crosses debts ill marriage care of children and other disguisements come upon the necke of the other then is the Lord faine to step in and take us to taske to upbraid us and cast us in teeth with our first spirit of cure our early first love sweet affections covenants humble feare watchfull care diligent paines zealous spirit Luk. 23.31 What was this done in the greene tree and shall it not be done in the dry What shall first beginnings shame thee Didst thou begin in the spirit if yet thou didst so and wilt thou now end in the flesh Oh! is there not enough in that never dying spirit of an immortall hope of salvation to carry thee on in thy poore course with equalnesse of affection Say the edge be a little blunted what is metall gone too is the steele worne out of the backe That first spirit of sound joy in God should by this day have bred in thy belly a welspring of water flowing to eternall life Oh! for shame strengthen the weary hands Heb. 12.13 and feeble knees and correct the crooked that it turne not out of the way Thus the Lord charmes a declining spirit by an experiment of her owne and brings her backe with sorrow and shame to her former temper So much for Reasons Use 1 Now for Use first is the spirit of a true Convert thus zealous for God This then teacheth us a difference of cures and that all are not alike for there are many to be sure farre from this temper and frame of spirit Instruction with an item Not every cure hath such a stroake in the soule of a man thus to change qualifie and act his spirit to and for the Lord. And all to teach us to try our spirits and to be afraid to rest in any base counterfeit cures which afford none of this life and operation Who doth not now a dayes boast himselfe to have gotten this through cure Counterfeit cures very common in the world true cures rare If once baptized and professe the Gospell it is treason in these dayes to put a difference betweene men Alas yee poore wretches
if it would if thy owne hopes workes or selfe could have reacht such a generation in vaine should the Lord have beene at all that cost when he brought forth his eternall Sonne into the world to die for it to shed his blood for it that it might become the seed of his Church by the Ministrie of the Word Deceive not thy selfe in this triall which is very easie to doe except God give thee an heart inquisitive willing to be resolved and earnestly craving that thou mayest not be deceived Secondly try thy spirit of Grace by the operations of it As the principle is so will the operations be By the operations of it Abishag may nourish David while there is any naturall heat left in him but if that faile she can put no life into him Adorne a dead King with a Scepter and Crowne and all his Robes Alas it will make a good Pageant 2 Sam. 1.2 3. but all is lost labour Trie then what the fruits of that spirit are which thou hast if they be such as flow from an outward accidentall cause violent and over-ruling they will faile when that cause ceaseth to worke But if thy hope joy and peace be from within let outward meanes and motives either continue or cease still thy operations will abide and flow sweetly currantly cheerfully from thee Water taken off the coales ceaseth to seeth yea growes colder then at first A sive held in the water holds it as well as a bucket corke held downe under water will sinke as well as lead But if the one be taken out and the other be left to her selfe all returnes to the old course So is it here A curious Philosopher once framed an engine of metall in the forme of a man and brought it to such perfection that it could jabber and patter out some words but one that beheld it cryed out Oh faire skull without braines As in mans body all true operations of life and sense to move to worke to sleepe eate and the l ke come from a principle of life and so serve the soule even so here Operations must not be the principle it selfe but onely belong to it but if they be the principle it selfe they are a false principle He that commends a Preacher because his friends love him 2 Chron. 24 16. as Joash served God while Jehoiada lived hath no love in his heart and therefore may hate his service after as he did He that cleaves to good company to hearing to profession for a vantage of his owne reputation to get good custome in trading or a good match or to serve his owne turne or keepe some of his own heat having no other Principle must needs turne bankrupt for lacke of a stock of his owne And the misery of such a one is Note That he heares prayes and worships that he might heare pray and no further from no hottome and so his operation becomes his principle Of all such wee may say such a principle will surely breed their ruine either their eternall ruine if no outward affronts intercept their course or else both ruine here and for ever if crosses come For why they do as a foole who commits himselfe to the seas in a broken Barge When means faile when Ministery ceaseth when it becomes a reproach to professe when false friends draw away the heart when suffring for the Gospell comes losses trials and troubles approach then all Religion vanishes No hypocrite can be above Gods stormes and tempests especially if a right wind blow it will be turn'd up by the rootes Every wind perhaps will not search each rotten tree 2 Tim. 4. but some one or other will The mind of the world searcht Demas the wind of pride and ambition Diotrephes The wind of secret lusts turne of some 3 Ioh. 8. the wind of affliction others and the wind of time and continuance will search deepest of all for a stone can flye no further then the strength of the hand which threw it will carry it Therefore be sure that the operations of goodnesse which come from thee proceed not from a false principle but from the spirit of grace Thirdly trie this spirit of grace by the constituion and frame thereof that is by the soundnesse of it Unsoundnesse of spirit Try it by the fâ—ame soundnesse of it cannot reach that which soundnesse can For why The best in an unsound person are his Negatives reall positive and habituall grace he cannot attaine unto So farre as a negative way may go an unsound heart may attaine To side with religion as good to deny himselfe in many things for it and to suffer somewhat from some confessed excellencie therein deserving it or some light restraint example or ends may be an unsound hearts condition but positively and really to lay the honour of God to heart inwardly to love that he commands to grieve for the sin of such as resist it inwardly to sympathize the furtherance of it that is beyond him The reason is because his love is not from union but from an adherence or hanging by in judgement or pangs of affection Take two examples It is said that two sorts strove for David to be their Kings the ten Tribes of Israel and the two other Tribes There was more Negative spirit in the ten then in the two Why say they should not David be more ours then yours we are ten and you are but two wee have ten parts in him we can conferre more honour upon him and give him more subsidies then you and many good morrows But whence came all this from shame and pride that they should be backwarder to fetch him home then the rest But the positive grace of love to David came from Juda and Benjamin for why he was bone of their bone he was their flesh Nature strove in them 2 Sam. 19.43 humor in the other their words therefore were stronger then the words of ten times as many tongues of counterfeits They no doubt made as great a brable but geniall love could not be dissembled So it was in those two harlots pleading for the child both spake earnestly neither could put downe other in point of words 1 King 3.26 the false mother was as deepe in her Negative principle as the other seemed to be For why she meant to be even with the true mother and would see her childlesse as well as her selfe So the living child might be divided she cared not But by this Salomon descryed her The sword being brought then that reall heart of a true mother appeared in the one which could not in the other for she had it not in her A wretch could be content to leave off all Religion if he were sure that none would take it up after him for he is good because it shall not be said but he will be as forward as any But if none would be good he could be willing to be naught Why for lacke
prejudice therefore they put him in minde of it and as in the next point we shall heare doe rectifie him in that error But for the present the argument coucht secretly is this â—f thou lovest and esteemest the Prophet really obey him and bee ruled by him thou wouldest have done any thing he should bid thee because of the honour thou barest him Doe so still if thou love him obey his counsell This their argument breakes it selfe into two parts First into a ground of reason Secondly into the reason following upon it The ground is Thou esteemest and honourest Gods Prophet The reason therefore take his loving counsell Of both these in order in handling this second argument if God will The cleering of the ground Touching this ground of Naamans esteeme of Elisha because I doubt not but many will cavill about it let me first cleere it and then come to the point Some will say then what wonder if so strange and miraculous a cure of a desperate disease as Naamans was did attract extraordinary affection and cause a desire of gratification But that 's nothing to our love to Gods Minister which if it be sound must arise upon better bottome But to that I answer two wayes First though Naaman of himselfe was carryed as an ordinary man yet the Lord having the ordering now of his whole course bred as well good affections to the Prophet and to God his owne glory and worship as it bred gladnesse of the cure So that even in this love of his being in the bud may be discovered a seed of that which after brake out when hee was healed We read of the like example Joh. 9. of a poore blinde creature who no sooner was healed by our Saviour of his blindenesse but his affections of love brake out strangely towards him shall we thinke that because the occasion hereof was his cure therefore there was no more in it save a meer carnall humour No if we read the 37. and 38. verses we shall see what fire this sparkle brought forth when our Lord Jesus had met him and enlarged him with more grounds to love him upon better reason But secondly I say it were well if even we having deeper and stronger bottomes to build our affections upon to Gods Minister were carryed with no lesse demonstration then he was of which more in the Use shall be spoken And whereas it s objected that now his servants rather tax him for his want of present love to the Prophet then commend him for the former I answer what wonder if so weake a man were so easily transported in his passion from his former affection First it was God who suffered it for his humiliation And secondly how many who thinke themselves to stand upon surer ground in their love to the Minister yet upon farre lesser occasion then Naamans even meer tetches and pritches very toyes and conceits can alienate their love from the Prophet of God and that both more deeply then Naaman and without repenting thereof which yet he presently did So that the truth is we have no such cause to cavill against this point nor to disdaine to take Naaman to bee our example rather it were well if wee would prove as good Scholars as hee is meete to set us to Schoole The point then is Doctrine The esteeme of Gods Minister ought to be precious The esteeme and love of heart wherewith wee embrace the Minister of God ought to be singular If the Prophet say they had bidden thee do some great thing wouldest thou not have done it Sure it must bee great affection which should so easily cause a man to doe great things Whether we understand their words in relation to his obedience to any charge which the Prophet should have put upon him for the cure of his disease or in relation to his readinesse to beteame the Prophet a deep gratification for his labour both must needs argue love and esteeme If the Prophet had told thee thou must goe barefoote on pilgrimage many miles or fought some battell of great hazard or the like wouldest not thou have adventured thy selfe to get thy disease cured If the Prophet should have required at thine hands some rich recompence talents of silver costly apparrel the most curious presents that could be wouldest not thou have freely granted them How much more then when he saith unto thee Wash and be cleane So then Naamans love wee see runnes in a strong streame a small thing should not part him and the Prophet he would doe great things for him rather then faile let but the Prophet command a taske or aske a reward and what would not hee doe Nay freely unasked unexpected So that the point is plaine That the affection which Gods Minister if the faithfull Minister of Christ deserves at our hands is and ought to be singular and pretious This point first I will prove by Reason then by Scripture and so come to Use The first Reason is the charge of God It s eternall and cannot be infringed I enter not now upon the strickt question of Tithes my Text reacheth onely to the singularity of loyalnesse and love and that other Reason 1 argument is at large handled by others but I say of the Ministers patrimony Note as of the Princes it is eternall and unalienable without horrible sacriledge God hath both in the old and new Testament most cautiously provided that the Minister should never be forsaken How frequent are those speeches with Moses Deut. and Josh 18.6 1 Cor. 9.12.13.14 Forsake not the Levite all thy dayes The Lord hath not given him a portion among his brethren but the Lord himselfe is his portion These Leviticall phrases are of eternall right Thou shalt not muzle the mouth of the oxe saith Paul out of Moses he that serveth at the altar must live upon it If we afford you spirituall things is it much if we reap your temporall Did those Ministers of God who were inspired with extraordinary gifts by the holy Ghost without their owne toile and industry speake thus who because they freely received might freely give and shall it not much more bee verified of them that serve at the altar of the Gospel whose labours cost a greater price of paines and charge to furnish And because these Texts do trench rather upon the fruits of love then the affection it self How were the Galathians affected to Paul Did they thinke their eyes too deare for him to pull out and give him Are not the very feet of them beautifull who bring glad tidings of peace and good things Did not those Galathians receive Paul as an Angel of God Gal. 4.15 Would not they have imparted to him not onely their goods but even their very soules And what wonder Are they not his joy and crowne Are they not as his wife Are not their soules dearer to him then the bodies of men can be to a Physitian Doth hee not love them