his own right hand in the Celestials farre above all Principality and Power and Might and Dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and given him to be Head over all things to the Church which is his body the fullness of him that filleth all in all Ephes. 1. 19. 20 21 22 23. Besides this even in the Works of Christ for his Church his Calling and Sanctifying and Ruling and Preserving them his subduing their Enemies and raising them from the dead and Glorifying them with himself how glorious is the very Power of God by his Sonne 2 Thes. 1. 11. Phil. 3. 10. Ephes. 3. 7 20. 2 Pet. 1. 3 16. 1 Cor. 4. 20. Ephes. 6. 10. 1 Cor. 15. 43. 1 Pet. 1. 5. And therefore his Gospel may well be called The Power of God to Salvation Rom. 1. 16. Which hath been the Instrument of his Power in doing such wonderful works in the world 1 Cor. 1. 18. 2. 5. 2 Cor. 6. 7. 2. Cor. 13. 3 4. 5. But the most sweet and conspicuous End of our Redemption was the Demonstration of Gods Love and Mercy to man-kind and that he might make known the Riches of his Glory on the vessels of Mercy prepared unto Glory Rom. 9. 23. Of all Gods Attributes there is none shineth more illustrously in the work of our Redemption than Love and Mercy Hereby perceive we the Love of God because he laid down his life for us 1 Joh. 3. 16. By the Creation and Sustentation of us we perceive the Love of God but more abundantly by our Redemption In this was manifested the Love of God towards us because that God sent his only begotten Sonne into the world that we might live through him 1 Joh. 4. 9. O wonderfull Love which condescendeth to such Rebels and embraceth such unworthy and polluted sinners and pittyeth them even in their blood Even after we had sold our selves to Satan and cast away the Mercies of our Creation and had all come short of the Glory of God and were sentenced to death and ready for the Execution then did this wonderful Love step in and rescue and recover us Not staying till we Repented and cryed for Mercy and cast our selves at his feet but seeking us in the Wilderness and finding us before we felt that we were lost and being found of us before we sought him and beging to us in the depth of our Misery Herein is Love not that we Loved God but that he Loved us and sent his Sonne to be the propitiation for our sinnes 1 Joh. 4. 10. Though God Love us not in our sinne and misery before our Conversion so far as in that state to Justifie us and Adopt us and take pleasure in us or have Communion with us in the spirit yet doth he so far Love us in that state as to Redeem us by the Blood of Christ and tender us his Salvation and to bring in his chosen effectually to entertain his offer And thus the Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ dyed for the ungodly And God commended his Love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us Rom. 5. 6 8. Greater Love hath no man then this that a man lay down his life for his friends Joh. 15. 13. What was the Sonne of God but Love Incarnate Love borne of a Virgin Love coming down from Heaven to Earth and walking in flesh among the miserable seeking and saving that which was lost Was it not Love that spoke those words of life those comfortable promises those necessary precepts those gracious encouragements which the Gospel doth abound with Was it not Love it self that went preaching Salvation to the Sonnes of death and deliverance to the Captives and offered to bind up the broken hearts Luke 4. 18 Was it not Love that invited the weary and heavy laden Matth. 11. 28 And that sent even to the high-waies and the hedges to compel men to come in that his house might be filled Matth. 22. 9 10. Luke 14. 23. Was it not Love it self that went up and down healing and doing good that suffered them for whom he suffered to scorn him and spit upon him and buffet him and condemn him that being reviled reviled not again that gave his life an offering for sinne and dyed and prayed for them that murdered him No wonder if the Gospel be it that teacheth us to call God by the name of Love it self 1 Joh. 4. 8 For it is the Gospel that hath most fully revealed him to be so No wonder if the Gospel do so frequently and importunatly require us to Love one another and even to lay down your lives for Christ and for one another when it hath given us such a ground and motive and president for our Love He that seeth the true face of Redemption and understandeth and savoureth the Gospel and the Grace of Christ must needs see most cogent Reasons for such dutyes 1 Joh. 4. 7 8 9 10 11 12. Beloved let us Love one another for Love is of God and every one that Loveth is born of God and knoweth God he that Loveth not knoweth not God for God is Love If God so Loved us we ought also to Love one another If we Love one another God dwelleth in us So 1 Joh. 3. 10 11 14 16 17 18. No wonder if by this Love we know that we are translated from death to life and if by it the Children of God be known from the Children of the Devil 1 Joh. 3. 10 11 14. For Love is the very Nature and Image of our Father No wonder if this be the New Commandment which had newly such a powerfull motive and president And no wonder if it be the great distinguishing Caracter by which all men shall know that we are the Disciples of Christ Joh. 13. 35. When he had set us such a Copie and taught us this lesson by such effectual means writing it out for us in lines of blood even of his own most pretious Blood and shedding it abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost But if we should come down to the particular benefits of Christ's death and see what Love is manifested in them even in our Calling our Justification our Adoption or Sanctification our Preservation and our everlasting Glorification we should find our selves in an Ocean that hath neither banks nor bottom and when we have fathomed as far as we can we must be contented to stand and admire it and to say with the Beloved Apostle Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God! 1 Joh. 3. 1. And this is the blessed imployment of the Saints which they are called to by the Gospel to live in the participation and
consideration and admiration of this wonderous Love that Christ may dwell in their hearts by Faith and so being rooted and grounded in Love they may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the bredth and length and depth and height and to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledg and be filled with all the fullness of God Ephes. 3. 17 18 19. And withall to be followers of God as dear Children and walk in Love as Christ hath Loved us and given himself for us an Offering and a Sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Ephes. 5. 1 2. And to love without dissimulation Rom. 12. 9 10. Even from a pure heart fervently 1 Pet. 1. 22. That we love as brethren being compassionate pittifull and courteous not rendring evill forevill but contrariwise blessing knowing that we are thereunto called that that we should inherit a blessing 1 Pet. 3. 8 9 And that we keep our selves in the Love of God Jud. 21. that nothing may be able to seperate us from it Rom. 8. 35 36 37. And if we thus imitate our Heavenly pattern the God of Love and Peace will be with us 2 Cor. 13. 11. And thus I have shewed you the principall Ends of the undertaking of Christ in the work of our Redemption especially as they are attained directly by his Cross and Resurrection 6. Another End also is apparent in the Scripture which is the Glorifying of Gods Rewarding Justice together with his Mercy in the Salvation of his Elect. This End he hath partly attaineth here for God hath his Ends continually In this life his Servants have much of his Mercy and the beginnings of their Reward in the beginning of their Salvation But the fullness is hereafter in their Glorification All his promises he performeth in their seasons Even in the present pardon of our sinnes he honoureth his Faithfullness and Justice 1 Joh. 1. 9. His Faithfullness in making good his promise and his Justice in Rewarding the performers of the condition and giving what his promise had made their due that so men may even here in part discern between the Righteous and the Wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not while they see God esteem of his people as his jewels and spaâ—e them as a man spareth his sonne that serveth him Mal. 3. 17 18. The King of Zion is just having Salvation Zach. 9. 9. The Righâ—â—ousness of God is manifested in our Justification Rom. 3. 21 22. Even the Righteousness of God which is by Faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God being Justified freely by his grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through Faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness for the remission of sinnes that are past through the forbearance of God to declare I say at this time his Righteousness that he might be Just and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus Rom. 3. 25 26. But it is most eminently at Judgment and in the world to come that this Remunerative Justice with Mercy will be Glorified When Christ shall come purposely to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that believe not only in himself but in them and that because they were believers 2 Thes. 1. 10. When we have fought the good fight and finished our Course and kept the Faith we shall find that there is laid up for us a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous Judg shall give us and all that love his appearing at that day â— 2 Tim. 4. 8. He will justifie and applaud them before all the world yea and adjudge them to everlasting Life with a Well done Good and Faithfull sevant enter thou into the joy of thy Lord I will make thee Ruler over many things even Because they had been faithfull in a little Luke 19 17. Matth. 25. 21 23. Because they shewed their love to him in his members he will say to them Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Matth. 25. 34 35 36. He that now commandeth us to say to the Righteous It shall be well with him Isa. 3. 10. Will in Righteousness Cause it then to be well with him Then shall the Righteous shine forth as the Sunne in the Kingdom of their Father Matth. 13. 43 And the Righteousness and Mercy of their Father shall as conspicuously and gloriously shine in them For it is a day appointed for the Revelation of the Righteous Judgment of God who will render to every man according to his deeds Rom. 2. 5 6. The present Faith and Patience of the Saints in all the Persecutions and Tribulations which they endure is a manifest token of the Righteâ—us Judgment of God that they may be accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God for which they suffer It being a Righteous thing with God to Recompence Tribulation to them that trouble us and to us that are troubled Rest with the Saints 2 Thes. 1. 5 6 7. For the Righteous Lord loveth Righteousness Psal. 11. 7. and in Righteousness will he Judge the world Acts 17. 31. Rev. 19. 11. And therefore in the keeping of his Word there is great Reward Psal. 19 11. Yea a cup of water given in Love to him shall not be unrewarded Matth. 10. 41 42. To him that soweth Righteousness shall be a sure Reward Prov. 11. 18. If in this life men are forst to say Verily there is a Reward for the Righteous Verily there is a God that Judgeth in the Earth Psal. 58. 11. Much more when we receive the Reward of the Inheritance Col. 3. 24. This causeth the Saints to forsake the pleasures of sinne because they have respect to the Recompence of Reward Heb. 11. 26. This is it that maketh them Rejoyce and be exceeding glad in their Persecutions because that great is their Reward in Heaven and therefore it is that they Cast not away their confidence because it hath great Recompence of Reward Heb. 10. 25. If we let no man beguil us of our Reward Col. 2. 18. And if we Look to our selves that we lose not those things that we have wrought we shall receive a full Reward 2 Joh. 8. For the Lord hath said Behold I come quickly and my Reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be Rev. 22. 12. 7. Another End of Christ's undertaking in this blessed work is The Complacency and Glory of God in the Love and Praise and Service of his Redeemed ones in some measure here but in perfection when they are perfected Sinne had made us unserviceable to God And Christ bringeth us back into a fitness for his service He disposeth us Godward by Faith and Love and he hath Redeemed us from our iniquity and purifieth to
himself to hope that God will save him without so much adoe which by the help of the Devil he may easily be brought to hope away then goes the duty If you could not shew him that there is a Necessity of Family Prayer and a Necessity of sanctifying the Lords Day and a Necessity of forsaking his tipling and voluptuousness and a Necessity of living a heavenly life he would quickly resolve of another course For he had rather do otherwise if he durst He never was Religious from a true Predominant Love to God and a holy life but for fear of Hell and for other inferiour respects Remember this when you have precious opportunities before you of doing or receiving good and when you see that you have leave to take these opportunities and yet you draw back and are questioning How we can prove it to be your duty or that you cannot be saved without it Do not these Questions plainly shew that you Love not the work and Delight not in a holy life and that you had rather let it alone Are you not blind if you see not this is in your selves Yea it 's plain that you have such an aversness or hatred to God and a holy course of life that if you did but know what shift to make to scape damnation you would fly away from God and Holiness and have as little to do with them as you can Your Questions and Cavils do plainly declare this wicked emnity and backwardness of your hearts and consequently shew how farre you are from true Conversion Not that I am of their mind that think there is any Good which the Law of Christ Obligeth us not to accept and which we can refuse without sinne and danger to our selves For God doth both draw us and drive us at once But when the Threatning and Punishment only can prevail with men and men Love not God and Godliness for themselves but had rather have liberty to live as the ungodly I shall never take one of these for a sanctified man nor have any hope of the saving of such a soul how farre soever his fears may carry him from his outward sinnes or to outward duties Till God shall give him a better Conversion then this I say I have not the smallest hope of this mans salvation Then you are Gods Children when the Honour the Work the Family the Name of your Father are lovely and delightfull to you And when you grieve that there is any remnants of sin in your souls and when your sinnes are to you as lameness to the lame that pain them every step they go and as sickness to the sick that makes them groan and groan again and long to be rid of it And when you think those the happiest men on earth that are the most holy and wish from your hearts that you were such as they though you had not a house to put your head in When you look towards God with longing thoughts and are grieved that your understandings can reach no nearer him and know no more of him and that your hearts cannot embrace him with a more burning Love When you admire the beauty of a meek a patient a mortified spirituall heavenly mind and long to have more of this your self yea to be perfect in all Holiness and Obedâ—ence When your hearts are thus brought over to God that you had rather have him then any other and rather live in his Family then any where and rather walk in his waies then in any then are you indeed Converted and never till then whatever other dispositions you may have And now if that were my business what abundance of reason might I shew you to make you willing to come over unto God with Love and with Delight Whom else can you Love if he that is Love it self seem not lovely to you All loveliness is in him and from him The creature hath none of it self nor for it self To Love a life of sinne is to Love the Image and Service of the Devil and to Love that which feeds the flames of Hell What is it then to Love this sinne so well as for the Love of it to fly from God and Godliness Methinks men at the worst should Love that which will do them good and not preferre that before it which will hurt them Do sinners indeed believe that God and Holiness will do them hurt and that sinne will do them greater good Is there ever a man so mad that he dare speak this and stand to it If indeed you think it best to live in sinne and therefore had rather keep it then leave it your understandings are befooled I had almost used Paul's Phrase and said bewitched Gal. 3. 1. Will it do you any hurt to leave your beastly sensual lives and to live soberly righteously and godly in the world denying ungodliness and worldly lusts and looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ This is the Doctrine of Saving Grace Tit. 2. 11 12 13. Would it do you any harm to be assured of Salvation and ready to die and to know that the Angels shall Conduct your departing souls to Christ and that you shall live in Joy with him for ever Or to be employed in those holy works that must prepare you for this day and help you to this assurance If God be naught for you if Holiness and Righteousness and Temperance be naught for you then you may as well say Heaven is naught for you and therefore you must resolve for sinne and Hell and see whether that be good for you I shall say no more of this Point because I have written of it already in the Conclusion of the Saints Rest which I desire you to peruse DIRECT XI The next part of my Advice is If you would not have this Saving Work misearry Turn then this present day and hour without any more Delay Somewhat I have spoke of this already and therefore shall say the less But yet I shall back this Direction with such Reasons as will certainly convince you if you be not unreasonable of the folly of Delay and shew you that it concerneth you presently to Return And though my Reasons will be numerous it is not the Number but the Strength of them that I shall urge you principally to Consider and because of the Number I will go over them with the greater brevity 1. Consider to whom it is that you are commanded to Turn and then tell me whether there can be any Reason for delay It is not to an empty deceitfull creature but to the faithfull All-sufficient God To him that is the cause of all things the Strength of the Creation the Joy of Angels the Felicity of the Saints the Sun and Shield of all the Righteous and Refuge of the Distressed and the Glory of the whole World Of such Power that his Word can take down the Sun from the Firmament and turn the
that this is not necessary to them that have been brought up civilly or religiously from their youth But it is as possible to be saved without Faith as without Repentance and that special Humiliation which I described to you before It 's part of your Sanctification 2. Another mistake to be carefully avoided is The placeing of your Humiliation either only or principally in the Passionate part or in the outward expression of those Passions I mean either in pinching grief and sorrow of heart or else in tears But you must remember that the Life of it is as was said before in the Judgment and the Will It is not the measure of Passionate sorrow and anguish that will best shew the measure of your sincere Humiliation much less is it your teares or outward expressions But it is your low esteem of your selves and contentedness to be vile in the eyes of others And your displacency with your selves and willingness to mourn and weep for sinne as much as God would have you with the rest of the acts of the Judgment and Will before described Two great dangers are here before you to be avoided First some there be that have terrible pangs of sorrow and are ready to teare their own haire yea or make away themselves as Judas in the horror of their Consciences and these may seem to have true Humiliation and yet have none And some can weep abundantly at a Sermon or in Prayer or in mentioning their sinne to others and therefore think that they are truly humbled and yet it may be nothing so For if at the same time their hearts are in love with sinne or had rather keep it then let it go or have not an habitual hatred to it and a predominant superlative Love to God their Humiliation is no saving work That which is in the Passions and teares may be even forced against your wills And it signifieth scarce so much as a common Grace where you are not willing of it Many a one can weep through a passionate womanish tender nature and yet not only remain unhumbled but be Proud in a very high degree How many such do we ordinarily see especially women that can weep more at a duty or conference then some that are truly broken hearted could do in all their lives and yet be so far from being vile in their own eyes and willing to be so in the eyes of others that they will hate and reproach and raile at thoâ—e that charge them with the faults which they seemed to lament or at least that charge them with disgracefull sinnes and they will excuse and mince their sinnes and make a small matter of them and love none so well as those that have the highest thoughts of them So that Pride doth ordinarily reign in their hearts and break out in their words and lives and make them hate the faithfullest reproachers and live in contention with any that dishonour them for all the tears that come from their eyes Judge not therefore by passions or tears alone but by the Judgment and the Will as is aforesaid 2. Another sort there are much better and happier than the former that yet to their great trouble are mistaken in this point And that is they that think they have no true Humiliation because they find not such pangs of sorrow and freedom of tears as others have when as their hearts are contrite even when they cannot weep a tear Tell me but this Are you vile in your own eyes because you are guilty of sinne and that against the Lord whom you chiefly love Do you loath your sinnes because of your abominations and could you heartily wish that you had been suffering when you were sinning and if it were to do again would you chuse to suffer rather then to sinne Have you a desire to grieve when you cannot passionately grieve and a desire to weep when you cannot weep Can you quietly beare it when you are vilified by others because you know your selves to be so vile And are you thankfull to a plain Reprover though he tell you of the most disgracefull sinne Do you think meanly of your own sayings and doings and think better of others where there is any ground then of your selves Do you justifie Gods afflictions and mens true rebukes and think your selves unworthy of the Communion of the Saints or to see their faces and unworthy to live on the face of the Earth Yea would you justifie God if he should condemn you This is the state of a humbled Soul Find but this and you need not doubt of Gods acceptance though you were unable to shed a tear There 's more Humiliation in a base esteem of our selves then in a thousand tears And more in a will or desire to weep for sinne then in tears that come through force of terror or moisture of the brain or passionate tenderness of Nature If the Will be right you need not fear It is he that most hateth sinne and is hardliest drawn to it that is trulyest humbled for it He that will lament it to day and commit it to morrow is far less humbled and penitent then he that would not be drawn to it with the hopes of all the pleasures of the world nor commit it if it were to save his life 3. To avoid this some runne into the contrary mistake and think that sorrow and teares are unnecessary and that they may Repent as well without them as with them and they lay all in some dull uneffectual wishes and so they think the Heart is changed But certainly God made not the Affections in vain It cannot be that any man can have a Sanctified Will but his Affections will hold some correspondence with it and be commanded by it Though we cannot mourn in that Measure as we desire yet some sorrow there will be wherever the Heart is truly changed And appretiativè this sorrow will be the greatest No man can heartily believe that sinne is the greatest evil to his Soul and not be grieved for it And indeed our Liveliest Affections should be exercised about these weightiest things It 's a shame to see a man mourn for a friend and whine under a Cross that toucheth but the flesh and yet be so insensible of the plague of sinne and the anger of the Lord and to laugh and â—est with such mountains on his Soul Though grief and tears be not the heart or principal part of our Humiliation yet are they to be lookt after as our duty yea sorrow in some measure is of absolute necessity and the want of tears is no good signe in them that have tears for other things Indeed the sense of our folly and unkindness should be so great that it should even turn our hearts into sorrow and melt them in our brests and draw forth streams of tears from our eyes and if we cannot bring our selves to this we must yet lament the hardness of our hearts and not excuse it
sinne and Judgments are most eminent sorrow must be thâ—n predominant as being a necessary means to solid Joy And therefore ordinarily a sinner that is but in the work of Conversion and newly coming to God from a rebellious state must entertain more sorrow and let out himself more to groanes and tears then afterward when he is brought to Reconciliation with God and walketh in integrity Quest. But when is it that my sorrow is too short and I should labour to increase it Answ. 1. When there is no apparent danger of the last-mentioned evils that is Of destroying your bodies distracting your brains discomomposing your minds and drowning other Graces and duties and the rest then you have little cause to be afraid of an excess 2. When you have not smart enough to cause you to value the Love of Christ and highly prise his blood and the effects of it and hunger and thirst after him and his righteousness and earnestly beg for the pardon of your sinne you have cause to desire the more sorrow If you feel no great need of Christ but pass by him as lightly as the full stomack by his food as if you could do well enough without him you may be sure then you have need to be broken more If you set not so much by the Love of God that you would part with any thing in the world to enjoy it and would think no terms too dear for Heaven You have need to lie under the sence of your sinne and misery a little longer and to beseech the Lord to save you from that heart of stone When you can hear of the Love and sufferings of your Redeemer without any warmth of Love to him again and can read or hear the promises of Grace and offers of Christ and Eternall life without any considerable Joy or Thankfullness it 's time for you then to beg of God a tender heart 3. When you make many pawses in the work of your Conversion and are sometime in a good mind and then again at a stand as if you were yet unresolved whether to turn or no When you stick at Christ terms of denying your selves and crucifying the flesh and forsaking all for the hopes of Glory and think these sayings somewhat hard and are considering of the matter whether you should yield to them or not or are secretly Reserving somewhat to your selves this certainly shews that you are not yet sufficiently humbled or else you would never stand trifling thus with God He must yet set your sinnes in order before you and hold you a while over the fire of Hell and ring your Consciences such a peal as shall make you yield and resolve your doubts and â—each you not to dally with your maker If Pharaoh himself be off and on with God and sometime he will let Israel goe and then again he will not God will follow him with plague after plague till he make him yield and glad to drive or hasten them away And even where he deals in waies of Grace he maketh so much use of sorrows as to make men yield the sooner to his terms and glad to have Mercy on such terms if they were harder 4. When you are heartless and dull under the Ordinances of God and Scripture hath little life or sweetness to you and you are almost indifferent whether you call upon God in secret or no and whether you go to the Congregation and heare the Word and joyn in Gods Praises and the Communion of the Saints and you have no great relish in holy Conference or any Ordinance but do them almost meerly for custom or to please your Consciences and not for any great need you feel of them or good you find by them this shews for certain you want some more of the rod and spurre your hearts be not wakened and broken sufficiently but God must take you in hand again 5. When you can be mindless of God and of the life to come and forget both your sinne and Saviours Blood and let out your thoughts almost continually upon worldly vanities or common things as if you were over-grown the need of Christ this shews that the stone is yet in your hearts and that God must keep you to a harder dyet to mend your appetites and make you feel you sinne and misery till it call off your thoughts from things that less concern you and teach you to mind your Everlasting state If you begin to forget your selves and him â—t's time for you to have a remembrancer 6. When you begin to tast more sweetness in the creature and be more tickled with applause and honour and pleased more with a full estate and more impatient with poverty or wants or wrongs from men and crosses in the world and when you are set upon a thriving course and are eager to grow rich and fall in love with money when you drown your selves in worldly cares and busines and are combred about many things through your own choice this shews indeed that you are dangerously unhumbled and if God have Mercy for you he will bring you low and make your riches gall and wormwood to you and abate your appetite and teach you to know that one thing is needfull and so be more eager after the food that perisheth not and hereafter to choose the better part Luke 10. 41 42. Joh. 6. 27. 7. When you can return to play with the occasions of sinne or look upon it with a reconcileable mind as if you had yet some mind on it and could almost find in your heart to be doing with it again when you begin to have a mind of your old company and courses or begin to draw as neare it as you dare and are gazing upon the bair and tasting of the forbidden thing and can scarce tell how to deny your fancies your appetites your senses their desires this shews that you want some wakening work God must yet read you another lecture in the black book and set you to spell those lines of blood which it seems you have forgotten and kindle a little of that fire in your Consciences which else you would runne into till you feel and understand whether it be good playing with sinne and the Wrath of God and the Everlasting fire 8. When you begin to be indifferent as to your Communion with God and think not much whether he accept you and manifest his love to you or not but can huddle up your prayers and look no more after them or what becomes of them and use Ordinances and seldom enquire of the success When you can spare the Spiritual Consolations of the Saints and fetch little of your comfort from Christ or Heaven but from your friends and health and prosperity and accomodations and perhaps can be as merry in carnal company when you say and do as they as if you were considering of the Love of Christ this shews that the threatnings went not deep enough Sorrow hath yet another part to
the Joyes of Heaven may be stirring and working in the minds of the unsanctified but if they take not up the Heart for Christ the person is not a true Believer As the Gospel must be Believed to be True so Christ that is offered us in the Gospel as Good must be Heartily and Thankfully accepted accordingly And the Glory the Justification Reconciliation with God and other benefits procured by him and offered with him must be valued and desired above all earthly fleshly things If you are convinced that sinne is evill as contrary to God and hurtfull to you and hereupon have some mind to let it go and some wishes that Christ would save you from it and yet still have a Love to it that is greater then your dislike and the bent of your heart is more for it then against it and your habituate desires are rather to keep then to leave it this is not Sanctification nor a saving consent to be saved by Christ. If you have some convictions that Holiness is good as being the Image of God and pleasing to him and necessary to your Salvation and so should have some mind of Holyness on these grounds yet if you have on the other side a greater aversness to it because it would deprive you of the pleasures of your sinne and the Habitual inclination of your will is more against it then for it certainly this will not stand with true Sanctification of Faith in Christ to save you from the power of sinne by his Spirit Thousands deceive themselves by misunderstanding some common passages that are spoken to comfort afflicted Consciences viz. That the least true desires after Grace do prove the Soul to be Gracious This is true if you speak of the least Desires which are Predominant in the Soul when our Desire is more habitually then our unwillingness and we thus preferre Christ before all the world the least of this is an Evidence of Saving Grace But such Desires as are subdued by the contrary Desires and such a will as is accompanyed with a greater unwillingness habitually and such a Faith as is drowned in greater unbelief these are not Evidences of a saving change nor can you justly gather any special comfort from them He that hath more unbelief then Belief is not to be called a Believer but an unbeliever And he that hath more hatred or dislike of God and Holiness then Love to them is not to be called Godly but ungodly nor a Lover of God but a hater of him I am easily perswaded that many of you that are ungodly could be contented that God be Glorified if his Glory do not cross your carnal interest and so you desire Gods Glory even for it self as that which is absolutely Good in it self But if your fleshly interest be so dear to you that you will sacrifice Gods Glory to it and had rather God were dishonoured then your fleshly interest contradicted it is your flesh then that is made your God and your chief End It is not every wish or mind of Christ no not to save you from sinne as sinne that will prove you true Belielievers Nor is it every minding of God or love to him no not as one apprehended by you to be the chiefest Good and desirable for himself as your End that will prove indeed that you savingly love him as long as the contrary mind and will is Habitually predominant in you Such as the very habit and bent of a mans heart is such indeed is the man It s possible for a man even a good man to have two contrary ends and intentions yea ultimate ends as that which is desired for it self and referred to nothing else is called Vltimaâ—e but it is not possible for him to have two principall predominant Ends. So far as we are carnal still we make the pleasing of our flesh our ultimate End For doubtless we do not sinne only by pleasing the flesh as a means to Gods Glory nor only in the mischoosing of other means But yet this is none of our Principal End so far as men are truly Sanctified And because that is called a mans mind or will which is the chiefest and highest in his mind and will therefore we use to denominate men from that only which beareth rule in them And thus we may say with Paul It is not I but sinne that dwelleth in me For a disowned act that proceedeth from us against the bent and habit of our wills and the course of our lives from the remnants of a carnal misguided will is not it that must denominate the person nor is so fully ours as the contrary act And therefore though indeed we sinfully participate of it yet when the question is whether Believing or unbeliefe sinning or obeying be my work it is not Comparatively to be called mine which I am much more against then for So on the other side if the unsanctified have some transient superficial uneffectual acts of Desire or Faith or Love to God which are contrary to the bent and habit of their hearts this is not theirs nor imputable to them so far as hence to give them their Denomination It is not they that do it but the common workings of the Spirit upon them If ever then you would be assured that your are Christians look to the Habitual bent of your hearts and see that you do not only talk of Scripture and slâ—ghtly believe it and speak well of Christ with some good wishes and meanings and purposes but as you love your Souls see that Christ be Received as your dearest Saviour with Thankfullness and greatest Love and as your Soveraign Lord with true subjection and that he have your Superlative estimation and Affections and all things in the world be put under him in your Souls This must be so if you will have the portion of Believers No Faith that is short of this will prove you Christ's Disciples indeed or Heirs of the Promises made to Believers The voice of Christ that calls to you in the Gospel is My sonne give me thy heart Prov. 23. 26. Do what thou wilt in waies of duty and think as highly as thou wilt of thy self thou art no true Believer in Christ's account till thou hast given him thy heart If he have thy tongue if he have thy good opinion nay if thy body were burnt in his Cause if he had not thy Love thy Heart it were as nothing 1 Cor. 13. 3. For thy works and sufferings are so far acceptable through Christ as they are testimonies of this that Christ hath thy heart If he have not thy heart he takes it as if he had nothing And if he have this he takes it as if he had all For this is not only preferred by him before all but also he knows that this commandeth all If Christ have thy Heart the Devil will not have thy tongue and life the Ale-house or a Harlot will not have thy body nor the world will
a thought of your hearts if a word of your mouths have not some relation to Christ to suspect it yea reject it Call it not a Sermon or a Prayer nor a duty that hath nothing of Christ in it Though the pure God-head be your principal End yet there is no way to this End but by Christ and though Love which is exercised on that End must animate all your graces and duties as they are Means to that End yet Faith hath Love in it or else it is not the Christian Faith and Christ is the Object of your Faith and Love and your perfect Everlasting Love will be animated by Christ For your Love and Praise will be to him that was slain and Redeemed us to God by his Blood out of every Kindred Tongue and Nation and made us Kings and Priests to God So much for the fifth Direction DIRECT VI. The next Direction which I would give you for a through Conversion is this See that the flesh be throughly mortified and your hearts be throughly taken off the world and all its pleasures and profits and honours and that the Roote of your fleshly Interest prevaile not at the heart and that you think not of reconciling God and the world as if you might secure your Interest in both This is a very common cause of the deceit and destruction of such as verily think they are converted It is the very Nature and business of true Conversion to turn mens hearts from the flesh and from the world to God and from an earthly and seeming happiness to a Heavenly Real Everlasting Happiness And when men are affrighted into som kind of Religiousness and yet never learnt to deny themselves and never mortified their fleshly mind but the love of this world is still the chiefest principle at their hearts and so go on in Profession of godliness with a secret reserve that they will look as well as they can to their outward prosperity whatever become of their Religion and they will have no more to do with the matters of another world then may stand with their bodily safety in this world these are the miserable deluded Hypocrites whose hopes will prove as the giving up of the ghost whom Christ will disown in their greatest extremities after all their seeming Religiousness O Sirs look to this as ever you would be happy It s an easie it s a common it s a most dangerous thing to set upon a course of outward Piety and yet keep the world next your hearts and take it still as a great part of your felicity and secretly to love your former lusts while you seem to be converted The heart is so deceitfull that you have great cause to watch it narrowly in this point It will closely cherish the love of the world and your fleshly pleasures when it seems to renounce them and when your tongue can speak contemptuously of them It was not for nothing that Christ would have the first fruits of his Gospel-Church who were to be the Example of their successours to sell all and lay it down at the feet of his Apostles And it is his standing Rule that Whoever he be that forsaketh not all that he hath he cannot be his Disciple Luke 14. 33. In estimation affection and resolution it must be forsaken by all that will be saved and also in practice when ever God calls us to it You can have but one Happiness If you will needs have it in this world in the contenting of your flesh there is no hope of having it also in another world in the fruition of God If you think not God and Heaven enough for you and cannot let go the Prosperity of the flesh for them you must let go all your hopes of them God will not halve it with the world in your hearts nor part stakes with the flesh much less will he be below them and take their leavings Heaven will not be theirs that set not by it more then Earth God will not call that Love to him Sincere which is not a Superlative Love and able to make you even hate all those things that would draw away your affections and obedience from him Luke 14. 26 27. There 's no talk of serving God and Mammon and compounding you a Happiness of Earth and Heaven Do therefore as Christ bids you Luke 14. 28 29 30. Sit down and count what it must cost you if you will be saved and on what rates it is that you must follow Christ. Can you voluntarily for the love of him and the hope of Glory take up your Cross and follow him in poverty in losses in reproaches though scornes and scourgings and prisons and death Do you value his loving kindness better then life Psal. 63. 3 Can you deny your eyes and your appetites their desires Can you consent to be vile in the eyes of men and to tame your own flesh and keep it in subjection and live a flesh-displeasing life that hâ—ving suffered with Christ you may also be glorified with him Rom. 8. 17. If you cannot consent to these terms you cannot be Christians nor you cannot be Saved If you must needs be rich or must be honourable yea if you must needs save your estates or liberties or lives it 's past all question you must needs let go Christ and Glory If you must needs have the world you must needs lose your Souls If you must have your good things here you must not have them hereafter too but be tormented when Christ's sufferers are comforted Luke 16. 25. These hopes of purveying for the flesh as long as they can and then of being saved when they can stay here no longer is it that hath deceived many a thousand to their undoing It 's a strang thing to see how the world doth blind very knowing men and how unacquainted these Hypocrites are with their own hearts What a confident profession of down-right godliness many of them will make yea of some extraordinary height in Religion when nothing is so dear to to them as their present prosperity and God hath not neer so much interest in them as the flesh What contrivances some of them make for riches or rising in the world And how tender others are of their honour with men and how tenacious they are of their Mammon of unrighteousness and how much money and great men can do with them And most of them pamper their flesh and serve it in a cleanlier way of Religiousness even as much though not so disgracefully and grossly as drunkards and whoremongers do in a more discernable sensuality If the times do but change and countenance any errour how smal an Argument will make their judgments bend with the times If truth or duty must cost them deer O how they will shift and stretch and wriggle to prove Truth to be no Truth and duty to be no duty and no Argument is strong enough to satisfie them when the flesh doth but say It s
12. Luke 16. 15. 5. The Sound Convert is so acquainted with the defects and sinnes and necessities of his own Soul that he is much taken up at home in his studies and cares and censures and his daily worke The acting and strengthening of Grace the subduing of corruption and his daily walk with God are much of his employment Above all keeping he keeps his Heart as knowing that thence are the issues of life He cannot have while to spy out the faults of others and meddle with their affaires where duty binds him not as others can do because he hath so much to do at home Gal. 6. 3 4. Prov 4. 23. But the Opinionist is most employed abroad and about meer notions and Opinions but he is little employed in such heart-searching or heart-observing work His light doth not pierce so deep as to shew him his heart and the work that is there to be necessarily done As the change is little upon his Heart so his employment is little there He is little in bewailing his secret defects and corruptions and little in keeping his Souls accounts and little in secret striving with his heart to work it into communion with God and into a Spiritual lively fruitfull frame He is forward to aggravate the sinnes of others and oft-times severe enough in censuring them But he is a very gentle censurer of himself and a patient man with his own corruptions and puts the best construction upon all that is his own He hath much labour perhaps in shaping his Opinions but little for the humbling and Sanctifying his heart by the power of the Truth 6. And as the difference lyeth thus constantly in the Heart so it is usually manifested by the tongue Matth. 12. 34. The Sound Convert is most desirous to discourse of those great and saving truths which his very heart hath taken in and which he hath found to be the seed of God for his Regeneration and the Instruments of that Holy and happy change that is made upon him He feeleth most savour and life in these great and most Necessary points which formed the Image of God upon him and upon these he daily feeds and lives Read Joh. 17. 3. 1 Cor. 15. 1 2 3 4 5 6. 1 Cor. 2. 2. Phil. 3. 8 9 10 11. 1 Tim. 3. 16. Acts 26. 22 23. In these Scriptures you may find what points they were that the greatest Saints did study and live upon But the Opinionist is most forward to discourse of meer Opinions and to feed upon the aire of notions and controversies of lesser moment For one hours Holy Heavenly experimental heart-searching discourse that you shall have from him you shall have many and many hours discourse of his Opinions I mean it indifferently of all his Opinions whether true or false For though falshoods cannot be fit food for the Soul yet Truths themselves also may be made of little service to them A man may be a meer Opinionist that hath true Opinions as well as he that hath false Almost all the free and zealous discourse of these men on matters of Religion is about their several sides and parties and Opinions If they be set upon a point especially wherein they seem to themselves to be wiser then others they have a fire of zeale for it in their brests that makes them desirous to be propagating it to others About the Orders and Ceremonies of the Church about the formes of Prayer and the accidents of worship about Infant Baptism or other such controversies in Religion is the freest of their discourse Yea you may perceive much of the difference even in the very manner of their conference A Serious Christian even when he is necessitated to speak of lower controverted points yet doth it in a Spiritual manner as one that more savoureth higher Truths and makes a Holy and Heavenly life his end even in these lower matters and deals about such controversies in a practical manner and in order to the growth of Holiness But the Opinionists even when they speak of the most weighty Truths do speak of them but as Opinions and when they discourse of God of Christ of Grace of Heaven it is but as they discourse of a point in Philosophy or little better They go not through the shell to the kernel they look after the Truth but they have but little relish of the Goodness The like may be said of their reading and hearing of Sermons The sound Convert feeleth life spirits in that which is little savory to the Opinionist It is one thing in a Sermon or Text that is pleasant to a true Christian and another thing usually that is most pleasant to the Opinionist The true Christian delighteth in and feedeth on the inward life of Spiritual Doctrine and the Good which they offer him that is indeed it is upon God and Christ himself that he is feasting his Soul in reading and hearing For this is the Soul of all without which letters and words are but a carcass But the superficial Opinionist is much more taken up either with the History or the Elegancy of Speech or with the rational light of the discourse still sticking in the bark and savouring not Christ and the Father in all As a man that reads the deeds or lease of his own Lands delights in one thing and a cleark that reads the same or the like in a book of Presidents for his learning delights in another thing So is it in this case 7. And hence is follows that they are several sorts of duties and exercises usually that these several sorts of persons are most addicted to The sound Convert is most addicted to those Spiritual means that tend most to the strengthning of his Faith and warming his heart with the Love of God and promoting Holiness and destroying sinne But the Opinionist delighteth most in those means that tend to â—â—rnish him with speculative Knowledg and discourse and to satisfie his fansie or curious mind The sound Convert is much addicted to Prayer even in secret and to Heavenly Meditations and gracious disourse But the Opinionist is much more addicted to reading Histories or Controversies or dogmatical Divinity or Civil and Political matters The sound Convert savoureth best those Preachers and Books that speak the most weighty Spiritual Truths in the most weighty Spiritual manner in Power and Demonstration of the Spirit But the Opinionist relisheth those Preachers and Books most that either speak curiously to please the eare or exactly and learnedly to please the natural intellect or that speak for the Opinions or partly that he is addicted to But others he hath less mind of 8. Moreover the sound Christian layeth out most of his Zeal Affections and Endeavours about the great Essentials of Religion and that as I said in a practical manner But the Opinionist layeth out his Zeale upon Opinions Right or wrong it is but as Opinions Of these he makes his Religioâ— For these he contendeth He loveth
never Christians till you see that in God that winnes your hearts to him so that you would not change your Master for any in the world and till you see that in the Hopes of Everlasting Glory that you would not change it for any thing else that can be imagined by the heart of man And till you see that goodness in a heavenly life that you had rather live it then any life in the world You are not converted to God indeed till you had rather live in Holiness then in Sinne if you had your freest choice and till you would gladly be the strictest holiest persons that you know in the world and long after more and more of it and fain would reach Perfection it self For though we cannot be perfect here yet no man is upright that desireth not to be perfect For he that loveth Holiness as Holiness must needs love the greatest measure of Holiness with the greatest Love This is it that maketh sound Converts to be so faithfull and constant with God A man is forward and ready to a work that he loves when he draws back from it as if it were a mischief that hath no mind to do it A man is hardly kept from the persons and places and employments that he loves but a little will withdraw him from that which he loveth not Why is it that we have so much adoe to take off a Drunkard from his Companions and his lusts but because he loves them better then temperance and gracious company And why can we so hardly draw the lustfull wretch from his filthy lusts or the glutton or the idle sensuall person from his needless or ezcessive recreations but because they love them And why is it that you cannot draw the worldling from his covetousness but he parteth with his money almost as hardly as with his blood but because he loveth it And therefore what wonder if temptations be resisted and the fairest baits of the world despised by him that is truly in Love with God No wonder if nothing can turn back that man from the way to Heaven that is in Love both with Heaven and with the Way No wonder if that man stick close to Christ and never forsake a holy life that tafteth the sweetness of it and feels its to do him good and had rather go that way then any in the world There is no true Christian but can say with David that a day in Gods Courts is better then a thousand and he had rather be a door-keeper in the house of God then to dwell in the tents yea or the Pallaces of wickedness Do but mark those Professors that prove Apostates and sorfake the way of godliness which they seemed to embrace and see whether they be not such as either took up some bare Opinions and outward Duties upon a flash of superficial illumination or else such as were frightned into a course of Religion and so went on from duty to duty for fear of being damned when all the while their hearts were more another way and they had rather have been excused These hypocrites are they that are disputing so oft the Obligations to their Duty and asking How do you prove that it is a Duty to pray in my Family or a Duty to observe the Lords Day or to come constantly to the Congregation or to use the Communion of the godly in private meetings or to repeat Sermons or sing Psalms and the like Intimating that they are as Birds in a Cage or Hens in a Pen that are boaring to get out and had had rather be at liberty If it were not for the fear of the Law of God that is upon them they had rather let all these Duties alone or take them up but now and then at an idle time when Satan and the flesh will give them leave If a Feast be prepared and spread before them a good stomack will not stand to ask How can you prove it my duty to eat but perhaps the sick that loath it may do so If the Cup be before the Drunkard he doth not stand on those termes How do you prove it my duty now to drink this Cup and the other Cup No if he might have but leave he would drink on without any questioning whether it be a duty If the Gamester or the Whoremonger might but be sure that he should scape the punishment he would never stick at the want of a Precept and ask Is it my duty If there were but a gift of twenty pound a man to be given to all the poor of the Town yea and to all the people in generall I do not think I should meet with many people in the Town that would draw back and say What Word of God commandeth me to take it Or how can you prove that it is my duty And why is all this but because they have an inward Love to the thing and Love will carry a man to that which seemeth good for him without any command or threatning If these ungodly wretches had one sparke of spiritual life within them and any taste and feeling of the matters that concern their own salvation instead of asking How can you prove that I must pray with my Family or that I must keep the Lords day or that I must converse with the godly and live a holy life they would be readier to say How can you prove that I may not pray with my Family and that I may not sanctifie the Lords Day and that I may not have Communion with the Saints in Holiness Seeing so great a mercy is offered to the world why may not I partake of it as well as others I can perceive in many that I converse with the great difference between a heart that loves God and Holiness and a heart that seemes religious and honest without such a Love The true Convert perceiveth so much sweetness in holy Duties and so much spiritual advantage by them to his â—oul that he is loath to be kept back he cannot spare these Ordinances and Mercies no more then he can spare the bread from his mouth or the cloathes from his back yea or the skin from his flesh no nor so much He loveth them he cannot live without them at the worst that ever he is at he had rather be holy then unholy and live a godly then a fleshly worldly life And therefore if he had but a bâ—re leave from God without a Command to sanctifie the Lords Day and to live in the holy Communion of the Saints he would joyfully take it with many thanks For he need not be driven to his rest when he is weary nor to his spiritual food when he is hungry nor to Christ the reâ—uge of his soul when the curse and accuser are pursuing him But the unsanctified hypocrite that never loved God or Godliness in his heart he stands questioning and enquiring for some proof of a necessity of these courses And if he can but bring
Earth and all things into nothing for he doth more in giving them their being and continuance Of such Wisdom that was never guilty of mistake and therefore will not mislead you nor draw you to any thing that is not for the best Of such Goodness as that evil cannot stand in his sight and nothing but your evil could make him displeased with you and it is from nothing but evil that he calleth you to Turn It is not to a malitious Enemy that would do you a mischief but it is to a gracious God that is Love it self Not to an implacable Justice but to a reconciled Father not to revenging Indignation but to the embracement of those Arms and the Mercy of that compassionate Lord that is enough to melt the hardest heart when you find your self as the poor returning Prodigall Luk. 25. 20. in his bosome when you deserved to have been under his feet And will the great and blessed God invite thee to his favour and wilt thou delay and demurre upon the Return The greatest of the Angels of Heaven are glad of his favour and value no Happiness but the light of his countenance Heaven and Earth are supdorted by him and nothing can stand without him How glad would those very Devils be of his favour that tempt thee to neglect his favour And wilt thou delay to turn to such a God Why man thou art every minute at his mercy If thou turn not he can throw thee into Hell when he will more easily then I can throw this Book to the ground And yet dost thou delay There are all things imaginable in him to draw thee There is nothing that is good for thee but it is perfectly in him where thou maist have it certain and perpetuated There is nothing in him to give the least discouragement Let all the Devils in Hell and all the Enemies of God on Earth say the worst they can against his Majesty and they are not able to find the smallest blemish in his absolute Holiness and Wisdom and Goodness And yet wilt thou delay to Turn 2. Consider also as to Whom so to what it is that thou must Turn Not to uncleanness but unto Holiness not to the sensual life of a Beast but to the Noble rationall life of a man and the more Noble Heavenly life of a Believer Not to an unprofitable worldly toyl but to the gainfullest Employment that ever the Sonnes of men were acquainted with Not to the deceitfull drudgery of sinne but to that Godliness which is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4. 8. Sirs Do you know what a life of Holiness is You do not know it if you turn away from it I am sure if you knew it you would never fly from it no nor endure to live without it Why a life of Holiness is nothing but a living unto God to be conversant with him as the wicked are with the world and to be devoted to his Service as sensualists are to the flesh It is to live in the Love of God and our Redeemer and in the foretasts of his Everlasting Glory and of his Love and in the sweet fore-thoughts of that blessed life that shall never end and in the honest self-denying course that leadeth to that blessedness A godly life is nothing else but a sowing the Seed of Heaven on Earth and a learning in the School of Christ the Songs of praise which we must use before the Throne of God and by suffering a learning how to Triumph and reign with Christ. And is there any thing in this life which you have cause to be afraid of The sinnes and weaknesses of the godly are contrary to Godliness and therefore Godliness is no more dishonoured by them then health and life is dishonoured by your sicknesses As health is never the worse to be liked but the better because of the painfull grievousness of sickness so Godliness is to be liked the better because the very failings of the Saints are so grievous If a true Believer do but step out of the way of God he is wounded he is out of â—oynt he is as undone till he come in again though it was but in one particular And can you endure to continue strangers to it altogether so long I know you may find faults in the godly till they are perfect but let the most malicious Enemy of Christ on Earth find any fault in Godliness if he can Can you delay to come into your Fathers Family into the Vineyard of the Lord into the Kingdom of God on Earth to be fellow Citizens of the Saints and of the Houshould of God to have the Pardon of all your sinnes and the sealed Promise of Everlasting Glory Why Sirs when you are called on to Turn you are called to the Porch of Heaven into the beginning of Salvation And will you delay to accept Everlasting life 3. Consider also from what you are called to Turn and then judg whether there be any reason of delay It is from the Devil your Enemy from the love of a deceitfull world from the seducement of corrupted bruitish flesh It is from sinne the greatest evil What is there in sinne that you should delay to part with it Is there any good in it Or what hath it ever done for you that you should love it Did it ever do you good Or did it ever do any man good It is the deadly enemy of Christ and you that caused his death and will cause yours and is working for your damnation if converting and pardoning Grace prevent it not And are you loath to leave it It is the cause of all the miseries of the world of all the sorrow that ever did befall you and the cause of the damnation of them that perish And do you delay to part with it 4. Your Delaying shews that you Love not God and that you preferre your sinne before him and that you would never part with it if you might have your will For if you loved God you would long to be restored to his favour and to be near him and employed in his service and his Family Love is quick and diligent and will not draw back And it is a sign also that you are in love with sinne For else why should you be so loath to leave it He that would not leave his sinne and turn to God till the next week or the next Moneth or year would never turn if he might have his desire For that which makes you desirous to stay a day or week longer doth indeed make you loath to turn at all And therefore it is but hypocrisie to take on you that you are willing to turn hereafter if you be not willing to do it now without delay 5. Consider but what a Case you are in while you thus delay Do you think you stand on drie ground or in a safe condition If you
men to move him to forsake his duty he saith Whether it be better to obey God or man judge ye If he heare seducers he is rooted in the Spirit and the infallible Word and is not shaken by every wind If he see never so many fall off by backsliding he saith It was not only for their company that I chose the holy way God is still the same and Heaven is the same and Scripture is the same and therefore I am Resolved to be the same If God afflict him by poverty sickness or other tryals he saith I did not become a Christian to scape affliction but to scape damnation If he kill me yet will I trust in him Shall I receive good at the hands of God and not evill Naked came I out of my mothers wombe and naked must I return to dust the Lord giveth the Lord taketh away blessed be his name If oppressing enemies insult over him he can say as Mic. 7. 8 9. Rejoice not against me O mine enemy when I fall I shall arise when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light to me I will bear the Indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him untill he plead my cause and execute Judgment for me He will bring me forth to the light and I shall behold his Righteousness If the wicked cast in his teeth his profession and the name of his God he rejoiceth that he is counted worthy to suffer for that Name and yet he will hope to see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the living And if he must go to Heaven through poverty and a mean estate he hath learned to want as well as to abound and in what estate soever he be therewith to be contented And so in the work of Conversion it self for want of Resolution many stick long in the birth and they are hanging so long between Heaven and Hell that it 's a wonder of Mercy that God doth not cut them off and let them perish But the well Resolved Soul doth deal more faithfully with the light that is revealed to him and doth not stand strugling so long against it nor hold Christ and his Spirit so long in hand but is glad to make sure work in so great a business and take so good a match while it is offered And being engaged once he is firm as Mount Zion that cannot be moved Resolve therefore that your work may be the more easy and successfull and conquer by Resolving 18. I suppose you dare not Resolve against Conversion and a Heavenly life And why then will you not Resolve for it What purpose you to do for the time to come Is it your Resolution to live and die as you are Have you not purposes in your mind to Repent hereafter Dare you say I am Resolved never to be Converted Some may be so desperate but I think it is but few even of the ungodly Why this shews that there is a secret conviction in your consciences O do not stifle it Neutrality never saved Soul Seing you dare not Resolve against it Resolve for it 19. Consider I beseech you how much it doth concern your selves to have this question well and speedily Resolved God asketh you whether you will be Converted and Sanctisied or not Resolve this question and you Resolve your selves of a great many more that depend upon it The answer to this must be the answer to the rest If the question were whether you will be pardoned or no Whether you will live in Heaven or Hell for ever Whether you will dwell with God and Angels or with Devils You would not be long in answering this You would Resolve without an hours delay Why this is the question Sirs but the answer to it must be the answer to the first question For without Sanctification there is no Salvation If you will not be Converted you shall be condemned whether you will or no For God hath Resolved of this already and there is no resisting the Resolution of God The true state of the question is Whether you will Turn or burn choose you whether for it must be one O therefore if you will but Resolve Christ and us this one question that you will be Converted Christ will Resolve you the principal questions that concern you in the world even whether you shall be pardoned or saved and where and with whom you must live for ever 20. Lastly consider that if you stay till you receive the sentence of death it 's two to one but that will force you to Resolve But a forced Resolution will not serve turn and then it will be very hard for you to discern whether it be any better then meerly from your fears You put off all till sickness come and you see once that you must die there 's no Remedy and then you will cry O if the Lord would but recover me and try me once againe with life I would delay no longer but I would become a new man and live a Holy and Heavenly life I am resolved of it by the Grace of God Yea but who knows whether these last Resolutions be sincere We heare abundance speak this in their sickness that â—â—ver turn when they come to health but forget all and live in a manner as they did before Is it not most likely to be only the fear of death that makes you take up these Resolutions If it be so they will never save you if you die nor hold you to your promises if you live For it is not bare Fear that is true Conversion but it 's a changed heart that is fallen in Love with God and Holiness and into a setled hatred of former sins No late Repentance and Resolutions but these will be any thing worth as to the saving of your Souls And therefore if you should have true Resolutions at the last which is too rare you cannot choose but be much in doubt of them when you find so much of fear upon your spirit and consider that you never would Resolve till then And therefore if you would have a Comfortable change Resolve now in your prosperity before the face of death affright you to it and those feares and the lateness do make you question the truth and soundness of it and so deprive you of the comfort which you have so much need of at a dying hour And thus I have given you twenty Considerations to perswade you if it may be presently to Resolve I am sure there is truth and reason and weight in them but what good they will do you I am not sure because I know not how you will receive them IV. And now I come to the last part of my task which is to Direct you how to perform the work that I have perswaded you to But because it is meerly the Determination of the Will it is presuasion that must do more to the work then Direction And therefore I shall only desire you to look back
DIRECTIONS AND PERSWASIONS TO A Sound CONVERSION For Prevention of that Deceit and Damnation of Souls and of those Scandals Heresies and desperate Apostasies that are the Consequents of a Counterfeit or Superficial Change By Richard Baxter LONDON Printed by A. M. for Nevil Simmons Book-seller in Kederminster and are to be sold by him there and by N. Ekins at the Gun in Pauls Church-yard 1658. The Preface IT is weight so unconceivable that dependeth on the soundness of our Conversion and Sanctification that our care and diligence cannot be too great to make it sure As the professed Atheist Heathens and Infidels without so the self-deceiving Hypocrites within the Church do wilfully cast away themselves for ever by neglecting such a business of everlasting consequence when they have time and warnings and assistance to dispatch it Multitudes live like bruits or Atheists forgetting that they are born in sinne and misery and setled in it by wilfull custom and must be Converted or Condemned These know not many of them what need they have of a Conversion nor what Conversion or Sanctification is And some that have been Preachers of the Gospel have been so lamentably ignorant in so great a matter that they have perswaded the poor deluded people that it is only the gross and haynous sinners that need Conversion branding them with the name of Puritans that will not take a dead Profession joyned with Civility for true Sanctification and promise Salvation to those that Christ hath with many asseverations professed shall not enter into the Kingdom of God Others that confess that a through Sanctification is a necessary thing do delude their souls with something that is like it Hence is the misery and dishonour of the Church Holiness it self is disgraced by the sins of them that are unholy because they pretend to that which they have not Hence it is that we have thousands that call themselves Christians that live a worldly fleshly life and some of them hating the way of Godliness and yet think they are Converted because they are sorry when they have sinned and wish when it is past that they had not done it and cry God mercy for it and confess that they are sinners and this they take for true Repentance When sinne was never mortified in their souls nor their hearts ever brought to hate it and forsake it But when they have had the profit and pleasure of sinne they are sorry for the danger but never regenerate and made New Creatures by the Spirit of Christ. Hence also it is that we have such abundance of meer Opinionists that take themselves for Religious people Because they have changed their Opinions and their parties and can prate contentiously against those that are not of their mind and joyn themselves with those that seem to be the strictest they take themselves to be truly Sanctified And this makes such gadding from one opinion to another and such censuring reviling and divisions upon that account because their Religion is most in their Opinions and hath not mortified their carnal selfish inclinations and Passions nor brought them to a holy heavenly mind Hence also it is that we have so many sensual scandalous Professours that seem to be Religious but bridle not their tongues their appetites or their lusts but are railers or backbiters or tipplers or gluttons or filthy and lascivious or some way scandalous to their holy Profession because they are strangers to a through-Conversion but take up with the counterfeit of a superficial change Hence also we have so many worldlings that think themselves Religious men that make Christ but a servant to their worldly interest and seek Heaven but for a reserve when Earth forsakes them and have something in this world that is so dear to them that they cannot forsake it for the hopes of Glory but give up themselves to Christ with secret exceptions and reserves for their prosperity in the world And all because they never knew a sound Conversion which should have rooted out of their Hearts this worldly interest and delivered them up entirely and absolutely to Christ. Hence also it is that we have so few Professours that can lay by their Pride and bear disesteem or injury and love their enemies and bless them that curse them yea or love their godly friends that cross them or dishonour them And so few that can deny themselves in their honour or any considerable thing for the sake of Christ and in obedience and conformity to his will And all because they never had that saving change that takes down Self and sets up Christ as Soveraigne in the soul. And hence also it is that we have in this age so many dreadful instances of Apostasie So many reproaching the Scripture that once they thought had Converted them and the way of Holiness that once they did profess and denying the Lord himself that bought them and all because they formerly took up with a superficial counterfeit Conversion O how commonly and how lamentably doth this misery appear among Professours in their unsavoury discourse their strife and envy on Religious pretenses their dead formality their passionate divisions or their selfish Proud and earthly minds A through Conversion would have cured all this at least as to the dominion of it Having therefore in my call to the unconverted endeavoured to awaken careless souls and perswade the obstinate to Turn and Live I have here spoken to them that seem to be about the work and given them some Directions and Perswasions to prevent their perishing in the birth and so to prevent that Hypocrisie which else they are like to be formed into and the deceit of their hearts the Errour of their Lives and the Misery at their Death which is like to follow That they live not as those that flatter God with their mouth and lie unto him with their tongues because their heart is not right with him neither are they stedfast in his Covenant Psal. 78. 36 37 Lest denying deep entertainment and rooting to the seed of Life or choaking it by the radicated predominant Love and cares of the world they wither when the heat of persecution shall break forth Matth. 13. 20 21 22. And lest building on the sands they fall when the winds and storms arise and their fall be great Matth. 7. 26 27. And so they go out from us that they may be made manifest that they were not of us For if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us 1 Joh. 2. 19. Look therefore to this great important business and give all diligence to make your calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1. 10. And trust not your hearts too easily or too confidently But turn to the Lord with all your hearts Joel 2. 12. Cleave to him Resolvedly or with Purpose of heart Acts 11. 23. And see that you sell all and buy the Pearl Matth. 13. 46. And stick not at the price but absolutely resign
hold then of the blessed God in thy Meditations and fill thy thougts with him and dwell upon those thoughts Remember he is alwaies with thee and where ever thou art or what ever thou art doing most certainly he seeth thee As sure as thou are there the Lord is there He knowes thy thoughts he heares thy words he sees all thy waies And is such a God as this to be provoked or despised Were it not better provok and despise all the world Is his favour to be sleighted Were it not better to lose the favour of all the world Consider of this 2º Another thing that I would have you oft Think of is what end you were made for and what business it is that you came for into the world You may well think that God made you not in vaine and that he made you for no lower end then for himself And that he would never have made you nor so long preserved you if he had not cared what you do He would never have endued you with a Reasonable and immortal Soul but for some high and noble and immortal end Surely it was that you might be happy in Knowing him that he made you capable of Knowing him for he made nothing in vaine It is usefull to a horse to know his pasture and provender and work and perhaps his master but he needs not know whether there be a God And accordingly he is qualified But it is sure mans chief concernment to know that there is a God and what he is and how to serve him and what he is and will be to us Or else we should never have been capable of such things And he would never have made you capable of loving him but that you should be exercised and made happy in that Love The frame and faculties and capacity of your Souls and the scope of Scripture do all declare that you were sent into this world to seek after God and to Love him and obey him and rejoice in him in your measure and to prepare for a life of nearer Communion where you may Enjoy him and please him in the highest perfection Consider with your selves whether a life of sin be that which you were made for Or whether God sent you hither to break his Laws and follow your own lusts And whether the satisfying of your flesh and the gathering of a little worldly wealth and the feathering of a nest which you must so quickly leave be like to be the business that you were sent about into the world 3o. The next thing that I would have you consider of is How you have answered the Ends of your Creation and how you have done the business that you came into the world to do Look back upon the drift of your hearts and lives read over the most ancient records of your consciences and see what you have been what you have been doing in the world till now Have you spent you daies in seeking after God and your estates and strength in faithfull serving him Have you lived all this time in the admirations of his excellencies and the servent Love of him and delightfull remembrance of him and the zealous worship of him If you had done this you had not need of a Conversion But consider have you not forgotten what business you had in the world and little minded the world that you should have prepared for and lived as if you knew not him that made you or why he made you was sport and merryment the end that you were created for was ease and idleness or eating or drinking or vaine discourses or recreation the business that you came into the world about was living to the flesh and scraping up riches or gapeing after the esteeme of men the work that God sent you hither to do Was this it that he preserved you for and daily gave you in provision for what was it to forget him and sleight him and turne him out of your hearts and rob him of his service and honour and to set up your flesh in his stead and give that to it that was due to him Bethink you what you have done and whether you have done the work that you were sent to do or not 4º The next thing you should use to Consider of is How grievously you have sinned and what a case it is that your sin hath brought you into If you take but an impartiall view of your lives you may see how far you have mist your marks how far you have been from what you should have been and how little you have done of that which was your business And O what abundance of aggravations have your sins which I shall pass over now because I must mention them under another head It is not only some actuall out-breakings against the bent of your heart and life but your very heart was false and gone from God and set in you to do evill O the time that you have lost the means and helps that you have neglected the motions that you have resisted the swarms of evil thoughts that have filled your imaginations the streams of vaine and evill words that have flowed from your mouth the works of darkness in publik and in secret that God hath seen you in And all this while how empty were you of inwad holiness and how barren of good works to God or men What have you done with all your talents and how little or nothing hath God had of all And now consider what a case you are in while you remain unconverted you have made your selves the sinks of sinne the slaves of Satan and the flesh and are skilfull in nothing but doing evill If you be called to prayer or holy meditation your hearts are against it and you are not used to it and therefore you know not how to do it to any purpose But to think the thoughts of lust or coveteousness or hatred or malice or revenge this you can do without any toile To speak of the world or of your sports and pleasures or against those that you bare ill will to this you can do without any study You are such as are spoken of Jer. 4. 22. My people is foolish they have not known me they are sottish children and they have no understanding they are wise to do evill but to do good they have no knowledge You are grown strangers to the God that made you in whose love and service you should live and find your chief delights Your hearts are hardned and you are dead in your sins The guilt of the sins of your lives are still upon you You can neither look into your hearts or lives no not on one day of your lives or the best hour that you have spent but you must see the ugly face of sin which deserveth condemnation You have made God your Enemy that should have been your only felicity And yet you are alwaies at his mercy and in his hands Little do you know
matters so they are your Own matters and therefore one would think you should not need so much ado to bring you to Consider them If it were only other mens matters I should not wonder at it But self-self-love should make you regard your Own In outward matters all seek their Own things Phil. 2. 21. And have they not more Reason to seek their Own Salvation It is your Own Souls your Own danger your Own sin your Own duty that I perswade you to Consider of It is that God that Christ that would be your Own it is that Heaven that blessedness that may be your Own if you lose it not by neglect It is that Hell and torment that will certainly be your Own if you prevent it not And shouâ—d not these be thought on You will think of your Own goods or lands or riches of your Own families your Own business your Own lives and why not also of your Own Salvation 3. Especially when it is not only your Own but it is the One thing needfull Luke 10. 42. It is that which your life or death your Everlasting Joy or Torment lieth on and therefore must be Considered of or you are utterly undone for ever Necessity lyeth upon you and wo be to you if you Consider not of these things It is not so necessary that you eat or drink or sleep or live as it is Necessary that you make sure your Everlasting life And the Profit also doth answer the necessity Buy but this one Pearle and you will be infinite gainers though you sell all that you have in the world to buy it Matth. 13. 44 45 46. Get God and get all make sure of Heaven and then fear no loss nor want nor sorrow If you count not all the world as dung for the winning of Christ that you may be found in him possessed of his righteousness it is because you know neither the world nor Christ Phil. 3. 7 8 9. Yea the Delight also will answer the Commodity For in the presence of God is fulness of Joy and at his right hand are pleasures for evermore Psal 16. 11. And the fore-thoughts of them may well make glad our hearts and cause our Glory to rejoyce Psal. 16. 8 9. For Goodness and Mercy shall follow us all the daies of our lives and we shall dwell in the House of the Lord for ever Psal. 23. 6. He shall guide us with his Counsell and afterward receive us into Glory Psal. 73. 24. And lest yet you should suspect any lack of Comfort he tells you you shall enter into the Joy of your Lord Matth. 25. 23. And that you shall be with him where he is to behold his Glory Joh. 17. 24. 4. And yet if all this might be had with a wet finger If Heaven were the portion of worldlings and sluggards that trouble not their Thoughts much about it then you might have some excuse for your Inconsiderateness But it is not so there are difficulties in your way and they are many and great what a dark understanding have you to informe what a dull and backward nature to spurre on What an unreasonable appetite What rageing passions What violent rebellious senses to contend with to Master and to rule Abundance of adversaries on every hand A subtil Devil and as malicious as subtil and as furious and able to do you a mischief if God restrain him not A world of wicked men about you each one more stiff in Errour then you in the Truth and more fast to the Devil then you are to God if his grace do not hold you faster then you will hold your selves and therefore they are abler to deceive you then you are to undeceive them Many of them are crafty and can puzzle such ignorant beginners as you and can put a face of reverence and truth upon damnable Errors and pernicious waies And those that have not wit have foolish violence and scorn and passion and can drive you towards Hell if they cannot draw you All these Enemies you must Conquer or you are lost And is it not time for a man in so much danger to Consider of them that he may know how to escape And for one that is compassed about with such difficulties to Consider how he may well get through them What abundance of things have you to Consider of of all your life past of the Relations you have born and how you have performed the duties of those relations Of the time you have had and how you have spent it Of the means you have had and what you have received by them Of the present state of your Souls your sins your miseries your hopes and the duties that are incumbent on you in order to your recovery Of the temptations to be encountred with and the graces that are daily to be exercised and confirmed should not a man bethink himself with all possible care and Consider and an hundred times Consider that hath all this to do or be undone for ever You have much to Know that will not easily be known and yet must be known and much to do receive and suffer that hath difficulty joyned with Necessity Were it Necessary and not hard the facility might draw you to make light of it And were it hard and not Necessary the difficulty might more discourage you then the matter would excite you But when it Must be done or you must be shut out of Heaven and lie in Hell for it world without end and yet there are so many difficulties in the way I think it's time to look about you and seriously Consider 12. To conclude Consideration would prevent a world of misery which else will make you Consider when it is too late It must be a principall means of your Salvation if ever you be saved If God have so much Mercy for you he will make you Consider and set your sins in order before you Psal. 50. 21. And set Hell fire before your face and hold your Thoughts on it that you cannot look off He will set before you a Crucified Christ and tell you that this your sins have done and make you think of the Reason of his sufferings what there is in sinne that could require it and what it is to rebell against the Lord and runne your selves into the Consuming fire Now your Thoughts are gadding abroad the world and stragling after every trifle and going away from God But if ever God will save you he will overtake your hearts and fetch them home and shew them that they have somewhat else to think on If Commands will not serve he will send out his threatnings and terrours shall come upon you and pursue your Soul as the wind Job 30. 15. He 'l fetch you out of the Ale-house and the Gaming-house and take you off the merry pin and lay that upon your heart that you shall not easily shake off If you are taken up with the Cares of the world he 'l shew you that
us and the cause of all our sinne and misery And this is the Revenge that is warrantable in the Penitent and some think is meant 2 Cor. 7. 11. 5o. As the Humbled Soul hath base thoughts of himself so he is willing that others should esteem and think of him accordingly even as a vile unworthy sinner so far as his disgrace may be no wrong to the Gospel or to others or dishonour to God His Pride is so far taken down that he can endure to be vilified with some Consent not approving of the sinne of any man that doth it maliciously but consenting to the Judgment and Rebukes of those that do it truly and to the Judgment of God even by them that do it maliciously The Humbled Soul doth not stand defending and unjustly extenuating his sinne and excusing himself and swelling against the Reprover Whatever he may do in a temptation if this temper were predominant his Pride and not Humility must be predominant But he judgeth himself as much as others can justly judg him and humbly confesseth to be Base in mens eyes till God shall think it meet to raise him and recover his esteem And the Root of all this in the will is 1o. A Love to God whom we have offended 2o. A hatred of sinne that hath offended him and that hath made us vile and 3o. A believing sense of the Love and Sufferings of Christ that in his flesh hath condemned sinne Rom. 8. 2 3. And thus you see what Humiliation is in the Will which is the very Life and Soul of true Humiliation 3o. Humiliation also consisteth in the Affections In an unfeigned sorrow for the sinne which we have committed and the corruption that is in us and a shame for these sinnes and a holy feare of God whom we have offended and of his Judgments which we have deserved and a hatred of our sinnes by which we have deserved them But as I must further shew you anon it is not the Measure but the sincerity of these Passions by which you must make a Judgment of your state And that will be hardly discerned by the Passions themselves but only by so much of the Will as is in them and therefore the Will is the safest to Judg by 4o. Humiliation also consisteth expressively in the outward actions when opportunity is offered And it is not true in the Heart if it refuse to appeare without when God requireth it in your ordinary course The outward acts of Humiliation are these 1o. A voluntary Confession of sinne to God and to men when God requireth it and that is when it is necessary to his Honour to the healing of them that we have endangered and satisfying the offended At least in the hearing of men in such cases as these to Confess them openly to God An unhumbled Soul will refuse this for the shame but the Humble will freely take shame to themselves and warne their brethren and justifie God and give him the Glory 1. Joh. 1. 9. If we confess our sinnes he is faithfull and just to forgive us Read Mark 3. 6. Levit. 5. 5. 16. 21 26. 40. Num. 5. 6 7. Jam 5. 16. Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that yee may be healed Prov. 28. 13. He that hideth his sinnes shall not prosper but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Not that any man is to confess his secret sinnes to others except in case that he cannot otherwise find relief Nor that a man is to publish those offences of his owne by which he may further dishonour God and hinder the Gospel But when the sinne is open already and specially when the offence of others the hardening of the wicked the satisfaction of the Church concerning our Repentance do require our Confession and open Lamentation the Humble Soul both must and will submit to it But the rotten hearted unhumbled Hypocrite will Confess but in these cases 1o. When the secrecy of the Confession or the smalness of the fault or the Customariness of such Confessing doth make it to be a matter of no great disgrace 2o. Or when it is so open that it is in vain to attempt to hide it and his Confession will do nothing to increase the disgrace 3o. Or when Conscience is awakened or they see they must die or are forced by some terrible Judgment of God In all these cases the wicked may Confess And so Judas will Confess I have sinned in bâ—traying the innocent blood And Pharaoh will Confess I and my people have sinned And a Thief on the Gallows will Confess and the vilest wretches on their death bed will Confess But we have more death-bed Confessions then voluntary Confessions before the Church Nay so far hath Pride and Hypocrisie prevailed and the ancient discipline of the Church been neglected that I think in most Countries in England there are many more that make Confessions on the Gallows then personally in the Congregation 2o. Humiliation must be also expressed by all those external means and signes which God by Scripture or Nature calleth us to As by tears and groans so far as we can seasonably procure them And by Fasting and laying by our worldly pomp and bravery and using meane though decent attire and by condescending to men of the lower sort and stooping to the meanest By humble Language and Carriage and by forgiving others on this account that we are sensible of the greatness of our Debts to God And thus I have briefly shewed you the true Nature of Humiliation that you may know what it is that I am perswading you to and which you must submit your hearts unto II. When I have told you the Use and Ends of Humiliation you will see more of the Reason of it's Necessity to your selves And first it is one Use of Humiliation to help on the Mortification of the flesh or Carnal self and to annihilate it as it is the Idol of the Soul The nature of mans sinfull and miserable estate is that he is fallen from God to Himself and liveth now to Himself studying and loving and pleasing Himself his Natural self above God And a sinner will let go many outward sinnes and be driven from the out-works before he will let go Carnal self and be driven from the Castle and strength of sinne There is no part of Mortification so Necessary and so Hard as Self-denial Indeed this doth virtually comprehend all the rest and if this be done all 's done If it were but his Friend his Superfluities his House his Lands perhaps a Carnal heart might part with it But to part with his life his All his Self this is a hard saying to him and enough to make him go away sorrowfull as Luke 18. 22 23 24. And therefore here appeareth the Necessity of Humiliation This layeth all the Load on Self and breaketh the heart of the old man and maketh a man loath himself that formerly doted on himself
4. In the next place you are hence informed how to answer that Question Whether it be possible for a man to be humbled and repent too much That part of Humiliation which consisteth in the acts of the Uuderstanding and the Will cannot be too much as to the Intention of the Act And if it be too much as to the Objective extent then as it is misguided so it changeth its Nature and ceaseth to be the thing that it was before A man may think worse of himself then he is by thinking falsly of himself as that he is guilty of the sinne which he is not guilty of But this is not the same thing with true Humiliation But to have too clear an apprehension of the evil of his sinne and his own vileness this he need not feare And in the will it is more cleare No man can be too willing to be rid of sinne in Gods time and way nor be too much averse from it as it is against the Lord. But then the other part of Humiliation which consisteth in the depth of sorrow or in tears may possibly be too much Though I know very few that are guilty of it or need to feare it because the common case of the world is to be stupid and hard-hearted and most of the Godly are lamentably insensible But yet some few there are that have need of this advise that they strive not for too great a measure of grief Let your hearts be against sinne as much as is possible But yet let there be some limits in your grief and tears And this counsel is necessary to these sorts of people 1. To Melancholly people that are in danger of being distracted and made unreasonable and useless by overmuch sorrow Their thoughts will be fixing and musing and sad and dark and full of fears and either make things worse then they are or else be deeplyer affected with them then their heads can beare 2. And this is the Case of some weak spirited women that are not Melancholly but yet by natural weakness of their brains and strength of their passions are unable to endure those serious deep affecting apprehensions which others may desire but the depth of their sensibilitie and greatness of their passion doth presently endanger the crazing of their brains and quickly cast them into Melancholly or worse And this is a very heavy affliction where it comes both to the persons themselves and those about them To be deprived of the Use of Reason is one of the greatest corporall calamities in this life And it is matter of offence and dishonour to the Gospel in the eyes of the ungodly that understand not the Case When they see any languish in unmeasurable sorrow or fall into distraction it is a grievous temptation to them to fly from Religion and avoid godly sorrow and all serious thoughts of heavenly things And it occasioneth the foolish scorners to say that Religion makes men maâ— and that this Humiliation and Conversion which we call them to is the way to bring them out of their wits So that by reason of the grief of the godly and the hardening of the ungodly the Case is so sad that it requireth our greatest care to avoid it Quest. But if it be so dangerous to sorrow either too little or too much what shall a poor sinner do in such a streight And how shall he know when to restrain his sorrows Answ. It is but very few in the world that have cause to feare excess of this kind of sorrow The common Case of men is to be blockish and worldly sorrow doth cast more into Melancholly and distractions then godly sorrow But for those few that are in danger of excess I shall first tell you how to discern it and then how to remedie it 1. When your sorrow is greater then your brains can bear without apparent danger of destraction or a Melancholly disturbance and deminution of your Understanding then it is certainly too much and to be restrained For if you overthrow your Reason you will be a reproach to Religion and you will be fit for nothing that 's truly good either to your own Edification or the Service of God 2. If you be in any grievous disease which sorrow would increase to the hazzard of your life you have reason to restrain it Though you may not forbear Repenting or Carefullness of your Salvation yet the Passion of grief you must moderate and abate 3. When sorrow is so great as to discompose your mind or enfeeble your body so as to un-fit you for the service of God and make you more unable to do good or receive good you have reason then to moderate and restrain it 4. When the greatness of your sorrow doth overmatch the necessary measure of your Love or Joy or Thanks and keep out these and takes up more of your spirit then its part having no room for greater duties then it is excessive and is to be restrained There are some that will strive and struggle with their hearts to wring out a few tears and increase their sorrow that yet make little Conscience of other affections and will not strive half so much to increase their Faith and Love and Joy 5. When your sorrow by the greatness of it doth draw you into temptation either to despair or think hardly of God and his Service or to undervalue his Grace and the Satisfaction of Christ as if it were too scant and insufficient for you you have then cause to moderate and restrain it 6. When your sorrow is unseasonable and will needs thrust in at those times when you are called to Thankfullness and Joy you have then cause to moderate and restrain it at that season Not that we should wholly lay by sorrow in any day of Joy and Thanksgiving unless we could lay by all our sinne in the duties of that day Nor should we wholly lay by Spiritual comfort and delight in daies of greatest Humiliation For as our state is here mixt of Grace and sinne so must all our duties be mixt of Joy and Sorrow It is only in Heaven where we must have unmixed Joyes and only in Hell that there are unmixed sorrows or at least not in any state of Grace But yet for all that there are seasons now when one of these must be more eminently exercised and the other in a lower measure As in times of Calamity and after a fall we are caâ—led out so much to Humiliation that Comfort should but moderate our sorrows and the exercise of it beâ—veiled for that time so in times of Special Mercies from the Lord we may be called out to exercise our Thanks and Praise and Joy so eminently that sorrow should but keep us humble and be as it were serviceable to our Joies When Grace and Mercy is most eminent then Joy and Praise should be predominant which is through the most of a Christians life that walketh uprightly and carefully with God And when
And therefore you may hence learn in what sort you must seek after it 1. You must not place the chief part of your Religion in it as if it were a life of meer sorrow that we are called to by the Gospel But you must make it a servant to your Faith and Love and Joy in the Holy Ghost and other Graces As the use of the needle is but to make way for the thred and then it is the thred and not the needle that makes the seam So much of our sorrow is but to prepare for Faith and Love and these are they that close the Soul with Christ. It is therefore a sore mistake of some that are very apprehensive of their want of sorrow but little of their want of Faith or Love and that pray and strive to break their hearts or weep for sinne but not much for those higher Graces which it tendeth to One must be done and not the other left undone 2. As tears are the Expressions of the heart so those are the most kindly and sincere which voluntarlly flow from the inward feeling of the evill that we lament If you could weep never so much meerly because you think that tears are in themselves necessary and had not within the hatred of sinne and sense of its vile and killing nature this were not true Humiliation at all And if the Heart be humbled before the Lord it is not the want of tears that will cause him to despise it Some are so backward to weep by Nature that they cannot weep for any outward thing no not for the loss of the dearest friend when yet they would have done ten times more to redeem his life then some that have tears at will Groans are as sure Expressions of sorrow as tears with such as these And the hearty rejecting and detestation of sinne is yet a better Evidence then either But where men have naturally a weeping disposition which they can manifest about Crosses in the world and yet cannot shed a tear for sinne there the Case is the most suspicious 3. The principal Cause why you must strive for deeper sorrow is that you may obtaine the Ends of that sorrow that sinne may be more odious to you and more effectually mortified that self may be taken down and Christ may be valued and desired and exalted and that you may be fitted for a Holy Communion with God for the time to come and saved from Pride and kept in watchfullness 6. From this that was last said you have a Rule by which you may certainly discern what measure of Humiliation it is that must be had It mst go so deep as to undermine our Pride and so far the heart must needs be broken as is necessary to break the heart of sinne and carnal self If this be not done ther 's nothing done though you weep out your eyes You must be brought so low that the blood of Christ and the favour of God may be more precious in your eyes then all the world and in your very hearts prefered before it And then you may be sure that your Humiliation is sincere whether you have teares or none 7. From hence also you may see that you must take heed of ascribing to your own Humiliation any part of the office and honour of Christ Think not that you can satisfie the Justice of the Law or merit any thing of God by the worth of your sorrows though you should weep even tears of blood It is not true Humiliation if it consist not in the sense and acknowledgment of your unworthyness and desert of condemnation and if it do not lead you to look out for pardon and life from Christ as being lost and wholly insufficient for your selves And therefore it would be a plain contradiction if true Humiliation should be taken as Satisfaction or Merit or trusted on instead of Christ. IV. Having thus far opened the Nature and Reasons of true Humiliation I conclude with that advice which I principally here intended Refuse not to be throughly and deeply humbled Be not weary of the humbling workings of the Spirit Grief is an unwelcome guest to Nature but Grace can see Reason to bid it welcome Grace is ingenious and cannot look back on so great unkindness with unwillingness to mourne over it Zech. 12. 10. There is somewhat of God in godly sorrow and therefore the Soul consenteth to it and seeketh for it and calls it in Yea and is grieved that it can grieve no more Not that sorrow as sorrow is desireable but as a necessary Consequent of our grievous sinning and a necessary Antecedent of our further recovery As we may submit to Death it self with a cheerful willingness because it is sanctified to be the passage into Glory how dreadfull soever it be to Nature in it self so much more may we submit to Humiliation and brokenness of heart with a holy willingness because it is sanctified to be the entrance into the state of Grace Consider for your satisfaction of these following things 1. The main brunt of your sorrows will be but in the beginning and when once you are setled in a holy course you will finde more Peace and comfort then ever you could have had in any other way I know if you will be medling with sinne again it will in its measure breed sorrow again But a godly life is a life of Uprightness Conversion is a departing from sinne and consequently a departing from the Cause of sorrows And can you not bear such a sorrow for a little while 2. Consider but whence you are coming Is it not out of a state of wrath And where you have been all this while Was it not in the power of Satan And and what you have been doing all your lives Hath it not been the drudgery of sinne and the offending of your Lord and the destroying of your selves And is it meet is it reasonable is it ingenious for you to come out of such a Case without lamentation that you staid in it so long 3. Consider also that it is Necessary to your own recovery and Salvation Do you think to take so dangerous a surfeit and then to be cured without a Vomit You will endure for the health of your bodies the bitterest pills and loathsomest potions the shortest dyet and the letting out of your blood for you know that your life lieth on it and there is no remedy And should you not endure for the saving of your Souls the bitterest sorrows the keenest rebuks the freest Confessions and the most plentifull tears Sinne will not down at easier rates Self will not be conquered else The heart of it will not be broken till your hearts be broken We know your sorrows Merit nothing and make not God amends for your sinnes nor is it for want of sufficiency in the blood of Christ that we require them But it is part of the fruit of his Blood upon your Souls If his Blood do not
melt and break your hearts you have no part in him It becomes you to mourn over him whom you have pierced Zech. 12. 10. And this fruit of his Blood is a preparative to more You may as well think of being saved without Faith as without Repentance and Humiliation 4. Consider so much as is bitter in it is of your own preparation You may thank your selves for it Who was it that brought you to this Necessity of sorrow Have you been all your life time surfeiting of the creature and causing your own disease and now will you grudg at the trouble of a cure Whom have you to blame and find fault with but your selves was it not you that sinned was it not you that laid in the fuel of sorrows and sowed the feeds of this bitter fruit and cherished the Cause of trouble in your selves God did not do this It was you your selves He doth but undo that which you have been doing Grudg not therefore at your Physician if you must be purged and let blood and dieted strictly but thank your selves for it that have made it so necessary 5. Consider also that you have a wise and tender Physician that hath known what sorrow and grief is himself for he was made for you a man of sorrows Isa. 53. 3. And therefore can pitty those that be in sorrow He delighteth not in your trouble and grief but in your Cure and after-consolations And therefore you may be sure that he will deal gently and moderately with you and lay no more on you then is necessary for your good Nor give you any bitterer a cup then your disease doth require When he sheweth his greatest liking of the contrite it is that he may Revive their hearts and he professeth withall that he will not contend for ever nor be alwaies wrath lest the Spirit should fail before him and the Souls which he hath made Isa. 57. 15. 16. He calls to him the weary and heavy laden that he may give them ease Matth. 11. 28. He was sent to heale the broken hearted to preach deliverance to the Captives and recoveing of sight to the blind and to set at liberty them that are bruised Luke 4. 18. When he hath broken your hearts he will as tenderly bind them up and as safely heal them as you can reasonably desire Even his Ministers that labour to break your hearts and bring you low even to the dust have no worse meaning in it then to bring you to Christ and life and comfort And though they are glad to see the weeping eyes of their hearers and to heare their free Confessions and Lamentations yet this is not because they take pleasure in your trouble but because they foresee the saving fruits of it and know it to be necessary to your Everlasting Peace You may read what their thoughts are in the words of Paul 2 Cor. 7. 9 10 11. Now I rejoyce not that ye were made sorry but that ye sorrowed to Repentance for ye were made sorry after a godly manner that ye might receive dammage by us in nothing For godly sorrow worketh Repentance to Salvation not to be Repented of but the sorrow of the world worketh death For behold this self-same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort what carefullness it wrought in you yea what clearing of your selves yea what indignation yea what fears yea what vehement desire yea what zeal yea what revenge c. Indeed neither Christ nor his Ministers have that fond and foolish love to you and pitty of you as you have to your selves They be not so tender of you as to save you from the sorrow which is needfull to the saving of you from Hell But they would not put you to any more then needs nor have you tast a drop of the vinegar and gall or shed one teare but what shall tend to your comfort and Salvation 6. Consider what sorrows they be that these sorrows do prevent and what those suffer in Hell that avoid this godly sorrow on earth O Sirs your Repentance-sorrows are joyes to those Yours have Hope but theirs are quickned with desperation Yours are small and but a drop to their Ocean Yours are Curing but theirs are Tormenting Yours are a Fathers Rod but theirs are the Rack and Gallows Yours are mixt with love but theirs are unmixed over-whelming them with confusion Yours are short but theirs are endless And had you rather sorrow as they do then as the godly do Had you rather howl with Devils and rebels then weep with Saints and Children Had you rather be broken in Hell by Torments then on earth by Grace Is it not an unreasonable thing of you to make such a stir at the sorrow that must save you when you remember what it would save you from and what all must suffer that are not Humbled here by Grace O it is another kind of sorrow that others are now enduring Grudg not at the pricking of a vein when so many thousands are everlastingly bleeding at the heart 7. Consider The more you are rightly Humbled the sweeter will Christ and all his Mercies be to you ever after while you live One tast of the healing Love of Christ will make you bless those sorrows that prepared for it The same Christ is not equally esteemed even by all that he will save And had you not rather be emptied yet more of your selves that you may be fuller of Christ hereafter When you do but feel his arms embracing you and perceive him in that posture as the prodigal's Father was Luke 15. 20. You will thank that sorrow that fitted you for his armes 8. If you be throughly humbled you will walk the more safely all your daies if other things correspond It will make you hate the sinne you smarted by and fly the occasions of that which cost you once so dear 9. The sinne of Pride is one of the most mortal damning sins in the world and that which thousands of professors do miscarry by And Humiliation is most directly contrary to this and therefore must needs be an amiable and necessary thing It 's worth all the sorrow that a hundred men endure here to be saved from this dangerous sinne of Pride 10. A through Humiliation is usually a signe of the greater Exaltation to come after For those that humble themselves shall be exalted and those that exalt themselves shall be brought low Luke 14. 11. Humble your selves therefore under the mighty hand of God and he shall lift you up 1 Pet. 5. 5. The higher you mean to build the deeper you will dig to lay the foundation Your Consolations are like to be greater as your sorrows have been greater You may be free from those doubts that follow others all their daies lest they were never truly humbled You need not be still questioning or pulling up your foundations as if you were to begin again It is a sign that you are intended to greater employments if other things concurre
and most full and free Salvatition And on his Conditions must we have his Benefits or we shall never have them 7. Lastly Understand and Note that the Means which Christ hath resolved on for Teaching and Ruling us ordinarily are his Word his Ministers and his Spirit all must be submitted to together where they may be had and none of them laid by by separation His Word is the Grammar or Book as it were that we must learn His Ministers must teach us this Book And his Spirit who in the Apostles and Prophets indited and sealed it must inwardly teach us by powerfull Illumination The Word is Gods Laws the Ministers are his Embassadours or Heraulds to proclaime them and command obedience in his Name and his Spirit must open mens hearts to entertain them The Word is Gods Seed the Ministers are the Husbandmen or Servants that sow it and the Spirit must give the increase without which our planting and watering will do nothing He therefore that takes Christ for his Master and King must resolve to be taught and ruled by his established means even by his Word and Ministers and Spirit conjunct For he that refuseth and despiseth these doth refuse and despise Christ and consequently the Father that sent him Luke 10. 16. 1 Thes. 4. 8. For it was never the meaning of Christ when he became the Teacher and King of the Church to stay on Earth and personally and visiby to teach them himself but these three are his means which all must submit to that will be his Subjects and Disciples And he that despiseth the Word shall be destroyed Prov. 13. 13. He that will not have the Word Ministry and Spirit teach him will not have Christ teach him and he that refuseth to be ruled by these three shall be destroyed as a Rebel against Christ himself Luke 19. 27. Still it is supposed that Ministers must Teach and Rule according to this Word And the Society in which Christ will Teach and govern us is his Church As members therefore of the Vniversal Church and in Communion with his Particular Church where we live and have opportunity we must wait on Christ for his Teaching and Benefits For this is his Schoole where his Disciples must diligently attend and learn Lay all this together and this is the summe The Object of Justifying Saving Faith is One only undivided Christ one in Person but of two Natures God and Man in Office the Mediator between God and man who hath already done the work of Sanctification and Merit and is authorized further to bestow the Benefits By the Gospel Grant he hath given himself as Head and Husband Teacher King and Saviour to all that will entirely and heartily accept him and with himself he giveth Justification by the Promise Sanctification by the Word Ministry and Spirit and final Absolution and Everlasting Life If ever then you will have Christ and Life you must accept him in all these Essentials of his Person and Office and that to the Ends which his Redemption was intended for you must be willing to be Sanctified by him as well as to be Justified You must at once unfeignedly become his Disciples his Subjects his Members if you would become his saved ones You wust consent that as your Teacher and your Lord he shall Teach and Rule your heart and life by his Word Ministers and Spirit in Communion with his Church No barre or exception must be put in nor reservation made against any one of these parts of his Office If you yield not to those parts of his Saving work that tend but to the compleative growth you sinne and deprive your selves of the Benefit but if you yield not to those that must make you truly Sanctified and Justified men you cannot be saved The Essentials of Christ's Person and Office do costitute him the Christ and if he be not received in all those Essentials he is not received as Christ. And thus I have given you the summe of the Gospel and the description of Faith and true Christianity in this Direction for a right closing with the Lord Jesus Christ. And experience of most that I discourse with perswades me to think this Direction of great necessity and to intreat you throughly to peruse and consider it I find abundance of ignorant people that talk much of Christ but know very little of him that can scarce tell us whether he be God or man or which Person in the Trinity he is nor to what End he was incarnate and died noâ— what Relation he stands in to us or what use he is of or what he now is or what he is engaged to do for us But if we ask them about their hopes of Salvation they almost overlook the Redemption by Christ and tell us of nothing but Gods Mercies and their own good meanings and endeavours And I am afraid too many Professors of Piety do look almost all at the Natural part of Religion and the mending of their own hearts and lives and I would this were better done while they forget the supernatutural part and little are affected with the infinite Love of God in Christ. I desire such to consider these things 1. You overlook the summe of your Religion which is Christ Crucified besides whom Paul desired to know nothing 2. You overlook the fountain of your own life and the author of your supplies and you strive in vaine for Sanctification or Justification if you seek them not from a Crucified Christ. 3. You leave undon the principal part of your work and live like moral Heathens while you have the name of Christians Your daily work is to study God in the face of his Sonne and to labour with all Saints to comprehend the height and bredth and length and depth and to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledg Eph. 3. 18. 19. All your Graces should be daily quickned and set awork by the life of Faith in the contemplation of the Redeemer and his blessed work This is the weight that must set all the wheels agoing You do God no Service that he can accept if you serve him not in this Gospel-work of loving trusting and admiring and praysing him in the Redeemer and for his Redemption 4. And so you rob God of the principal part of his Glory which you are to give him which is for this most glorious work of our Redemption I pray you read over again the Ends of this work which I laid down in the beginning of this Direction 5. Moreover you rob your selves of your principal comfort which must all come in by living upon Christ. 6. And you harden the Antiâ—omians and Libertines and tempt men to their extreams that runne from us as Legalists and as men that Savour not the Doctrine of free Grace and are not of a Gospel-Spirit and conversation I would our great neglect of Christ had not been a snare to these mistaken Soulâ— and a stumbling block in their way O Sirs if
bitter its dangerous it may be my undoing It s none of my meaning that any should needlesly runne into suffering or cross their governours and themselves through a spirit of pride singularity and contradiction But that men should think themselves truly Religious that keep such reserves for their fleshly interest and shew by the very drift of their lives that they are worldlings and never felt what it was to be crucified to the world and deny themselves but are Religious on this supposition only that it may stand with their worldly ends or at least not undo them in the world this is a lamentable hypocritical self-deceit When God hath so plainly said Love not the world nor the things that are in the world If any man love the world the Love of the Father is not in him 1 Joh. 2. 15. Nay that the neighbourhood and all the Country that know them should ring of the worldlyness of some that think themselves good Christians and yet they will not see it themselves What a cheating blinding thing is the world Well Sirs if you will be Christians count what it must cost you And if you will be Heirs of Heaven away with the world Cast it out of your hearts and if your hands must yet trade in it yet trade not for it Use it for God but enjoy it not for it self Take your selves as strangers here and look on the world as a desolate wilderness through which in the Communion of the militant Saints you may safely travail on to Heaven but do not make it your home nor take it for the smallest part of your felicity To be Sanctified without Mortification is a palpable contradiction Be at a point with all things below if you will groundedly hope for the Heavenly Inheritance But I shall purposely forbear to enlarge this any further because I have preached and written a Treatise on this Subject which I desire you to peruse DIRECT VII My next Direction is this If you would be truly Converted be sure that you make an absolute resignation of your selves and all that you have to God This is the very form and life of Sanctification To be Sanctified is to be separated in heart life and profession from all other Masters and Ends to God When the heart that was set upon the world and flesh is separated from them and inclined to God by the power of Love and devoted to him to serve and please him this is indeed a Sanctified Heart And when the life that before was spent in the service of Satan the world and the flesh is now taken off them and spent as to the drift and course of it in the Service of God for the Pleasing and Glorifying of him from the impulse of Love this is indeed a Holy life And herein consisteth the very nature of our Sanctity And when a man doth but profess to renounce the Devill the world and the flesh and to give up his heart and life to God this is a Profession of Holiness God is both on the title of Creation Preservation and Redemption or absolute Lord or Owner and we are not our own but his And therefore we must give to God the things that are Gods and Glorifie him in our Souls and bodies which are his 1 Cor. 6 19 20. As we are his Own so he will have his Own and be served by his Own Do not imagine that you have any title to your selves or propriety in your selves but without any more adoe make a full unreserved absolute resignation of your selves of your understandings and of your wills of your bodies and of your names and of every penny-worth of your estates to God from whom and for whom you have them Think not that you have power to dispose of your selves or of any thing that you have Ask not flesh and blood what life you shall lead or what mind or will you shall be of But ask God to whom you do belong Ask not your carnal selves what you shall do with any of your estates but ask God and then ask Conscience which is the way that God would have me use it in that is which way may I use it to be most serviceable to God And that resolve upon No service that you do to God will prove you Sanctified unless you have heartily and absolutely given up and devoted your selves to him and he that gives up himself must needs give up all that he hath with himself For he cannot keep it for himself ultimately when even himself is given up to God Though you be not bound to give all that you have to the poore nor all to the Church nor to deny your own bodies or families their due supplies yet must it all be given up to God even that which you make use of for your selves and families For as you are given up to God your selves so you must feed your selves as his and cloath your selves and your families as his to fit your selves and them for his Service and not as your own for the satisfying of your flesh Thus it is that all comes to be pure to the pure Sanctified to them that are themselves first Sanctified because when you feed your selfe you do but feed a Servant of God that is Consecrated to him and separated from things common and unclean And even as the Tythes and Offerings that were given for the food and maintenance of the Priests and Levites were called the Lords Portion and Holy to the Lord because they were their portion that were separated to his Altar Even so that which is necessary to fit you for Gods Service while you use it to that very end is Sanctified in your Sanctification and is Holy to God for all his Saints are a Holy Nation a Royal Priesthood to offer up acceptable sacrifice to him And thus whether you eat or drink or what ever you do you must do all to the Glory of God 1 Cor. 10. 31. For Of him and Through him and To him are all things and therefore to him must be the Glory for ever Rom. 11. 36. God who is the End of your hearts and lives must be the End of every action of them unless you will step out of the way of Order and Safety and Holiness For every action that is not from God and by God and for God is contrary to the nature of true Sanctification If then you would be Christians indeed be heartily willing that God should have his own Understand what an excellent honour and priveledge and happiness it is to you to be his If his Right to you will not move you let your own necessity and benefit at least move you to give up your selves and all you have to God Bring you hearts to the barre and plead the Cause of God with them and convince them of Gods title to them and how sinfully they have robbed him of his own all this while Have your daies and hours your wealth and interest
be indeed Converted and to forsake sinne and to prefer God before the world It 's a farre easier matter to convince a worldling that he shold not love the world then to cure him of his worldly love aud to convince a drunkard that he should leave his drunkenness and the whoremonger that he should abhorre his lusts then to bring them to do these things which they are convinced of It will cost them deer as the flesh accounts it to deny themselves and cast away the sinne but it costeth not so deer to take up the Opinion that these things should be done It will cost them deer to be downright for God and practically Religious but they can take up an Opinion that Godliness is the best and necessary course at a cheaper rate Strict Practices pinch the flesh but strict Opinions may stand with its liberty O what abundance of our poore neighbours would go to Heaven that are now in the way to Hell if an Opinion that Godliness is the wisest course would serve the turn If instead of Conversion God would take up with an Opinion that they ought to turn and if instead of a Holy Heavenly life God would accept of an Opinion that such are the happiest men that live such a life and if instead of temperance and meekness and self-denial and forgiving wrongs God would accept of an Opinion and Confession that they should be temperate and meeke and self-denying and should forbear others and forgive them then O what abundance would be saved that are now in little hope of Salvation If instead of a diligent life of Holiness and good works it would serve turn to lie still and be of a good Opinion that men should strive and labour for Salvation and lay out all they have for God how happy then were our Towns and Countries in comparison of what they are I am afraid this deceit will be the undoing of many that they take a change of their Opinions for a true Conversion Have not some of you been formerly of the mind that the best way is to eate and drink and be merry and venture your Souls and follow your worldly business and never trouble your selves with any deep and searching thoughts about your Spiritual state or your Salvation Have you not thought that this diligent godliness is but a needless strictness and precisness and have you not since been Convinced of your errour and perceived that this is the wisest course which you before thought to be needless and thereupon have betaken you to the company of the goldy and set upon a course of outward duties and now you think that you are made New Creatures and that this is Regeneration and the work is done I fear lest this be all the Conversion that many forward professours are acquainted with But wo to them that have no more And because the face of our present times doth plainly shew the commonness and prevalency of this disease and because it is a matter of so great concernment to you I shall here give you but as briefly as I well can some signes by which a true Conversion may be known from this meer Opinionative Change 1. The true Convert is brought to an unfeigned Hatred of the whole Body of sinne and especially of those secret or beloved sinnes that did most powerfully captivate him before 1 Cor. 6. 11. Tit. 3. 3 5. Col. 3. 3 5 7 8. But the Opinionative Convert is still Carnall and unmortified and inwardly at the heart the interest of the flesh is habitually predominant He is not brought to an unreconcileable hatred to the great master sinnes that ruled him and lay deepest but only hath eased the top of his stomack and cropt off some of the branches of the tree of death The thornes of worldly desires and cares are still rooted in his heart and therefore no wonder if they choak the seed of wholsome Truth and there be a greater Harvest for the Devil then for God Gal. 5. 24. chap. 16. 19. 6. 4 8. Rom. 8. 5. Matth. 13. 22. 2. Another sign that follows upon this is that the sound Convert doth carry on the course of his Obedience in a way of self-denial as living in a continual conflict with his own flesh and expecting his comfort and Salvation to come in upon the conquest And therefore he can suffer for Christ as well as be found in cheaper obedience and he dare not ordinarily refuse the most costly service For the spoiles of his fleshly desires are his pray and Crown of glorying in the Lord Luke 14. 27 33. Gal. 5. 17 24. 1 Cor. 9. 27. Luke 9. 23 24. 2 Cor. 12. 9. Gal. 6. 14. But the Opinionative Convert still liveth to his carnal-self and therefore secretly at least seeks himself and layeth hold on present things as the true Convert layeth hold on Eternal Life The Truths of God being received but into his Opinion do not go deep enough to conquer self and to take down his great Idol nor make him go through fire and water and to serve God with the best and honour him with his substance much less with his sufferings and death He hath something that he cannot spare for God Matth. 13. 21. Luke 18. 22 23 24. 3. The Sound Convert hath taken God for his Portion and Heaven for that sure and full felicity which he is resolved to venture upon That 's it that he hath set his heart and hopes upon and thither tends the drift of his life Col. 3. 1 2 3 4. Matth. 6. 20 21. But he that is changed only in his Opinions had never such sure apprehensions of the life to come nor so full a confidence in the Promises of God as to set his heart unfeignedly upon God and make him truly Heavenly-minded He may have a Heavenly tongue but he hath an Earthly heart A bare Opinion be it never so true will not raise mens hearts so high as to make their Affections and the very design and business of their lives to be Heavenly Phil. 3. 18 19 20. Rom. 16 17 18. Rom. 8. 5. 4. The Sound Convert hath seen the vileness of himself in the sinfullness of his heart and life and the misery thereby deserved and so is a sincerly humbled self-accusing man But the Opinionist is commonly unhumbled and well conceited of himself and a self-justifying Pharisee unless it be that self-accusing will cost him no disgrace and he take it up as a custom or that which may bring him into the repute of being humbled and sincere For his Opinion will not search and pierce his heart nor batter down his self-exalting thoughts nor root up the master sinne of Pride These are too great works for an Opinion to perform And therefore you shall hear him more in the excusing of his sinne the magnifying of himself or the stiff maintaining of his own conceits then in unfeigned self-abasing Rom. 12. 16. 1 Cor. 1. 19 20. 3. 18. 2 Cor 10.
will themselves forsake them and take up another way and be as consident in that and take no warning by the experience of their former deceit And thus they go oft from one Opinion to another till at last finding themselves deceived so oft some of them cast off all Religion and think there is no certainty to be found in any Suspecting Religion when they should have suspected their false hearts And all this comes to pass because they never received the Truth in the love of it that they might be Sanctified and Saved by it 2 Thes. 2. 10 11 12. Nor ever gave it deep entertainment in their hearts that it might throughly Convert them but took it as a bare Opinion into the brain to polish their tongues and outsides and deceive themselves as much as others And thus I have shewed you the difference between a sound Convert and an Opinionist or one that hath but a overly superficial Change that you may see which of these is your own condition To return now to my Advice and Exhortation I intreat every person that readeth or heareth these words to see that they stick not in an Opinionative Conversion To which End I further desire you 1. To consider that it is a higher matter that Christ came into the world for then to change mens bare Opinions and it is a higher matter that the Gospel is intended for and that Ministers are sent to you for For it is more then a corruption of mens Opinions that siane hath brought upon you and therefore it is a deeper disease that must be cured The Work of Christ by his Gospel is no less then to fetch you off all that which flesh and blood accounts your Happiness and to unite you to himself and make you Holy as God is Holy and to give you a new Nature and make you as the dwellers or Citizens of Heaven while you walk on Earth Phil. 3. 20 21. And these are greater matters then the changing of a Party or Opinion The Holy Ghost himself must dwell in you and work in you and imploy your Soul and life for God that you may study him and love him and live to him here and live with him for ever Do but think well of the Ends and meaning of the Gospel and how much greater matters it drives at and then you will see that there 's no taking up with an Opinionative Religiousness 2. Keep company if it be possible with the most Sober Spiritual and Heavenly professours that will be drawing you to the observation of your own heart and life and opening to you the riches of the Love of Christ and winning up your affections to God and Heaven And be not the companions of unexperienced wranglers that have no other Religion but a Zeal for their Opinions and will endeavour rather to make you like Satan then like God by possessing your minds with malice and bitter thoughts of your brethren and employing your tongues in reproaches and vaine strivings and making you fire-brands in the places where you live Neither be companions of them that hold the Truth no deeper then Opinion For though some such may be usefull to you in their places yet if you have not more edifying familiars your danger will be very great lest you should let go the life of Religion and take up with meer notions and formalities as they 3. When you have considered that every Truth of God is a Message to your Hearts as well as to your Heads and hath a work of God to do upon them look after that work and when you have heard or read a Truth go down into your Hearts and see what it hath done there And if you find not in your Will and Resolutions and Affections the Image and fruits of the Truth you have heard fetch it up again and ruminate upon it and do not think you have received it or done with it till this be done yea take it but as lost and sinfully rejected if it have not done you some good at the very Heart 4. Also be sure that you Practise all practical Truths upon the first opportunity as soon as you have heard them Imprison them not in unrighteousness Cast them not out in forgetfulness use not a Lecture of Divinity as if it were a lesson of Musick or a meer Philosophical or Historical discourse Read not the Doctrine of Salvation and the Promises of Heaven and the forewarnings of everlasting misery as you read a common story or a groundless conjecture in an Almanack But as a Message from God which tells you where you must dwell for ever and as a Direction sent from Heaven to teach you the way thither Fall to work then and practise what you know if you would be Christians indeed Be yee doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves For the Opinionative hearer seeth but a slight appearance of the Truth as a man that lookes on his face in a glass which he quickly forgets But he that is a Sound Believer and practiser and not only an Opinionative forgetful hearer is the man that shall be blessed in his deed Jam. 1. 22 23 24 25. Opinion without Practise is building on the Sand but hearing and sound Believing and doing is building upon the Rock where the building will stand after all assaults Matth. 7. 26 27 28. An Opinionist doth but seem to be Religious while he keeps his reigning sinnes and therefore his Religion is in vain but the Practical Religion is the pure and undefiled Religion Jam. 1. 26 27. Hearty obedience will not only shew that your Religion is deeper then meer Opinion but it will also advance it to a greater purity and root it more deeply then it was before A man that hath studied the Art of Navigation in his closet may talk of it almost as well as he that hath been at sea but when he comes to practise it he will find that he is far to seek But let this man go to sea and joyn practise and experience to his Theory and then he may have a knowledg of the right kind So if a man that hath only read over Military Books would be a true Soldier or a man that hath only studied Physick would be a true Physician what better way is there then to fall to Practise And so must you if you would have a Religion that shall save your Souls and not only a Religion that will furnish you with good Opinions and expressions 5. Moreover if you would get above Opinion be still searching more and more after the Evidences of the ancient fundamental Truths that you have received and lay open your hearts to the power of them Think it not enough that you take the Christian Religion for true but labour after a clearer sight ot its truth For you may possibly upon some conjecture take it for a Truth by bare Opinion whenas the sight of fuller Evidences and a full sight of those
to him as that he had and may make him more happy Look to it therefore that you have right and beliving thoughts of Heaven and that unfeignedly you take it for your Home and Happiness and look not for any other Portion Till you see so much of the certainty and excellency of Everlasting Glory as shall prevail with you to lay out your faithfull labour for it and to be at a point with all this world as having laid up your Treasure and Hopes in the world to come you have no ground to conclude that you are true Christian Converts Seeing therefore that it's Heaven that is the very Reason the End the Life of all your Religion it follows that you must necessarily understand somewhat of its excellency and believe its certainty and accordingly set your hearts upon it and make the attainment of it your daily work and business in the world This is to be a Convert indeed Remember therefore first what I told you before wherein the nature of this Blessedness doth consist I will only name the Essentials of it that your apprehensions may be right and forbear to say much as being done already 1. The first thing considerable in our Everlasting Blessedness will be our personal Perfection of the whole man This is in order to the Perfection of our Everlasting Operations and Enjoyments Our bodies shall be no more flesh and blood nor corruptible or mortall or subject to hunger or pain or weariness nor to passions that rebell against the reasonable soul but they shall be spiritul bodies and Immortall and Incorruptible and Undefiled Our Souls will be perfected in their Natural Perfections and in their Moral They shall be of more advanced Understanding and comprehensive Wisdom then now Our wills shall attain to perfect rectitude in a perfect conformity to the Will of God and every affection shall be brought to its perfect order and elevation All sinne shall be done away whether it were in the understanding will affections or the actions The executive power will be answerable to the rest of the Perfections and to the blessed work which it hath to do And thus we shall be like the Angels of God 2. The next thing considerable in our Blessedness is our approximation or approach to God We shall be admitted into the holiest and brought as neer him as our natures are capable of and we are fit for 3. Moreover we shall be Members of the new Jerusalem and receive our Glory in Communion with that blessed Society and so as Members contribute to her Glory 4. And we shall behold the glorified Person of our Redeemer and he will be glorified on us as the fruits of his Victory 5. And we shall behold the face of the blessed God and see his wisdom and power and glory and know as we are known Though we cannot now fully know the manner yet in that sense as our Angels are said to behold the face of God Mat. 18. 10. we also shall behold it 6. We shall also enjoy him in the neerest relation and by the most raised vigorous affections of our souls We shall be filled with his Love as full as we can hold and we shall abound with perfect Love to him again And the Joy that is in his presence which this Intuition and Everlasting Love will afford us is such as no heart is here able to conceive 7. Being thus furnished we shall be employed in his perfect Praises in singing and rejoycing to him with the heavenly Host and Magnifying his great and holy Name 8. And in all this will the Glory of God shine forth and he will be admired in his Saints 2 Thes. 1. 10. 11. In us it shall appear how abundant he is in power and wisdom and goodness in holiness faithfulness and righteousness 9. And God himself will be well pleased with us and with the new Jerusalem and his glorified Sonne and will take complacenâ—y in this manifestation and communication of his Glory and of Himself unto his creatures And this is his Ultimate End and should be the highest point of ours The Revolution hath now brought all to that Center which is both the Alpha and Omega the begining and the end His Will is the Fountain or Efficient of all and it is the Ultimate End and Perfection of all There is no more to add as to the matter but that as to the Duration first we may take it as that which leaves no room for any addition that all this will be Everlasting leaving not any doubts or fears of a cessation Abundance of glorious adjuncts of this felicity might be mentioned but I pass them all by and do but name these few which are the Essentiall Constitutive parts of our Happiness because I have touched them before and fullyer spoken of them in the Saints Rest. Thus much I thought meet to mention here that you may have somewhat of that in your eye that I am perswading you to intend and seek and the rather because I perceive that many of the godly have not such distinct Apprehensions of the constitutive parts of this Felicity as they should have but much wrong their souls and God Himself and the Glory of their Profession by looking but at some of the Parts Believe God sirs that this is the life that you shall live if you will take it for your Portion and set your hearts upon it and follow the Conduct of Christ for the obtaining it Can you be content with Heaven alone Is it enough for you though you be despised and persecuted in the world Do you account this for Certainty and Excellency to be worth all Yea that all is dross and dung to this Thus must you do if you will be true Converts For all such are heavenly in their minds and hearts and in the drift of all their lives and Conversations DIRECT X. My next Advice that you may prove sound Converts is this Rest not and count not your selves truly Converted till God and his holy Waies have your very Love and Desire and Delight and take not that for a saving Change when you had rather live a worldly ungodly life if it were not for the fear of punishment I shall speak but little of this because I toucht upon it before when I told you that Christ must have your hearts and because it is but a consectary of the last or contained in it But yet I think it best to present it here distinctly to your Consideration because a slavish kind of religiousness doth deceive so many and because the life of Grace is here exprest I deny not but holy Fear is eâ—ceeding usefull to us even a Fear of the Threatnings and Judgments of God But yet I must tell you that in Fear there is much more that is common to the unsanctified then there is in Love Desire and Delight Though the Fear of God be the beginning of wisdom it is Love that is the Perfection and that Fear is not
filial and of the right strain if Love be not its Companion Fear of punishment shews that you love your natural selves but it shews not that you love God and are true-hearted to him The Devils fear and tremble but they do not Love It is Love and and not Fear that is the Byas the Inclination and as I may say the Nature of the will of man By his Love it is that you must know what the man is The Philosopher saith Such as a man is such is his end which is all one as to say Such as a man is such is his Love You may Fear a thing at the same time when you hate it and it 's too common to have some hatred mixt with Fear You may be as much against God and his holy waies when Fear only drives you to some kind of religiousness as others are that scarce meddle with Religion at all The first thing that God looks at is what you would do and the next is what you do If you do it but had rather leave it undone you lose your reward and God will take it as if you had not done it For it was not you that did it if you did it not from Love but it was Fear that dwelleth in you God takes mens hearty Desires and Will instead of the Deed where they have not power to fulfill it But he never took the bare Deed instead of the Will A blockish kind of worship consisting in outward actions without the heart is fit to be given to a wooden god a sensless Idol but the true and living God abhorres it He is a Spirit and will be worshiped in Spirit and in Truth such worshipers he seeketh and such he will accept Joh. 4. 23 24. A begger will be glad of your Almes though you leave it with an ill will because he needeth it but God hath no need of you nor of your service and therefore think not that he will accept you on such termes That people worshipeth God in vain that draw near him with their mouth and honour him with their lips when their heart is farre from him Mat. 15. 8 9. A mans heart is where his Love is rather then where his Fear is If you should lie still upon your knees or in the holy Assembly If you should be the strictest Observer of the Ordinances on the Lords daies and yet had such hearts in you as had rather let all these alone if it were not for fear of punishment it will all be disregarded and reckoned to you according to your wills as if it had never been done by you at all It 's Love that must win Love or make you fit for Love to entertain If you give your goods to the poor or your bodies to be burned in a cause that in it self is good and yet have not Love it availeth nothing 1 Cor. 13. 1 2 3 5. You will not think your Wife hath conjugall affections that loveth another man better then you and had rather be gone from you if she could live without you It 's an unnatural Son that loves not his Father but had rather be from him then with him If God called you to a bestiall drugery or slavery he would then look but for your work and not care much whether you be willing or unwilling If your Ox draw your plow and your Horse carry his burden you care not much whether it be willingly or unwillingly Or if it be an enemy that you have to deal with you will look for no more then a forced submission or that he be disabled from doing you hurt But this is not your case It is a state of friendship that the Gospel calls you to you must be nigh to God his Children and the Members of his Sonne espoused to him in the dearest strongest bonds And do you think it is possible that this should be done without your wills and affections If you can be content with the Portion of a slave and an enemy then do your task and deny God your affections But if you look for the entertainment and Portion of a Friend a Child a Spouse you must bring the heart of a Friend and of a Child and of a Spouse Fear may do good by driving you to the use of means and taking out of your hands the things by which you would do your selves a mischief It may prepare you for saving Grace and when you are sanctified it will prove a necessary servant of Love to keep you in awe and save you from temptations But Love is the ruling affection in the sanctified and fear is therefore necessary because of the present imperfection of Love and because of the variety of temptations that here beset us Think not therefore that you are savingly renewed till God have your very hearts When you do but believe and tremble it is better then to be unbelieving and stupid and secure but you are not true Christians till you believe and Love We use to fly from that which we fear and therefore do apprehend it to be evil to us We avoid the presence and company of those that we are afraid of but we draw nigh them that we love and delight in their company We Fear an Enemy We Love a Friend We Fear the Devil naturally but we do not Love him It is Love that is that Affection of the soul that entertaineth God as God even as Good though that Love must be accompanied with a filial fear even a dread and reverence of his Majesty and greatness and a fear of displeasing him If you should toile out your selves in Religious duties with a heart that had rather forbear them if you durst you have not the hearts of Gods Children in your breasts The Magistrate can frighten men to the Congregation and outward worship You may lock a man in the Church that had rather be away And will any man think that this makes him acceptable to God You may keep a Theif from stealing by prison and irons but this makes him not accepted with God as a true man You may cure a man of cursing and swearing and railing and idle and ribbald talking even in a minute of an hour by cutting of his tongue but will God accept him ever the more as long as he hath a heart that would do it if he could There 's abundance of people at this day that are kept from abusing the Lords day and from swearing and stealing yea and from laying hands on all about them that are godly and this by the Law of man and the fear of present punishment And do you think that these are therefore innocent or acceptable with God By this account you may make the Devil a Saint when he is chained up from doing mischief You may as well say that a Lyon is become a Lamb when he is shut up in his Den Or that a mastiff Dog is become harmelss and gentle when he is muzled Believe it sirs you are
times Repent it that you delayed so long before you yielded O how it will grieve you when your hearts are melted with the Love of God and are overcome with the infinite kindness of his pardoning saving Grace that ever you had the hearts to abuse such a God and deal so unkindly with him and stand out so long against that compassion that was seeking your Salvation O how it will grieve your hearts to consider that you have spent so much of your lives in sinne for the Devil and the flesh and the deceitfull world O you will think with your selves was not God more worthy of my youthfull daies Had I not been better have spent it in his Service and the work of my Salvation Alas that I should wast such precious daies and now be so farre behind hand as I am Now I want that Faith that Hope that Love that Peace that Assurance that Joy in the Holy Ghost which I might have had if I had spent those years for God which I spent in the service of the world and the flesh Then I might have had the comfort of a well spent life and with joy have now lookt back upon those daies and seen the good I had done to others and the honour I had brought to God whereas I must now look back upon all those years with sorrow and shame and anguish of mind You will think to your selves then a hundred times O that I had but that time againe to spend for God which I spent for sinne and to use for my Soul which I wasted for my bruitish flesh Believe it Sirs if ever you be converted you must look for these Repenting sorrows for all your Delaies and that is the best that can come of it And who would now wilfully make work for sorrow 38 And I pray you consider whether it belongs of right to God or you to determine of the day and hour of your coming in It is he that must give you the pardon of your sinnes and doth it not then belong to him to appoint the time of your receiving it You cannot have Christ and life without him It is he that must give you the Kingdom of Heaven And is he not worthy then to appoint the time of your Conversion that you may be made partakers of it But if he say To day dare you say I 'l stay till to morrow 30. Nay consider whether God or you be likelier to know the meetest time Dare you say that you know better when to turn then God doth I suppose you dare not And if you dare not say so for shame let not your practice say so God saith To day while it is called to day hear my voice and harden not your hearts And dare you say It 's better stay one moneth longer or one day longer God saith Behold this is the accepted time behold this is the day of Salvation 2 Cor. 6. 2. And will you say It 's time enough to morrow Do you know better then God If your Physician do but tell you in a plurisie or a feaver you must let blood this day before to morrow you will have so much reason as to submit to his understanding and think that he knows better then you And cannot you allow as much to the God of Wisdom 40. Consider also that the speediness of your Conversion when God first calls you doth make you the more welcome and is a thing exceeding pleasing to God Our Proverb is A speedy gift is a double gift If you ask any thing of a friend and he give it you presently and cheerfully at the first asking you will think you have it with a good will but if he stand long delaying first and demurring upon it you will think you have it with an ill will and that you owe him the smaller thanks If a very beggar at your doore must stay long for an alms he will think he is the less beholden to you How much more may God be displeased when he must stay so long for his own and that for your benefit God loveth a cheerfull giver and consequently a cheerfull Obeyer of his call And if it be hearty and chearfull it is the liker to be speedy without such delaies 41. And I would desire you but to do with God as you would be done by Would you take it well of your Children if they should tear all their cloaths and cast their meat to the doggs and tread it in the dirt and when you intreat them to give over they will not regard you Would you stand month after month intreating and waiting on them as God doth on you in a foolisher course Or rather would you not either soundly whip them or take their meat from them till hunger teach them to use it better If your servant will spend the whole day and year in drinking and playing when he should do your work will you wait on him all the year with intreaties and pay him at last as if he had served you And can you expect that God should deal so by you 42 And consider I pray you that your Delay is a Denial and so may God interpret it For the Time of your Turning is part of the Command He that saith Turn saith Now even To day without delay He giveth you no longer day If time be lengthned and the ofâ—er made again and again that 's more then he promised you or you could have promised your selves His Command is Now Return and Live And if you refuse the Time the Present Time you refuse the offer and forfeit the benefit And if you knew but what it is to give God a denial in such a case as this and what a case you were in if he should turn away in wrath and never come neer you more you would then be afraid of jesting with his hot displeasure or dallying with the Lord. 43. And me thinks you should remember that God doth not stay thus on all as he doth on you Thousands are under burning and despaire and past all remedy while patience is waiting yet upon you Can you forget that others are in Hell at this very hour for as small sinnes as those that you are yet intangled and linger in Good Lord what a thing is a sensless heart That at the same time when millions are in misery for delaying or refusing to be Converted their successours should fearlesly venture in their steps Surely if Faith had but opened your ears to hear the cries of those damned Souls you durst not imitate them by your Delaies 44. And I must tell you that God will not alwaies thus wait on you and attend you by his patience as hitherto he hath done Patience hath his appointed time And if you outstay that time you are miserable wretches I can assure you Sirs the glass is turned upon you and when it is runne out you shall never have an hour of patience more Then God will no more intreate you to be
at least a more piercing convincing deep and savoury apprehension of the essentials of Christianity then he ever had before Where note of this special Heavenly light 1. The being usually the Consequent of a more common knowledg therefore most ordinarily the sum of Christian Doctrine is in some manner known before 2. That it doth not reveal only some one point of Faith alone and then another and so on as if we savingly knew one essential point of Faith when we have no saving Knowledg of the rest For that is a Contradiction But finding all these Truths received in the mind before by a common Knowledg the special Light comes in upon them all at once and so shews us the Anatomy of Christianity or the parts of Gods Image in one frame as to the essentials 3. For the understanding of which you must further know that there is such an inseparable connection of these Truths and such a dependance of one upon another that it is not possible to know one of them truly and not know all For example Believing in Jesus Christ is an act so inseparable from the rest that if the essentials of Christianity be not essential to it certainly you cannot do this without them For to Believe in Christ is essentially to believe in him as God and man two Natures in one Person by Office the Mediator our Redeemer and Saviour to save us from guilt and sinne from punishment and pollution and to give us by the Holy Ghost a Holy nature and life and to give us the forgiveness of sinne and Everlasting life and so to restore us to the mutual Love of God here and fruition of him hereafter and all this as merited and procured by his Death Obedience Resurrection Ascension and Intercession for his Church Whether here be all that is Essential to Christianity and absolutely necessary to Salvation to be believed I leave to consideration but sure I am that all this is Essential to saving Justifying Faith And Christ is not taken as Christ if he be not thus taken For the Ends thus enter the definition of his Relation as the Redeemer and Saviour and Lord. So that the Love of God as our felicity and End and the belief in Christ as the way are both together in the same minute of time which soever of them be first in order of nature which is a question that I dare not here so unseasonably handle 2. Upon this special Illumination of the Soul and the special Consideration with which it doth concurre the Deliberating Soul is presently Resolved And in these two Acts which alwaies go together consisteth the special Sanctifying Work Even in the Illumination and Estimation of the Understanding and in the true Resolution of the Will 2. The Determination of the Will is its own free act performed by its natural self determining power procured by the special Grace of God I mean in this special case It followeth Deliberation While we are unresolved we Deliberate what to Resolve upon that is we are considering which is best and most eligible and which not and as we practically judg we use to Determine and to choose And when this choice after Deliberation is peremtory and full it 's called Resolution So that my meaning is to let you understand that when the Matter of our Faith is set open to the Soul it is not a wavering fickle purpose that is a saving closure with it but it must be a firm Resolution Much less will it ever bring a man to Heaven to be thinking and deliberating what to do as long as he is unresolved And now I shall prove the Necessity of this II. Till you are Resolved you are not Converted and that appeareth by these Evidences 1. If you are not firmly Resolved it is certain that you do not firmly believe For such as your Belief is such will be the effects of it upon the Will An unsound Opinionative belief will produce but tottering languishing purposes but a firm belief will cause a firm Resolution of the Will And if your belief be unsound you must confess you are unconverted 2. Moreover if you do not esteem God above all Creatures and Heaven above Earth and Christ and Grace above sinne you are certainly unconverted But if you have such a true estimation you will certainly have a firm Resolution For you will Resolve for that which you highly esteem 3. If God have not your firm Resolution he hath not indeed your Heart and Will For to give God your Hearts and Wills is principally by firm Resolving for him And if God have not your Hearts you are sure unconverted 4. Moreover if you are not firmly Resolved your Affections will not be sincere and stedfast For all the Affections are such as to their sincerity as the Will is which doth excite or command them And nothing is more mutable then the Affections in themselves considered They will be hot to day and cold to morrow if they be not rooted in the firm Resolution of the Will which is the life of them 5. Lastly Without a firm Resolution there can be no faithfull obedience and execution of the Will of God For if men be not Resolved they will heavily go on and lazilie proceed and easily come off For their hands go to work without their hearts It is the greatest work in all the world that God calls you to and none but the Resolved are able to go through with it Of which we shall give you a fuller account anon III. In the next place let me intreat you in the feare of God to look after this great and Necessary part of your Conversion There are many degrees of good motions in the mind but all that falls short of Resolution is unâ—ound Many are brought to Doubt whether all be well with them and to have some fears thereupon that yet will not be brought so far as to consider soberly of the matter and deliberate what is best to be done and to advise with their Ministers for the furthering of their Salvation Many that are perswaded so far as to consider and deliberate and take advice yet go no further then some cold wishes or purposes which are all overcome by the love of the world and the power of their sinnes Many that do proceed to some kind of Practice do only take a tast or an essay of Religion to try how they can like it and begin some kind of outward Reformation without any firm Resolution to go through with it Or if their purposes seem strong it is but occasioned by something without and not from a setled habit within All these are short of a state of special Saving Grace and must be numbred with the unconverted It is a common and very dangerous mistake that many are undone by to think that every good Desire is a certain sign of Saving Grace Whereas you may have more then bare Desires even purposes and promises and some performances and yet perish
base and treacherous abuse of God to make any question of this which you are so long unresolved of I confess when a blind mind haith raised such a question it is lawfull for a reasonable man to answer it But in him that makes a doubt of such a thing as its a shame to himself so it is a hainous indignity to God If you had a chast and modest woman to your wife I think shee would take it for an injury if you should but make a question of it whether shee or a common whore be the honester woman If your wife or children should bring before you a Hobby-horse or an Ass and make a great question of it whether you or the Ass be the comlier or the wiser How would you take this of them If you should bring an ideot or a mad man before your Prince and make a question whether he or they be the wiser man or if you set a Rebel before him and make a question which of them hath the better title to the Crown what entertainment might you expect I tell you it is ten thousand thousand times a baser affront and wrong to God to set the pleasure of sinne before him and make a question which of them is the better and to set your riches and your sports and your drunkenness and gluttonny and your whoredom and your revenge in competition with your Redeemer and Everlasting Glory and to make a question which of them is to be preferred To make once a question whether God or flesh should be pleased whether Christ or the world should be loved and followed Whether the Holy Ghost or the Devil should dwell in us and guide us Whether the Saints of God or the servants of the Devil should be our chosen company Whether the Word and Minsiters of Christ or the examples and words of wicked men should more prevail with us Whether Heaven or Earth should be more carefully sought after Whether a Holy or a careless wicked life be more to be desired Or whether it be better to turn to God or not I say to make such a question as this or one of these is little better then to put a scorn upon the God of Heaven and savoureth of such malice as is more like a Devil then a reasonable man or else of such folly as is below the Devil and as none of you would be guilty of in the matters of this world If one should but make a comparison between you and some deformed monster or between your house and a swine-stie though he gave you the better I think you would take it as a scorn that he should make such a comparison or question Much more may God so take it when you make a question betwixt sinne and him There is but one Infinite unconceivable perfect Good and shall he be abased by such a question There is but one thing that is contrary to God in all the world that is worse then the Devil himself and that is sinne and shall this be put in question or comparison with God There is but One that hath Loved us to the death with a matchless unconceivable saving Love and that is Jesus Christ And there is but one thing that is a deadly enemy to us and him and that would damn us when he is endeavouring to save us and that is sinne And must there be a question or comparison between these There is One Sanctifying Spirit that would clense and heal and save us and there is a malicious spirit that would deceive us defile us and destroy us And must there be any question or comparison made between these There is but one Eternal Happiness and One Holy way to it and there is but One everlasting misery and a fleshly filthy sinfull way to it And must there be made any question which of these should be preferred Consider I beseech you what you do And if it be so vile a thing to make any question of it what is it then to be still unresolved Yea and to choose the worser part and stick to it in your heart and life 12. Consider also that Present Resolution would put an end to a great many fruitles troublesome deliberatiens and delaies If a man had but a weighty business of the world upon his hand that his estate or life lieth on it is a perplexity to him as long as he is unresolved what course he should take It will be troubling him when he should rest and break his sleep it will fill him with musings and disturb and distract his mind and even make him Melancholy And how can it choose but be a troublesome distracting thing to your mind to be unresolved what course to take for your Everlasting state I know some hearts are so desperately hardened and past feeling Epes 4. 19. and some mens Consciences so seared as with an hot iron 1 Tim. 4. 2. that they can throw away all thoughts of Resolution and never be much troubled But I hope that many are not so desperate It is not thus with all that are unconverted How long have some of your minds been troubled whether to turn or not Resolve man if thou love thy Soul and put an end to such troubles 13. Consider also that Resolving will put an end to a great many of troublesome Temptations that do assault you and will break the heart of Satans hopes As long as you are unresolved he hath still possession of you and is still in hopes to keep possession And as long as he hath any hope he will never give over but will be repairing his Garrison and making up all the breaches that the Ordinances of God had made When one temptation takes not he will be offering you another and will be following and disquieting you day and night But if once he see you firmly Resolved his hopes will faile him and you may be much freer from his temptations then you were before I do not say he will give over For even when you are broken away from him he will make after you again But it is a greater advantage to you to fight against him in the open field under such a Captaine as Jesus Christ that will assure you of the victory then to be in his own prison with his fetters on your heels You know the way to be troubled with an unwelcome suiter is to delay your answer and take time to consider of it and the way to be eased of him is to give him a peremptory Resolute answer And when he seeth you Resolved he will cease 14. Moreover till you are Resolved of your Conversion you cannot Rationally Resolve of any one word or action of your lives Nay till they are all misemployed to your hurt For no man can Resolve of the Means till he is Resolved of the End You must Resolve whither to go before you can Resolve which way to go Before Conversion mens End is wrong Their Intention and business is to please
Ghost is as necessary to your Salvation Without the sanctifying work of the Spirit you could never be delivered from sin and Satan nor restored to Gods Image and consepuently could never be the Members of Christ nor have any saving benefit by his Sufferings Would you not think him unworthy to live that would reproach the Fathers work of nature and say that the whole Creation is but some poor contemptible work And would you not think him unworthy the name of a Christian that had contemptible thoughts of the Sons Redemption as if we could be saved as well without a Saviour or as if it were but some poor and triviall commodity that Christ had purchased us I know you would confess the mistery of that man that believeth no better in the Father and the Son And how comes it to pass that you think not of your own misery that believe no better in the holy Ghost Do not you debase the Sanctifying office of the holy Spirit when you shew us your knowledg and parts and outward duties and civility and tell us that these are the work of sanctification What is Sanctification but such a thing as this Why Holiliness is a new Life and Spirit in us and these that you talk of are but a few flowers that are stickt upon a Corps to keep it a while from stinking among men till death convey it to a buriall in Hell O Sirs Sanctification is another kind of matter then the forsaking of some of your fouler vices and speaking well of a Godly life It is not the patching up of the Old man but the Creating of a New man I give you warning therefore from God that you think not basely of the work of the holy Ghost and that you think no more to be saved without the Sanctifying work of the Spirit then without the redeeming work of the Son or Creation Government or Love of the Father Sanctification must turn the very bent and stream of heart and life to God to Christ to Heaven it must mortifie Carnall Self and the world to you it must make you a people Devoted Consecrated and Resigned up to God with all that you have it must make all sin odious to you and make God the Love and Desire of your Souls so that it must give you a new Heart a new End a new Master a new Law and a new Conversation This is that noble Heavenly work which the holy Ghost hath vouchsafed to make the business of his office To slight and despise this is to slight and despise the holy Ghost To refuse this is to refuse the holy Ghost and not to believe in him to be without this work is to be without the holy Ghost if any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. The holy Catholick Church is composed of all through the world that have this work upon them and therefore it is called Holy The Communion of Saints is the blessed Vitall fellowship of these Sanctified Ones For these only is the Resurrection unto blessedness the life everlasting with the Lord of life for all others is the Resurrection of Condemnation the everlasting punishment But if the other two Articles of our Faith have been so denied by the blind it is less wonder if this be so Some Hereticks denied God to be the Creatour of the world and because they saw so much evill in the world they said that it was made by Devils or evill Angels who indeed made the sin but not the world So dealt the Jewes by the Son and the Second Article of our Faith The Sacrifice of Bulls and Goats and such Beasts was all the Sacrifice for sin that they believed in And thus deale the multitude of the ungodly by the Spirit Indeed they know not themselves sufficiently to know the need and worth of Sanctification They are too whole to value the skill and care of Christ or the holy Ghost The insensibility of spirituall death and misery and thinking too lightly of Originall Corruption and too well of our depraved nature is both the cause of many of the Heresies of the learned and of the common contempt of Christ and the Spirit and recovering grace in all the unregenerate For it is not possible that men should have any deeper sence of the need or worth of the remedy then they have of the greatness of their sinne and misery O Sirs did we not come upon this great disadvantage to you that we speak to dead men that have indeed a naturall life which doth but take pleasure in their spirituall death how confidently should we expect to prevaile with you all But while you think lightly of your disease we can expect no better but that you think as lightly of Christ and holiness and all the meanes that tend to your recovery and think of the new man as the Poets fabled of the Promethean race that it grows out of the earth of your own poor sorry purposes and performances like ordinary plants Truly Sirs I have led you even as farre as I can and what more to say to you or what more to do for you to procure your Conversion I do not know If it had been in my power to have shewed you Heaven and Hell it self that you might better have known the matters that we speak of I think I should have done it But God will not have men live by sense in this life but by Faith If I could but help you all to such a knowledge and apprehension of these in visible things as the worst of you shall have as soon as you are dead then I should make but little doubt of your Conversion and Salvation Sure if you had but such a sight the force of it would so work upon you that before I went out of the Congregation you would all cry out that you are resolved to be new Creatures But though this be beyond my power and though I cannot shew you your great and wonderfull things that every eye here must shortly see yet I come not to you without a glass of Gods own making and in that glass you may see them There if you have but an eye of Faith you may see that God that you have so long offended and that now so earnestly inviteth you to return There you may see that Crucified Christ that hath opened you a way for Repentance by his Blood and pleadeth that Blood with you for the melting of your impenitent obstinate hearts There you may see the odious face of sinne and the amiable face of Holiness which is the Image of God There you may see both Heaven and Hell for all that they are invisible and may know what will be and that to all Eternity as well as what is And will not such a sight in the glass of Gods Word serve turn to move thee presently to give up the trade of sinning and to Resolve before thou stir for God I