that day But yet he thinketh not of it with so strong a faith and great consolation nor with such boldness and desire as the confirmed Christian doth but either with much more dull security or more perplexity and fear His thoughts of God and of the world to come are much more dark and doubtfull and his fears of that day are usually so great as make his desires and joys scarce felt Only he thinketh not of it with that contempt or stupidity as the Infidel or hardened sinner nor with the terrours of those that have no God no Christ no hope except when temptation bringeth him near to the borders of despair His death indeed is unspeakably safer than the death of the ungodly and the joys which he is entring into will quickly end the terrour but yet he hath no great comfort of the present but only so much trust in Christ as keepeth his heart from sinking into despair 3. But to the Hypocrite or seeming Christian Death and Judgement are the most unwelcome daies and the thoughts of them the most unwelcome thoughts He would take any tolerable life on earth at any time for all his hopes of Heaven and that not only through the doubts of his own sincerity which may sometime be the case of a tempted Christian but through the unsoundness of his belief of the life to come or the utter unsuitableness of his soul to such a blessedness which maketh him look at it as less desirable to him than a life of fleshly pleasures here All that he doth for Heaven is upon meer necessity because he knoweth that Die he must and he had rather be in Heaven than in Hell though he had rather be in prosperity on earth than either And as he taketh Heaven but as a reserve or second good so he seeketh it with reserves and in the second place And having no better preparations for Death and Judgement no marvel if they be his greatest terrour He may possibly by his self-deceit have some abatement of his fears and he may by Pride and Wit seem very valiant and comfortable at his death to hide his fear and pusillanimity from the world But the 〈◊〉 of all his misery is that he sought not first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and laid not up a treasure in Heaven but upon earth and loved this world above God above the world to come and so his heart is not set on Heaven nor his affections on the things above and therefore he hath not that Love to God to Christ to Saints to perfect Holiness which should make that world most desirable in his eyes and make him think unfeignedly that it is best for him to depart and live with Christ for ever Having not the Divine Nature nor having lived the Divine Life in walking with God his complacency and desires are carnal according to the nature which he hath And this is the true cause and not only his doubts of his own sincerity of his unwillingness to die or to see the day of Christs appearance Matth. 6.33.19.20 21. 1 Joh. 2.15 Col. 3.1 2 3 4. Rom. 8.5 6 7 8. 1 Cor. 2.13 14. 2 Pet. 1.4 And thus I have shewed you from the Word of God and the Nature of Christianity the true Characters of the confirmed Christian and of the weak Christian and of the seeming Christian. The Vses for which I have drawn up these Characters and which the Reader is to make of them are these I. Here the weak Christian and the Hypocrite may see what manner of persons they ought to be Not only how unsafe it is to remain in a state of Hypocrisie but also how uncomfortable and unserviceable and troublesome it is to remain in a state of weakness and diseasedness what a folly and indeed a sign of Hypocrisie is it to think If I had but grace enough to save me I would desire no more or I would be well content Are you content if you have but Life here to difference you from the dead If you were continually Infants that must be fed and carried and made clean by others or if you had a continual Gout or Stone or Leprosie and lived in continual want and misery you would think that Life alone is not enough and that non vivere tantum sed valere vita est that Life is uncomfortable when we have nothing but Life and all the delights of life are gone He that lyeth in continual pain and want is weary of his life if he cannot separate it from those calamities He that knoweth how necessary strength is as well as life to do any considerable service for God and how many pains attend the diseases and infirmities of the weak and what great dishonour cometh to Christ and Religion by the faults and childishness of many that shall be pardoned and saved would certainly bestir him with all possible care to get out of this sick or infant state II. By this you may see who are the strong Christians and who are the weak It is not alwaies the man of Learning and free expressions that can speak longest and wiseliest of holy things that is the strong confirmed Christian But he that most excelleth in the Love of God and man and in a heavenly mind and holy life Nor is it he that is unlearned or of a weak memory or slow expression that is the weakest Christian But he that hath least Love to God and man and the most Love to his carnal self and to the world and the strongest corruptions and the weakest grace Many a poor day-labourer or woman that can scarce speak sense is a stronger Christian as being stronger in Faith and Love and Patience and Humility and Mortification and Self-denial than many great Preachers and Doctors of the Church III. You see here what kind of men they be that we call the Godly and what that Godliness is which we plead for against the malicious Serpentine Generation The lyars would make men believe that by Godliness we mean a few affected strains or hypocritical shews or heartless lip-service or singular opinions or needless scrupulosity or ignorant zeal yea a schism or faction or sedition or rebellion or what the Devil please to say If these sixty Characters describe any such thing then I will not deny that in the way that such men call heresie faction schism singularity so worship we the God of our Fathers But if not the Lord rebuke thee Satan and hasten the day when the lying lips shall be put to silence Psal. 131.18 120.2 109.2 Prov. 12.19 22. 10.18 IV. By this also you may see how unexcusible the enemies of Christianity and Godliness are and for what it is that they hate and injure it Is there any thing in all this Character of a Christian that deserveth the suspicion or hatred of the world what harm is there in it or what will it do against them I may say to them of his servants
them against Heresies which indeed are all but novelties that so they may know how to try the Doctrines that afterward should be offered them and stick fast to that which the Apostles taught He next requireth them to abound therein to let them know that as it is no small matters that they expect by Christ so they should not rest in small degrees of Grace or duty but especially the duty of Thanksgiving which is an Evangelical and celestial duty and so admirably beseems a people that have partaked of such admirable Salvation and is so suitable to our mercies and our condition and Gods just expectation As it is Love and Grace whose eternal praise is designed by the Gospel and are magnified in the Church by the Redeemers great and blessed work So it is returns of Love and Praise and Joy that should be the most abounding or overflowing part of all our Christian affections and performances After this explication you may see that the sense of the Text lyeth plain in this Proposition Doct. Those that have savingly Received Christ Jesus the Lord must be so far from resting here as if all were done that they must spend the rest of their dayes in walking in him being Rooted and built up in him and stablished in the Faith as the Apostles taught it and abounding in it especially with joyful prayses to our Redeemer And because that my design is only to Direct young Christians how they may come to be established and confirmed in Christ I shall therefore pass over all other things that the full handling of this Text requireth and shall only give you 1. A short intimation here what this confirmation and stability is which shall be fullyer opened to you in the Directions 2. And shew you the need of seeking it And 3. How you may attain it 1. This Confirmation is the Habitual strength of Grace distinct from present actual confirmation by the influence of Grace from God For though God may in an instant confirm a weak person against some particular temptation by his free assistance yet that is not it which we have here to speak of but Habitual confirmation in a State of Grace And ordinarily we may expect that Gods co-operating assisting Grace should bear some proportion with our Habitual Grace Even as in nature he concurreth with the strongest men to do greater works than he causeth the weak to do and with the wisest men to understand more than the foolish do I say but that Ordinarily it is thus A Confirmed Christian as contrary to a weak one 1. Is not to be judged of by his freedome from all scruples doubts or fears 2. Nor by his eminency in mens esteem or observation 3. Nor by his strength of Memory 4. Or freedom of utterance in Praying Preaching or Discourse 5. Or by his seemly deportment and courtesy towards others 6. Nor by his sedate calm and lovely temper and freedom from some hast and heats which other tempers are more prone to 7. Nor by a Man-pleasing or dissembling faculty to bridle the tongue when it would open the corruption of the mind and to suppress all words which would make others know how bad the heart is There are many endowments laudable and desirable which will not shew so much as sincerity in Grace and much less a state of Confirmation and stability But Confirmation lyeth in the great degree of all those Graces which Constitute a Christian. And the great degree appeareth in the operations of them As 1. When Holiness is as a New-nature in us and giveth us a Promptitude to holy actions and maketh us free and ready to them and maketh them easie and familiar to us Whereas the weak go heavily and can scarce drive on and force their minds 2. When there is a constancy or frequency of holy actions which sheweth the strength and stability of holy inclinations 3. When they are powerful to bear down oppositions and temptations and can get over the greatest impediments in the way and make an advantage of all resistance and despise the most splendid baits of sin 4. When it is still getting ground and drawing the Soul upward and nearer to God its Rest and End And when the heart groweth more Heavenly and Divine and stranger to Earth and earthly things 5. And when holy and heavenly things are more sweet and delectable to the Soul and are sought and used with more Love and pleasure All these do shew that the Operations of Grace are vigorous and strong and consequently that the Habits are so also And this confirmation should be found 1. In the Vnderstanding 2. In the Will 3. In the Affections 4. In the Life 1. When the Mind of man hath a larger comprehension of the Truths of God and the Order and Method and Vsefulness of every truth And a deeper apprehension of the certainty of them and of the Goodness of the matter expressed in them When Knowledg and Faith come nearest unto sight or intention and we have the fullest the truest and the firmest and most certain apprehension of things revealed and unseen when the Nature and the Reasons and the ends and benefits of the Christian Religion are all most clearly orderly decently constantly and powerfully printed on the mind then is that Mind in a Confirmed state 2. When the Will is guided by such a confirmed understanding and is not bruitishly resolved he knoweth not for what or why When Light hath fixed it in such Resolutions as are past all notable doubtings deliberations waverings or unwilling backwardness and a man is in seeking God and his Salvation and avoiding known sin as a natural man is about the questions whether he should preserve his Life and make provision for it and whether he should poison or famish or torment himself When the Inclination of the Will to God and Heaven and Holiness are likest to its natural Inclination to Good as Good and to its own felicity And its action is so free as to have Least Indetermination and to be likest to Natural necessary acts as those are of blessed Spirits in Heaven When the least intimation from God prevaileth and the Will doth answer him with readiness and delight And when it taketh pleasure to trample upon all opposition and when all that can be offered to corrupt the heart and draw it to sin and loosen it from God prevaileth but as so much filth and dung would do Phil. 3.7 8 9. This is a confirmed state of Will 3. When the Affections do proceed from such a Will and are ready to assist excite and serve it and to carry us on in necessary Duties When the lower affections of Fear and sorrow do cleanse and restrain and prepare the way and the Higher Affections of Love and Delight adhere to God and Desire and Hope do make out after him and set the Soul on just endeavours When Fear and Grief have less to do and are delivering up the heart still more and more
the Souls of the ungodly to win by your lives You should all be Preachers and even Preach as you go up and down in the World as a Candle lighteth which way ever it goeth As we are sent to save sinners as Ambassadors of Christ by publick Proclamation of his Will so are you sent to save them as his Servants and our helpers and must Preach by your lives and familiar exhortations as we must do by authoritative instruction A good life is a good Sermon yea those may be won by your Sermons that will not come to ours or will not obey the Doctrine which they hear Even to women that must keep silence in the Church doth Peter command this way of Preaching I Pet. 3.1 2. That if any of them have Husbands that obey not the Word they may without the Word be won by the conversation of the Wives Thousands can understand the meaning of a good life that cannot understand the meaning of a good Sermon By this way you may Preach to men of all Languages though your tongues had never learnt but one For a holy harmless humble life doth speak in all the Languages of the World to men that have eyes to read it This is the Universal Character and Language in which all sorts may perceive you speak the wondrous works of the Holy Ghost I charge you therefore Christians deprive not God of the honour you owe him nor the Church or Souls of wicked men of this excellent powerful help which you owe them by continuing in your weakness and unsetled minds and spotted lives but grow up to that measure that may be fit for such a work As you durst not silence the Preachers of the Gospel so do not dare to silence your selves from Preaching by your holy exemplary lives And alas do you think that feeble giddy scandalous Professors are like to do any great matters by their Lives Would you wish the poor World to write after such a crooked and bloted Copy Will it win mens hearts to a love of Holiness to talk with a Christian that can scarce speak a word of sense for his Religion or to see a Professor as greedy for a little gain as the veryest worldling that hath no other hope or to hear them rail or lye or slander Or to see them turn up and down like a Weather-cock according as the Wind of temptation sits and to follow every new Opinion that is but put off with a plausible fervency Do you think that men are like to be won by such lives as these 14. Do you consider what great things you must make account to suffer for Christ You must forsake all that you have Luke 14.33 You must not save your lives if he bid you lose them Matth. 16.25 You must suffer with him if you will be glorified with him Rom. 8 17. You may be called to confess Christ before the Kings or Judges of the earth and then if you deny him he will deny you and if you be ashamed of him he will be ashamed of you unless you be brought to a better state Luk. 9.26 Mark 8.38 You may be called to the fiery tryal and to suffer also the spoiling of your goods and in a word the loss of all And do you think that you shall not find use for the strongest Graces then Have you not need to be confirmed rooted Christians that must expect such storms Are Infants meet for such encounters Have you not seen how many that seemed strong have been overthrown in a time of tryal And yet will you stop in a weak estate Perhaps you 'l say We cannot stand by our own strength and therefore Christ may uphold the weakest when the strongest may fall To which I answer It s true but it is Gods common way to work by means and to imitate nature in his works of Grace and therefore he useth to root and strengthen those that he will have to stand and conquer yea and to arm them as well as strengthen them and then to teach them to use their arms Eph. 6.10 11 12 13. Finally my brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might put on the whole armour of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil For we wrestle not against Flesh and Blood but against Principalities against Powers against the Rulers of the darkness of this World against spiritual wickedness in high places Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand You must look when you are illuminated to endure a great fight of afflictions to be made a gazing stock both by reproaches and afflictions and to be companions of them that are so used and therefore you have need of patience that after ye have done the will of God you may receive the Promise Heb. 10.32 33 36. If you will endure in the time of persecution the Word must take deep rooting in your hearts Matth. 13.5 20 21. and you must be founded on a Rock if you look to stand in time of storms Matth. 7.24 25. In the mean time it is a fearful thing to see in what a wavering condition you seem to stand like a Tree that shakes as if it were even falling or like a cowardly Army that are ready to run before they fight and like cowardly Souldiers you are still looking behind you and a small matter troubleth and perplexeth and staggereth you as if you were ready to repent of your repentings And must God have such servants as these that upon every rumour or word or trouble are wavering and looking back and ready to forsake him 15. Consider also that the same Reasons that moved you at first to be Christians should now move you to be confirmed thriving Christians For they are of force as well for this as for that You would not have mist your part in Christ for all the World if indeed you have the least degree of Grace And if the beginning be good and necessary the increase is neither bad or needless If a little Grace be desireable sure more is more desirable If it was then but a reasonable thing that you should forsake all for Christ and follow him it is sure as reasonable that you should follow him to the end till you reach that blessedness which was the end for which at first you followed him What Christian hast thou found God a hard Master a barren Wilderness to thee or his service an unprofitable thing say so and I dare say thou art a bastard to use the Apostles phrase Heb. 12.8 and not a Christian Some tryal thou hast made of him What evil hast thou found in him or what wrong hath he ever done thee that thou shouldest now begin to make a stand as if thou were in doubt whether it be best to go further If ever Christ were needful he is needful still and if
especially that differ from them in lesser things and how unapt to judg themselves O how few are the Christians that are eminent in humility meekness and self-denyal that are content to be accounted nothing so that Christ may be all and his honour may be secured that live as men devoted to God and honour him with their substance and freely expend yea study for advantages to improve all their riches and interest to his service How few are they that live as in heaven upon earth with the World under their feet and their hearts above with God their happiness that feel themselves to live in the workings and warmth of love to God and make him their delight and are content with his approbation whoever disapproveth them that are still groaning or reaching and seeking after him and long to be with him to be rid of sin and see his blessed face and live in his perfect love and praises that love and long for the appearance of Jesus Christ and can heartily say Come Lord Jesus come quickly How few are they that stand in a day of tryal If they are tryed but with a foul word if tryed but with any thing that toucheth their commodity if tryed but with the emptyest reasonings of deceivers much more if they beâ—â—yed with the honours and greatness of the World how few of them stand in tryal and do not fall and forget themselves as if they were not the men that they seemed to be before What then would they prove if they were tryed by the flames Mistake me not in all this sad complaint as I intend not the dishonour of Godliness by this but of ungodliness for it is not because men are godly that they have these faults but because they are not godly more So here is no encouragement to the unsanctifyed to think themselves as good as the more Religious because they are charged with so many faults Nor do I affirm all these things to be consistent with true Grace that I have here expressed But only this that Professors that seem godly to others are thus too many of them guilty and those that have true grace may have any of these faults in a mortified degree though not in a reigning predominant measure But methinks Sirs you should by this time be convinced and sensible how much we dishonour God by our infirmities and what a lamentable case it is that the Church should consist of so many infants and so many should be so little serviceable to God or the common good but rather be troublers of all about them Alas that we should reach no higher that yet no greater things should be attained O what an honour would you be to your Profession and what a blessing to the Church if you did but answer the cost and pains of God and man and answer the high things that you have been acquainted with and profess That we could but boast of you as God did of Job and could say to Satan or any of his instruments Here be Christians rooted and stablished in the Faith try whether you can shake them or make them stagger and do your worst Here is a man eminent in meekness and humility and patience and self-denial discompose and disturb his mind if you can draw him to pride or immoderate passion or censoriousness or uncharitableness if you can Here are a people that are in unity and knit together in Faith and Love of one heart and one soul and one lip do your worst to divide them or break them into parties or draw them into several minds and wayes or exasperate them against each other Here are a people established in Mortification and that have Crucified the Flesh with its affections and lusts Do your worst to draw them to intemperance in eating or drinking or recreations or any of the delights of the Flesh or to puff them up by greatness and prosperity and make them forget themselves or God Try them with Riches or beauty or vain-glory or other sensual delights and see whether they will turn aside and be ever the less in communion with God and enticed to forget the joy that is set before them or will not rather despise your baits and run away from assuring objects as their greatest dangers Daunt them if you can by threatnings Try them by Persecution by Fire and Sword and see whether they are not past your shaking even Rooted Confirmed and built up in Christ. O what a glory would you be to your Profession if you could attain to this degree Could we but truly thus boast of you we might say our people are Christians of the right strain But when we must come about you like men in a swoon and can hardly perceive whether you are alive or dead and can scarce discern whether you have any Grace or none what a grief is this to our hearts what a perplexity to us in our administrations not knowing whether comfort or terror be your due and what a languishing uncomfortable life is this to your selves in comparison of what you might attain to Rouze up your selves Christians and look after higher and greater things and think it not enough that you are barely alive It is an exceeding Righteousness that you must have if you will be saved even exceeding all that the unsanctifyed do attain For Except your Righteousness exceed even the Righteousness of Scribes and Pharises you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Matth. 5.20 But it is yet a more exceeding Righteousness that you must have if you will be Confirmed built up and abound and would honour your Profession and cheerfully successfully and constantly go on in the Journey the race the warfare that you have begun You must then exceed your selves and exceed all the feeble unstable wavering infant-Christians that are about you And to perswade you yet further to look after this I shall here annex a few Motives more 1. Consider Christian That it is a God of exceeding infinite greatness and goodness that thou hast to do with and therefore it is not small and low matters that are suitable to his service O if thou hadst but a glimpse of his Glory thou wouldst say that it is not common things that are meet for such a dreadful Majesty Hadst thou but a fuller taste of his Goodness thy heart would say This pittance of Love and Service is unworthy of him You will not offer the basest things to a King much less to the highest King of Kings If ye offer the blind for Sacrifice is it not evil and if ye offer the lame and sick is it not evil offer it now to thy Governour Will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person saith the Lord of Hosts Mal. 1.8 And verse 12 13 14. But ye have profaned it his great name in that ye say The Table of the Lord is polluted and the fruit thereof his meat is contemptible Ye have said also What a weariness is it
confirmed Christian. page 1 1. He liveth by such a Faith of unseen things as governeth his soul instead of sight 6 2. He hath cogent Reasons for his Religion 9 3. He seeth the well-ordered frame of sacred verities and the integral parts in their harmony or consort and setteth not up one truth against another 11 4. He adhereth to them and practiseth them from an inward connatural principle called The Divine Nature and The Spirit of Christ. 12 5. He serveth not God for fear only but for Love 14 6. He loveth God 1. Much for his Goodness to himself 2. And more for his Goodness to the Church 3. And most of all for his essential Goodness and perfection 16 7. He taketh this Love and its Expressions for the heart and height of all his Religion 19 8. He hath absolutely put his soul and all his hopes into the hand of Christ and liveth by faith upon him as his Saviour 21 9. He taketh Christ as the Teacher sent from God and his Doctrine for the truest wisdom and learneth of none but in subordination to him 23 10. His Repentance is universal and effectual and hath gone to the Root of every sin 25 11. He loveth the Light as it sheweth him his sin and duty and is willing to know the worst of sin and the most of duty 27 12. He desireth the highest degree of Holiness and hath no sin which he had not rather leave than keep and had rather be the Best though in poverty than the Greatest in prosperity 30 13. He liveth upon GOD and HEAVEN as the End Reward and Motive of his Life 32 14. He counteth no cost or pains too great for the obtaining it and hath nothing so dear which he cannot part with for it 35 15. He is daily exercised in the practice of Self-denial as next to the Lovers of God the second half of his Religion 38 16. He hath mortified his fleshly desires and so far mastereth his senses and appetite that they make not his obedience very uneasie or uneven 42 17. He preferreth the means of his holiness and happiness incomparably before all provisions and pleasures of the flesh 45 18. He is crucified to the world and the world to him by the Cross of Christ and contemneth it through the belief of the greater things of the life to come 47 19. He foreseeth the End in all his waies and judgeth of all things as they will appear at last 50 20. He liveth upon God alone and is content with his favour and approbation without the approbation and favour of men 53 21. He hath absolutely devoted himself and all that he hath to God to be used according to his will 56 22. He hath a readiness to obey and a quick and pleasant compliance of his will to the will of God 58 23. He delighteth himself more in God and Heaven and Christ and Holiness than in all the world Religion is not tedious and grievous to him 59 24. He is conscious of his own sincerity and assured of his Justification and title to Everlasting Joyes 66 25. This Assurance doth not make him more careless and remiss but increaseth his love and holy diligence 68 26. Yet he abhorreth Pride as the first born of the Devil and is very low and vile in his own eyes and can easily endure to be low and vile in the eyes of others 69 27. Being acquainted with the deceitfulness of the heart and the methods of temptation he liveth as among snares and enemies and dangers in a constant watch and can conquer many and subtil and great temptations through grace 72 28. He hath counted what it may cost him to be saved and hath resolved not to stick at suffering but to bear the Cross and be conformed to his crucified Lord and hath already in heart forsaken all for him 74 29. He is not a Christian only for company or carnal ends or upon trust of other mens opinion and therefore would be true to Christ if his Rulers his Teachers his Company and all that he knoweth should forsake him 78 30. He can digest the hardest Truths of Scripture and the hardest passages of Gods Providence 80 31. He can exercise all his Graces in harmony without neglecting one to use another or setting one against another 81 32. He is more in getting and using Grace than in enquiring whether he have it though he do that also in its place 82 33. He studieth Duty more than Events and is more carefull what he should be towards God than how he shall here be used by him 83 34. He is more regardfull of his duty to others than of theirs to him and had much rather suffer wrong than do it 84 35. He keepeth up a constant Government of his Thoughts restraining them from evil and using them upon God and for him 87 36. He keepeth a constant Government over his passions so far as that they pervert not his judgement his heart his tongue or actions 88 37. He governeth his tongue imploying it for God and restraining it from evil 90 38. Heart-work and Heaven-work are the principal matters of his religious discourse not barren controversies or impertinencies 92 39. He liveth upon the common great substantials of Religion and yet will not deny the smallest Truth or commit the smallest sin for any price that man can offer him 93 40. He is a high esteemer and carefull Redeemer of Time and abhorreth Idleness and Diversions which would rob him of it 98 41. His heart is set upon doing all the good in the world that he is able It is his daily business and delight 101 42. He truly loveth his neighbour as himself 103 43. He hath a special love to all godly Christians as such and such as will not stick at cost in its due expressions nor be turned into bitterness by tollerable differences 104 44. He forgiveth injuries and loveth his enemies and doth them all the good he can from the sense of the love of Christ to him 106 45. He doth as he would be done by and is as precise in the Justice of his dealings with men as in acts of piety to God 108 46. He is faithful and laborious in his outward trade or calling not out of covetousness but obedience to God 111 47. He is very conscionable in the duties of his several Relations in his family or other society as a superiour inferiour or equal 112 48. He is the best subject whether his Rulers be good or bad though Infidel and ungodly Rulers may mistake use him as the worst 113 49. His trust in God doth overcome the fear of man and settle him in a constant fortitude for God 121 50. Judgement and Zeal conjunct are his constitution His Judgement kindleth Zeal and his Zeal is still judicious 123 51. He can bear the infirmities of the weak and their censures and abuses of himself and requiteth them not with uncharitable censure or reproach 126 52. He
abatement of his love And weak Christians are usually the most censorious because they have the smallest degree of Love which covereth faults and thinketh no evil and is not suspicious but ever apt to judge the best till the worst be evident 1 Cor. 13.4 5. It beareth all things believeth all things that are credible hopeth all things endureth all things v. 7. But it is no wonder to see children fall out even about their childish toyes and trifles And what the dissentions of the children of the Church have done against themselves in these Kingdoms I need not I delight not to record See 1 Cor. 3.1 2 3 4. And I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat for hitherto ye were not able to bear it neither yet now are ye able For ye are yet carnall for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are you not carnall and walk as men 3. The seeming Christian may have some love to reall Christian even for their goodness sake But it is a Love subservient to his carnal self-love And therefore it shall not cost him much As he hath some Love to Christ so he may have some Love to Christians but he hath more to the world and fleshly pleasures And therefore all his Love to Christ or Christians will not make him leave his worldly happiness for them And therefore Christ at the day of Judgement will not enquire after empty barren love but after that love which visited and relieved suffering Saints An hypocrite can allow both Christ and Christians such a cheap superficial kind of love as will cost him little He will bid them lovingly Depart in peace be you warmed and filled Jam. 2.15 16 17. But still the World is most beloved XLIV 1. A Christian indeed doth love his enemies and forgive those that injure him and this out of a thankfull sense of that grace which forgave him a farr greater debt Not that he thinketh it unlawfull to make use of the Justice of the Government which he is under for his necessary protection or for the restraint of mens abuse and violence Nor is he bound to love the malice or injury though he must love the man Nor can he forgive a crime as it is against God or the common good or against another though he can forgive an injury or debt that is his own Nor is he bound to forgive every debt though he is bound so farre to forgive every wrong as heartily to desire the good of him that did it Even Gods Enemies he so farre loveth as to desire God to convert and pardon them while he hateth their sin and hateth them as Gods enemies and desireth their restraint Psal. 139.21 22. 101.3 119.4 68.1 21.8 But those that hate and curse and persecute himself he can unfeignedly love and bless and pray for Matth. 5.43 44 45 46 47 48. For he knoweth that else he cannot be a child of God v. 45. And that to love those that love him is not much praise-worthy being no more than Heathens and wicked men can do v. 46 47. He is so deeply sensible of that wondrous love which so dearly redeemed him and saved him from Hell and forgave him a thousandfold worse than the worst that ever was done against himself that Thankfulness and Imitation or Conformity to Christ in his great compassions do overcome his desires of revenge and make him willing to do good to his most cruel enemies and pray for them as Christ and Stephen did at their deaths Luk. 23.34 Acts 7.60 And he knoweth that he is so inconsiderable a worm that a wrong done to him as such is the less considerable And he knoweth that he daily wrongeth God more than any man can wrong him and that he can hope for pardon but on condition that he himself forgive Matth. 6.12 14 15. 18.34 35. And that he is far more hurtfull to himself than any other can be to him 2. And the weakest Christian can truely love an enemy and forgive a wrong but he doth it not so easily and so fully as the other But it is with much striving and some unwillingness and aversness and there remaineth some grudge or strangeness upon the minde He doth not sufficiently forget the wrong which he doth forgive Indeed his forgiving is very imperfect like himself Matth. 18.21 Luk. 9.54 55. not with that freeness and readiness required Eph. 4.2 With all lowliness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love Col. 3.12 13. Put on therefore as the Elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies kindness humbleness of minde meekness long-suffering forbearing one another and forgiving one another even as Christ forgave you so also do ye Rom. 12.14 19. Avenge not your selves c. 3. As for the seeming Christian he can seem to forgive wrongs for the sake of Christ but if he do it indeed it is for his own sake As because it is for his honour or because the person hath humbled himself to him or his commodity requireth it or he can make use of his love and service for his advantage or some one hath interposed for reconciliation who must not be denyed or the like But to love an enemy indeed and to love that man be he never so good who standeth in the way of his preferment honour or commodity in the world he never doth it from his heart whatever he may seem to doe Matth. 6.14 15. 18.27 30 32. The Love of Christ doth not constrain him XLV 1. A Christian indeed is as precise in the Justice of his dealings with men as in acts of piety to God For he knoweth that God requireth this as strictly at his hands 1 Thess. 4.6 That no man go beyond or defraud his Brother in any matter for the Lord is the avenger of all such as we also have forewarned and testified He is one that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart that backbiteth not with his tongue nor doth evil to his neighbour nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour If he swear to his own hurt he changeth not He putteth not out his money to unjust or unmercifull Vsury nor taketh reward against the innocent Psal. 15. He obeyeth that Lev. 19.13 Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour neither rob him the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night untill the morning He can say as Samuel 1 Sam. 12. Whose Oxe or Asse have I taken or whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blinde mine eyes therewith and I will restore it And they said Thou hast not defrauded us nor oppressed us neither hast thou taken ought of any mans hand And if heretofore he was ever guilty of defrauding any he is willing to his
of the godly and especially of the Faithful guides of the Flocks Alas that so many of the children of the Church should become the scourges and troublers of the Church and should set their teeth so deep in the breasts that were drawn out for their nourishment If you were never drawn to do any thing to the reproach of the Church yet what a grief must it be to us to see so many of your selves miscarry Ah thinks a poor Minister What hopes had I once of these Professors and are they come to this O mark Sirs the Apostle's warning Heb. 13.9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines And his way of prevention is that the heart be established with Grace 9. Consider also that it is a dishonour to Christ that so many of his Family should be such weaklings so mutable and unsetled and unprofitable as you are I do not mean that it is any real dishonour to him for it all the World should forsake him they would dishonour themselves and not him with any competent Judg As it would dishonour the beholders more than the Sun if all the world should say that it is darkness But you are guilty of dishonouring him in the eyes of the misguided world O what a reproach it is to Godliness that so many Professors should be so ignorant and imprudent and so many so giddy and unconstant and so many that manifest so little of the glory of their holy Profession All the enemies of Christ without the Church are not capable of dishonouring him so much as you that bear his Name and wear his Livery While your Graces are weak your corruptions will be strong and all those corruptions will be the dishonour of your Profession Will it not break your hearts to hear the ungodly pointing at you as you pass by to say yonder goes a Covetous Professor or yonder goes a proud or a tipling or a contentious Professor If you have any love to God and sense of his dishonour methinks such sayings should touch you at the heart While you are weak and unconfirmed you will like children stumble at every stone and catch many a fall and yield to temptations which the stronger easily resist and then being scandalous all your faults by foolish men will be charged on your Religion If you do but speak an ill word of another or rail or deceive or over-reach in bargaining or fall into any scandalous Opinions or practice your Religion must bear all the blame with the World Ever since I can remember it hath been one of the principal hinderances of mens Conversion and strengtheners of the wicked in their way that the Godly were accounted a sort of peevish unpeaceable covetous proud self-seeking persons which was a slander as to many but too much occasioned by the scandalousness of some And methinks you should be afraid of that Wo from Christ Wo be to him by whom offence cometh If you be Children you may have the Wo of sharp castigations and if you be Hypocrites you shall have the Wo of overlasting sufferings The world can judg no farther than they see And when they see Professors of Holiness to be so like to common men and in some things worse than many of them what can you expect but that they despise Religion and judg of it by the Professors of it and say If this be their Religion let them keep it to themselves we are as well without it as they are with it And thus will the holy waies of God be vilified through you If you will not excel others in the beauty of your conversations that in this glass the World may see the beauty of your Religion you must expect that they should take it but for a common thing which bringeth forth but common fruits to their discerning You should be such that God may boast of and the Church may boast of to the face of the accuser then would you be an honour to the Church when God may say of you as he did of Job Hast thou considered my servant Job that there is none like him in the earth a perfect and an upright man one that feareth God and escheweth evil Job 1.8 If we could say so of you to the malignant enemies See what men the godly are there is none such among you men of Holiness Wisdome uprightness sobriety meekness patience peaceable and harmless living wholly to God as strangers on earth and Citizens of Heaven then you would be ornaments to your holy profession Were you such Christians as the old Christians were Act. 4. we might boast of you then to the reproaching adversaries 10. Moreover till you are confirmed and built up you may too easily be made the instruments of Satan to further his designs The weakness of your understandings and the strength of your passions and especially the interest that carnal Self hath remaining in you may lay you open to temptations and engage you in many a cause of Satan to take his part against the truth And how sad a case is this to any that have felt the love of Christ Have you been warmed with his wondrous love and washed with his blood and saved by his matchless mercy and may it not even break your hearts to think that after all this you should be drawn by Satan to wound your Lord to abuse his honour to resist his cause to hurt his Church and to confirm his enemies and gratify the Devil I tell you with shame and grief of heart that abundance of weak unsetled Professors that we hope have upright meanings in the main have been more powerful instruments for Satan to do his work by for the hindering of the Gospel the vilifying of the Ministry the dividing of the Church and the hindering of Reformation than most of the notoriously prophane have been What excellent hopes had we once in England of the flourishing of piety and happy union among the Churches and servants of Christ And who hath not only frustrated these hopes but almost broke them all to pieces Have any had more to do in it than weak unstable Professors of Religiousness What sad confusions are most parts of England in at this day by reason of the breaking of Churches into Sects and shreds and the contentions and reproaches of Christians against Christians and the odious abuse of holy truth and Ordinances And who is it that doth this so much as unstable Professors of Piety What greater reproach almost could have befallen us than for the adversary to stand by and see men pulling out each others Throats and hating and persecuting and reproaching one another and that our own hands should pull down the house of God and tear in pieces the miserable Churches while men are striving who shall be the Master of the Reformation O what a sport is this to the Devil when he can set his professed enemies by the ears and make them fall upon one another when if he have any
ever heaven and holiness were good they are good still and therefore go on till thou hast obtained more and forget not the Reasons that first perswaded with thee 16. Nay more than so you have the addition of much experience which should be an exceeding help to quicken your affections When you first Repented and came into Christ you had never had any experience in your selves of his saving special Grace before but you came in upon the bare hearing and believing of it But now you have tasted that the Lord is gracious and you have received at his hands the pardon of sin the Spirit of adoption the hope of glory which before you had not You have had many a Prayer answered and many a deliverance granted and will you make a stand when all these experiences do call you forward Should not new Motives and helps thus added to the old be the means of adding to your zeal and holiness Surely more wages and encouragement doth be speak more work and diligence And therefore see that you increase 17. And most or many of you have cause to consider how long you have been already in the Family and School of Christ. If you are but newly entered I may well exhort you to increase but I cannot reprove you for not increasing But alas what a multitude of dwarfs hath Christ that are like Infants at twenty or fourty or threescore years of age What! be so many years in his School and yet be in the lowest Form For when for the time ye ought to be Teachers you have need that one teach you again which be the first Principles of the Oracles of God and are become such as have need of Milk and not of strong meat For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of Righteousness for he is a Babe but strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age that by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil Heb. 5.12 13 14. O poor weak diseased Christian hast thou been so many years beholding the face of God by Faith and yet art thou no more in love with him than at the first Hast thou been so long making tryal of his goodness and dost thou see it and savour it no more than in the beginning Hast thou been so long under his cure and art thou no more healed than the first year or day Hast thou been hearing and talking of Heaven so long and yet art thou no more heavenly nor ready for Heaven Hast thou heard and talk'd so much against the World and the Flesh and yet is the World as high in thee as at first and the Flesh as strong as in the begining of thy Profession O what a sin and shame is this and what a wrong to God and thee Yea consider here also what means thou hast had as well as what time O who hath gone beyond thee for power and plenty and purity of Ordinances or at least how few Surely few parts of all the earth are like to England for the showers of Heaven and the Riches of the precious Ordinances of God You have Sermons till you can scarce desire more And that so plain that men can scarce tell how to speak plainer and so earnest as if the servants of Christ would take no nay even almost as if they must perish if you perished You have as frequent as plain and powerful Books You have the warnings and examples of the godly about you And what yet would you have more And should a people thus fed be Dwarfs continually Is ignorance and dulness and earthliness and selfishness excusable after all these means Surely sirs it is but just that God should expect you all to be Gyants even heavenly grown confirmed Christians Whatever others do it should be so with you 18. And methinks it should somewhat move you to consider how others have thriven in less time and by smaller means by far than you have had and how some of your neighbours can yet thrive by the same means that you so little thrive by Job that was so magnified by God himself had not such means as you Abraham Isaac Jacob Joseph had none of them all such means as you Many Prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things that you see and have not seen them and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them Matth. 13.17 Though John Baptist was greater than any of the Prophets yet the least of you that are in the Gospel Kingdom are greater than he in respect of means As the times of the Gospel have far clearer light and give out greater measures of Grace so the true genuine children of the Gospel should taking them one with another be far more confirmed strong and heavenly than those that were under the darker and scanter administrations of the Promise And do you not see and hear how far you are outstript by many of your poor Neighbours that are as low in natural parts and as low in the world and the esteem of men as you How many in this place I dare boldly speak it do shine before you in knowledg and meekness and patience and a blameless upright life in fervent prayers and a heavenly conversation Men that have had as much need to look after the World as you and no longer time to get these qualifications and no other means but what you have had or might have had as well as they And now they shine as stars in the Church on earth while you are like sparks if not like clods I know that God is the free disposer of his graces but yet he so seldom faileth any even in degrees that be not wanting to themselves that I may well ask you why you might not have reached to some more eminency as well as these about you if you had but been as careful and industrious as they 19. Consider also That your holiness is your personal perfection and that of the same kind you must have in glory though not in the same degree And therefore if you be not desirous of its increase it seems your are out of love with your souls and with Heaven it self And when you cease to grow in Holiness you cease to go on any further to Salvation If you would indeed your selves be perfect and blessed you must be perfected in this holiness which must make you capable of the perfect fruition of the most holy God and capable of his perfect love and praise There is no Heaven without a perfection in holiness If therefore you let fall your desires of this it seems you let fall your desires of Salvation Up then and be doing and grow as men that are growing up to glory and if you believe that you are in your progress to Heaven being nearer your Salvation than when you first believed see then that you make a progress in heavenly mindedness and that you be riper for Salvation than
and ye have snuffed at it saith the Lord of Hosts and ye brought that which was torn and the lame and the sick thus ye brought an offering should I accept this of your hand saith the Lord But cursed be the deceiver which hath in his Flock a Male and voweth and Sacrificeth to the Lord a corrupt thing for I am a great King saith the Lord of Hosts and my Name is dreadful among the Heathen If you better knew the Majesty of God you would knew that the best is too little for him and trifling is not tollerable in his service When Nadab and Abibu ventured with false fire to his Altar and he smote them dead he silenced Aaron with this reason of his Judgment I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people will I be glorified Lov. 10.1 2 3. That is I will have nothing common offered to me but be served with my own holy peculiar service When the Bethshemites were smitten dead 50070 men of them they found that God would not be dallyed with and cryed out Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God 1 Sam. 6.20 2. Consider also It was an exceeding great price that was payed for your Redemption For you were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your Fathers but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1.18 19. It was an exceeding great Love that was manifested by God the Father and by Christ in this work of Redemption such as even paseth Angels and men to study it and comprehend it 1 Pet. 1.12 Eph. 3.18 19. And should all this be answered but with trissâ—ng from you Should such a matchless Miracle of Love be answered with no greater 〈◊〉 especially when you were purposely 〈◊〉 from all iniquity that you might be sanctified 〈◊〉 a peculiar people zealous of good works 〈◊〉 14. It being therefore so great a price that you are bought with remember that you are none of your own but must glorify him that bought you in body and spirit 1. Cor. 6.20 3. Consider also that it is not a small but an exceeding glory that is promised you in the Gospel and which you live in hope to possess for ever And therefore it should be an exceeding Love that you should have to it and an exceeding care that you should have of it Make light of Heaven and make light of all Truly it is an unsuitable unreasonable thing to have one low thought or one careless word or one cold Prayer or other performance about such a matter as eternal glory Shall such a thing as Heaven be coldly or carelesly minded and sought after Shall the endless fruition of God in glory be look't at with sleepy heartless wishes I tell you Sirs if you will have such high hopes you must have high and strong endeavours A slow pace becomes not him that travelleth to such a home as this If you are resolved for Heaven behave your selves accordingly A gracious reverent godly frame of spirit producing an acceptable service of God is fit for them that look to receive the Kingdom that cannot be moved Heb. 12.18 The believing thoughts of the end of all our labours must needs convince us that we should be stedfast and unmoveable alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 O heatken thou sleepy slothful Christian Doth not God call and Conscience call Awake and up be doing man for it is for Heaven Hearken thou negligent lazy Christian Do not God and Conscience call out to thee O man make hast and mend thy pace it is for Heaven Hearken thou cowardly saint hearted Christian Do not God and Conscience call out to thee Arm man and see thou stand thy ground do not give back nor look behind thee but fall on and fight in the strength of Christ for it is for the Crown of endless glory O what a heart hath that man that will not be heartned with such calls as these Methinks the very name of God and Heaven should awaken you and make you stir if there be any stirring power within you Remissness in wordly matters hath an excuse for they are but trifles but flackness in the matters of Salvation is made unexcusable by the greatness of those matters O let the noble greatness of your Hopes appear in the Resolvedness exactness and diligence of your lives 4. Consider also that it is not only low and smaller Mercies that you receive from God but mercies innumerable and inestimable and exceeding great And therefore it is not cold affections and dull endeavours that you should return to God for all these mercies Mercy brought you into the World and Mercy hath nourished you and bred you up and Mercy hath defended and maintained you and plentifully provided for you Your bodies live upon it Your Souls were recovered by it It gave you your being It rescued you from misery It saveth you from sin and Satan and your Selves All that you have at the present you hold by it All that you can hope for for the future must be from it It is most sweet in quality what sweeter to miserable souls than Mercy It is exceeding great in quantity The Mercy of the Lord is in the Heavens and his faithfulness reacheth to the Clouds His Righteousness is like the great Mountains His Iudgments are a great deep Psal. 36.5 6. O how great is his goodness which he hath laid up for them that fear him which he hath for them that trust in him before the sons of men Psal. 31.19 His Mercy is great unto the Heavens and his truth unto the Clouds Psal. 57.10 And O what an insensible heart hath he that doth not understand the voice of all this wondrous mercy Doubtless it speaketh the plainest language in the World commanding great returns from us of Love and praise and obedience to the bountiful bestower of them With David we must say Blessed be the Lord for he hath shewed me marvellous kindness in a strong City O Love the Lord all ye his Saints for the Lord preserveth all the faithfull Psal. 31.21 23. Teach me thy way O Lord I will walk in thy truth Vnite my heart to fear thy Name I will praise thee O Lord my God with all my heart and I will glorify thy name for evermore for great is thy mercy towards me and thou hast delivered my Soul from the lowest Hell Psal. 86.11 12 13. Vnspeakable Mercies must needs be felt in deep impressions and be so savoury with the Gracious soul that methinks it should work us to the highest resolutions Unthankfulness is a crime that Heathens did detest And it is exceeding great unthankfulness if we have not exceeding great love and obedience under such exceeding great and many mercies as we possess 5. Consider that they are exceeding great helps and means that you possess to further your holiness and obedience to God and
purified and zealous of good works Tit. 2.14 He called you a chosen Generation a Royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar people that ye should shew forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light ye are as lively stones built up a spiritual house an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 2.5 9. You are born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible 1 Pet. 1.23 and are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light God hath delivered you from the power of darkness and translated you into the Kingdom of his dear Son in whom you have redemption through his bloud the remission of sins Col. 1.12 13 14. The spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God and if children then Heirs Heirs of God and joynt Heirs with Christ Rom. 8.16 17. All things shall work together for your good He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Vers. 28.32 Nothing but the illuminated Soul can discern the riches of the glory of Gods inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the work of his mighty power Eph. 1.18 19. When we were dead in sins he hath quickned us together with Christ and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding Riches of his Grace in his kindness towards us through Jesus Christ. He hath brough us nigh that were far off so that by one spirit we have access to the Father by Christ and are now no more strangers and forreigners but fellow Citizens of the Saints and of the houshold of God Eph. 2.5 6 7 13 17 18 19. We are members of the body of Christ we are come to Mount Zion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant Heb. 12.22 23 24. Brethren shall the Lord speak all this and more than this in the Scripture of your Glory and will you not prove your selves glorious and study to make good this precious word Doth he say The righteous is more excellent than his Neighbour Prov. 12.26 and will you not study to shew your selves more excellent indeed Shall all these high things be spoken of you and will you live so far below them all What a hainous wrong is this to God He sticks not in boasting of you to call you his jewells Mal. 3.17 and tells the world he will make them one day discern the difference between the Righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not verse 18. He tells the World that his coming in Judgment will be to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in them that believe 2 Thess. 1.10 It 's openly Professed by the Apostle John We know that we are of God and the whole World lyeth in wickedâ—â—â—â— 1 John 5.19 He challengeth any to condemn you or lay any thing to your charge professing that it is he that justifieth you casting the Saints into admiration by his love What shall we say to these things if God be for us who can be against us Rom. 8.31 He challengeth Tribulation Distress Persecution Famine or Nakedness Peril or Sword to separate you if they can from the Love of God He challengeth Death and Life Angels Principalities and Powers things present and things to come height and depth or any other Creature to separate you if they are able from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom. 8.35 37 38 39. Shall the Lord of Heaven thus make his boast of you to all the World and will you not make good his boasting Yea I must tell you he will see that it be made good to a word and if you be not careful of it your selves and it be not made good in you then you are not the people that God thus boasteth of He tells the greatest Persecutors to their faces that the meek the humble little ones of his Flock have their Angels beholding the face of God in Heaven Matth. 18.10 and that at the great and dreadful day of Judgment they shall be set at his right hand as his Sheep with a Come ye blessed inherit the Kingdom when others are set at his left hand as Goats with a Go ye cursed into everlasting Fire Matth. 25. He tells the world that he that receiveth a Converted man that is become as a little Child receiveth Christ himself and that whoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in him it were better for him that a Milstone were hanged about his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the Sea Matth. 18.3 4 5 6. Mark 9.42 Luke 17.2 O Sirs must God be thus wonderfully tender of you and will you not now be very tender of his interest and your duty Shall he thus difference you from all the rest of the world and will you not study to declare the difference The ungodly even gnash the teeth at Ministers and Scriptures and Christ himself for making such a difference between them and you and will you not let them see that it is not without cause I intreat you I require you in the Name of God see that you answer these high commendations and shew us that God hath not boasted of you beyond your worth 9. Consider this as the highest Motive of all God doth not only magnify you and boast of you but also he hath made you the living Images of his blessed self his Son Jesus Christ his Spirit and his holy Word and so he hath exposed himself his Son his Spirit and his Word to be censured by the World according to your lives The express Image of the Fathers person is the Son Heb. 1.3 The Son is declared to the World by the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost hath endited the Holy Scriptures which therefore bear the Image of Father Son and Holy Ghost This holy Word both Law and Promise is written on your hearts and put into your inner parts by the sâ—me spirit 2 Cor. 3.3 Heb. 8.13 and 10.16 So that as God hath imprinted his holy nature in the Scripture so hath he made this word the Seal to imprint again his Image on your hearts And you know that common eyes can better discern the Image in the Wax than on the Seal Though I know that the hardness of the Wax or somthing lying between or the imperfect application may cause an imperfection in the Image on the
Every sentence is good for somthing All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works 2 Tim. 3.16 17. Not a word is without its usefulness 5. Moreover you must grow not only in knowing the usefulness of truths but also in knowing how to use them that you may have the benefit of that worth that is in them Many a man knows what use a workmans tools are for that yet knows not how himself to use them And many a one knows the use and vertue of herbs and drugs that knows not how to make a medicine of them and compound and apply them There is much skill to be used in knowing the seasons of application and the measure and what is fit for one and what for another that we may make that necessary variation which diversity of conditions do require As it is a work of skill in the Pastors of the Church to divide the word of God aright and speak a word in season to the weary and give the children their meat in due season 2 Tim. 2.15 Isa. 50.4 Mat. 24.45 So is it also a work of skill to do this for your selves to know what Scripture it is that doth concern you and when and in what measure to apply it and in what order and with what advantages or correctives to use it as may be most for your own good You may grow in this skill as long as you live even in understanding how to use the same truths which you have long known O what excellent Christians should we be if we had but this holy skill and hearts to use it We have the whole armour of God to put on and use but all the matter is how to use it The same sword of the spirit in the hand of a strong and skilful Christian may do very much which in the hand of a young unskilful Christian will do very little and next to nothing A young raw Physician may know the same medicines as an able experienced Physician doth but the great difference lieth in the skil to use them This is it that must make you rich in grace when you increase in the skilful use of truths 6. Moreover your understandings may be much advanced by knowing the same truths more experimentally than you did before I mean such truths as are capable of experimental knowledge Experience giveth us a far more satisfactory manner of knowledge than others have that have no such experience To know by hearsay is like the knowing of a Countrey in a Map and to know by experience is like the knowing of the same Countrey by sight An experienced Navigator or Soldier or Physician or Governour hath another manner of knowledge than the most learned can have without experience even a knowledge that confirmeth a man and makes him confident Thus may you daily increase in knowledge about the same points that you knew long ago When you have tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious Psal. 34.8 1 Pet. 2.3 you will know him more experimentally than you did before when you have tasted the sweetness of the promise and of pardon of sin and peace with God and the hopes of glory you will have a more experimental knowledge of the riches of grace than you had before And when you have lived a while in communion with Christ and the Saints and walked a while with God in a heavenly conversation and maintained your integrity and kept your selves unspotted of the world you will then know the nature and worth of holiness by a knowledge more experimental and satisfactory than before And this is confirmation and growth in knowledge 7. Moreover you must labor to grow in a higher estimation of the same truths which you knew before And this will be a consequent of the forementioned acts A child that findeth a jewel may set by it for the shining beauty when yet he may value it many thousand pounds below its worth You see so much wisdom and goodness in God the first hour of your new life as causeth you to prefer him before the world and you see so much necessity of a Saviour so much love and mercy in Jesus Christ as draweth up your hearts to him and you see so much certainty and glorious excellency of the life to come that makes you value it even more than your lives But yet there is in all these such an unsearchable treasure that you can never value them neer their worth for all that thou hast seen of God and Christ and Glory there is a thousand times more excellency in them yet to be discerned For all the beauty thou hast seen in holiness it is a thousand fold more beautiful than ever thou didst apprehend it for all the evil thou hast seen in sin it is a thousand fold worse than ever thou didst perceive it to be So that if you should live a thousand years you might still be growing in your estimation of those things which you knew the first day of your true conversion For the deeper you dig into this precious Mine the greater riches will still appear to you There is an Ocean of excellency in one Article of your belief and you will never find the banks or bottom till you come to heaven and then you will find that it had neither banks nor bottom And thus I have shewed you what confirmation growth is needful for your understandings even about the very same truths which at first you knew And now I shall add 8. You must also labour to understand more truths for number than at the first you understood and to reach to as much of the revealed will of God as you can and not to stop in the meer essentials For all divine revelations are precious and of great use and none must be neglected And the knowledge of many other truths is of some necessity to our clear understanding of the essentials and also to our holding them fast and practising them Secret things belong to God but things revealed to us and to our children Deut. 29.29 But here I must give you this further advice 1. That you proceed in due order from the fundamental points to those that lye next them do not overpass the points of next necessity and weight and go to higher and less needful matters before you are ready for them 2. And also see that you receive all following truths that are taught you as flowing from the foundation and conjoyned with it Disorderly proceedings have unspeakably wrong'd the souls of many thousands when they are presently upon controversies and smaller matters before they understand abundance of more necessary things that must be first understood This course doth make them lose their labour and worse it deceiveth the understanding instead of informing it and thereupon it perverts the will it self and turns
his hand or the Fornicator to cure his lust than to put out his eyes it were a cheap remedy A cheap and easy superficial Repentance may skin over the sore and deceive an Hypocrite but he that would be sure of pardon and free from fear must go to the bottom DIRECT XX. Live as with Death continually in your eye and spend every day in serious preparation for it that when it cometh you may find your work dispatcht and may not then cry out in vain to God to try you once again PRomise not your selves long life Think not of death as at many years distance but as hard at hand Think what will then be needful to your peace and comfort and order all your life accordingly and prepare that now which will be needful then Live now while you have time as you will resolve and promise God to live when on your death-bed you are praying for a little time of tryal more It is a great work to die in a joyful assurance and hope of everlasting life and with a longing desire to depart and be with Christ as best of all Phil. 1.21 23. O then what a burden and terror it will be to have an unbelieving or a worldly heart or a guilty Conscience Now therefore use all possible diligence to strengthen Faith to increase love to be acquit from guilt to be above the World to have the mind set free from the Captivity of the flesh to walk with God and to obtain the deepest most delectable apprehensions of his love in Christ and of the heavenly blessedness which you expect Do you feel any doubts of the state of immortality or staggering at the Promise of God through unbelief Presently do all you can to conquer them and get a clear resolution to your souls and leave it not all to do at the time of sickness Are the thoughts or God and Heaven unpleasant or terrible to you Presently search out the cause of all and labour in the cure of it as for your lives Is there any former or present sin which is a burden or terror to your Consciences Presently seek out to Christ for a Cure by Faith and true Repentance and do that to disburden your Consciences now which you would do on a sick-bed and leave not so great and necessary a 〈◊〉 to so uncertain and short and unfit a time Is there any thing in this World that is swâ—â—tâ—r tâ— your thoughts than God and Heaven 〈◊〉 which you cannot willingly let go Mâ—rtiâ—iâ— it without delay consider of its vanity compare it with Heaven Crucifie it by the Cross of Christ cease not till you account it loss and â—â—ung for the excellent knowledg of Christ and life eternal Phil. 3.7 8 9. Let not death surprize you as a thing that you never seriously expected Can you do no more in preparation for it than you do If no why do you wish a death to be tryed once again and why are you troubled that you lived no better But if you can when think you should it be done Is the time of uncertain painful sickness better than this O how doth sensuality besot the World and inconsiderateness deprive them of the benefit of their reason O Sirs if you know indeed that you must shortly die live then as dying men should live Choose your condition in the World and manage it as men that must shortly dye Use your Power and Command and Honour and use all your Neighbours and especially use the Cause and Servants of Christ as men should do that must shortly die Build and plant and buy and sell and use your Riches as those that must die remembring that the fashion of all these things is passing away 1 Cor. 7.29 30. Yea pray and read and hear and meditate as those that must die Seeing you are as sure of it as if it were this hour in the name of God delay not your preparations It is a terrible thing for an immortal Soul to pass out of the body in a carnal unregenerate unprepared state and to leave a World which they loved and were familiar with and go to a World which they neither know nor love and where they have neither heart nor treasure Matth. 6.19 20 31. The measure of Faith which may help you to bear an easie cross is not sufficient to fortifie and encourage your souls to enter upon so great a change So also bear all your wants and crosses as men that must shortly die Fear the cruelties of men but as beseemeth those that are ready to die He that can die well can do any thing or suffer any thing And he that is unready to die is unfit for a fruitful and comfortable life What can rationally rejoyce that man who is sure to die and unready to dye and is yet unfurnished of dying comforts Let nothing be now sweet to you which will be bitter to your dying thoughts Let nothing be much desired now which will be unprofitable and uncomfortable then Let nothing seem very heavy or grievous now which will be light and easy then Let nothing now seem honourable which will then seem despicable and vile Consider of every thing as it will look at death that when the day shall come which endeth all the joyes of the ungodly you may look up with joy and say Welcome Heaven This is tho day which I so long expected which all my dayes were spent in preparation for which shall end my fears and begin my felicity and put me into possession of all that I desired and prayed and laboured for when my Soul shall see its glorified Lord For he hath said John 12.26 If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be If any man serve me him will my Father honour Even so Lord Jesus remember me now thou art in thy Kingdom and let me be with thee in Paradise Luke 23.42 43. O thou that spakest those words so full of unexpressible comfort to a sinful woman in the first speech after thy blessed Resurrection Joh. 20.17 GO TO MY BRETHREN AND SAY VNTO THEM I ASCEND UNTO MY FATHER AND YOUR FATHER AND TO MY GOD AND YOVR GOD. Take up now this Soul that is thine own that it may see the Glory given thee with the Father Joh. 17.24 and instead of this life of temptation trouble darkness distance and sinful imperfection I may delightfully Behold and Love and Praise thy Father and my Father and thy God and my God Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Luke 2.29 Acts 7.59 And now I have given you all these Directions I shall only request you in the close that you will set your very hearts to the daily serious practise of them For there is no other way for a ripe confirmed state of Grace And as ever you regard the glory of God the honour of your Religion the welfare of the Church and those
Mind and used by it And as interposed matter or defective application may cause the Image on the Wax to be imperfect though made by the most perfect Seal so is it in this case when one man doth defectively understand the Scripture-description of a godly man or Christian and another by misunderstanding mixeth false conceptions of his own and another by a corrupt depraved will doth hinder the understanding from believing or remembring or considering and using what it partly apprehendeth what wonder if the Godliness and Christianity in their hearts be unlike the Godliness and Christianity in the Scriptures When the Law of God in Nature and Scripture is pure and uncorrupt and the Law of God written imperfectly on the heart is there mixt with the carnal Law in their members no marvel if it be expressed accordingly in their lives I have therefore much endeavoured in all my writings and especially in this to draw out the full pourtraiture of a Christian or godly man indeed and to describe Gods Image on the soul of man in such a manner as tendeth to the just information of the Readers mind and the filling up of the wants and rectifying the errors which may be found in his former conceptions of it And I do purposely inculcate the same things oft in several writings as when I preached I did in all my Sermons that the Reader may find that I bring him not undigested needless novelties and that the frequent repetition of them may help to make the deeper and fuller impression For my work is to subserve the Holy Ghost in putting Gods Law into mens hearts and writing it out truly clearly and fully upon their inward parts that they may be made such themselves by understanding throughly what they must be and what a solid Christian is And that thus they may be born again by the incorruptible immortal seed the Word of God which will live and abide for ever and may purifie their souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit 1 Pet. 1.22 23 25. He is the best Lawyer Physician Souldier c. who hath his Doctrine in his brain and not only in his Books and hath digested his reading into an intellectual systeme and habit of knowledge If Ministers had an hundred times over repeated the integral pourtraiture or character of a sound Christian till it had been as familiar to the minds and memories of their hearers as is the description of a Magistrate a Physician a School-master a Husband-man a Shephered and such things as they are well acquainted with it would have been a powerfull means to make sound Christians But when mens minds conceive of a Christian as a man that differeth from Heathens and Infidels in nothing but holding the Christian Opinions and using different words and ceremonies of worship and such like no wonder if such be but opinionative lifeless Christians And if their Religion make them no better than a Seneca or Plutarch I shall never believe that they are any surer to be saved than they And such a sort of men there are that suppose Christianity to consist but of these three parts 1. The Christian Doctrine acknowledged which they call Faith 2. The Orders and Ordinances of the Christian Church and Worship submitted to and decently used which they call Godliness And 3. The heart and life of a Cato Cicero or Socrates adjoyned But all that goeth beyond this which is the Life of Christianity and Godliness a Lively Faith and Hope and Love a Heavenly and Holy mind and life from the renewing in dweling Spirit of God which is described in this Treatise they are strangers to it and take it to be but fansie and hypocrisie These No-Christians do much to reduce the Church to Infidelity that there may be indeed No Christians in the world For my part I must confess if there were no better Christians in the world than these I think I should be no Christian my self And if Christ made men no better than the Religion of Socrates Cato or Seneca and did no more to the reparation and perfecting of mens hearts and lives I should think no better of the Christian Religion than of theirs For the means is to be estimated by the End and Vse And that 's the best Physician that hath the Remedies which are fittest to work the cure If God had not acquainted me with a sort of men that have really more Holiness Mortification Spirituality Love to God and to one another and even to enemies and more heavenly desires expectations and delights than these men before described have it would have been a very great hinderance to my Faith The same may I say of those that place Godliness and Christianity only in holding strict opinions and in affected needless singularities and in the fluent Oratory and length of prayer and avoiding other mens forms and modes of worship and in any thing short of a Renewed Holy Heavenly heart and life And undoubtedly if a true full Character of Godliness had been imprinted in their minds we should never have seen the Professors of it so blotted with sensuality selfishness pride ambition worldliness distrust of God self-conceitedness heresie schism rebellions unquietness impatiency unmercifulness and cruelty to mens souls and bodies as we have seen them in this age and all this justified as consistent with Religion And I fear that because this Treatise will speak to few that are not some way guilty every face which hath a spot or blemish will be offended with the glass and lest the faulty will say that I particularly intended to disgrace them But I must here tell the Reader to prevent his misunderstanding that if he shall imagine that I have my eyes upon particular parties and as a discontented person do intend to blame those that differ from my self or to grieve inferiours or dishonour and asperse superiours they will mistake me and wrong themselves and me who professedly intend but the true Description of sound Christians diseased Christians and seeming Christians And for the manner of this writing I am conscious it hath but little to commend it The matter is that for which it is published The Lord Verulam in his Essayes truly saith that much reading makes one full much discourse doth make one ready and much writing doth make a man exact Though I have had my part of all these means yet being parted five years from my Books and three years from my Preaching the effects may decay and you must expect neither Quotations or Oratory Testimonies or ornament of stile But having not yet wholly ceased from Writing I may own so much of the exactness as will allow me to intreat the Reader not to use me as many have done who by over-looking some one word have made the sense another thing and have made it a crime to be exact in Writing because they cannot or will not be exact in Reading or charitable or humane in interpreting The Contents THE Characters of a strong
loveth him more for his Mercy to the Church and for that Goodness which consisteth in his Benignity to the Church But he Loveth him most of all for his Infinite perfections and essential excellencies His Infinite Power and Wisdom and Goodness simply in himself considered For he knoweth that Love to himself obligeth him to returns of Love especially differencing saving grace And he knoweth that the souls of millions are more worth incomparably then his own and that God may be much more honoured by them than by him alone And therefore he knoweth that the mercy to many is greater mercy and a greater demonstration of the goodness of God and therefore doth render him more amiable to man Rom. 9.3 And yet he knoweth that the Essential perfection and goodness of God as simply in himself and for himself is much more amiable than his Benignity to the creature And that he that is the first efficient must needs be the ultimate final cause of all things And that God is not finally for the creature but the creature for God for all that he needeth it not For of him and through him and to him are all things Rom. 11.36 And as he is Infinitely better than our selves so he is to be better Loved than our selves As I love a wise and vertuous person though he be one I never expect to receive any thing from and therefore Love him for his own sake and not for his benignity or usefulness to me So must I love God most for his essential perfections though his benignity also doth represent him amiable As he is blindly selfish that would not rather himself be annihilated or perish than whole Kingdoms should all perish or the Sun be taken out of the world because that which is best must he loved as best and therefore be best loved so is he more blind who in his estimative complacential Love preferreth not Infinite Eternal Goodness before such an imperfect silly creature as himself or all the world We are commanded to love our Neighbour as our selves when God is to be loved with all the heart and soul and might which therefore signifieth more than to love him as our selves or else he were to be loved no more than our Neighbour So that the strong Christian loveth God so much above himself as that he accounteth himself and all his interests as nothing in comparison of God yea and loveth himself more for God than for himself Though his own salvation be loved and desired by him and God must be loved for his mercy and benignity yet that salvation it self which he desireth is nothing else but the love of God Wherein his love is the final felicitating act and God is the final felicitating object and the felicity of loving is not first desired but the attractive object doth draw out our love and thereby make us consequentially happy in the injoying exercise thereof Thus God is All and in all to the soul. Psal. 73.25 Rom. 11.36 1 Cor. 10.31 Deut. 6.5 Mat. 23.37 Mat. 19.17 2. A weak Christian also loveth God as one that is infinitely better than himself and all things or else he did not love him at all as God But in the exercise he is so much in the minding of himself and so seldom and weak in the contemplation of Gods perfections that he feeleth more of his love to himself than unto God and feeleth more of his love to God as for the Benefits which he receiveth in and by himself than as for his own perfections yea and often feeleth the love of himself to work more strongly than his Love to the Church and all else in the world The care of his own salvation is the highest principle which he ordinarily perceiveth in any great strength in him and he is very little and weakly carried out to the Love of the whole Church and to the Love of God above himself Phil. 2.20 21 22. 1 Cor. 10.24 Jer. 45.5 3. A seeming Christian hath a common Love of God as he is Good both in himself and unto the world and unto him But this is not for his Holyness and it is but a general uneffectual approbation and praise of God which followeth a dead uneffectual belief But his chiefest predominant Love is always to his Carnal self and the Love both of his soul and of God is subjected to his fleshly self-love His chiefest Love to God is for prospering him in the world and such as is subservient to his sensuality pride coveteousness presumption and false hopes Luke 18.21 22. 1 Joh. 2.15.2 Tim. 3.2 4. Joh. 12.43 Joh. 5.42 VII 1. A Christian indeed doth practically take this Love of God and the holy expressions of it to be the very life and top of his Religion and the very life and beauty and pleasure of his soul He makes it his work in the world and loveth himself complacentially but so far as he findeth in himself the Love of God And so far as he findeth himself without it he loatheth himself as an unlovely carkass And so far as his prayers and obedience are without it he looks on them but as unacceptable loathsome things And therefore he is taken up in the study of Redemption because he can no where so clearly see the Love and Loveliness of God as in the face of a Redeemer even in the wonders of Love revealed in Christ. And he studieth them that Love may kindle Love And therefore he delighteth in the contemplating of Gods attributes and infinite perfections and in the beholding of him in the frame of the Creation and reading his name in the book of his works that his soul may by such steps be raised in Love and Admiration of his Maker And as it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun or light so is it to the mind of the Christian indeed to be frequently and seriously contemplating the nature and glory of God And the exercise of Love in such contemplations is most of his daily walk with God And therefore it is also that he is more taken up in the exercises of thanksgiving and the Praises of the Almighty than in the lower parts of Godliness so that though he neglect not confession of sin and humiliation yet doth he use them but in subserviency to the Love and Praise of God He doth but rid out the filth that is undecent in a Heart that is to entertain its God He placeth not the chief part of his Religion in any outward duties nor in any lower preparatory acts Nor doth he stop in any of these however he neglect them not But he useth them all to advance his soul in the Love of God And useth them the more diligently because the Love of God to which they conduce as to their proper end is so high and exellent a work Therefore in Davids Psalms you find a heart delighting it self in the praises of God and in Love with his word and works in order
to his praises Psal. 116.1 c. Psal. 106. 103. 145. 146. c. Rom. 8.37 2. The weak Christian is taken up but very little with the lively exercises of Love and Praise nor with any Studies higher than his own distempered heart The care of his poor soul and the complaining of his manifold infirmities and corruptions is the most of his Religion And if he set himself to the Praising of God or to Thanksgiving he is as dull and short in it as if it were not his proper work Psal. 77. Mar. 9.24 16.14 3. The seeming Christian liveth to the flesh and carnal self-love is the active principle of his life and he is neither exercised in Humiliation or in Praise sincerely being unacquainted both with holy Joy and Sorrow But knowing that he is in the hands of God to prosper or destroy him he will humble himself to him to escape his judgements and praise him with some gladness for the sunshine of prosperity and he will seem to be piously thanking God when he is but rejoycing in the accommodations of his flesh or strengthning his presumption and false hopes of heaven Luke 18.11 12.19 Isa. 58.2 VIII 1. A Christian indeed is one that is so apprehensive of his lost condition unworthyness and utter insufficiency for himself and of the office perfection and sufficiency of Christ that he hath absolutely put his soul and all his hopes into the hands of Christ and now liveth in him and upon him as having no Life but what he hath from Christ nor any other way of access to God or acceptance of his person or his service but by him In him he beholdeth and delightfully admireth the Love and goodness of the Father In him he hath access with boldness unto God Through him the most terrible avenging Judge is become a Reconciled God and he that we could not remember but with trembling is become the most desirable object of our thoughts He is delightfully employed in prying into the unsearchable mysterie And Christ doth even dwell in his heart by faith and being rooted and grounded in love he apprehendeth with all saints what is the bredth and length and depth and height and knoweth the love of Christ which passeth knowledge Eph. 3.17 18 19. He perceiveth that he is daily beholden to Christ that he is not in hell that sin doth not make him like to Devills and that he is not utterly forsaken of God He feeleth that he is beholden to Christ for every hours time and every mercy to his soul or body and for all his hope of mercy in this life or in the life to come He perceiveth that he is dead in himself and that his life is hid with Christ in God And therefore he is as buryed and risen again with Christ even dead to sin but alive to God through Jesus Christ. Rom. 6.3 4 11. Col. 4.4 He saith with Paul Gal. 2.20 I am crucified with Christ Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me Thus doth he live as truly and constantly by the second Adam who is a quickning spirit as he doth by the first Adam who was a living soul. 1 Cor. 15.45 This is a confirmed Christians life 2. But the weak Christian though he be also united unto Christ and live by faith yet how languid are the operations of that faith How dark and dull are his thoughts of Christ How little is his sense of the wonders of Gods love revealed to the world in the mysterie of Redemption How little use doth he make of Christ And how little life receives he from him And how little comfort findeth he in believing in comparison of that which the confirmed find He is to Christ as a sick person to his food He only picketh here and there a little of the crums of the bread of life to keep him from dying but is wofully unacquainted with the powerfullest works of faith He is such a Believer as is next to an unbeliever and such a member of Christ as is next to a meer stranger 3. And for the seeming Christian he may understand the letter of the Gospel and number himself with Christs disciples and be baptized with water and have such a faith as is a dead opinion But he hath not an effectual living faith nor is baptized with the Holy Ghost nor is his soul engaged absolutely and entirely in the covenant of Christianity to his Redeemer He may have a handsome well-made image of Christianity but it is the flesh and sense and not Christ and faith by which his life is actuated and ordered Joh. 3.6 Rom. 2.28 IX 1. A Christian indeed doth firmly believe that Christ is a Teacher sent from God Joh. 3.2 and that he came from Heaven to reveal his Fathers will and to bring life and immortality more fully to light by his Gospel and that if an Angel had been sent to tell us of the life to come and the way thereto he had not been so credible and venerable a messenger as the Son of God And therefore he taketh him alone for his chief Teacher and knoweth no Master on Earth but him and such as he appointeth under him His study in the world is to know a crucified and glorified Christ and God by him and he regardeth no other knowledge nor useth any other studies but this and such as are subservient to this Even when he studieth the works of nature it is as by the conduct of the restorer of nature and as one help appointed him by Christ to lead him up to the knowledge of God And therefore he perceiveth that Christ is made of God unto us wisdom as well as Righteousness And that Christianity is the true Philosophy and that the wisdom of the world which is only about worldly things from worldly principles to a worldly end is foolishness with God He taketh nothing for wisdom which tendeth not to acquaint him more with God or lead him up to everlasting happiness Christ is his Teacher either by natural or supernatural revelation and God is his ultimate end in all his studies and all that he desireth to know in the world He valueth knowledge according to its usefulness And he knoweth that its chief use is to lead us to the love of God Math. 23.8 1 Cor. 1.30 2.2 c. Joh. 1.18 Col. 2.3 Eph. 4.13 2. Though the weak Christian hath the same Master yet alas how little doth he learn and how oft is he hearkning to the teaching of the flesh and how carnal and common is much of his knowledge How little doth he depend on Christ in his enquiries after the things of nature And how apt is he to think almost as highly of the teaching of Aristotle Plato Seneca or at least of some excellent preacher as of Christs and
care for your state for all seek their own not the things which are Jesus Christs that is They too much seek their own and not entirely enough the things that are Christs which Timothy did naturally as if he had been born to it and Grace had made the Love of Christ and the souls of men and the good of others as naturall to him as the Love of himself Alas how lowdly do their own distempers and soul miscarriages and the divisions and calamities of the Church proclaim that the weaker sort of Christians have yet too much selfishness and that selfdenial is lamentably imperfect in them 3. But in the seeming Christian selfishness is still the predominant principle he loveth God but for himself and he never had any higher end than self All his Religion his opinions his practice is animated by self-love and governed by it even by the Love of carnal self self-esteem self-conceitedness self-love self-willedness self-seeking and self-saving are the constitution of his heart and life He will be of that opinion and way and party in Religion which selfishness directeth him to choose He will go no farther in Religion than self-interest and safety will allow him to go He can change his friend and turn his love into hatred and his praises into reproach when ever self-interest shall require it He can make himself believe and labour to make others believe that the wisest and holiest servants of God are erroneous homorous hypocrites and unsufferable if they do but stand cross to his opinions and interest For he judgeth of them and loveth or hateth them principally as they conform to his will and interest or as they are against it As the godly measure all persons and things by the will and interest of God so do all ungodly men esteem them as they stand in reference to themselves When their factious interest required it the Jews and specially the Pharisees could make themselves and others believe that the Son of God himself was a breaker of the Law and an enemy to Caesar and a blasphemer and unworthy to live on the earth And that Paul was a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among the people and a ringleader of a sect and a prophaner of the Temple Act. 24.5 6. and which of the Prophets and Apostles did they not persecute Because Christs doctrine doth cross the interest of selfish men therefore the world doth so generally rise up against it with indignation even as a Country will rise against an invading enemy For he cometh to take away that which is dearest to them As it is said of Luther that he medled with the Popes crown and the Fryars bellies and therefore no wonder if they swarmed all about his ears Selfishness is so generall and deeply rooted that except with a few self-denying Saints self-love and self-interest ruleth the world And if you would know how to please a graceless man serve but his carnal interest and you have done it Be of his opinion or take on you to be so applaud him admire him flatter him obey him promote his preferment honour and wealth be against his enemies in a word make him your God and sell your soul to gain his favour and so it 's possible you may gain it XVI 1. A Christian indeed hath so far mortified the flesh and brought all his senses and appetite into subjection to sanctified Reason as that there is no great rebellion or perturbation in his mind but a little matter a holy thought or a word from God doth presently rebuke and quiet his inordinate desires The flesh is as a well-broken and well-ridden horse that goeth on his journey obediently and quietly and not with striving and chasing and vexatious resisting Though still flesh will be flesh and will be weak and will fight against the spirit so that we cannot do all the good we would Isa. 5.17 Rom. 7.16 17 c. yet in the confirmed Christian it is so far tamed and subdued that its rebellion is much less and its resistance weaker and more easily overcome It causeth not any notable unevenness in his obedience nor blemishes in his life it is no other than consisteth with a readiness to obey the will of God Gal. 5.24 25. 1 Cor. 9.26 27. They that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof They run not as uncertainly they fight not as one that beateth the air but they keep under their bodies and bring them into subjection lest by any means they should be castawaies They put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof Rom. 13.13 14. As we see to a temperate man how sweet and easie temperance is when to a glutton or drunkard or riotous liver it is exceeding hard so it is in all other points with a confirmed Christian. He hath so far crucified the flesh that it is as dead to its former lusts and so far mastered it that it doth easily and quickly yield And this maketh the life of such a Christian not only pure but very easie to him in comparison of other mens Nay more than this he can use his sense as he can use the world the objects of sense in subserviency to faith and his salvation His eye doth but open a window to his mind to hold and admire the Creator in his work His tast of the sweetness of the creatures is but a means by which the sweeter Love of God doth pass directly to his heart His sense of pleasure is but the passage of spiritual holy pleasure to his mind His sense of bitterness and pain is but the messenger to tell his heart of the bitterness and vexatiousness of sin As God in the creation of us made our senses but as the inlet and passage for himself into our minds even as he made all the creatures to represent him to us by this passage so grace doth restore our very senses with the creature to this their holy original use that the goodness of God through the goodness of the creature may pass to our hearts and be the effect and end of all 2. But for the weak Christian though he have mortified the deeds of the body by the spirit and live not after the flesh but be freed from its captivity or reign Gal. 5.24 Rom. 8.1 7 8 9 10 11 12 13. yet hath he such remnants of concupiscence and sensuality as make it a far harder matter to him to live in temperance and deny his appetite and govern his senses and restrain them from rebellion and excess He is like a weak man upon an ill-ridden headstrong horse who hath much ado to keep his saddle and keep his way He is stronglier inclined to fleshly lusts or excess in meat or drink or sleep or sports or some such fleshly pleasure than the mortified temperate person is and therefore is ofter guilty of some excess so that his life is a very tiresome
win the world and lose his soul. His eye and heart are where his God and treasure is above and worldly wealth and greatness are below him even under his feet He thinketh not things temporal worth the looking at in comparison of things eternal 2 Cor. 4.18 He thinketh that their money and riches do deservedly perish with them who think all the mony in the world to be a thing comparable with grace Act. 8.20 2. And the weak Christian is of the same judgement and resolution in the main But yet the world retaineth a greater interest in his heart It grieveth him more to lose it It is a stronger temptation to him To deny all the preferments and honours and riches of it seemeth a greater matter to him and he doth it with more striving and less ease and sometimes the respect of worldly things prevaileth with him in lesser matters to wound his conscience and maketh work for repentance and such are so entangled in worldly cares and prosperity tasteth so sweet with them that grace even languisheth and falleth into a consumption and almost into a swoun So much do some such let out their hearts to the world which they renounced and scrape for it with so much care and eagerness and contend with others about their commodities and rights that they seem to the standers by to be as worldly as worldlings themselves are and become a shame to their profession and make ungodly persons say Your godly professors are as coveteous as any 2 Tim. 4.10 3. But seeming Christians are the servants of the world when they have learnt to speak hardliest of it it hath their hearts Heaven as I said before is valued but as a reserve when they know they can keep the world no longer They have more sweet and pleasing thoughts and speeches of the world than they have of God and the world to come It hath most of their hearts when God is most preferred by their tongues there it is that they are daily laying up their treasure and there they must leave it at the parting hour when they go naked out as they came naked in the love of deceitful riches choaketh the word of God and it withereth in them and becometh unfruitful Mat. 13.22 They go away sorrowful because of their beloved riches when they should part with all for the hopes of heaven Luk. 18.23 yea though they are beggars that never have a dayes prosperity in the world for all that they love it better than heaven and desire that which they cannot get because they have not an eye of faith to see that better world which they neglect and therefore take it for an uncertain thing nor are their carnal natures suitable to it and therefore they mind it not Rom. 8.7 When an Hypocrite is at the best he is but a Religious worldling The world is neerer to his heart than God is but pure Religion keepeth a man unspotted of the world Jam. 1.27 XIX 1. A confirmed Christian is one that still seeth the end in all that he doth and that is before him in his way and looketh not at things as at the present they seem or relish to the flesh or to short sighted men but as they will appear and be judged of at last The first letter maketh not the word nor the first word the sentence without the last Present time is quickly past and therefore he less regardeth what things seem at present than what they will prove to all eternity When temptations offer him a bate to sin with the present profit or pleasure or honour he seeth at once the final shame he seeth all worldly things as they are seen by a dying man and as after the general conflagration they will be He seeth the godly in his adversity and patience as entring into his masters joys he seeth the derided vilified saint as ready to stand justified by Christ at his right hand and the lyes of the malicious world as ready to cover themselves with shame he seeth the wicked in the height of their prosperity as ready to be cut down and withered and their pampered flesh to turn to dirt and their filthy and malicious souls to stand condemned by Christ at his left hand and to hear Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Mat. 25. 1 Pet. 1.24 Jam. 1.10 11. Psal. 73. 37. Therefore it is that he valueth grace because he knoweth what it will be and therefore it is that he flieth from sin because he knoweth the terrors of the Lord and what it will prove to the sinner in the end and how sinners themselves will curse the day that ever they did commit it and wish when it is too late that they had chosen the holiness and patience of the saints and therefore it is that he pitieth rather than envieth the prosperous enemies of the Church because he foreseeth what the end will be of them that obey not the Gospel of Christ and if the righteous be scarcely saved where shall the ungodly and sinner appear 1 Pet. 4.17 18. 2 Thes. 1.8 9 10. If the wicked unbelievers saw but the ending of all things as he doth they would be all then of his mind and way This putteth so much life into his prayers his obedience and patience because he seeth the end in all Deut. 32.39 Prov. 19.20 Isai. 47.7 2. And the weakest Christian doth the same in the main so far as to turn his heart from things temporal to things eternal and to resolve him in his main choice and to conduct the course of his life towards heaven But yet in particular actions he is often stopt in present things and forgetfully loseth the fight of the end and so is deluded and entised into sin for want of seeing that which should have preserved him he is like one that travelleth over hills and vallies who when he is upon the hills doth see the place that he is going to but when he cometh into the vallies it is out of his sight Too oft doth the weak Christian think of things as they appear at the present with little sense of the change that is neer when he seeth the bates of sin whether riches or beauty or meat and drink or any thing that is pleasing to the senses the remembrance of the end doth not so quickly and powerfully work to prevent his deceived imaginations as it ought And when poverty or shame or sufferings or sickness are presented to him the foresight of the end is not so speedy and powerful in clearing his judgement and setling his resolution and preventing his misapprehension and trouble as it ought And hence come his oft mistakes and falls and herein consisteth much of that foolishness which he confesseth when Repentance bringeth him to himself 2 Sam. 24.10 2 Chron. 16.9 3. But the seeming Christian hath so dim and doubtful a fore-sight of the end and it is so frequently out of his mind that
to his spiritual ends Whether he eateth or drinketh or what ever he doth he doth all to the glory of God 1 Cor. 10.31 The posie engraven on his heart is the name of GOD with OF HIM and THROUGH HIM and TO HIM ARE ALL THINGS TO HIM BE GLORY FOR EVER AMEN Rom. 11.36 He liveth as a steward that useth not his own though yet he have a sufficient reward for his fidelity and he keepeth accounts both of his receivings and layings out and reckoneth all to be worse than lost which he findeth not expended on his Lords account For himself he asketh not that which is sweetest to the flesh but that which is fittest to his end and work And therefore desireth not Riches for himself but his daily bread and food convenient for him and having food and rayment is therewith content having taken godlyness for his gain he asketh not for superfluity nor any thing to consume it on his lusts nor to become provision for his flesh to satisfie the wills thereof But as a runner in his race desireth not any provisions which may hinder him and therefore forgetting the things which are behind the world which he hath turn'd his back upon he reacheth forth to the things which are before the crown of glory and presseth toward the mark for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus not turning an eye to any thing that would stop him in his course Thus while he is employed about things below his mind and conversation is heavenly and divine while all things are estimated and used purely for God and Heaven Luk. 16.1 2. 1 Pet. 4.10 Tit. 1.15 Prov. 30.8 1 Tim. 6.8 1 Tim. 6.6 Jam. 4.3 Rom. 13.14 Phil. 3.13 14 15. 2. But the weak Christian though he have all this in desire and be thus affected and resolved in the main and liveth to God in the scope and course of his life yet is too often looking aside and valuing the creature carnally for it self and oft-times useth it for the pleasing of the flesh and almost like a common man his house and land and friends and pleasures are relished too carnally as his own accommodations and though he walk not after the flesh but after the spirit yet he hath too much of the fleshly taste and is greatly out in his accounts with God and turneth many a thing from his masters use to the service of the flesh and though he be not as the slothfull wicked servant yet is it but little improvement that he maketh of his talent Mat. 25.17 26 27 28. 3. But the seeming Christian being carnal and selfish while his notions and professions are spiritual and divine and his selfish and fleshly interest being predominant it must needs follow that he estimateth all things principally as they respect his fleshly interest and useth them principally for his carnal self even when in the manner he seemeth to use them most religiously as I have said before And so to the defiled nothing is pure Rom. 8.5 6 7 8 13. Tit. 1.15 XXII 1. A Christian indeed hath a promptitude to obey and a ready compliance of his will to the will of God He hath not any great averseness and withdrawing and doth not the good which he doth with much backwardness and striving against it but as in a well ordered watch or clock the spring or poise do easily set all the wheels a going and the first wheel easily moveth the rest so is the will of a confirmed Christian presently moved as soon as he knoweth the will of God He stayeth not for other moving Reasons Gods will is his Reason This is the Habit of subjection and obedience which makes him say speak Lord for thy servant heareth and Lord what wouldst thou have me do And Teach me to do thy will O God Psal. 143.10 1 Sam. 3.10 Act. 9.6 I delight to do thy will O God yea thy Law is within my heart Psal. 40.8 The Law written in our heart is nothing else but the knowledge of Gods Laws with this Habit or promptitude to obey them the special fruit of the spirit of grace 2. But a weak Christian though he love Gods will and way and be sincerely obedient to him yet in many particulars where his corruption contradicteth hath a great deal of backwardness and striving of the flesh against the spirit and there needs many words and many considerations and vehement perswasions yea and sharp afflictions sometimes to bring him to obey and he is fain to drive on his backward heart and hath frequent use for the rod and spurr and therefore is more slow and uneven in his obedience Gal. 5.17 3. The seeming Christian is forward in those easie cheaper parts of duty which serve to delude his carnal heart and quiet him in a worldly life but he is so backward to through sincere obedience in the most flesh-displeasing parts of duty that he is never brought to it at all but either he will fit his opinions in religion to his will and will not believe them to be duties or else he will do something like them in a superficial formal way but the thing it self he will not do For he is more obedient to his carnal mind and lusts than he is to God Rom. 8.6 7. And forwarder much to sacrifice than obedience Eccl. 5.1 XXIII 1. A Christian indeed doth daily delight himself in God and findeth more solid content and pleasure in his commands and promises than in all this world His duties are sweet to him and his hopes are sweeter Religion is not a tiresome task to him The yoak of Christ is easie to him and his burthen light and his commandments are not grievous Psal. 37.4 1.2 40.8 94.19 119.16.35.47.70 Mat. 11.28 29. Joh. 5.3 That which others take as Physick for meer necessity against their wills he goeth to as a feast with appetite and delight He prayeth because he loveth to pray and he thinks and speaks of holy things because he loveth to do it And hence it is that he is so much in holy dutie and so unwearied because he loveth it and taketh pleasure in it As voluptuous persons are oft and long at their sports or merry company because they love them and take pleasure in them so are such Christians oft and long in holy exercises because their hearts are set upon them as their recreation and the way and means of their felicity If it be a delight to a studious man to read those books which most clearly open the abstrusest mysteries of the sciences or to converse with the most wise and learned men and if it be a delight to men to converse with their dearest friends or to hear from them and read their letters no marvel if it be a delight to a Christian indeed to read the Gospel mysteries of Love and to find there the promises of everlasting happiness and to see in the face of Jesus Christ the clearest Image of the
eternal deity and foresee the Joyes which he shall have for ever He sticketh not in superficial formalitie but breaking the shell doth feed upon the kernell It is not bare external duty which he is taken up with nor any meer creature that is his content but it is God in creatures and ordinances that he seeketh and liveth upon and therefore it is that Religion is so pleasant to him He would not change his Heavenly delights which he findeth in the exercise of faith and hope and love to God for all the carnal pleasures of this world he had rather be a door keeper in the house of God than to dwell in the tents or palaces of wickedness A day in Gods court is better to him than a thousand in the court of the greatest Prince on earth He is not a stranger to the joy in the Holy Ghost in which the Kingdom of God doth in part consist Rom. 14.17 Psal. 84.10.2 65.4 In the multitude of his thoughts within him the comforts of God do delight his soul. Psal. 94.19 His meditation of God is sweet and he is glad in the Lord. Psal. 104.34 The freest and sweetest of his thoughts and words run out upon God and the matters of salvation The word of God is sweeter to him than hony and better than thousands of Gold and Silver Psal. 119.72 119.103 19.10 Prov. 16.24 And because his delight is in the law of the Lord therefore doth he meditate in it day and night Psal. 1.2 He seeth great reason for all those commands Rejoyce ever more 1 Thes. 5.16 Let the righteous be glad let them rejoyce before God yea let them exceedingly rejoyce Psal. 68.3.4 64.10 31.1 32.11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoyce ye righteous and shout for joy all that are upright in heart He is sorry for the poor unhappy world that have no better things than meat and drink and cloaths and house and land and mony and lust and play and domineering over others to rejoyce in And heartily he wisheth that they had but a taste of the Saints delights that it might make them spit out their luscious unclean unwholesome pleasures One look to Christ one promise of the Gospel one serious thought of the life which he must live with God for ever doth afford his soul more solid comfort than all the kingdoms on earth can afford And though he live not continually in these high delights yet peace with God and peace of conscience and some delight in God and godliness is the ordinary temperature of his soul and higher degrees are given him in season for his cordials and his feasts 2. But the weak Christian hath little of these spiritual delights his ordinary temper is to apprehend that God and his wayes are indeed most delectable his very heart acknowledgeth that they are worthiest and fittest to be the matter of his delights And if he could attain assurance of his special interest in the love of God and his part in Christ and life eternal he would then rejoyce in them indeed and would be gladder than if he were Lord of all the world But in the mean time either his fears and doubts are damping his delights or else which is much worse his appetite is dull and God and holiness relish not with him half so sweetly as they do with the confirmed Christian and he is too busie in tasting of fleshly and forbidden pleasures which yet more deprave his appetite and dull his desires to the things of God so that though in his Estimation choice resolution and endeavour he much preferreth God before the world yet as to any delightful sweetness in him it is but little that he tasteth He loveth God with a Desiring Love and with a Seeking Love but with very little of a Delighting Love The remnant of corrupt and alien affections do weaken his affections to the things above and his infant measure of spiritual life conjunct with many troublesome diseases allow him very little of the joy of the Holy Ghost Nay perhaps he hath more grief and fear and doubts and trouble and perplexity of mind than ever he had before he turned unto God and perhaps he hath yet less pleasure in God than he had before in sin and sensuality Because he had his sin in a state of fruition but he hath God only in a seeking hoping state he had the best of sin and all that ever it will afford him but he hath yet none of the full felicity which he expecteth in God The fruition of him is yet but in the prospect of hope His sensual sinfull life was in its maturity and the object present in its most alluring state but his spiritual life of faith and love is but yet in its weak beginnings and the object absent from our sight He is so busie at first in blowing up his little spark not knowing whether the fire will kindle or go out that he hath little of the use or pleasure either of its light or warmth Infants come crying into the world and afterwards oftner cry than laugh Their senses and reason are not yet perfected or exercised to partake of the pleasures of life And when they do come to know what a laughter is they will laugh and cry almost in a breath And those weak Christians that do come to taste of joy and pleasure in their religious state it is commonly but as a flash of lightning which leaveth them as dark as they were before Sometimes in the beginning upon their first apprehensions of the love of God in Christ and of the pardon of their sins and the priviledges of their new condition and the hopes of everlasting joy their hearts are transported with unspeakable delight which is partly from the newness of the thing and partly because God will let them have some encouraging tast to draw them further and to convince them of the difference between the pleasures of sin and the comforts of believing But these first rejoycings soon abate and turn into a life of doubts and fears and griefs and care till they are grown to greater understanding experience and setledness in the things of God The root must grow greater and deeper before it will bear a greater top Those Christians that in the weakness of grace have frequent joys are usually persons whose weak and passionate nature doth occasion it some women especially that have strong phantasies and passions are alwaies passionately affected with whatsoever they apprehend And these are like a ship that is tossed in a tempest that is one while lifted up as to the clouds and presently cast down as into an infernal gulf There one day in great joy and quickly after in as great perplexity and sorrow Because their comforts or sorrows do follow their present feeling or mutable apprehensions But when they come to be confirmed Christians they will keep a more constant judgement of themselves and their own condition and constantly see their
grounds of comfort and when they cannot raise their souls to any high and passionate joys they yet walk in a settled peace of soul and in such competent comforts as make their lives to be easie and delightful being well pleased and contented with the happy condition that Christ hath brought them to and thankful that he left them not in those foolish vain pernicious pleasures which were the way to endless sorrows 3. But the seeming Christian seeketh and taketh up his chief contentment in some carnal thing If he be so poor and miserable as to have nothing in possession that can much delight him he will hope for better dayes hereafter and that hope shall be his chief delight or if he have no such hope he will be without delight and shew his love to the world and flesh by mourning for that which he cannot have as others do in rejoycing in what they do possess and he will in such a desperate case of misery be such to the world as the weak Christian is to God who hath a mourning and desiring love when he cannot reach to an enjoying and delighting Love His carnal mind most savoureth the things of the flesh and therefore in them he findeth or seeketh his chief delights Though yet he may have also a delight in his superficiall kind of Religion his hearing and reading praying in his ill-grounded hopes of life eternal But all this is but subordinate to his chiefest earthly pleasure Isai. 58.2 Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my waies as a nation that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinances of their God they ask of me the ordinances of justice they take delight in approaching unto God And yet all this was subjected to a covetous oppressing mind Mat. 13.20 He that received the seed into stony places the same is he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it yet hath he not root in himself but dureth for a while for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word by and by he is offended Whereby it appeareth that his love to the word was subjected to his love to the world Obj. But there are two sorts of people that seem to have no fleshly delights at all and yet are not in the way to salvation viz. the Quakers and Behmenists that live in great austerity and some of the Religious orders of the Papists who afflict their flesh Answ. Some of them undergo their fastings and pennance for a day that they may sin the more quietly all the week after And some of them proudly comfort themselves with the fancies and conceit of being and appearing more excellent in austerity than others And all these take up with a carnal sort of pleasure As proud persons are pleased with their own or others conceits of their beauty or witt or worldly greatness so prouder persons are pleased with their own and others conceits of their holiness And verily they have their reward Mat. 6.2 But those of them that place their chiefest happiness in the love of God and the eternal fruition of him in heaven and seek this sincerely according to their helps and power though they are mislead into some superstitious errors I hope I may number with those that are sincere for all their errors and the ill effects of them XXIV 1. A confirmed Christian doth ordinarily discern the sincerity of his own heart and consequently hath some well grounded assurance of the pardon of his sins and of the favour of God and of his everlasting happiness And therefore no wonder if he live a peaceable and joyfull life For his grace is not so small as to be undiscernable nor is it as a sleepy buried seed or principle but it is almost in continual act And they that have a great degree of grace and also keep it in lively exercise do seldom doubt of it Besides that they blot not their Evidence by so many infirmities and falls They are more in the light and have more acquaintance with themselves and more sense of the abundant love of God and of his exceeding mercies than weak Christians have and therefore must needs have more assurance They have boldness of access to the throne of grace without unreverent contempt Eph. 3.12 2.18 They have more of the spirit of Adoption and therefore more child-like confidence in God and can call him Father with greater freedom and comfort than any others can Rom. 8.15 16. Gal. 4.6 Eph. 1.6 1 Joh. 5.19 20. And we know that we are of God and that the whole world lyeth in wickedness c. 2. But the weak Christian hath so small a degree of grace and so much corruption and his grace is so little in act and his sin so much that he seldom if ever attaineth to any well-grounded assurance till he attain to a greater measure of grace He differeth so little from the seeming Christian that neither himself nor others do certainly discern the difference When he searcheth after the truth of his faith and love and heavenly mindedness he findeth so much unbelief and aversness from God and earthly mindedness that he cannot be certain which of them is predominant and whether the interest of this world or that to come do bear the sway So that he is often in perplexities and fears and more often in a dull uncertainty And if he seem at any time to have assurance it is usually but an ill-grounded perswasion of the truth though it be true which he apprehendeth when he taketh himself to be the child of God yet it is upon unfound reasons that he judgeth so or else upon sound reasons weakly and uncertainly discerned so that there is commonly much of security presumption fancie or mistake in his greatest comforts He is not yet in a condition fit for full assurance till his love and obedience be more full 3. But the seeming Christian cannot possibly in that estate have either certainty or good probability that he is a child of God because it is not true His seeming certainty is meerly self-deceit and his greatest confidence is but presumption because the spirit of Christ is not within him and therefore he is certainly none of his Rom. 8.9 XXV 1. The Assurance of a confirmed Christian doth increase his alacrity and diligence in duty and is alwayes seen in his more obedient holy fruitful life The sense of the love and mercy of God is as the rain upon the tender grass He is never so fruitful so thankful so heavenly as when he hath the greatest certainty that he shall be saved The Love of God is then shed abroad upon his heart by the Holy Ghost which maketh him abound in love to God Rom. 5.1 2 3 4. He is the more stedfast unmoveable and alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord when he is most certain that his labour shall not be in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 2. But the weak Christian is unfit
baits of and what is the manner in which he spreadeth his nets He seeth alwaies some snares before him And what company soever he is in or what business soever he is about he walketh as among snares which are visible to his sight And it is part of his business continually to avoid them He liveth in a continual watch and warfare He can resist much stronger and subtill temptations than the weak can do He is allwayes armed and knoweth what are the special remedies against each particular snare and sin Eph. 6. 2 Cor. 2.11 Prov. 1.17 And he carrieth always his antidotes about him as one that liveth in an infectious world and in the midst of a froward and perverse generation from which he is charged to save himself Phil. 2.15 Act. 2.40 2. And the weak Christian is a souldier in the army of Christ and is engaged in striving against sin Heb. 12.4 And really taketh the flesh and world as well as the Devil to be his enemies and doth not only strive but conquer in the main But yet alas how poorly is he armed How unskilfully doth he manage his Christian armour How often is he soild and wounded How many a temptation is he much unacquainted with And how many a snare doth lie before him which he never did observe And oft he is overcome in particular temptations when he never perceiveth it but thinks that he hath conquered 3. But the Hypocrite is fast ensnared when he gloryeth most of his integrity and is deceived by his own heart and thinketh he is something when he is nothing Gal. 6.3 Luk. 18.20 21 22 23. When he is thanking God that he is not as other men he is rejoycing in his dreams and sacrificing for the victory which he never obtained Luk. 18.11 He is led by Satan captive at his will when he is boasting of his uprightness and hath a beam of coveteousness or pride or cruelty in his own eye while he is reviling or censuring another for the mote of some difference about a ceremony or tolerable opinion And usually such grow worse and worse deceiving and being deceived Mat. 7.3 4 5. 2 Tim. 3.13 XXVIII 1. A Christian indeed is one that hath deliberately counted what it may cost him to follow Christ and to save his soul and knowing that suffering with Christ is the way to our reigning with him he hath fully consented to the terms of Christ He hath read Luk. 14.26 27 33. and findeth that bearing the Cross and forsaking all is necessary to those that will be Christs disciples And accordingly in resolution he hath forsaken all and looketh not for a smooth and easie way to heaven He considereth that all that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution and that through many tribulations we must enter into heaven And therefore he taketh it not for a strange or unexpected thing if the fiery trial come upon him He doth not wonder at the unrighteousness of the world as if he expected reason or honesty justice or truth or mercy in the enemies of Christ and the instruments of Satan He will not bring his action against the Devil for unjust afflicting him He will rather turn the other cheek to him that smiteth him than he will hinder the good of any soul by seeking right much less will he exercise unjust revenge Though where government is exercised for truth and righteousness he will not refuse to make use of the justice of it to punish iniquity and discourage evil doers yet this is for God and the common good and for the suppression of sin much more than for himself Suffering doth not surprise him as a thing unlooked for He hath been long preparing for it and it findeth him garrison'd in the love of Christ Yea though his flesh will be as the flesh of others sensible of the smart and his mind is not senseless of the sufferings of his body yet it is some pleasure and satisfaction to his soul to find himself in the common way to heaven and to see the predictions of Christ fulfilled and to feel himself so far conform to Jesus Christ his head and to trace the footsteps of a humbled Redeemer in the way before him As Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh so doth the Christian arm himself with the same mind 1 Pet. 4.1 He rejoyceth that he is made partaker of the sufferings of Christ that when his glory shall be revealed he may also be partaker of the exceeding joy 1 Pet. 4.12 13. yea he taketh the reproach of Christ for a treasure yea a greater treasure than Riches or mens favours can afford Heb. 11.25 26. For he knoweth if he be reproached for the name or sake of Christ he is happy For thereby he glorifieth that God whom the enemy doth blaspheme and so the spirit of God and of glory resteth on him 1 Pet. 4.14 He liveth and suffereth as one that from his heart believeth that they are blessed that are persecuted for righteousness sake for great is their reward in heaven And they are blessed when men shall revile them and persecute them and say all manner of evil against them falsly for Christs sake In this they Rejoyce and are exceeding glad as knowing that herein they are followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promise Mat. 5.10 11 12. Heb. 6.12 If he be offered upon the sacrifice and service of the saith of Gods elect he can rejoyce in it as having greater good than evil Phil. 2.17 He can suffer the loss of all things and account them dung that he may win Christ and be found in him and know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death Phil. 3.8 9 10. Not out of surliness and pride doth he rejoyce in sufferings as some do that they may carry the reputation of holy and undaunted men and seem to be far better and constanter than others When pride maketh men suffer they are partly the Devils martyrs though the cause be never so good Though it is much more ordinary for pride to make men suffer rejoycingly in an ill cause than in a good the Devil having more power on his own ground than on Christs But it is the Love of Christ and the belief of the reward and the humble neglect of the mortified flesh and the contempt of the conquered world that maketh the Christian suffer with so much joy For he seeth that the Judge is at the door And what torments the wicked are preparing for themselves And that as certainly as there is a God that governeth the world and that in Righteousness so certainly are his eyes upon the Righteous and his face is set against them that do evil 1 Pet. 3.12 and though sinners do evil an hundred times and scape unpunished till their dayes be prolonged yet vengeance will overtake them in due time and it shall be well with them that
fear the Lord and that he keepeth all the tears of his servants till the reckoning day And if judgement begin at the house of God and the righteous be saved through so much suffering and labour what then shall be their end that obey not the Gospel and where shall the ungodly and sinner appear 1 Pet. 4.17 18. Eccl. 8.12 Prov. 11.31 13.6 Psal. 56.8 Deut. 32.35 Jam. 5.9 2. And the weak Christian is one that will forsake all for the sake of Christ and suffer with him that he may be glorified with him and will take his treasure in heaven for all Luk. 14.26 33. Luk. 18.22 But he doth it not with that easiness and alacrity and joy as the confirmed Christian doth He hearkens more to the flesh which saith favour thy self suffering is much more grievous to him And sometimes he is wavering before he can bring himself fully to resolve and let go all Mat. 16.22 3. But the seeming Christian looketh not for much suffering He reads of it in the Gospel but he saw no probability of it and never believed that he should be called to it in any notable degree He thought it probable that he might well escape it And therefore though he agreed verbally to take Christ for better and worse and to follow him through sufferings he thought he would never put him to it And indeed his heart is secretly resolved that he will never be undone in the world for Christ Some reparable loss he may undergo but he will not let go life and all He will still be religious and hope for heaven But he will make himself believe and others if he can that the Truth lieth on the safer side and not on the suffering side and that it is but for their own conceits and scrupulosity that other men suffer who go beyond him and that many good men are of his opinion and therefore he may be good also in the same opinion though he would never have been of that opinion if it had not been necessary to his escaping of sufferings what flourish soever he maketh for a time when persecution ariseth he is offended and withereth Mat. 13.21 6. Unless he be so deeply engaged among the suffering party that he cannot come off without perpetual reproach and then perhaps Pride will make him suffer more than the belief of heaven oâ— the love of Christ could do And all this is because his very belief is unrooted and unsound and he hath secretly at the heart a fear that if he should suffer death for Christ he should be a loser by him and he would not reward him according to his promise with everlasting life Heb. 3.12 XXIX 1. A Christian indeed is one that followeth not Christ for company nor holdeth his belief in trust upon the credit of any in the world and therefore he would stick to Christ if all that he knoweth or converseth with should forsake him If the Rulers of the Earth should change their religion and turn against Christ he would not forsake him If the multitude of the people turn against him nay if the professors of Godliness should fall off yet would he stand his ground and be still the same If the learnedest men and the Pastors of the Church should turn from Christ he would not forsake him Yea if his nearest relations and friends or even that Minister that was the means of his conversion should change their minds and forsake the truth and turn from Christ or a holy life he would yet be constant and be still the same And what Peter resolved on he would truly practise Mat. 26 33 35. Though all men should be offended because of thee yet would not I be offended Though I should die with thee yet will I not deny thee And if he thought himself as Elias did left alone yet would he not how the knee to Baal Rom. 11.3 If he hear that this eminent Minister falleth off one day and the other another day till all be gone yet still the foundation of God standeth sure he falleth not because he is built upon the rock Mat. 7.22 23. His heart saith Alas whither shall I go if I go from Christ Is there any other that hath the word and spirit of eternal life Can I be a gainer if I lose my soul Joh. 6.67 68. Mat. 16.26 He useth his Teachers to bring him that light and evidence of truth which dwelleth in him when they are gone And therefore though they fall away he falleth not with them 2. And the weakest Christian believeth with a Divine faith of his own and dependeth more on God than man But yet if he should be put to so great a tryal as to see all the Pastors and Christians that he knoweth change their minds I know not what he would do For though God will uphold all his own whom he will save yet he doth it by means and outward helps together with his internal grace and keepeth them from temptations when he will deliver them from the evil And therefore it is a doubt whether there be not degrees of grace so weak as would fail in case the strongest temptations were permitted to assault them A strong man can stand and go of himself but an infant must be carried and the same and sick must have others to support them The weak Christian falleth if his Teacher or most esteemed company fall If they run into an error sect or schisme he keeps them company He groweth cold if he have not warming company He forgeteth himself and letteth loose his sense and passion if he have not some to watch over him and warn him No man should refuse the help of others that can have it and the best have need of all Gods means But the weak Christian needeth them much more than the strong and is much less able to stand without them Luk. 22.32 Gal. 2.11 12 13 14. 3. But the seeming Christian is built upon the sand and therefore cannot stand a storm He is a Christian more for company or he credit of man or the interest that others have in him or the encouragement of the times than from a firm Belief and love of Christ and therefore falleth when his props are gone Mat. 7.24 XXX 1. A strong Christian can digest the hardest Truths and the hardest works of Providence He seeth more of the reason and evidence of truths than others And he hath usually a more comprehensive knowledge and can reconcile those truths which short sighted persons suspect to be inconsistent and contradictory And when he cannot reconcile them he knoweth they are reconcileable For he hath laid his foundation well and then he reduceth other truths to that and buildeth them on it And so he doth by the hardest Providences Whoever is high or low whoever prospereth or is afflicted however humane affairs are carried and all things seem to go against the Church and cause of Christ he knoweth yet that God is good to Israel Psal.
man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carryed about with every wind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive but speaking the truth in Love may grow up into him in all things which is the Head even Christ from whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body to the Edifying of it self in love Here you see the children are apt to be carryed into dividing parties And that they are aptest to be Proud and that way to miscarry see 1 Tim. 3.6 Not a novice or raw young Christian lest being lifted up with Pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil And then followeth the effect Act. 20.30 Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them I would not have you groundlesly accuse any Christian with a charge of Pride But I must tell you that the childish Pride of apparel is a petty business in comparison of that Pride which many in sordid attire have manifested who in their ignorance do rage and foam out words of falshood and reproach against Christs Ministers and Servants as if they were all fools or impious in comparison of them speaking evil of that which they never understood The lifting up the Heart above the people of the Lord in the Pride of supposed Holiness is incomparably worse than Pride of Learning honour greatness wit or wealth Nay it hath oft been to me a matter of wonder to observe how little all those plain and urgent Texts of Scripture which cry down Division do work upon many of the younger Christians who yet are as quickly toucht as any with a Text that speaketh against prophaneness and lukewarmness In a word they are often of the temper of James and John when they would fain have had Christ have revenged himself on his opposers by fire from Heaven They know not what manner of Spirit they are of Luk. 9.55 They think verily that it is a holy zeal for God when it is the boiling of passion pride and selfishness They feel not the sense of such words as Christs Joh. 17.20 21 22 23 24. I pray also for them who shall believe on me through their word that they All may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the World may believe that thou hast sent me c. 3. And as for the seeming Christians in this they are of several sorts When their carnal interest lyeth in complyance with the Major part and stronger side then no men do more cry up Vnity and Obedience what a noise do many thousand Papist-Prelates Jesuites and Fryers make with these two words throughout the world Vnity and Obedience unto them upon their terms do signifie Principally their worldly greatness wealth and power But if the Hypocrite be engaged in point of honour or other carnal interest on the suffering side or be out of hope of any advantage in the common rode then no man is so much for separation and singularity as he For he must needs be noted for some body in the world and this is the chief way that he findeth to accomplish it And so being lifted up with pride be falleth into the Condemnation of the Devil and becomes a firebrand in the Church LIII 1. A Christian indeed is not only zealous for the Unity and Concord of Believers but he seeketh it on the right terms and in the way that is fitest to attain it Vnity Peace and Concord are like Piety and Honesty things so unquestionably good that there are scarce any men of reason and common sobriety that ever were heard to oppose them Directly and for themselves And therefore all that are enemies to them are yet pretenders to them and oppose them 1. In their causes only 2. Or covertly and under some other name Every man would have Vnity Concord and Peace in his own way and upon his own terms But if the right terms had been understood and consented to as sufficient the Christian world had not lain so many hundred years in the sin and shame and ruines as it hath done And the cause of all is that Christians indeed that have clear confirmed judgements and strength of grace are very few and for number and strength unable to perswade or overrule the weak the passionate and the falsehearted worldly hypocritical multitude who bear down all the counsels and endeavours of the wise The judicious faithful Christian knoweth that there are three degrees or sorts of Christian Communion which have their several terms 1. The universal-church Communion which all Christians as such must hold among themselves 2. Particular Church-communion which those that are conjoyned for personal Communion in Worship do hold under the same Pastors and among themselves 3. The extraordinary intimate communion that some Christians hold together who are bosome friends or are specially able and fit to be helpful and comfortable to each other The last concerneth not our present business we must hold Church-communion with many that are unfit to be our bosome friends and that have no eminency of parts or piety or any strong-perswading evidence of sincerity But the terms of Catholick Communion he knoweth are such as these 1. They must be such as were the terms of Church Communion in the dayes of the Apostles 2. They must be such as are plainly and certainly expressed in the holy Scriptures 3. And such as the Vniversal Church hath in some ages since been actually agreed in 4. And those points are likest to be such which all the differing parties of Christians are agreed in as Necessary to Communion to this day so we call not those Christians that deny the essentials of Christianity 5. Every man in the former ages of the Church was admitted to this Catholick Church-communion who in the Baptismal Vow or Covenant gave up himself to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as his Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier his Owner Governour and Father renouncing the flesh the world and the Devil And more particularly as man hath an Vnderstanding a Will and an executive power which must all be sanctified to God so the Creed was the particular Rule for the Credenda or things to be Believed and the Lords Prayer for the Petenda or things to be Willed Loved and Desired and the Ten Commandments for the agenda or things to be done so that to Consent to these Rules particularly and to all the Holy Scriptures implicitly and generally was the thing then required to Catholick Communion The belief of the doctrine being necessary for the sanctifying of the heart and life the Belief of so much is of Necessity without which the Heart cannot be sanctified or
predominant in him But alas he is too easily tempted into Religious passions discontents contentious disputations quarrelsome and opprobrious words and his judgement lamentably darkened and perverted whenever contentious zeal prevaileth and passions do perturb the quiet and orderly operations of his soul. He wanteth both the knowledge and the experience and the mellowness of spirit which riper Christians have attained He hath a less degree of Charity and is less acquainted with the mischiefs of unpeaceableness And therefore it is the common course of young professors to be easily tempted into unpeaceable waies and when they have long tryed them if they prove not Hypocrites to come off at last upon experience of the evils of them and so the young Christians conjunct with some hypocrites make up the rigorous fierce contentious and vexatious party and the aged riper Christians make up the holy moderate healing party that groan and pray for the Churches peace and mourn in secret both for the ungodliness and violence which they cannot heal Yea the difference is much apparent in the Books and Sermons which each of them is best pleased with The ripe experienced Christian loveth those Sermons that kindle Love and tend to Peace and love such healing Books as do narrow differences and tend to reconcile and heal such as Bishop Halls Peace-maker and Pax terris and all his writings and Bishop Davenants Bishop Mortons and Bishop Hall's Pacificatory Epistles to Duraeus and Mr. Burroughs's Irenicon Ludov. Crocius Amyraldus Junius Paraeus's and many other Irenicons written by forein Divines to say nothing of those that are upon single controversies But the younger sowre uncharitable Christians are better pleased with such Books and Sermons as call them aloud to be very zealous for this or that controverted point of Doctrine or for or against some circumstance of worship or Church discipline or about some fashions or customs or indifferent things as if the Kingdom of God were in them Rom. 14.1 2 15 16. 3. But the seeming Christian is either a meer temporizer that will be of that Religion whatever it be which is most in fashion or which the higher powers are of or which will cost him least Or else he will run into the other extream and lift up himself by affected singularities and by making a bustle and stir in the world about some small and controverted point and careth not to sacrifice the peace and safety of the Church to the honour of his own opinions And as small as the Christian Church is he must be of a smaller society than it that he may be sure to be amongst the best while indeed he hath no sincerity at all but placeth his hopes in being of the right Church or Party or Opinion And for his Party or Church he burneth with a feverish kind of zeal and is ready to call for fire from Heaven and to decieve him the Devil sendeth him some from Hell to consume those that are not of his mind Yet doth he bring it as an Angel of light to defend the Truth and Church of Christ And indeed when the Devil will be the Defender of Truth or of the Church or of Peace or Order or Piety he doth it with the most burning zeal You may know him by the means he useth He defendeth the Church by forbidding the people to read the Scriptures in a known tongue and by imprisoning and burning the soundest and holiest members of it and abusing the most learned faithfull Pastors and defendeth the flock by casting out the Shepherds and such like means as the murders of the Waldenses and the Massacres of France and Ireland and the Spanish Inquisition and Queen Maries Bonefires and the Powder-plot yea and the Munster and the English rage and phrensies may give you fuller notice of He that hath no Holiness nor Charity to be zealous for will be zealous for his Church or Sect or Customs or Opinions And then this zeal must be the evidence of his piety and so the Inquisitors have thought they have religiously served God by murdering his servants and it is the badge of their honour to be the Devils hang-men to execute his malice on the members of Christ and all this is done in zeal for Religion by irreligious Hypocrites There is no standing before the malicious zeal of a graceless Pharisee when it riseth up for his carnal interest or the honour and traditions and customs of his Sect Luk. 6.7 And they were filled with madness and communed with one another what they might do to Jesus Luke 4.28 Acts 5.17 13.45 John 16.2 Rom. 10 2. Phil. 3.6 Acts 36.10 11. The zeal of a true Christian consumeth himself with grief to see the madness of the wicked But the zeal of the Hypocrite consumeth others that by the light of the fire his Religiousness may be seen You may see the Christians fervent Love of God by the fervent flames which he can suffer for his sake And you may see the fervent Love of the Hypocrite by the flames which he kindleth for others By these he cryeth with Jehu Come and see my zeal for the Lord 2 King 10.16 2 Sam. 21.2 LV. 1. A Christian indeed is one that most highly esteemeth and regardeth the interest of God and mens salvation in the world and taketh all things else to be inconsiderable in comparison of these The interest of Great men and Nobles and Commanders yea and his own in corporal respects as riches honour health and life he taketh to be things unworthy to be named in competition with the interest of Christ and Souls The thing that his heart is most set upon in the world is that God be glorified and that the world acknowledge him their King and that his Laws be obeyed and that darkness and infidelity and ungodliness may be cast out and that pride and worldliness and fleshly lusts may not hurry the miserable world unto perdition It is one of the saddest and most amazing thoughts that ever entreth into his heart to consider how much of the world is overwhelmed in ignorance and wickedness and how great the Kingdom of the Devil is in comparison of the Kingdom of Christ that God should forsake so much of his Creation that Christianity should not be owned in above the sixth part of the world and Popish pride and ignorance with the corruptions of many other Sects and the worldly carnal minds of Hypocrites should rob Christ of so much of this little part and leave him so small a flock of holy ones that must possess the Kingdom His soul consenteth to the Method of the Lords Prayer as prescribing us the order of our Desires And in his prayers he seeketh first in order of estimation and intention the Hallowing of Gods name and the coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his Will on Earth as it is done in Heaven before his daily bread or the pardon of his sins or the deliverance of his own soul from temptations
for it till it surprize him and therefore when it cometh it findeth him prepared and he gladly entertaineth it as the messenger of his Father to call him to his everlasting home It is not a strange unexpected thing to him to hear he must die He died daily in his daily sufferings and mortified contempt of worldly things and in his daily expectation of his change He wondereth to see men at a dying time surprized with astonishment and terrour who jovially or carelesly neglected it before as if they had never known till then that they must die Or as if a few years time were reason enough for so great a difference For that which he certainly knoweth will be he looketh at as if it were even at hand and his preparation for it is more serious in his health than other mens is on their death-bed He useth more carefully to bethink himself what graces he shall need at a dying time and in what case he shall then wish his soul to be and accordingly he laboureth in his provisions now even as if it were to be tomorrow He verily believeth that it is incomparably better for him to be with Christ than to abide on earth and therefore though Death of it self be an enemy and terrible to nature yet being the only passage into happiness he gladly entertaineth it Though he have not himself any clear and satisfactory apprehensions of the place and state of the happiness of departed souls yet it quieteth him to know that they shall be with Christ and that Christ knoweth all and prepareth and secureth for him that promised Rest Joh. 12.26 2 Cor. 5.1 7 8. Phil. 1.21 23. Luke 23.43 Though he is not free from all the natural fears of death yet his belief and hope of endless happiness doth abate those fears by the joyfull expectation of the gain which followeth See my Book called The last enemy and the last work of a Believer and that of self-denial against the fears of death But especially he loveth and longeth for the coming of Christ to judgement as knowing that then the Marriage-day of the Lamb is come and then the desires and hopes of all Believers shall be satisfied Then shall the Righteous shine as Stars in the Kingdom of their Father and the hand of violence shall not reach them Every enemy then is overcome and all the Redeemers work is consummated and the Kingdom delivered up unto the Father Then shall the ungodly and the unmercifull be confounded and the righteous filled with overlasting joy when their Lord shall throughly plead their cause and justifie them against the accusations of Satan and all the lies of his malicious instruments O blessed glorious joyfull day when Christ shall come with thousands of his Angels to execute vengeance on the ungodly world and to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that now believe 2 Thes. 1.8 9 10 When the patient followers of the Lamb shall behold him in glory whom they have believed in and shall see that they did not pray or hope or wait in vain When Christ himself and his sacred truth shall be justified and glorified in the presence of the world and his enemies mouths for ever stopped When he shall convince all that are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him Jude 14 15. Where then is the mouth that pleadeth the cause of infidelity and impiety and reproached the serious holiness of Believers and made a jest of the Judgements of the Lord Then what terrours and confusion and shame what fruitless repentings will seize upon that man that set himself against the holy ones of the Lord and knew not the day of his visitation and imbraced the image and form of godliness while he abhorred the power The Joys which will then possess the hearts of the Justified will be such as now no heart can comprehend When Love shall come to be glorified in the highest expression to those that lately were so low when all their doubts and fears and sorrows shall be turned into full contenting sight and all tears shall be wiped away and all reproaches turned into glory and every enemy overcome and sin destroyed and holiness perfected and our vile bodies changed and made like the glorious body of Christ Phil. 3.20 21. Col. 3.3 4. Then will the Love and work of our Redemption be fully understood And then a Saint will be a Saint indeed when with Christ they shall judge the Angels and the world 1 Cor. 6.2 3. and shall hear from Christ Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Mat. 25.34 Enter ye into the joy of your Lord Mat. 25.21 Then every knee shall bow to Christ and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father Phil. 2.9 10 11. Then sin will fully appear in its malignity and holiness in its luster unto all The proud will then be abased and the mouths of all the wicked stopped when they shall see to their confusion the Glory of that Christ whom they despised and of those holy ones whom they made their scorn In vain will they then knock when the door is shut and cry Lord Lord open unto us Mat. 25.10 11 12. And in vain will they then wish O that we had known the day of our visitation that we might have died the death of the righteous and our latter end might have been as his Numb 23.10 Rom. 3.19 Job 5.16 Psal. 107.42 31.23 13.6 8. The day of Death is to true Believers a day of Happiness and Joy But it is much easier for them to think with joy on the coming of Christ and the day of Judgement because it is a day of fuller joy and soul and body shall be conjoyned in the blessedness and there is nothing in it to be so great a stop to our desires as Death is which naturally is an enemy God hath put a love of life and fear of death into the nature of every sensible creature as necessary for the preservation of themselves and others and the orderly Government of the world But what is there in the blessed day of Judgement which a Justified child of God should be averse to O if he were but sure that this would be the day or week or year of the coming of his Lord how glad would the confirmed Christian be and with what longings would he be looking up to see that most desired sight 2. And the weak Christian is so far of the same mind that he had rather come to God by Death and Judgement than not at all except when temptations make him fear that he shall be condemned He hath fixedly made choice of that Felicity which till then he cannot attain He would not take all the pleasures of this world for his hopes of the happiness of
the seed of Grace is grown up into Glory and all the world whether they will or not shall discern between the Righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not between the clean and the unclean and between him that sweareth and him that feareth an oath And though now our Life is hid with Christ in God and it yet appeareth not to the sight of our selves or others what we shall be yet then when Christ who is our Life shall appear we also shall appear with him in Glory Heb. 12.22 23. Rev. 22.3 4 5 14 15. 21.3 4 8. 2 Thes. 1.9 10. Mat. 5.4 6. Mal. 3.18 Eccles. 9.2 1 Joh. 3.2 3. Col. 3.3 4. Away then my soul from this dark deceitfull and vexatious world Love not thy diseases thy setters and calamities Groan daily to thy Lord and earnestly groan to be cloathed upon with thy house which is from Heaven 2 Cor. 5.2 4. that mortality may be swallowed up of Life Joyn in the harmonious desires of the Creatures who groan to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God Rom. 8.20 21 22. Abide in him and walk in Righteousness that when he shall appear thou maist have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming 1 John 2.28 29. Joyn not with the evil servants who say in their hearts Our Lord delayeth his coming and begin to smite their fellow-servants and to eat and drink with the drunken whose Lord shall come in a day when they look not for him and in an hour that they are not aware of and shall cut them asunder and appoint them their portion with the Hypocrites where shall be weeping gnashing of teeth Mat. 24.48 49 50 51. O watch and pray that thou enter not into temptation And be patient for the Judge is at the door Lift up thy head with earnest expectation O my soul for thy Redemption draweth near Rejoyce in hope before thy Lord for he cometh he cometh to judge the world in Righteousness and Truth Behold he cometh quickly though faith be failing and iniquity abound and Love waxeth cold and scoffers say where is the promise of his coming Make haste O thou whom my soul desireth and come in Glory as thou first camest in Humility and conform them to thy self in Glory whom thou madest conformable to thy sufferings and humility Let the Holy City New Jerusalem be prepared as a bride adorned for her husband and let Gods Tabernacle be with men that he may dwell with them and be their God and wipe away their tears and death and sorrow and crying and pain may be no more but former things may pass away Keep up our Faith our Hope our Love And daily vouchsafe us some beams of thy directing consolatory Light in this our darkness And be not as a stranger to thy scattered flock in this desolate wilderness But let them hear thy voice and find thy presence and have such conversation with thee in Heaven in the exercise of Faith and Hope and Love which is agreeable to their low and distant state Testifie to their souls that thou art their Saviour and Head and that they abide in thee by the Spirit which thou hast given them abiding and overcoming in them and as thy Agent preparing them for eternal life O let not our darkness nor thy strangeness feed our odious Unbelief O shew thy self more clearly to thy Redeemed ones And come and dwell in our hearts by Faith And by holy Love let us dwell in God and God in us that we grope not after him as those that worship an unknown God O save us from Temptation And if the messenger of Satan be sent to buffet us let thy strength be manifest in our weakness and thy grace appear sufficient for us And give us the patience which thou tellest us we need that having done thy will we may inherit the promise And bring us to the sight and fruition of our Creator of whom and through whom and to whom are all things to whom be Glory for ever Amen FINIS
to the possession of Holy Delight and Love And when those Affections which are rather Profound than very sensible immediately towards God himself are sensible towards his Word his Servants his Graces and his wayes and against all sin Theâ— are the Affections and so the man in a confirmed State 4. When our selves our time and all that we have are taken to be Gods and not our own and are entirely and unreservedly resigned to him and used for him When we study our duty and trust him for our reward When we live as those that have much more to do for Heaven than for earth and with God than with Man or any Creature When our Consciences are absolutely subjected to the Authority and Laws of God and bow not to Competitors When we are habitually disposed as his Servants to be constantly imployed in his Works and make it our Calling and business in the world as judging that we have nothing to do on earth but with God or for God When we keep not up any secret desires and hopes of a Worldly felicity nor purvey for the pleasure of the Flesh under the cloak of Faith and Piety but subdue the Flesh as our most dangerous enemy and can easily deny its appetite and concupiscence When we guard all our senses and keep our passions thoughts and tongues in obedience to the holy Law When we do not inordinately set up our selves in our esteem or desire above or against our Neighbour and his welfare but love him as our selves and seek his good and resist his hurt as heartily as our own and love the godly with a love of Complacence and the ungodly with a love of Benevolence though they be our enemies When we are faithful in all our Relations and have judgment to discern our duty that we run not into extreams and skill and readiness and pleasure in performing it and patience under all our sufferings this is the Life of a confirmed Christian in various degrees as their strength is various And now I shall proceed to perswade such to value and seek this confirmation lest with dull unprepared minds my following Directions should be lost and then I shall give you the Directions themselves which are the part that is principally intended And first for the Motives 1. Consider that your first entrance into Christianity is an engagement to proceed your Receiving Christ obligeth you to walk and grow up in him A fourfold obligation you very Christianity layeth upon you to grow stronger and to persevere 1. The first is from the very nature of it even from the Office of Christ and the use and ends to which we do receive him You receive Christ as a Physician of your diseased Souls and doth not this engage you to go on to use his Medicines till you are cured What do men choose a Physician for but to heal them It were but a foolish patient that would say Though my disease be deadly yet now I have chosen the best Physician I have no more to do I doubt not of recovery You took Christ for a Saviour which engageth you to use his saving means and submit to his saving works You took him for your Teacher and Master and gave up your selves to be his Disciples and what sense was in all this if you did not mean to proceed in learning of him It s a silly conceit for any man to think that he is a good Schollar meerly because he hath chosen a good Master or Tutor without any further learning of him When Christ sent out his Apostles it was for these two works first to Disciple Nations and Baptise them and then to go on in Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever he commandeth them Matth. 28 19 20. Christ is the way to the Father but to what purpose did you come into this way if you meant not to travel on in it 2. Moreover when you became Christians you entered a solemn Covenant with Christ and bound your selves by a vow to be faithful to him to the death And this Vow is upon you It is better not to Vow than to Vow and not perform Eccles. 5.5 In taking him to be the Captain of your Salvation and listing your selves under him and taking this Oath of fidelity to him you did engage your selves to fight as faithful Souldiers under his conduct and command to your lives end And as its a foolish Souldier that thinks that he hath no more to do but list himself and take Colours and need not fight so it is a foolish and ungodly Covenanter that thinks he hath nothing to do but to Promise and may be excused from performance because that Promising was enough when the Promise was purposely to bind him to perform 3. Moreover when you became Christians you put your selves under the Laws of Christ and these Laws require you to go further till you are confirmed so that you must go on or renounce your obedience to Christ. 4. Lastly when you became Christians you received such exceeding Mercies as do oblige you to go much higher in your affections and much further in your obedience to God A man that is newly snatcht as from the jaws of Hell and hath received the free forgiveness of his sins and is put into such a state of blessedness as we are must needs feel abundance of obligations upon him to proceed to stronger resolutions and affections and not to stop in those low beginnings So that if you lay these four things together you will perceive that the very purpose of your Receiving Christ was that you might walk in him and be confirmed and built up 2. Consider also that your Conversion is not sound if you are not heartily desirous to encrease Grace is not true if there be not a desire after more yea if you desire not perfection it self An Infant is not born to continue an Infant for that were to be a Monster but to grow up unto Manhood As the Kingdom of Christ in the Word is likened by him to a little Leaven and to a grain of Mustard-seed in the beginning which afterward makes a wonderful increase so his Kingdom in the Soul is of the same nature too If you are contented with that measure of holiness that you have you have none at all but a shadow and conceit of it Let those men think of this that stint themselves in Holiness and plead for a Moderation in it as if it were intemperance or fury to love God or fear him or seek him or obey him any more than they do or as if we were in danger of excess in these If ever these men had feelingly and by experience known what Holiness is they would never have been possessed with such conceits as these 3. Consider What abundance of labour hath been lost and what hopes have been frustrate for want of proceeding to a Rooted Confirmation I say not that such were truly sanctified but I say they were in a very hopeful