THE Crucifying of the world BY THE Cross of Christ. With a Preface to the Nobles Gentlemen and all the Rich directing them how they may be Richer By Richard Baxter 1 JOHN 2. 15. 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 LONDON Printed by R. W. for Nevill Simmons Bookseller in Kederminster and are to be sold by him there and by Nathaniel Ekins at the Gun in Pauls Church-Yard Anno Dom. 1658. To my Worthy FRIEND THOMAS FOLEY Esquire SIR UPON a double account I have thought it meet to direct this Treatise first to you First because the first Embrio of it was an Assize Sermon preached at your desire when you were high Sheriff of this County which drew me to add more till it swell'd to this which some of my Brethren have perswaded to venture into the open world Secondly because God hath given you a heart to be exemplary in Practising the Doctrine here delivered And I think I shall teach men the more successfully when I can shew them a Living Lesson for their imitation I never knew that you refused a work of Charity that was motioned to you but oft have you offered me that for the Churches service which I was not ready to accept and improve I would not do you the displeasure as to mention this but that forward Charity is grown so rare in many places that some may grow shortly to think that we preach to them of a Chimaera a non-existent thing if we do not tell them where it is to be seen Especially now Infidelity is grown up to that strength that Seeing is taken by many for the only true informer of their Reason and Believing for an unreasonable thing And I take my self to owe much thankfulness to God when I see him choose a faithfull Steward for any of his Gifts It s a sign he meaneth Good by it to his Church Some Rich men sacrifice all they have to to their Bellies which are their Gods even to an â—picurian momentany delight and cast all into the filthy sink of their sensuality These are worse then Infidels defrauding their posterity and swine alive but worse then swine when they are dead Some Rich men are provident but its only for their posterity The ravenous bruits are greedy for their young Some will begin to be bountifull at death and give that to God which they can keep no longer as if he would be thus bribed to receive their souls and forgive their worldly hearts and lives Some will give in their life time but it is but part of their sinfull gains like the Thief that would pay Tythes of all that he had stolen Some give a part of their more lawfull increase but it is against their will it being forced from them by Law for Church and Poor and therefore properly it is no gift Some will give freely but it is on some corrupt design to strengthen a party or a carnall Interest or make their way to some preferment Some give but only to those of their own Opinion and not to a Disciple in the name of a Disciple Some give in Contention as the troublers of the Church of Corinâ—h preacht to add affliction to our bonds As many of the Papists that think by their works of Charity they are warranted uncharitably to slander almost all besides themselves as if we were all enemies to Good works or solifidians that took them for indifferent things or made them not our business Yea the best work that the Jesuites ever did even the preaching of the Gospel to the Heathens they would not endure us to joyn with them in where they could hinder us unless we would do it in their Papal way Some will do Good to stop the cries of a guilty Conscience for some secret odious sin which they live in Some will be Liberall with the Hypocrite for applause And some will give with a Pharisaicall conceit of merit even ex condigno from the Proportion of their work to the Reward as the greatest Popish Doctors teach Some through meer fears of being damned will be liberall especially out of their superfluities choosing rather to forsake their money then their sin Some do pretend the highest ends and that it is Christ himself to whom they do devote it but they will part with no more then the flesh can spare And that they may yet seem to be true Christians they will not believe that any thing is a duty which requireth much self-denyal and standeth not with their prosperity in the world And some will give much out of a meer natural kindness of disposition or upon meer natural motives though not as to Christ nor from the Love of God nor from that Spirit of Christian special Love by which the members of Christ have their Communion What excellent Precepts of Clemencie and Beneficence hath Seneca Yea what abundance of self-denyal doth he seem to join with them And yet so strange was this highest naturalist to the truest Charity or self-denyal that it is self that is his principle end and all For a man to be sufficient for himself and happy in himself without troubling God by prayer or needing man was the summ of his Religion Pride was their master vertue which with us is the greatest vice And for all his seeming contempt of Riches and Pleasures yet Seneca keeps up in such a height of riches and greatness as that he was like to have been Emperour And sometime to be Drunken he commends to drive away cares and raise the mind pleading the example of Solon and Arcesilaus confessing that Drunkenness was objected even to Cato their highest pattern of vertue affirming that the objectors may sooner make the crime honest then Cato dishonest Among all this seeming Charity and Self-denyal that proveth not a sanctified heart how excellent but too rare is the true self-denyal and charity of the Christian who hath quit all pretence of Title to himself or any thing that he hath and hath consecrated himself and all to God resolving to imploy himself and it entirely for him studying only to be well informed which way it is that God would have him lay it out And among these Saints themselves how rare is that excellent man that is Covetous and Laborious for God and for the Church and for his Brethren And that doth as providently get and keep and as Painfully Labour how rich soever he be and as much pinch his flesh in prudent moderation that he may have the more to Give and to do good with and make the best of his Masters stock as other men do in making Provision for the flesh and laying up for their posterity Sir as far you have proceeded in this Christian art you are yet in the world among the snares and lime-twigs of the Devil in a station that makes salvation difficult and therefore have need of daily watchfulness
perswade you to part with it to supply his wants At least you will never be perswaded to part with all and follow Christ till the Belief of a Treasure in Heaven do perswade you to it Luke 18. 21 22. Can you say from your hearts Let all go rather then the Love of God And in a case of tryal do you certainly find that There is nothing so dear to you which you cannot part with for God and the hopes of everlasting life This is a sign of an effectual Faith For neither nature nor common grace did ever bring a soul so high 3. It is also a certain evidence of unfeigned Love For wherein is Love so clearly manifested as in the highest adventures for the person whom we Love and in the costlyest expressions of our Love when we are called to it Then it will appear that you Love God indeed when there is nothing else that you prefer before him and nothing but what you lay down at his feet When the greatest professors that love the world do shew that the love of the Father is not in them 1 Iohn 2. 15. So far as it is loved 4. To be Crucified to the world and alive to God is the very Honesty and Chastity and Iustice of the soul. This is your Fidelity to God in keeping the holy Covenant that you have made with him in Christ. This is your keeping your selves unspotted from the world and undefiled by it When the friends of it live in its Adulterous embracements Iam. 4. 4. Thus do you give the Lord his own even both the creature and your hearts when worldlings do unjustly rob him of both This is the great command and request of God Prov. 23. 26. My Son give me thy heart Give him but this and he will take it as if you gave him all For indeed the rest will follow this But if you give the world your hearts God will take all the rest as Nothing Benefit 2. THE second Benefit is this If you are truly Crucified to the world Your minds will be free for God and his service When the minds of worldlings are like imprisoned hampered things What a toylsom thing is it for a man to travail in fetters or to run a race with a burden on his back But knock off his fetters and how easily will he go and take off his burden and how lightly will he run Do you not feel your selves that the world is the clog of your souls and that this is it that hindereth you from duty and hindereth you in duty and keepeth you from the attainment of an heavenly conversation When you should chearfully go to God in secret or in your families the world is ready to pull you back Either it calleth you away by putting some other business into your hands or else it dulleth and diverteth your Affections so that you have no heart to duty or no life in it or else it creepeth into your Thoughts in duty and taketh them off from the work in hand and makes you do that which you seem not to be doing And if you shake off these thoughts and drive them out of your way they are presently again before you and meet you at the next Turn But in that measure as you have Crucified the world you are freed from these disturbances The Apostle Peter describeth the miserable estate of Apostates 2 Pet. 2. 20. to be like a bird or beast that had escaped out of the snare that he was taken in and after is taken in the same again Having escaped the pollution of the world c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are again entangled therein as a beast in a snare that cannot escape or help himself So 2 Tim. 2. 4. its said no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. So that you see that the world is a snare that entangleth mens souls and holdeth them as in captivity The table of the wicked becometh a snare to them and so do all the bodily mercies which they possess But the mortified Christian may look back on all these dangers and say Blessed be the Lord that hath not given us as a prey to their teeth Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers the snare is broken and we are escaped Psal. 124. 6 7. Oh with what ease and freedom of mind may you converse with God in holy Ordinances when you are once disâ—entangled from this snare Now that which formerly drew off your hearts and clog'd your affections is Crucified and dead that enemy that kept your souls from God and was still casting baits or troubles in your way is dead As the Apostle saith of sin Rom. 6. 7. He that is dead is freed from sin So I may say of the world He that is dead to the world in that measure as he is dead to it is freed from the world Let us therefore lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us and then we may run with Patience the race that is set before us Heb. 12. 1. This makes a poor Christian sometimes to live in more content and comfort in the depth of adversity then he did before in the midst of his prosperity because though his flesh hath lost his soul hath gain'd though he want the fleshly accommodations which he had yet the world is now more Dead to him then before and so his mind is freer for God and consequently more with him How blessed a life is it to converse with God with little disturbances and interruptions A runner in a race is willing to be rid of his very cloathes that should cover him and keep him warm because they are a burden and hinderance to him in his race But the lookers on would be loath to be so stript Take away prosperity from an unmortified man and you take away the comfort of his life When if the same things be taken from the mortified believer he loseth but his burden How readily will that man obey that is dead to the world when he is commanded to do good to relieve the poor according to his power to suffer wrongs to let go his right to forgive and requite evil with good to forsake all and follow Christ. When to another man these duties are a kind of impossibilities and you may as well perswade a Lyon to become a Lamb or a beast to die willingly by the hand of the Butcher as perswade an unmortified worldling to these things They think when they hear them These are hard sayings who can bear them Or at least they are duties for a Peter or a Paul and not for such as we There is a very great part of Christian obedience that will be easie to you when you are Dead to the world which no man else is able to endure nor will be perswaded to submit to Benefit 3. ANother Benefit of this Crucifixion is this The
not yet gasping under the pangs of death nor laid in the dust as still as stones You see their beauty and glittering attire but you see not the pale and ghastly face that death will give them nor the skulls that are stript of all those ornaments you smell their perfumes but you smell not their putrefaction you see their lands and spacious houses and sumptuous furniture but you see not how narrow a room will serve them in the grave nor how little there they differ from the most contemptible of men Nay more you see them with Ahab going forth to battle and leaving the Prophets with the bread and water of affliction but you see them not yet returning with the mortal blow you see them in their honours and abundance but see them not on Christs left hand in judgement you see them cloathed richly and faâ—ing deliciously every day but you see them not in bell torments wishing in vain for a drop of water to abate their flames you hear them honoured and hear their words of pride and ostentation but you hear them not yet crying out of their folly and bewailing their loss of present time and lamenting in vain the unhappy choice that now they make Sirs believe it future things are as sure as present These things are no fables because they are not visible yet You see not God and yet he is the Principal Intelligible object you see not your own Intellectual souls and yet you know you have them by the Intellection of other things You see not your own eye-sight and yet you know that an eye-sight you have by the seeing of other things If there were not an Invisible God there would have been no visible creatures Visibles are more vile and are for I visibles that are more noble Our visible Bodies are for our Invisible Souls This visible life is the womb of everlasting life that is Invisible we are hatched by the Spirit in this shell till we are ready to pass forth into that glorious light that here we see not I beseech you Gentlemen awake and be not so lamentably deceived as to think that your honourable Pleasant Dreams are the only Realities O no! it is the last awaking hour that will shew you the now unconceivable Realities You are now but as in jest in your pomp and pleasure but you shall then be in good sadness in your pains and loss if Sanctifying Grace do not prevent it by putting you out of your feasting vein and making you in good sadness to be men of Real Faith and Holiness and lay about you for the Real Ioies Believe it Sirs the life of Christianity is not a bare Opinion It is a living by faith upon a life invisible and so serious resolving a Belief of the Truth of the everlasting blessedness as purchased and given bâ— Iesus Christ to persevering Saints as effectually turneth the affections and endeavours of the man to the Loving and seeking it above all this world It s one thing to take God and heaven for your portion as Believers do and another thing to be desirous of it as a reservè when you can keep the world no longer It s one thing to submit to Heaven as a Lesser evil then hell and another thing to desire it as a greater Good then earth It s one thing to lay up your Treasure and Hopes in heaven and to seek it first and another thing to be contented with it in your Necessity and to seek the world before it and give God that the flesh can spare Thus differeth the Religion of serious Christians and of Carnal worldly hypocrites But I shall break off my Admonition and end with some Advice Direct 1. Look upon this world and all things in it with the fore-seeing eye of Faith and Reason and vallue it but as it deserves And then you will neither be eager after it nor too much delighted in it nor puft up by it nor will it so prevalently entice you to venture or neglect eternal things Did you know and well consider but what an empty fading thing it is you could never be satisfied with so poor a portion nor quiet your souls till you had assurance or sound hopes of better things Nor would you take such pleasure in childish trifles nor debase your selves to be so inordinately imployed about such low and sordid matters while God and your eternal happiness are laid by You take not your selves for the basest of men much less for bruits or ideots O then do not make your selves the basest and do not unman your selves and brutifie your immortal souls A heathen could say Nemo alius est Deo dignus nisi qui opes contempsit If you would be Rich choose that which will make you Rich indeed make sure of his favour that is the absolute Lord of all and then you can want nothing whatever you may be without And if yet you thirst for worldly Riches or inordinately Love them and tenaciously keep them from your Masters use remember that this discovereth your disease and therefore should mind you rather to cure it then to feed it It is not money nor any thing in this world that will cure such an empty depraved soul. As Seneca saith If a sick man be carried about whether in a bed of gold or a bed of wood his disease is carried with him It is not a golden bed that will cure a diseased man Nor is it all the gold or honour in the world that will help such a deluded soul as thinks this world will make him happy Get but the cure of your Carnal minds and a little will serve you For it is your sinful fancy that would have much and not your nature that needs much Saith Seneca Si ad naturam vives nunquam eris pauper si ad opinionem nunquam eris dives Exiguum natura desiderat Opinio immensum He is not the poor man that hath but little but he that would have more Nor is he the Rich man that hath much but he that is content with what he hath If you pray but for your daily bread be not such hypocrites as by the bent of your desires to cross your prayers The nearest way to Riches saith the Moralist is the contempt of Riches and saith the Christian to be Rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which God hath promised all that Love him Jam. 2. 5. The greatest Riches are got proportionably on the easiest terms Loving the world will not procure it but Loving God will procure the everlasting fruition of his Love Millions love the world that miss of it but no man misseth of God that Loveth him above the world Buy not these gawds then at a dearer rate then you may have the Kingdom If you have not enough make sure of heaven and that will be enough for you and get a cure for your diseased minds which is easier and more profitable then to fulfill them No man saith Seneca
best condition to him that best accommodateth and advantageth him for Gods service He taketh the fleshes Interest to be none of his Interest and therefore that which only concerneth the flesh concerneth not him And therefore he looketh in this regard upon an high estate or a low as Nothing to him Let God dispose of him as he please that 's Gods work and not his He hath learned in whatever estate he is therewith to be content He knows how to be abased and he knows how to abound every where and in all things he is instructed both to be full and to be hungry both to abound and to suffer need Phil. 4. 11 12. If you applaud and honour him he takes it but as if you breathed on him at the best it is but a sweeter kind of breath And if you vilifie and reproach and unjustly condemn him he takes it for no great hurt For with him it is a very small thing to be judged of man and at mans barr for he that judgeth him is the Lord 1 Cor. 4. 3 4. Nay what if I said that if you imprison him threaten him torment him yea put him to death he doth not much regard it nor make any great matter of it so far as he is Crucified to the world How joyfully could Paul and Silas sing in the stocks when their bodies were sore with scourging Act. 16. What a rapture of joyful praises did the Apostles break forth into when they were threatned by the Priests and Elders Acts 4. 21 24. I will add but two more instances Dan. 3. The three Jews that were threatned with a furnace of fire are accused for not regarding the King vers 12. and their own answer is vers 16 17. We are not careful to answer thee in this matter If it be so the God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of thy hand O King But if not be it known unto thee O King that we will not serve thy Gods And sure they that would not accept of deliverance when they were tortured Heb. 11. 35. did set little by it in comparison of that better Resurrection which they hoped for As Christ said of Satan The Prince of this world hath nothing in me Iohn 14. 30. So in our measure so far as we are dead with Christ the world hath nothing in us no interest no carnal life to work upon and therefore is unable to do any thing with us Our undue estimation of the world is Crucified This is the first part 2. If we are Crucified to the world our inordinate cogitations of the world are Crucified We must not give it that room in our fancies or power over them as they have with other men We should not indeed allow the creature one thought either for it self and terminated finally in it self nor as separated from God Much less should we have so frequent and so pleasant or passionate thoughts of it as most have But of this more in the Application 3. To be Crucified to the world is to have Affections dead about worldly things That which is vile in our estimation will be uneffectual in our Affections I shall briefly instance in some particulars 1. Our Love to the world is Crucified if we be Crucified to the world As this is the great Affection which God claimeth for himself and which he maketh the seat of his most excellent grace so is it that which he is most jealous of and will least allow the creature to partake of and the mis-imployment of it is the greatest sin as the right imployment of it is the greatest duty 1 Iohn 2. 15. Love not the world neither the things that are in the world This is a plain and flat command If the world be not apprehended by the understanding to be our Good it will not be embraced by the will nor be Loved Perhaps you will say Though it be not our chief Good yet it is Good and therefore may be loved though not châ—â—sâ—â— loved To which I answer that in the senses before disclaimed it is none of our Good at all It hath no Goodness to us in it but the Good of a Means which is respective to the End and therefore we must have no Love to it but that which is due to the Means God therefore being our End we must Love the world only for his sake as it cometh from him and leadeth to him The least love to the world for it self is Idolatrous As you may not allow another woman the least Conjugal affection though you allow your wife more without some guilt of unchastity so you may not in the least measure love the creature for it self without some guilt of spiritual unchastity If God must be loved with All the heart and soul and strength then there is none lest for any co-partner whatsoever When we love any thing but as a Means it is more properly the End that we love in that very act And therefore some Philosophical Divines affirm that Nothing but the ultimate End is properly loved so that the Love which we give the world in a due subordination to God is not so properly a Love to the world as to God and therefore it taketh not from God the least part of that which is due to him But if we love it in the least measure for it self or with any co-ordinate Love so much as we allow it is robbed from God 2. Hence it followeth when our love to the world is crucified that our Desires after it is crucified also Before we thirsted after Pleasures or Honours or Riches but now this thirst is abated for when we obey the Call of Christ Isa. 55. 1. and have freely drunk of the living waters we thirst our former thirst no more according to the measure in which we partake of him but his Spirit will be a well of water in us springing up to everlasting life Iohn 4. 13 14. The distempered appetite of a Carnal man is so eager after worldly things that his heart is set upon them which Rom. 8. 5. is called his minding the things of the flesh But the mortified Christian as such hath no mind of them His appetite to them is dead and gone He cares not for them Now he perceiveth that they are not Good for him his heart is turned against them 3. When we are Crucified to the world our expectations of Good from the world are Crucified Before we looked for much from it we thought if we had this Pleasure or that Honour if we had such lands buildings friends or provision then we were well or at least much better then now we are O how Good did we think that these were for us And therefore we still lived in Hope of more But when we are Crucified to the world we give up these Hopes We see then that we were deceived we did but hope for nourishment from a stone The
breasts are dry which we thought would have refreshed and satisfied us When we see that the world is an empty thing a cask a picture a dream a shadow we turn away from it and look no more after it but look for content in something else As a child that seeth a painted Apple may be eager of it till he try that it is favourless and then he careth for it no more or if a beautiful crab deceive him when he hath set his teeth in it he casteth it away So when a Christian findeth the folly of his former expectations and tasteth the vexation of the creature which he was so greedy of and withall is acquainted by a lively faith where he may be better away go all his expectations from the world and he promiseth himself no more content or satisfaction in it This is a notable part of Mortification As it is the Hopes of some Good that sets men awork in all endeavours so take down their Hopes and all the wheels of the soul stand still If it were not for Hope we say the heart would break And therefore when all our Hopes from the world are dead the very Heart of the old man is broken and all his worldly motions cease Then he saith It s as good sit still as labour for nothing I despair of ever having contentment in the creature I see it will not pacifie my conscience it will not save me from the wrath to come it will do nothing for me that is worthy my regard and therefore let it go I will follow it no further It shall have my heart no more Before he had many a promising delightful thought of the creatures which he could not reach He thought with himself If I were but thus placed and settled once if I had but this or that which I want if I were but here or there where I would be if I had but the favour of such or such an one how happy were I how well should I be I would then be content and seek no more But when faith hath mortified us to the world we see that all these were foolish dreams we knew not what it was that we Hoped for and then we give up all such Hopes for ever Such pleasing thoughts of any worldly thing while you want it or of any place or Condition which you are absent from and such promises and hopes from any worldly state or person or thing doth manifest that so far you are alive to the world and is a folly of the same nature with theirs that Idolize the world when they do enjoy it For one man to say If I had this or that I were well and for another that hath it to say Now I am well Soul take thy Rest do both shew the same Estimation and Idolatrous Love to the world in their hearts though one of them have the thing which he loves and the other hath it not And to be so pleased with the very fancy and conceits of those worldly things which they never had seems worse then to be pleased with it when they have it I pray you lay this well to heart that I say to you Despair utter Despair of ever being contented or well in the world or made happy by the world in whole or in part is the very life of Christian Mortification It is the nature of a Carnal heart to keep up his worldly Hopes as long as possibly he can If you beat him from one thing he runs to another and if he despair of that he looks after a third and thus he will wander from creature to creature till Grace convert him or Judgement condemn him If he find that one friend faileth him he hopes another will prove more faithfull and if that prove a broken reed he will rest upon a third If he have been crost in his Hopes of worldly contentment once or twice or ten times or an hundred times yet he is in Hope that some other way may hit and some more comfort he may find at last But when God hath opened a mans eyes to see that the whole world is Vanity and Vexation and that if he had it all it would do him no Good at all and that it is a meer deceitful empty thing and when a man is brought to a full and finall Desparation of ever finding in the world the Good that he expected then and not till then is he Crucified to the world and then he can let it go and care not and then he will betake himself in good earnest to look after that which will not deceive him When a worldling is in utmost poverty or in prison he may part with all his worldly contentment at the present but this is not to be Crucified to the world For still he keeps up his former estimation of it and Love to it and some Hope perhaps that yet it may be better with him Yea if he should Despair of ever being Happy in the world if this proceed not from his Disesteem of it and the change of his Affections but meerly because he would have the world but sees he cannot this is far from the nature of true mortification 4. If we are Crucified to the world our Delight in it is Crucified It seemeth not to us a matter of such worth as to be fit for our Delight Children are glad of toyes which a wise man hath no pleasure in To have too sweet contentful thoughts in the creature and to apprehend it as our Good and to be rejoyced in it is a sign that so far we are not Crucified to it It is not able to Glad a mortified heart so far as it is mortified though the Love of God that is manifested by it may make him glad And this is it that Paul disclaimeth in my Text God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of Christ. If he were the Lord of all the honours or wealth of the world he would not Glory in them If he had all the Pleasures that the flesh can desire he would not glory in them If he had the common applause of all men and every one spoke well of him if he had all things about him suited to a carnal hearts content yet would he not glory in it No more then a grave and learned man would glory that he had found a counter or a pin Ier. 9 23. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom nor the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches but let him that gloryeth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord that exercise loving kindness judgement and righteousness on the earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. Jer. 4. 2. The Nations shall bless themselves in him and in him shall they glory Isa. 41. 16. Thou shalt rejoyce in the Lord and glory in the holy one of Israel Isa. 45. 25. In the Lord shall all
according to his Laws Know therefore whom the Law condemneth or justifieth and you may know whom Christ will condemn or justifie And seeing all this is so doth it not concern us all to make a speedy tryal of our selves in preparation to this final tryal I shall for your own sakes therefore take the boldness as the Officer of Christ to summon you to appear before your selves and keep an Assize this day in your own souls and answer at the Barr of Conscience to what shall be charged upon you Fear not the tryal for it is not conclusive final nor a peremptory irreversible sentence that must now pass Yet slight it not for it is a necessary preparative to that which is final and irreversible Consequentially it may prove a justifying Accusation an Absolving Condemnation and if you proceed to Execution a saving quickning death which I am now perswading you to undergo The whole world is divided into two sorts of men One that Love God above all and live to him and the other that Love the flesh and world above all and live to them One that lay up a treasure in earth and have their heart there The other that lay up a treasure in heaven and have their heart there One that seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness another that seek first the things of this life One that mind and savour the things of the flesh and of man the other that mind and savour most the things of the Spirit and of God One that account all things dung and dross that they may win Christ another that make light of Christ in comparison of their business and riches and pleasures in the world One that live by sight and sense upon present things Another that live by faith upon things invisible One that have their conversation in Heaven and live as strangers upon earth Another that mind earthly things and are strangers to heaven One that have in resolution forsaken aâ— for Christ and the hopes of a treasure in heaven Another that resolve to keep somewhat here though they venture and forsake the heavenly reward and will go away sorrowful that they cannot have both One that being born of the flesh is but flesh The other that being born of the Spirit is Spirit One that live as without God in the world The other that live as without the seducing world in God and in and by the subservient world to God One that have Ordinances and Means of Grace as if they had none The other that have houses lands wives as if they had none One that believe as if they believed not and love God as if they loved him not and pray as if they prayed not as if the fruit of these were but a shadow The other that weep as if they wept not for worldly things and rejoyce as if they rejoyced not One that have Christ as not possessing him and use him and his name as but abusing them The other that buy as if they possessed not and use the world as not abusing it One that draw near to God with their lips when their hearts are far from him The other that Corporally converse with the world when their hearts are far from it One that serve God who is a Spirit with Carnall service and not in Spirit and Truth The other that use the world it self spiritually and not in a carnall worldly manner In a word One sort are children of this world and the other are the children of the world to come and heirs of the heavenly Kingdom One sort have their Portion in this life And the other have God for their Portion One sort have their Good things in this life time and their Reward here The other have their Evil things in this life and live in Hope of the Everlasting Reward I suppose you know that all this is from the word of God and therefore I need not cite the Texts which do contain it But lest any doubt I will lay them all together that you may peruse them at leisure Matth. 22. 37. 10. 37. 6. 19 20 21. 6. 33. Iohn 6. 27. Isa. 55. 1 2 3. Rom. 8. 5 6 7 13. Phil. 3. 9 10 11. Mat. 22. 5. 2 Cor. 4. 18. Heb. 11. 1. throughout Phil. 3. 19 20 21. Psalm 119 19. Heb. 11. 13. Luke 14. 33. 18. 22. Iohn 3. 6. Ephis 2. 12. 1 Cor. 10. 31. Psalm 16. 8. Ezek. 33. 31 32. 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. Iohn 2. 23 24. Psalm 78. 35 36 37. Iohn 15. 2. 1. 9 10 11. Mat. 15. 8. Psalm 73. 23 24 25. 1 Thes. 5. 17 18. Phil. 3. 21 Matth. 15. 9. Iohn 4. 22 23. 1 Gor. 10. 31. Luke 10. 8. 20. 34. Rom. 8. 16 17. Psalm 17. 14. 16. 5. 73. 26. Luke 16 25. Mat. 6. 5. 5. 12. Luke 18. 22. In these Texts is plainly contained all that I have here said to you Well then Beloved Hearers seeing you that sit here present are all of one of these two sorts let conscience speak which is it that you are of These are the two sorts that shall stand on the right and left hand of Christ in Judgement They that gave Christ his own with advantage and lived to him and studiously devoted their Riches and other Talents to his use as men that unfeignedly made God their End these are they that are set on the right hand and adjudged as Blessed to the Kingdom which they so esteemed And those that hid their talents by keeping or expending them to their private use denying them to Christ and living to themselves these are they that are set on the left hand and adjudged to the everlasting fire with the Devils whom they served It is a desperate mistake of self-deceiving men to think that a state of Holiness consisteth only in external worship or that a state of wickedness consisteth only in some gross sins I tell you from the word of God the difference is greater and lyeth deeper then so If you would know whether you are Christians indeed and shall be saved the first and great question is What is your End What take you for your portion And what is it that hath the prevalent stream of your desires and endeavours As it is not every step that we set out of the way to heaven that will prove us ungodly so is it not any Religiousness whatsoever that standeth in a subserviency to the world that will prove you godly Would you know then what you are And whether you are in the way to Heaven or Hell And what God will judge of you if you so continue Why then deal faithfully with your selves and answer this question without deceit What is it that hath your Hearts your very Hearts What is it that is the matter of your dearest Love And what the matter of your chiefest care What is it that is the very bent and scope of your life Is it for this world or
insist on that which you dare not stand to And be of that mind which then you must condemn your selves Do you think that this is a reasonable course to be ventured on in so great a matter Quest. 9. MY next Question is this Do you ever mean to Repent of your fleshly and worldly-mindedness or not If you do not it seems you are far from a Recovery Many an one perisheth with bare uneffectuall purposes of Repenting but those that have not so much as such a purpose are graceless indeed But if you do purpose to Repent I would further ask you Do you think that is a right mind or a wise course which must be Repented of If it be right and wise what need you to Repent of it If it be not wise and right why will you now retain it yea and wilfully maintain it against the perswasions of God and man Doth not this proclaim that you are wilful sinners and that you know you sin and yet will do it even against your own knowledge and conscience that you know the world to be a deceitfull vanity and yet for all that you will stick to it as long as you can with the neglect of God and the true felicity And can you expect mercy and salvation that wilfully and knowingly do set your selves against it and reject it Quest. 10. MY next Question which I desire you to answer is this Do you in good sadness take the world for your enemy or for a hindrance to you in the way to heaven If you do not why did you in your Baptism renounce it and promise to fight against it And why have you professed since to stand to that Covenant And how then can you believe the word of God which so often telleth you what a hinderance Riches and Honours are to mens salvation But if indeed you believe that the world is your enemy and hinderance why then will you love it and be impatient if you want it and take such pleasure in it and desire to have more of it Do you love to have your salvation hindered or hazarded and will you love and long for that which is an enemy to it I think the way to heaven is hard enough to the best They need not make it harder then it is and be at so much labour all their lives to make themselves more enemies and more work and to block up the way while they pretend to walk in it O the hypocrisie of a carnall heart How notoriously do mens lives contradict their tongues When they will call the world their enemy and vow to fight against it to the death and at the same time will labour for it and greedily desire it as if they could never have enough That they will make so much of it as to neglect God himself and their salvation for it and make it the greatest care and business of their lives to get and keep it and all the while profess that they take it for their enemy This is dissembling beyond all bounds of shame Remember this when you are impatient of your low estate or contriving further accommodations to your flesh or hunting after a full estate Are these the signs of enmity to the world Do you hate your salvation that you so love the hinderers of it Either live as you profess or profess as you live Quest. 11. YET further I demand Whether indeed you do intend to Renounce your Christianity and all your hopes of heaven or not If you do you know whom to blame when you are deprived of it And I could wish you would first find out some better way or something that may be of valuable consideration to repair your loss But if you say you have no such intent I further ask Why then do you do it and do it after so much warning Do you disclaim your Christianity in the open light and yet say that you intend no such thing You cannot do it against your will And that it is in effect a Renouncing or Denying your Christianity yea and your salvation is plain For your Christianity containeth a Renouncing of the world and therefore it is part of our Baptismal Covenant If then you return to the world which you renounced you forsake your Christianity Had you rather forsake the world or Christ One of them you must forsake For he hath told you that Except you forsake all that you have you cannot be his Disciples Luke 14. and that you cannot serve God and Mammon Had you rather renounce the world or your salvation One of them you must let go For God hath said that the love of the world is enmity against God â—nd that if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him If therefore you will still say You hope you may keep both What do you less then give God the lye If you will still adhere to the world and yet say that you do not renounce your Christianity or Salvation you may as well say that though you joyn in Arms with open Rebels yet do you not forsake your Loyalty to your Prince Or though you live in Adultery yet you do not forsake your conjugal fidelity and chastity and that you do not cast away your life though you take poyson when you know it to be such or though you commit those crimes which must be punished with death I beseech you consider well Why you forsake Christ and why you will destroy your selves before you do it past remedy Quest. 12. MY last Question which I desire your answer to is this Do you indeed think that God is not better then the world and that Heaven is not more desiarble then earth and an endless glory then a transitory shadow Or is there any comparison to be made between them Have you considered what a sad exchange you make O unthankful souls Hath not God done more for you then ever the world did He made you and so did not the world He Redeemed you when none else could do it He preserveth you and provideth for you and all that you have is from his bounty He can give health to your bodies peace to your consciences salvation to your souls when the world cannot do it If the world be better then God in prosperity what makes you call upon God in adversity When any torment seizeth on your bodies or death draws near and looks you in the face then you do not cry O Riches help us O Pleasures or Honours have mercy upon us But O God have mercy upon us and help us Can none else help you in your distress and yet will you prefer the creature in your prosperity Ah poor deluded souls that follow the world which will cast you off in your greatest need and neglect him that would be faithful to you for ever The time is coming when you shall cry out The world hath deceived me I have laboured for nought but if you had been as true to God
as you were to it he would never have deceived you He would havâ— received your departed souls and made you like Angels and raised your bodies to glory at the last and perpetuated that Glory Will your Riches or Pleasures or Honours do this He would have rescued you from the devouring flames which your inordinate love of the world will bring you to O miserable change to change God for the world it is to change a Crown of Glory for a Crown of thorns the love of our only friend for the smiles of deceitful enemies Life for death and Heaven for Hell O what thoughts will arise in your hearts when you are past the deceit and under the sad effects of it and shall review your folly in another world It will fill your consciences with everlasting horrour and make you your own accusers and tormentors to think what you lost and what you had for it To think that you sold God and your souls and everlasting hopes for a thing of nought More foolishly then Esau sold his birth-right for a mess of pottagâ— If the Sun and Moon and Stars were yours would you exchange them for a lump of clay Well sinners if God and Glory seem no more worth to you then to be slighted for a little fleshly pleasures you cannot marvail if you have no part in them SECT XIX IF Reason and Scripture-Evidence would serve turn I dare say you would by this time be convinced of the necessity of being Crucified to the world and the world to you But sensuality is unreasonable and no saying will serve with it like a child that will not let go his apple for a piece of gold But yet I shall not cease my Exhortation till I have tryed you a little further and if you will not yield to forsake the world you shall keep it to your greater cost as you keep it against the clearer light that would convince you of your duty 1. As you love God or would be thought to love him love not the world For so far as you Love it you Love not him 1 Ioh. 2. 15. As ever you would be found the friends of God see that you be enemies and not friends to the world For the friendship of the world is enmity to him Iam. 4. 4. You are used to boast that you Love God above all If you do so you will not Love the world above him And then you will not labour and care more for it then for him Your love will be seen in the bent of your lives That which you Love best you will â—eek most and be most careful and diligent to obtain As they that love money are most careful to get it so they that Love heaven will be more careful to make sure of that As they that love their drink and lust will be much in the Ale-house and among those that are the baits and fewel of their lust So they that Love the fruition of God will be much in seeking him and enquiring after him and much among those that are acquainted with such Love and can further them any way in the accomplishment of their desires If you Love God then let it be seen in the Holy Endeavours of your lives and set your affections on things above and not on the things that are on earth For that which you most look after we must think that you most Love Can you for shame commit Adultery with the world and live with it in your bosoms and yet say that you love God 2. As you Love your present peace and comfort see that you love not but Câ—ucifie the world It doth but delude you first and disquiet you afterward Like wind in your bowels which can tear and torment you but cannot nourish you And if God do love you with a special Love he will be sure to wean you from the world though to your sorrow If you do provoke him to lay wormwood on the breasts and to hedge up your forbidden way with thorns when you find the smart and bitterness you may thank your selves It is the remnant of our folly and our backsliding nature that is still looking back to the world which we have forsaken that is the cause of those successive afflictions which we undergo Did you Love the creature less it would vex you less but if you will needs set your minds upon them and be pleasing your worldly sensual desires God will turn loose those very creatures upon you and make them his scourges for the recovery of your wits the reducing of your mis-led revolting souls Are you taken up with the hopes of a more plentifull estate and think you are got into a thriving way How soon can God blast and break your expectations By the death of your cattle the decay of trading the false-dealing of those you trust the breaking and impoverishing of them by contentious neighbours vexing you with Law suits by corrupted witnesses or Lawyers that will sell you for a little gain by ill servants by unthrifty children by thieves or souldiers or the raging flames by restraining the dew of heaven and causing your land to deny its increase and make you complain that you have laboured in vain How many waies hath he in a day or an hour to scatter all the heap of wealth that you have been gathering and to shew you that by sad experience which you might have known before at easier rates At the least if he meddle not with any thing that you have yet how quickly can he lay his hand upon your selves and lay you in sickness to groan under your pain and sin together and then what comfort will you have in the world when head ake's and back ake's and nothing can ease you When pain and languishing make you weary of day and of night and weary of every place and weary of your best diet your finest cloathes your merriest companions Where then is the sweetness and beauty of the world Then if you look on house or goods or lands how little pleasure find you in any of them Especially when you know that your departure is at hand and you must stay here no longer but presently must away Oh then what a carkaise will all the glory of the world appear and how sensibly then will you read or hear or think of these things that now in your prosperity are very little moved by the hearing of them Is it your children that you set your hearts upon in inordinate Love or Care Why alas how quickly can God call them from you by death and then you will follow them to the Church-yard and lay them in the grave with so much the sadder heart by how much the more inordinately you loved them And perhaps God may leave them to be Graceless and unnatural and make that child by rebellion or unkindness to be the breaking of your heart whom you most excessively affected If it be a wife that you over-love you know not but they
callings and about all the creatures Think with your selves Here is now a lesson in my hands if I can but learn it Here is somewhat that may shew me both God himself and my duty if I could but skilfully open it and understand it And so bethink your selves What it is that God would teach you or command you by that creature and especially to what use he requireth you to put it And remember that if you should think of God all the day long and yet not intend him and refer your labours and your riches to his service and give them up to his use this is not sanctifying God in the creature but hypocriticall abusing of him For it is not all thinking of God that will serve the turn 6. As you use to take account of your servants how they do your work so I would advise you every night or as often as you can to take an account of your selves as you are the servants of the God of heaven and ask your Consciences What have I done this day for God and how have I observed and sanctified him in his works So much for the fifth Direction Direct 6. REmember alwaies that the world is the enemy of your salvation and that if you be damned it is like to be through its enticements and therefore labour to be alwaies sensible that you go in continual danger of it And this will make you use it as an enemy and walk in a constant fear least it should over-reach you And see also that you endeavour as clearly as you can to find out wherein its enmity doth consist and then you will perceive that it is especially in seeming more Lovely then it is as it is the fewel of concupiscence and the provision of the flesh And when you understand this you will perceive that your danger lyeth in over-loving it and that it killeth by its embracements And this will direct you which way to bend the course of your opposition and what you must do to be saved from its snares To call the world an enemy is easie and common but so far as your very hearts apprehend it as an enemy so far you are out of danger of it An easie enemy that is conquered by understanding that it is an enemy And the way of its conquest is by enticing men to take it for a friend And also remember how great a part of your Christian life consisteth in keeping up the comâ—ate with this enemy and how certainly and miserably you will perish if you be overcome Direct 7. TO â—e much in the house of mourning and see the end of all the living will help us towards the Crucifying of the world Go among the sick and hear what they say of the world Stand by the dying and see what it will do for them and think now whether God or the world be better Look on the corpses of your deceased friends and think now Whether the soul be ever the better for all the riches and pleasures of the world Take notice of the graves and bones of the dead and think what a worthless thing is the world and all the glory and delights that it affords which will so turn us off and leave our bodies in such a plight as that Take notice of the frailties and diseases of your own flesh that tell you how shortly it must lie down in the dust And then compare this world and that to come where your abode will be everlasting It s a shame for a wise man to live as a stranger to so great a change and to look so much after a world that he is leaving and so little after the world that he shall abide in Direct 8. IT will much avail to the Crucifying of the world to you that you study the improvement of all your Afflictions Do not repine at them and think them a greater evil then they are but believe that they are a special advantage to your souls for the mortifying of your inordinate affections to the world and if you have but the wisdom and hearts to make use of them they may do you more good then all the prosperity of your lives hath done If you fall into poverty or fall under slanders or reproach from men if your friends prove false to you if those that you have done good to prove unthankful if the wickedness and frowardness of men do make you even weary of the world remember now what an advantage you have for Mortification When you have experience it self to disgrace the creature to you and your very flesh doth seem to be convinced Now see that you observe the teachings of this providence and come off from the world when you see it is so little worth and set as light by it as it doth by you Bethink you now that God doth this to lead you to himself and thankfully accept his call and close with him as your portion and be content with him alone and let them take the world that can get no better You see that adversity will make even a worldling speak hardly of the world as men will do of their friends when they fall out with them How much more should it help the gracious soul to a fuller sense of its vanity and nothingness and of the necessity and excellency of more certain things It s a great sin and folly in us that we strive more to have afflictions removed then sanctified and so we lose the gain that we might have got Though affliction alone will do little good yet grace doth make such use of affliction that thousands in heaven will have cause to bless God for them that before they were afflicted went astray and were deceived by the flatteries of the world as well as others Abundance that have been convinced of the vanity of the world have lingered long before they would forsake it till affliction hath rowsed their sleepy souls and by a lowder voice hath called them away Direct 9. BE very suspicious of a prosperous state and be more afraid of the world when it smiles then when it frowns Some are much perplexed for fear left they should not stand in adversity that too little fear being ensnared by prosperity They are afraid what they should do in a time of tryal and do not consider that prosperity is the great tryal Adversity doth but shew that love of the world which was in mens hearts in time of prosperity When men forsake Christ for fear of suffering and because they will not forsake the world they do but shew the effects of that disease which they had catcht long before When the world pleased them they fell so deep in love with it that now they will venture their souls to keep it It is prosperity that breeds the disease though adversity shew it Love not the world and you will easily part with it and so will easily suffer for Christ And prosperity is liker to tice your Love to it then
and to proceed and persevere in an enmity to the world and a Believing Crucifixion of it if you will be saved from it and restore it to its proper use and captivate it that captivateth so many As some help hereunto I crave your Perusal of this Treatise And that it may do you good and the many Blessings promised to the charitable may rest upon you and on your Yoak-fellow that hath learned this Crucifying of the world and upon your posterity shall be the prayers of Feb. 20. 165â— â— Your fellow soldiour against the flesh and world Rich. Baxter The Preface To the Nobilty and Gentry and all that have the Riches of this world Honourable Worshipfull c. HAving written here of a subject that nearly concerneth you I have thought it my duty to give you a place and according to your Dignity the first place in the Application of it Of which I shall first tender you my Reasons and then set before you the matter of this address 1. You are among us the most eminent and honoured persons and therefore not to be neglected and past by you are first and therefore should first be served You hold your selves most worthy of any temporal honour that 's to be had and therefore I shall honour you so much more as to judge you fit to be first spoken to by the Ministers of Christ in a case that doth much more concern you As you have and would have the precedency in worldly matters here also you shall have the precedency Its pitty that you shall be first in Hell that are first in a Christian State on earth or that you should be least in the Kingdom of Heaven that are Greatest in that which is esteemed in the world 2. You are Pillars in the Common-wealth and the stakes that bear up the rest of the hedge Your influence is great in lower bodies You sin not to your selves only nor are you Gracious only to your selves The spots in the Moon are seen by more and its Ecclipses felt by more then the blemishes or changes of many of us inferiour wights You are our first figures that stand for more in matters of publick concernment then all that follow You are the Copies that the rest write after and they are more prone to Copy out your vices then your graces You are the first sheets in the Press you are the Stewards of God who are entrusted with his talents for the use of many You are the noble members of the Body Politick whose health or sickness is communicated to the rest If you be ungodly the whole body languisheth If you live and prosper it will go the better with us all For your Wisdom and Holiness and Iustice will be operative and your station alloweth them great advantage to work upon many and to emulate a kind of universal Causality Interest is the worlds byas and all Power hath respect to use You that have possession of the Treasure that is so commonly and highly esteemed may do much to lead the sensual world by it which way you please Be it better or be it worse they will follow him that bears the purse If money can do wonders you may do wonders As money can perswade the blind to part with God and life everlasting and to renounce Religion and Reason it self so no doubt but it might do something were it faithfully used though not directly to sanctifie the heart yet somewhat to incline it to the means by which it may be sanctified You that have Power to Help or Hurt to make it Summer or Winter to your subjects and to promote or cross the interest of the flesh are hereby become a kind of Gods in the eyes of them that mind this Interest as in higher respects you are unto Believers Especially seeing they want that eye of faith by which they should know the Soveraign Majesty who at his pleasure doth dispose both of you and them these purblind sinners can reach no further but are contented to be Ruled by you as terrestrial Deities They see you but they see not God they know you and perceive the effects of your favour and displeasure but being dead to God and savouring only fleshly things they scarce observe his smiles or frowns They see that which is visible to the eye which they have the use of but the Objects of faith are to them as Nothing because they have no eye to see them And seeing you have such publick interest and influence it is our duty first to look after your souls and to see that you receive the heavenly impress 3. To which I may add that no men have usually more need of advice and help then you For your temptations are the strongest The world killeth by its flatteries It is not the having it but the Loving it that undoes men And he is much liker to over-love it that hath what he would have and liveth in plentiful provisions for his flesh then he that hath nothing from it but trouble and vexation It is not poverty and prisons and sickness that are the flattering pandors of the world but prosperity and content to the flesh Though I know that many of the poor do most of all over-value the world because they never tryed so much of its vanity but standing at a distance from prosperity do think it a greater felicity then it is For those are most in Love with the world that least know it as those that least know him are least in Love with God and eternal glory But yet it is pleasing and not displeasing flattering rather then buffeting that is the means of deceiving filly souls and stealing their hearts from God to the world Your mountains lie open to stronger winds then our vallies do And your gulfs and greater streams are not so foordable as our more shallow waters He never studyed God and Heaven nor his own heart that knoweth not that it is a very difficult thing to have an heavenly mind in earthly prosperity and to live in the desires of another world while we feel all seem to go well with us in this How hard to be weaned from the world till we suffer in it yea till we are plunged into an utter despair of ever receiving here the satisfaction of our desires 4. And truly we have too much sad experience of the sensuality and ungodliness of most of the Rich to suffer us to think that you have least need of our admonitions Which leadeth me up to the Matter of my Address which is first to complain of you to your selves and then to Admonish you and lastly to Direct you 1. I know I speak to those for the most part that profess to believe a Life to come but O that you had the honesty to live as you do profess You durst not put it into your Creed that you believe that earth is more desirable then Heaven and that its better seek first after Carnal prosperity and delight then for
the Kingdom of God and the Righteousness thereof You would be ashamed to say that it is the wisest course first to make provision for the flesh and to put off God and your salvation with the leavings of the world And do you think it is not as bad and as dangerous to do so as to say so Would it bring you to your journeys end to be of the Opinion that you should be up and going as long as you sit still Right Opinions in Religion are so unlikely to save a man that crosseth them in his practise that such shall be beaten with many stripes I had rather be in the case of many a Popish Fryer that renounceth the world though in a way that hath many errours then in the case of many an Orthodox Gentleman that is drowned in the cares and pleasures of this life Yea I think it will be easier for a Socrates a Plato in the day of Iudgement then for such Christianity is a practical Religion It is a devoted seeking for another life by the improvement and contempt of this Put not that into your Life that you are ashamed to put into your Profession or Belief If you Do as Infidels you will be as miserable as if you Believed but as Infidels And Practising a while against your Conscience may cause God to for sake your judgement also and give you over to Believe as you Live because you would not Live as you Believed And I fear that this is the case of some of you Nay I have too much reason to know it that some of our Gentry even persons of note and honour among us have for saken Christ and are turned Infidels and by the Love of this world have carnally adhered to it so long till they are so far forsaken of God as to think that there is no other Life for them hereafter God hath an eye on these wretches and men have an eye on some of them I shall now leave them in their slippery station till a fitter opportunity Some we have of our Nobility and Gentry that are Learned Studious and Pious and an honour and blessing to this unworthy Land or else it were not like to be so well with us as it is But Oh how numerous are the sensual and prophane which provoked that heavenly Poet of Noble extract Mr. G. Herbet Ch. porch to say O England full of sin but most of sloth Spit out thy flegm and fill thy brest with glory Thy Gentry bleats as if thy native cloth Transfused a sheepiness into thy story Not that they all are so but that the most Are gone to grass and in the pasture lost Gentlemen I have no mind to dishonour you but compassion on your souls and on the Nation commands me to complain in order to reform you And yet if you sinned and perished alone we were the less unexcusable if we let you alone What abundance of you are fitter to swill in a buttery or gorge your selves at a feast orride over poor mens corn in hawking and hunting then to govern the Common-wealth and by Iudgement and Example to lead the people in the waies of life What abundance of you waste your precious hours in feasting and sports and idleness and complementing and things impertinent to your great business in the world as if you had no greater things to mind Had you been by another commanded to a Dung-cart or like a Carryer to follow pack-horses an honester and more honourable life then yours you would think your selves enslaved and dishonoured And yet when God hath set before you an Eternal Glory you debase your own souls by wilful drenching them in the pleasures and cares and vanities of the world and have no mind of that high and noble work which God appointed you So that when many poor men are â—nnobled by an Heavenly Disposition and an Heavenly Conversation you enslave your selves to that which they tread under-feet and refuse the only noble life That which they account as loss and dross and dung that they may win Christ and be found in him Phil. 3. 7 8. that do you delight in and live upon as your treasure When once you know whether God or your money be better whether heaven or earth whether eternity or time be better you will then know which is the noblest life Nay what abandance are there among you that make a very trade of sensuality and turn your sumptuous houses into sties and your gorgeous apparel into hansom trappings if the appurtenances may receive their names from the possessors That never knew what it was to spend one day or hour of your lives in a diligent search of your hearts and waies and heart-breaking lamentation of your sin and misery and in serious thoughts of the life to come but go on from feast to feast and company to company and from one pleasure to another as if you must never hear of this again and as if you were so drunken and besotted with the world that you had forgotten that you are men or that you have a God to please and a soul to save or lose for ever Nay how many of you hate a faithful Preacher and an holy life and make them the ordinary matter of your scorn and cheat your souls with a few ceremonies and formalities as if by such a Carnal Religiousnes you could make all whole when you have lived to the flesh and loathed the Spiritual worship of God that is a Spirit and the heavenly lives of his sanctified ones and consequently the Law that commandeth such a life and the God that is the Maker of that Law I call not your Civil Controversies your Malignity but it is the proper title of your Enmity to Holiness And is it not enough that man in Honour will be without understanding and make himself like the beasts that perish Psal. 44. 20. but you must also take up the Serpentine nature and hissing and stinging must be the requital that you return to Christ for all your Honours Think if you have yet a thinking faculty whether this be kindly or honestly or wisely done and what its like to be to your selves in the end Your Riches and Honours do now hide a great deal of your shame but will it not appear when these raggs are torn from your backs and your souls are left in naked guilt Saith Chrysostom If it were possible to do Justice on the Rich as commonly on the poor we should have all the Prisons filled with them but Riches with their other evils have also this evil that they save men from the punishment of their evil O but how long will they do so This was plain dealing of an Holy Father and is it not such as is as needful now as then Is it not Greatness more then Innocency that saves abundance of you from shame and punishment Nay many of you think that because you are rich it is Lawful for you to be Idle and Lawful voluptuously
can have all the world but he may have a mind that can contemn all the world No man can have all that he will but he may be content to be without it The disease is within you and there must be the Cure Direct 2. Be sure to fix with a serious faith upon the Inivsible glory as your portion and then look at all things in this world as good or bad as they respect your end and judge of them as they help or hinder you in the main Nothing but a truly heavenly mind is the saving cure of an earthly mind No man will rightly let go earth till he have the powerful Light that hath shewed him the greater good and given him a taste of the world to come Had you not been strangers to God and heaven in heart whatever you were in tongue and fancy you could never have so fallen in love with earth None are so much disposed to travail into other Countries as they that are fallen out with their own Remember that you have not one penny or pennies worth in the world but what you had from God and must be accountable to God for and must employ with an eye upon his will and your salvation I do not call you to cast away your Riches but to see that you use all that ever you have as will be most comfortable to you in your last review I know as Seneca saith He is a wise man that can make use of earthen vessels as if they were all silver and he is wise too that can make use of silver vessels as if they were but earth Infirmi est animi pati non posse divitias but it s one thing to Bear Riches and Use them for God and another thing to Enjoy them with delight I neither take the Monasticks to be the only or the highest in perfection nor yet do I condemn necessitated retirements For I know it is hard to most to converse with God in tumults and to hear the still voice of his Spirit in the murmuring noise of a crowd I know that the commons are usually more barren and fruitless then inclosures and that the fruit-tree that groweth by the high-way side shall have many a stone and cudgel thrown at it which those that are in your Orchard scape But still look to your end and secure the main Dream not that you have any full Propriety Remember that you are Gods Stewards Set therefore your Masters name and not your own upon every penny-worth you possess Let Holiness to the Lord be written upon all Possess nothing but what is Devoted to him to be used as he would have you Put him not off with scraps and leavings that gave you all So much as you save from him you lose and worse then lose and so much as you lose for him and surrender to him and improve for him you save and more then save For Godliness with content is great gain And he that is faithful in a little shall be made ruler over much It s thus that all things are sanctified with the Saints Direct 3. Think not that your Riches are given you to fulfill the least inordinate desire of the flesh Or that you may take ever the more sensual ease or pleasure if you had all the world But remember that better wages obligeth you to more work And therefore rise as early and labour as hard in your own employment the more for the common good the better yea and deny your flesh a◠much as if you had but food and rayment If you have much give the more and use the more but enjoy never the more and let not your sensual desires find ever the more provision A rich man that is wise and a faithful Steward may live in as much self-denyal and labour as hard and humble his flesh as much as he hat hath but his daily bread God sent you not in provision for his enemy All that is made the food of sin or that doth not help you up to God is employed contrary to the end that you received it for Direct 4. Be sure that you deal with the world as a Deceiver Be very suspicious of all your Riches and Honours and Delights Feed not on these luscious summer-fruits too boldly or without fear Remember how many millions the world hath deceived before you None come to Hell but those that are cheated thither by the flesh and the world With what exceeding vigilancy then have you need to deal with such a dangerous deceiver when all your happiness and all your hopes is at the stake and if you be deceived you are undone Its force is nothing so perillous as its fraud Ubi vincere aperte Non datur insidias armaque recta parat They that have to do with such a cheater in a case of such everlasting consequence should be suspicious of every thing and trust the world as little as is possible when Qui cavet ne decipiatur vix cavet cum etiam cavet Et cum cavisse ratus est saepè is cautor captus est ut Plaut As Bucholcer was went to say when his friends extolled him terreri se etiam laudationibus illis ut fulminibus So should you possess your Honours and Riches in the world And as the same Bucholcer said to Hubner when he went to be a Courtier Fidem diabolorum tibi commendo credere contremiscere viz. promissionibus aulicis credere sed cautè sed timidè So should you be affected to the world Trust and tremble or rather Trust it not all Nay have you not been deceived by it already And will you be more foolish then the silly fish that will scarcely take the hook that he was once pricked by or then the silly fowls that will be afraid of the net that once they have escaped from and of the Kite that once hath had them in her claws Tranquillas etiam naufragus horret aquas Nay at the present if you take any heed of your souls you may easily perceive what a clog the world is We are commonly better when we have least of it or are leaving it then when we have it at our will A man may see the utmost visible part of the earth and the Horizon at once but if he look on the earth that is near him he cannot see the heavens at that time much less the Zenith Our Own Riches our Present Riches our Nearest and Dearest temporal good is the greatest averter of the mind from heaven We are commonly like Antigonus sick souldier that fought well because he lookt to die but grew a Coward as soon as he was cured So that most of us have need of the counsel which the Bishop of Colen gave the Emperour Sigismund that askt him What he should do to be happy Live saith he as you promised to do when you were last sick of the stone and gowt Even the most notorious sinners seem Saints when they see the world is
commendation but may possibly be as injurious to his Moral Honesty as any other sort of Tyranny and might have learned of his chiefest Master Seneca de Tranquil Anim. that the free City of Athens could less endure Socrates then the Tyrants and did put him to death whom they had tolerated Nunquid potes invenire urbem miseriorem quam Atheniensium fuit cum illam triginta tyranni divellerent Mille trecentos ciâ—es optimum quemque occiderant Socrates tamen in medio erat Et imitari volentibus magnum circumferebat exemplar cum inter triginta dominos liber incederet Hunc tamen Athenae ipse in carcere occiderunt Et qui tutò insultaverat agmini tyrannorum ejus Libertatem libera civitas non tulit Gentlemen for the Lords sake for your souls sake for the Churches and the Gospels sake for your Countries sake and the spritual and corporal good of thousands awake now from your sloth and selfishness from your Ambition Voluptuousness and sordid Worldliness and give up your selves and all that you have to God by Christ and to the Common Good and make the best of all your faculties and interest for the high and noble Ends of Christians And convince all self-conceited founders or troublers of the Common-wealth that you have hit the way of a true Reformation without any alteration of the form by correcting your selves the principal Materials And let them see by your seeking the weale of all that your form is as truly a Common-weale as theirs and that they absurdly appropriate the Title to their own If you deny us this on you shall lie the blame and shame and not on our want of a Popular form But because I have gone so far with you by perswasion though yet I doubt whether indeed you will be perswadedâ— I shall not leave you till I have added the â—â—st part of my task which is to set some Rules and Matter for Good works before you that if you are but willing you may set your money to the happyest usury and that upon the best security 1. For General Rules Aime at no lower an ultimate End in your Charity then the Pleasing of God and move from no lower a first moral Principle then the Love of God within you Seek not self while you seem to Deny it Give and do good to Christ in his servants 2. Consider therefore of mens Relations to Christ and understand where his Interest lyeth in the world Avoid both their extreams that would have you do Good to none but Saints and that would have you do it to all alike As God hath a special Love to his children and yet doth Good to all his mercy being over all his works and as he is the Saviour of all men but especially of them that Believe so must you Love all men as men and Saints as Saints and do Good to all men but especially to them of the houshold of faith Gal. 6. 10. The New command of special Love must not be thought to abrogate the old Commandment of common Love even of Loving our neighbour as our selves You must do Good to a Disciple in the name of a Disciple and to a Prophet in the name of a Prophet Mat. 10. 42. and yet take the wounded man for your neighbour that you see lie in your way Luke 10. 30. I know the Serpentine seed had rather you would kick against the Pricks and tread down Christs interest then there to lay out your greatest Charity But its God that you have to reckon with who judgeth not as they The Philosopher being asked Why all men were more ready to give to the halt and blind then to Philosophers answered that They thought they might come to be halt and blind themselves but were never like to be Philosophers So I may say of many that would be content that you feed the common poor with bread but the Disciples of Christ with stones They think they may be poor themselves but they are never like to be Christs Disciples Nay some of them such as Clem. writes in his mock fides divina will perswade you that its a sottish thing to conceive that any have Christs Spirit now that work not Miracles and that he hath no Church Ministry or Saints that is that Christianity is not the right Religion unless it had present Miracles to warrant it And then you might be excused rather for your uncharitableness to it then for your Charity But wisdom is justified of all her children And the mouths of her enemies will be quickly stopt and they shall then know that Christ is Lord and Iudge without either faith or further Miracles 3. When you have two Good works before you prefer the Greater and choose not the less 4. Caeteris Paribus let Works of Spiritual and everlasting concernment be prefer'd to those that are meerly temporal 5. And let Works for the Publick Good of Church or Common-wealth be preferred before private Works 6. Let God have All in one way or other even that which your selves and families receive Take it but as your daily bread to support you in his service Do not limit God or tie him to any part Take heed of Reserving any thing from him or of halving with him as Ananias and Saphira He deserveth and he expecteth all That which he hath not you have not but Satan hath it You lose it if you return it not to him And now in the Conclusion I shall presume though I foresee I may incurr a censure for it to give you a Catalogue of some of those good works which are seasonable in our daies by which you may make your reckoning comfortable And do not think that God is beholden to you for it if you perform them all but take it as the happyest bargain that you can make and thankfully take the opportunity while it is offered you remembering that there is no such security nor advantage to be made of your money in any way as for God and that it is more blessed to Give then to Receive Say not another day but that you had a price in your hands if you have not an Heart you must suffer with the unfaithful A Catalogue of seasonable Good Works presented to them that are sanctified to God and dare trust him with their Riches expecting the everlasting Riches which he hath promised and are zealous of Good Works and take it for a precious Mercy that they may be exercised therein 1. ENquire what persons burdened with children or sickness or on any such occasion labour under necessities and relieve them as you are able and find them fit And still make advantage of it for the benefit of their souls instructing admonishing and exhorting them as they have need If you give them any annual gift of cloathes bread or money engage them to learn some Catechism withall and to go to the Minister and give him an account of it Some I know that set up a monethly Lecture to be
world also must be mortified 5. Moreover the world must be Crucified to us as far as it is presented to us as an independant or separated Good without its due relations unto God It is God only who is the Absolute Necessary Independant Being and all creatures are but secondary contingent dependant Beings whether Univocally or Equivocally or Analogically so called with God let the Schools debate To look on the creature as a separated or simple Being or Good is to look upon it as God And here came in the first Idolatry of the world When Adam had all his felicity in God and had the creature only as a stream and means and when all his affections should have been centred in God and he should not have viewed one line in the volume of nature without the joint observance of the Center where it was terminated Contrarily he withdraws his eye from God and fixeth it on the creature as a separated Good and desiring to know Good in this separated sense he made it an Evil to him and knew it to his sorrow And so forsaking the true and Al-sufficient Good he turned to a Good which indeed as conceived of by him was no Good and knew it by a knowledge which as to the Truth of it was not Knowing but Erring And in this course which our first progenitors have led us into the carnall world proceedeth to this day The creature is near them but God is far off A little they know of the creature but they are utter strangers to God And therefore think on the creature as an independant separated Good And you must carefully note that the dependance of the creature on God is not to be fully manifest by the dependance of any creature upon another The line is locally distant from the Center and the streams are locally distant from the spring though they are contiguous and have the dependancy of an effect But God is not locall and so not locally distant from us The nearest similitude is that of the bodies dependance upon the soul which yet doth fall exceeding short In God both we and every creature do live and move and have our being As no man of reason will talk to a corpse nor dwell and converse with any man meerly as corporeall without respect to the soul that doth animate him nor will he fall in love with a corpse so no man that is spiritually wise so far as he is so will once look upon any creature much less converse with it or fall in love with it barely as a creature conceiving of it as a thing that is separated from God or not positively conceiving of God as animating it and as being its Alpha and Omega its Beginning and End its principall efficient and ultimate Finall cause at least For this were to imagine the carkaise of a creature and to conceive of it as such a thing as is not in being For out of the God of Nature the creature is Nothing nor can do anâ— thing for there is no such thing even as out of Christ the Lord of spiritual Life and Grace the new creature is nothing and we can do nothing for there is no such new creature You have here the very difference between a Carnal and a Spiritual life The Carnal man doth see only the carkaise of the world and is blind to God and seeth not him when he seeth that which is animated by him But the Spiritual man seeth God in and by the creature and the creature is nothing to him but in God As an illiterate man doth look upon a Book and seeth only the leâ—ters and taketh pleasure in their shape and order and falls a playing with it as children do but he seeth not nor understands the sense and therefore if it contained the noblest mysteries or the greatest promises even such as his life did depend upon he loveth it not in any such respect nor doth he for that delight in it but let a learned man have the perusing of the same Book and though he may commend the clearness of the character yet it is the sense that he principally observeth and the sense that he loveth and the sense that he delighteth in and therefore as the sense is incomparably more excellent then the character simply considered so is it an higher and more excellent kind of knowledge and delight which he hath in the Book then that which the illiterate hath And indeed it is an imaginary annihilation of the Book and of every character of it formally considered to conceive of it as separated from the sense for the very essence of it is to be a sign of that sense and therefore as the illiterate cannot see the sense for words and letters the wood for trees so the literate can see no such thing as words without sense nor would regard the materials but for this signifying use I have expressed the similitude in more words then I use in such cases because it much illustrateth our present matter It was never the mind of God to make the great body of this world to stand as a separated thing or to be an Idol He made all this for himself The whole Creation is one entire volume and the sense of every line is God His name is legible on every creature and he that seeth not God in all understandeth not the sense of the Creation As it is Eternal Life to know God so this God is the Life of the creature which we know and the knowing of him in it is the Life of all our knowledge The illiterate world doth gaze upon the creatures and fall in love with the out-side and materials and play with it but understandeth not a creature By separating it in their apprehensions from God the sense they do annihilate the world to themselves as to its principall use and signification There are two Texts of Scripture among many others of which I have often thought as notable descriptions of a carnal mans life the one as to the privative part and the other as to the positive One is Ephes. 2. 12. which calleth them Atheists or without God in the world They see and know somewhat of the world but God they neither see not know They converse with the world but not with God All their affections are let out upon the world but God hath none of them All their business is about the world but they live as if they had nothing to do with God As a Schollar if his Master should stand in a corner of the School to watch what he will do will behave himself while he seeth him not as if he were not there he will play with his fellows and talk to them as if there were no Master in the School So do the ungodly live in the world as if there were no God in the world they think and speak and deal with the world as if there were nothing but the world for them to converse with As for
and their living without God in the world But when faith hath opened a mans eyes and shewed him God in every creature who was hid from him before then is the creature who was before his All annihilated to him in that separated sense and God becomes his All again and this annihilation of the creature is indeed its restauration objectively to its primitive nature and use and it was not indeed known or respected as a creature till now So that sensual men by making the creature an imaginary God or chiefest Good or All do make it indeed objectively to become Nothing and so their All their God their felicity is Nothing and so all their life is a Nothing When as the faithfull by Crucifying or Annihilating the creature as it would appear a felicity to us or any Good as separated from God do restore it to its true objective being and use by returning to God who is truly All and in whom the creature is a Derived Imperfect something and out of whom it is indeed a Nothing I will further illustrate it by one other similitude God gave the Ceremonial Law by Moses to the Israelites to be an obscure Gospell and to lead them unto Christ. The sacrifices and other typicall Ceremonies were the Letters of the Law and Christ was the sense The true Believers thus understood and used them but the Carnal Jews lookt only on the letter and lost the sense and thus separating the bare Letter from the sense that is the Legall works from Christ they thought to be justified by those works and by the Law in that separated sense But the Apostle Paul doth plead against thiâ— errour and tells them that Christ is the end of the Law to all Believers and that he is the fulfilling of it and that through him it is fulfilled in those that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit and that by the deeâ—s of the Law in this separated sense no flesh can be justified and that the Letter separated from the sense of it killeth but Christ by his Spirit who is the sense of it giveth life If these Jews had taken and used the Law as God intended it and had taken the sense and spirit with the letter and had understood that Christ was the very life and end and all of the Law Paul would never have cryed down the Law nor Justification by it in this sense for that had been to cry down Justification by Christ. But it was Justification by the Letter or the Law as separated from Christ who was the meaning of it So is it in our present case The creature is the letter and God the sense and Carnal men do understand only the Letter of the creature and fall in love with it and thus God cryeth down the world and vilifieth and speaketh contemptuously of the world When as if it had not been for the separation he would never have cryed it down nor spoken an hard word of it As the Law had never been so hardly spoken of if the mis-understanding Jew had not separated it from Christ. So the world had never been so often called Vanity and a Lie and Nothing and a Dream and that which is not bread and that which profiteth not a Shadow a Deceiver with abundance of the like contemptuous terms if carnal sinners had not in their minds and affections separated it from God And thus I have shewed you in what Respects the World must be Crucified AND let me add in the Conclusion as most necessary for your observation that there is in the world an inseparable aptitude to tempt us dangerously to the foresaid abuse and therefore when we have done all that we can in Crucifying and sublimating it we must never imagine that we can make it so wholsom or harmless a thing as that we may feed upon it without great caution and suspition or ever return to friendship with it again till fire have refined it and grace hath perfectly refined us And yet this is not long of the creature without us but of us and the tempter The world is in it self Good as being the work of God and it cannot be the proper efficient culpable cause of our sin For it hath no sin in it self I mean the world as distinct from the men of the world and therefore cannot be the direct cause of sin But yet there is that in it which is apt to be the Matter of our temptation and so apt as that all that perish do perish by the world As there is no salvation but by the whole Trinity Conjunct who have each person his several office for our recovery so there is no damnation but by the whole Infernal Trinity the flesh the world and the Devil Even to Innocent Adam the world must be the bait and Satan found somewhat in it that made it apt for such an office though nothing but what was very good But now that the flesh is become the Predominant part and power in us as it is in all till the Spirit overcome it the case is much worse and the world is incomparably a more dangerous enemy then to Adam it could be For though still the creature is good in it self yet we are so bad that the better the creature is the worse it becomes to us For we are naturally propense to it in its separated capacity and all men till regeneration are fond of it as their felicity and hug it as their dearest good and Sacrifice to it as their Idol So that an enemy it is and an enemy it will be when we have done our best as long as we are on earth For while we have a flesh that would fain be pleased by that which God forbiddeth and there is a Devil to offer us the bait and tempt us to this flesh-pleasing the world which is the bait will still be the matter and occasion of our danger The consideration of this may cut the throat of licentious principles and hence we may answer the most of their vain pretended reasons who under the Cloak of Christian liberty would again indulge the flesh and be reconciled to the world But certainly it will never lay by its enmity till we lay by our flesh and therefore there is no thoughts to be entertained of closing with it any more but we must be killing it and dying to it to the last SECT IV. HAving thus shewed you in what Respect the world must be Crucified and so resolved the question as to the Object I am next to resolve it as to the Act and shew you wherein the Crucifying it doth consist The Apostle followeth on the Allegory which he took occasion of from the mention of the Cross of Christ. From thence therefore we must also fetch the proper sense As the world did use Christ or would have used him so we must use the world Not actually murder the sons of death as they did murder the Lord of Life but what Christ
it executed its deceits We must give it the Gall and Vinegar of penitent tears and threatned judgements The vvorld thus despised and rejected Christ making him a man of sorrows and acquainted with our griefs they hid their faces and esteemed him not Isa. 53. 3. He had no form or comeliness in their eyes and when they saw-him there was no beauty that they should desire him Vers. 2. So must we despise and reject the world and hide our faces from it and not esteem it disdaining even to look upon its pomp and vanity and to observe its gawdy alluring dress or once to regard its enticing charms We must think it all into a loathsom vanity till there appear to us no form or comeliness in it nor any beauty for which we should desire it and wonder what they can see in it that so far dote upon it as to part with Christ and salvation to enjoy it The world did even triumph over a crucified Christ and shake their heads at him and say He saved others but himself he cannot save And we must triumph through Christ over the crucified world and say This is it that promised such great matters to its deceived followers that men esteemed before God and glory and now as it cannot save them from the dust or the wrath of God so neither can it save it self from this contempt that Christ doth cast upon it Cast down this Idol out of your hearts and say If he be a God let him help himself Lastly the world when they had crucified Christ did bury him and rowl a stone on his Sepulcbre and seal it up and watch it with souldiers to secure him from rising again if they could And we must even bury the crucified world and be buried to the world and lay upon it those weighty considerations and resolutions and seal thereto with Sacramentall obligations and follow all this with persevering watchfulness that may never permit it to revive and rise again And thus must we learn from the Cross of Christ how the world is to be crucified as it used Christ we must use it For it is the whole course of Christs humiliation that is meant here by his Cross the rest being denominated from the most eminent part and therefore from the whole must we fetch our pattern and instructions by the direction of the Allegory in my Text. SECT V. BUT it will not be unprofitable if we more particularly and orderly acquaint you with those Acts which the crucifying of the world to our selves doth comprehend over-passing those by which Christ did it for us on the Cross till anon in the due place 1. The first act is To esteem the world as an enemy to God and us and so as a Malefactor that deserveth to be crucified And this must not be only by a speculative-conception but by a true confirmed practical judgement which will set all the powers of the soul on work It is the want of this that makes the world to Live and Reign in the hearts of so many yea even of thousands that think they have mortified it A speculative Book-knowledge that will only make a man talk is taken instead of a practical knowledge Almost every man will say The world is a great enemy to God and us but did they soundly and heartily esteem it to be such they would use it as such Never tell me that that man takes the world for his deadly enemy who useth it as his dearest friend Enmity and deadly enmity will be seen Here is no room to plead the command of loving our enemies at least no man can think that he must love it with a Love of friendship and therefore with no love but what is consistent with the hatred of a deadly enemy This serious deep apprehension of Enmity is the very spring and poise of all our opposition We cannot heartily fight with our friend or seek his death There must be some anger and falling out before we will make the first assault and a settled enmity before we will make a deadly war of it This apprehension of enmity consisteth in an apprehension of the hurtfulness of the world to us and of the opposition it maketh against God and our salvation and of the danger that we are in continually by reason of this opposition So far as men conceive of the world as Good for them so far they take it for their friend and love it For no man can choose but love that which he seriously conceiveth to be Good for him This complacency is clean contrary to the Christian hostility But when we conceive of it as that which we stand in continual danger of being everlastingly undone by this will turn our hearts against it It undoes men that they have not these apprehensions of the world and that deeply fixed and habituated in their minds For it is the Apprehension or Iudgement of things that carryeth about the whole man and setteth awork all the other faculties Quest. But what should we do to be so habitually apprehensive that the world is our enemy Answ. 1. You must be sure that you lay up your treasure in heaven That you are so convinced by Faith of the Glory to come and of the true felicity that consisteth in the fruition of God as that you take it for your Portion and make it your very End And when once you have laid up your Hopes in heaven and see that there or no where you must be happy this will presently teach you to judge of all things else as they either help or hinder the attainment of that end For it is the Nature of the End to put a due estimate upon all things else And it is the property of the chief Good to denominate all other things either Good or Evil and that in a greater or lesser measure according as they respect that chiefest Good For there can be no Goodness in any thing else but the Goodness of a Means And the means is so far Good as it is apt and useful for the attainment of the End If once therefore you unfeignedly take God and Glory for your end and felicity you will presently fall upon enquiry and observation what it is that the world will do to help or hâ—nder that felicity 2. And then you need but one thing more to the discovery of the Enmity and that is the Constant experience of your souls A real living Christian doth live for God and is upon the motion to his eternal home There is his heart and that way his affections daily work When he findeth his soul down he windeth it up again and straineth the spring of faith and love And therefore his life and business being for heaven he cannot but be sensible of the rubs that are in his way and take notice of those things that would stop him in this course Whereupon he must needs find by constant experience that the world is that great Impediment and so must
be apprehensive of the enmity of the world For as he that Loveth God and waiteth for the sight of his face in Glory must needs take all that to be against him and naught for him that would keep him from God and deprive him of that beatificall vision so he that knoweth what it is to love God must needs know by constant sad experience that the world is the great with-drawer or hinderer of that love When he sets himself in any holy imployment to mount his soul into a more heavenly frame and to get a little nearer God he feeleth himself too much entangled with inferiour objects these are the weight that presseth down and the water that quencheth the sacred â—lames and were it not for these O how much higher might our souls attain and how much freer might we be for God For it is a thing most certain to us by our constant experience that the more of the world is upon our hearts the less is there of God and the more of God the less of the world So that these two means alone The sincere Intending of God and Glory as our End and daily observation of our own hearts will easily convince us that the world is our great enemy And when we throughly apprehend it to be our enemy we have begun to crucifie it 2. The next act by which the world is crucified is A deep habituated apprehension of its worthlesness and insufficiency As the opposing world must be taken for an enemy so the Promising alluring world must be taken as it is for an empty thing The Life and Reign of the world in the unsanctified lieth first in their too high estimation of it They think of it as Good and Good to them and as a matter of some considerable worth and though they will say with their tongues that heaven is better yet all things considered they take the world to be more suitable to them and therefore they desire it more For Heaven is out of sight and beyond their apprehension and affection and as they imagine it is not so certain as the things which they see and feel and possess And therefore they resolve to grasp as much of the creature as they can and take that which they can get in hand and then if there be an heaven they hope they may have their part in it as well as others But saving Illumination doth put men into another mind It makes them see that the Invisible things are of greater Certainty then the visible and that a promise without possession is better security then possession without a promise and that for the Worth and Goodness between Eternal things and Temporal there can be no comparison If the world would have been content to have kept its place and to have borrowed all its honour and esteem from God and Glory as the end for which it must be used and regarded it might then have had the honour of being serviceable to our salvation and to our Masters work But seeing it will needs be a competitor with heaven it thereby disâ—obeth it self of its glory and becometh a vile contemptible thing And so must it be esteemed by all the friends of God A sound Believer looks on the world as the world lookt on Christ when he hanged on the Cross not only as a Malefactor but as a contemptible thing And as the world esteemeth the Saints themselves to be hypocrites deceivers fools weak despised a spectacle to the world yea as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things So must the Believer esteem of the world as seeming to be what it is not as a weak and insufficient thing as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 4. 11 12 13. the very filth of the streets that is swept away or cast upon the dung-hill or as a thing devoted to death for the averting of an imminent judgement Pauls judgement is in a prevalent degree the judgement of every gracious soul Phil. 3. 7 8. What things were gain to me those I counted loss for Christ Yea doubtless and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Iesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ. Were the world but thus conceived of by a practical judgement it were half crucified already If men did verily think that the world is their Loss they would love it less and less greedily seek after it then now most do Gehezi would not have run after Naaman for his money if he had thought that it had been his loss Achan would not have hid the forbidden gold as a treasure if he had thought it had been his loss Who would be at so much care and pains for their loss as worldlings and sensualists are for their delights And if the judgement did once esteem the world as dung they would not be so greedy for it nor put it into their bosoms Who would fall in love with dung or dote upon filth or dogs-meat As the judgement doth esteem it the affections will be towards it And they that know not of a better condition will value this as the best though common reason will call it vanity But they that by faith have found out the true felicity have low and contemptuous thoughts of the world O what a carkaise what a shadow is it in their eyes What a poor low thing is it which the sons of men do tire themselves in seeking after What a dung-hill do they wallow in as if it were a bed of Roses What deformities do they dote upon as if they were the most real beauties A toad abhorreth not the company of a toad but shall not a man abhor it But we shall have occasion of saying more to this in the Application 3. The third act by which we Crucifie the world is a kind of Annihilation of it to our selves in our conceptions taking it as a very Nothing so far as it would be something separated from God or co-ordinate with him How oft doth the Scripture call it vanity a dream a vain shew a shadow yea nothing yea and less then nothing before God and lighter then vanity it self Isa. 40. 17. Psal. 62. 9. Iob 6. 21. The Princes of the earth who are something in the eyes of themselves and others appear as Nothing when God lets out his wrath upon them Isa. 34. 12. Even as the straw when the fire hath consumed it or the fairest buildings when it hath turned them to ashes For though the world be really something yet 1. In regard of the effects which it promiseth to seduced worldlings it may be called Nothing For that which can do Nothing for us in our extremity which hath no Power to relieve or satisfie us which leaveth the soul empty and deceiveth them that trust it may well be called Nothing in effect In genere boni that which can do us no
the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory The world is too low to be the joy of a Believer His higher Hopes do cloud and disgrace such things And as these forementioned Passions in the Concupiscible so also their contraries in the Irascible must be Crucified E. G. 1. A man that is Dead to the world will not Hate or be much Displeased with those that hinder him from the Riches or Honours or Pleasures of the world He makes no great matter of it and taketh it for no great hurt or loss And therefore rather then study revenge he can patiently bear it when they have taken away his coat if they take away his cloak also He doth not swell with malice against them that stand in the way of his advancement or hinder his rising or riches in the world He will not envy the precedency of others nor seek the disgrace or ruine of them that keep him low No more then a wise man will hate or seek to be revenged of him that would hinder him from climbing up to the top of a steeple or that will take a stone or â— bush of thorns out of his way 2. A man that is Crucified to the world will not avoid or flie from any Duty though the performance of it cross his worldly commodity or hazard all his worldly interest He seeth not reason enough in worldly losses to draw him to the committing of sin to avoid them An unmortified man will be swayed by his worldly Interest That must be no Duty to him which casteth him upon sufferings and that is no Good to him which would deprive him of his sensual Good And that shall be no sin to him which seems to be a matter of Necessity for the securing of his hopes and happiness in the world Whatever is a mans end he puts a Must upon the obtaining it and upon all the Means without which it will not be attained I Must have God and Glory saith the Believer whatever I want and therefore I Must have Christ I Must have faith and love and obedience whatever I do And so saith the sensualist my life and credit and safety in the world Must be secured whatever I miss of and therefore I Must avoid all that would hazard or lose them and I Must do that which will preserve them whatever I do The worldling thinketh there is a Necessity of his being sensually happy or at least of preserving his life and hopes on earth But the mortified Christian seeth no Necessity of Living much less of any of the sensual provisions which to others seem such considerable things And hence it is that the same Argument from Necessity draweth one man to sin and keepeth another most effectually from sin He that hath carnal Ends doth plead a Necessity of the sinful means by which he may attain them And he that hath the Ends of a true Believer doth plead a Necessity of avoiding the same sins which the other thought he must needs commit For Heavenly Ends are as much croft by them as earthly Ends are promoted by them We find a rich man in Luke 18. 23. that had a great mind to have been a Christian And if he had lived in our daies when the door is set a little wider open then Christ did set it there are some that would not have denyed him Baptism but would have let him in But when he heateth that the world must be renounced and Christ tells him of selling all and looking for a reward in another world he goes away sorrowful for he was very rich The man would have had pardon and salvation but he must needs be Rich or at least keep something And they that are so set upon it that they must and will be rich do fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition 1 Tim. 6. 9. And he that maketh hast to be rich shall not be innocent Prov. 28. 20. But the Crucified world is a dead and ineffectual thing It cannot draw a man from Christ or duty It cannot draw a man into any known sin so far as it is Crucified It is as Sampson when his hair was cut its power is gone Thousands whose hearts were changed by grace could sell all and lay the price at the Apostles seet and could forsake all and take up their Cross and follow a Crucified Christ to the death and could rejoyce in tribulation and glory that they were counted worthy to suffer though he that was unmortified do go away sorrowful Worldly Interest doth command the Religion and life of the unmortified man because it is the predominant Interest in his heart But its contrary with the mortified Believer His spiritual Interest being predominant doth Rule him as to all the matters of this world 3. If you are Crucified to the world your care for worldly things is Crucified It is not in vain that Christ expresly commandeth his Disciples Take no thought for your life What ye shall eat or what ye shall drink nor yet for your body what you shall put on Mat. 6. 25 31. And Phil. 4. 6. Be careful for nothing And 1 Pet. 5. 7. Casting all your care on him for he careth for you I know this is a hard saying to flesh and blood and therefore they study evasions by perverting the plain Text and would null and evacuate the express commands of Christ by squaring them to that carnal interest and reason which they are purposely given to destroy But you will say Must we indeed give over caring I answer 1. You must be in care about your own duty both in matters of the first and second Table and how to manage your worldly affairs most innocently and spiritually and to attain the Ends propounded in them by God But this is none of the care that is now in Question 1 Cor. 7. 32. There is a necessary caring for the things that belong to the Lord how to please the Lord and that even in your worldly business But 2. You may not care for the creature for it self nor for the meer pleasing of the flesh As it may not be Loved for it self so neither may it be cared for for it self And 3. When you have used your utmost care or forecast to do your own duty you may not be Anxious or Careful about the issue which is Gods part to determine of As God himself appeareth in Prosperity or Adversity you may and must have regard unto the issue But for the thing it self you must not when you have done your own duty be any further careful about it God knoweth best what is good for you and how much of the creature you are fit to manage and what condition of body is most suitable to the condition of your soul And therefore to him must the whole business be committed When you have committed your seed to the ground and done your duty about it you must have
no further care at all which intimateth fears anxiety or distrust though as care is largely taken for Regard You may care and pray for the blessing of God on it and for your daily bread 4. So far as you are Crucified to the world your worldly sorrows also will be Crucified If you miss of it you will not be grieved for that miss For the displeasure of God which an affliction may manifest you ought to be grieved but not for the meer loss of the creature for it self As God in the creature must be Loved and Delighted in and not the creature for it self so it is Gods displeasure manifested in the creature that must be our Grief If a mans flesh be dead you may cut it off and he never feeleth you you may cut it or prick it and he will not smart And if you be dead to the world you will not feel it as others do when worldly things are taken from you You will make no great matter of it Obj. But Grace doth not make men stocks or stupid and therefore how can we chuse but feel Answ. There is a feeling that is meerly natural and not subject to the command of Reason and Will and there is a feeling which is under Reason and is voluntary The later only is it that I speak of which Grace commandeth The most gracious man may feel heat and cold pain and weariness hunger and thirst as much as the worst But the Passions of his soul so far as they are under the command of Reason and Will do not feel them as evils to the soul so far as he is sanctified Still observe that I speak of worldly things as separated from God in whom only they are good and in respect to him only the absence of them is evil to the soul. And there is somewhat of the Passions that bodily sense can force perhaps in an innocent Adam But I speak only of that passion which Reason should command And so it is not enough that our Care and Grief for worldly things be less then that for the things of God Though that much may prove our sincerity of which more anon yet that is not all that is our duty But we should have no care or Rationall voluntary grief for any creature but only as it is a Means to God standeth in a due subordination to him and so we may have both 4. Having shewed you what Affections are Crucified to the world in the last place I add that Our inordinate labour for it must be Crucified Christ is as plain and peremptory in this as in the former not only commanding us to Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness Mat. 6. 33. but also Not to labour for the meat that perisheth but for the meat that endureth to everlasting life which the Son will give us John 6 27. which is not only to be understood that our Labour for earth should be less then our Labour for heaven and so comparatively none at all but further that as we must have no Love or Desire to the creature for it self but ultimately for God so we should not at all Seek or Labour for the creature for it self but ultimately for God and therefore Seek and Labour for it no further then the End requireth that is no further then it is necessary to the Pleasing of God or to our fruition of him This is the true and plain meaning of such Texts A man that is truly Dead to the world doth Labour for God and not for the world according to the measure of his mortification in all that he doth If he be plowing or sowing or reaping or threshing if he be working at his trade in his shop it is God that he is seeking and labouring for He doth not stop or take up in the creature He seeks it still but as a Means to God But an unsanctified man doth never truly seek God for himself at all no not in his worship much less in his trade and calling in the world For God is not his ultimate End and therefore he cannot Love him or Seek him for himself It is flesh-pleasing or carnal felicity that is his End and therefore he seeketh God for the fleshe When he prayeth to him when he Loveth him it is but as he is a Means to this his Carnal felicity and not as he is himself his chiefest Good Thus you may see what it is to be Crucified to the world and wherein true Mortification doth consist SECT VII A Few Objections are here to be answered that we may the more profitably proceed Obj. 1. A man may have hunger or thirst in his very sleep when he cannot refer the creature to God Answ. 1. We speak only of Humane that is Moral acts and such Desires as are under the command of the Will 2. A man may Habitually refer things to God when he doth not Actually Obj. 2. How can a man seek God in plowing or working in his shop when these actions are so heterogeus Answ. God made no creature nor appointed any imployment for man which may not fitly be a Means to himself As all came from God so all have something of God upon them and all tend to him from whom they came There are some Means that stand nearer the End and some are further from it and yet the most remote are truly Means A man that is but cutting down a tree or hewing stones out of the Quarry doth as much intend them for the building of his house as he that is erecting the frame or placing them in the building We cannot attain the End without the remotest Means as well as the nearest Obj. We are taught to Pray for our Daily bread therefore we may Desire it and Labour for it Answ. No doubt of it But we are taught to Pray for it but as a Means to the Hallowing of Gods Name the Coming of his Kingdom and the Doing of his Will and therefore only as a Means must we desire it and labour for it and that for these and no lower ultimate ends And therefore the words are such as express only things Necessary Our daily bread that we may perceive it is but as a Means to God that we desire it If our Being be not maintained we are not capable of Well-being nor of serving God And if the Means of our Being be not continued our Being will not be continued in Gods appointed ordinary way And therefore we pray for the Means of our sustentation that we may be kept in a capacity of the Ends of our Being Obj. But a man cannot be alway thinking on God and therefore not alway intending him as our End and therefore cannot do all for him Answ. 1. If sin disable us that is no excuse 2. A man may Habitually Intend an End which he doth not Actually think of Yea he may have an Actual Intention which yet he doth not observe because of other more sensible thoughts
that are upon his mind And yet his foresaid Intentions may be still effectuall to cause him to use the Means as Means For example A man that hath a journey to go is not alwaies thinking of the End of it by an actual observed Intention in every step of his way but perhaps may be much of the way taken up with thoughts and discourse of other things And yet he doth truly Intend his journeys End in every step of his way and use every step as a Means to that End And so is it with a true Christian in the work of God and the way to heaven Obj. But may we not use the creatures for Delight as well as for Necessity and is it not so commonly resolved Answ. The word Necessity is taken either strictly for that which we cannot be without and so there 's no doubt of it Or largely for that which is useful to the End And for Delights some of them are Necessary that is Useful Means to our ultimate End and these must not be opposed to things Necessary but may be used because Necessary As any thing which truly tendeth to recreate revive or chear the spirits for the service of our Master But no other Delight is lawful To esteem our fleshly Delight for it self and the creature for that Delight and so to use it is meer sensuality and the great sin which sanctification cureth in the soul. If Delight it self be desired truly but as a Means to God then the creature the more remote Means may be used for that Delight as its next End but not else Obj. But what man living is such as you here describe Is there any that are thus Crucified to the world as to have no separated esteem of it or thoughts or care of it or Love or Desire or the rest of these Affections Answ. It is one thing to enquire what we are and another what we ought to be and should be if we were perfect We ought to be such as I have mentioned but we are not such in perfection yet but only in sincerity And how that sincerity may be known I have elsewhere explained In a word In a perfect soul there is no Interest but Gods In a sincere soul Gods Interest is the highest and greatest In a perfect man God hath the whole heart and in an upright man he is nearer to the heart then any thing else In a perfect man there is a perfect subjection to God and in an upright man there is none hath Dominion but God he is highest and his Rule prevaileth in the main though some things that rebell are not perfectly subdued Obj. But I find that most of my Passions are stirred more sensibly about earthly then heavenly things How then can I say that I am crucified to the world Answ. In point of Duty all that Passion that is to be commanded by Reason should be mortified as is above-said But when you go to the tryal of your states in the point of sincerity it is hard trying by the Passions and you must rather do it by your Estimation and your Will as I have discovered more fully in a Treatise of Peace of Conscience SECT VIII II. HAving shewed you what it is to have the world Crucified to us and to be Crucified to the world I am next to shew you how this is done by the Cross of Christ. And here I must distinctly shew you 1. What the Cross as suffered by Christ himself hath done to the Crucifying of the world to us 2. What the same Cross as Believed on and Considered by us doth towards it 3. And what the Cross of Christ which we our selves bear in conformity to his sufferings doth towards it Of all which briefly 1. It is not only his Crucifixion but the whole Humiliation of Christ which is in this and other Scriptures called his Cross the whole being denominated from the most eminent part as was toucht before And there are five notable blows that the world hath received by the suffered Cross of Christ. 1. One is that Christ himself in his own person hath perfectly crucified and conquered the world so that we have a victorious Head and the world is now a conquered thing It assaulted him from his birth to his death and still he overcame It assaulted him by fair means and by foul by frowns and smiles by alluring baits and persecuting storms and still it was overcome The threatnings and persecutions could never draw him to the committing of a sin The enticing offers of it could never bring him to an inordinate esteem of it nor abate the least of his love to God In his great combat in the wilderness he was assaulted both waies Hunger could not make him tempt God or distrust The Kingdoms and Glory of the world were despised by him when they were the matter of his temptation He would not have so much as a setled habitation nor any worldly pomp or splendor that so he might shew that he contemned it by his actions If he had set by it he could soon have mended his condition When the people would have made him a King he past away from them for he would not be a King of the peoples making nor have any Power or Dignity which they could give He came not to Receive honour of men but to Give salvation to men When Peter would have perswaded him to favour himself as favouring the things of Man and not of God Christ calleth him Satan and bids him get behind him If he will do the work of Satan he shall have the name of Satan and the same words of rebuke that Satan had Even in their hour and the power of darkness Luke 22. 53. they could do nothing that might make the least breach in his perfection And when they boasted of their power to crucifie him or release him Iohn 19. 10. they could not boast of their power to draw him to the smallest sin Yea upon the Cross did he consummate his conquest of the world when it seemed to have conquered him and he crucified the world when it was crucifying him and gave it then the deadly wound And there did he openly make a shew of the principalities and powers which he had spoiled and there did he triumph over them while they mistakingly triumphed over him Col. 2. 14 15. If you say What is all this to us I answer When the world is once conquered the heart of it is broken And when our Head hath overcome it there is a great preparation made for our victory Else would he not have said to his Disciples Iohn 16. â—3 In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good chear I have overcome the world For as the consequence is good Because I live ye shall live also Iohn 14. 19. So it will hold Because I have overcome the world ye shall overcome it also Yea as it is said of his Works Greater works then these shall ye do Iohn
worldling a fleshly minded man an unmortified man that is not dead to the world all these are terms that are proper to men in a state of damnation under the curse and wrath of God and are equipollent terms with a Childe of the Devil Oh how the Devil hath deluded multitudes by making them think that this mortification is some higher pitch of grace then ordinary but not essential to the life of grace it self and therefore that a man may be saved without it when they may as well think to be saved if they defie the God of heaven if they despise the Lord that bought them and if they renounce salvation it self for indeed so they do It must needs be that God must look first and chiefly to his own interest in all his works even in the collation of his â—reest grace And therefore he will be glorified in all his Saints and no man shall have salvation dividedly from his honour He doth not bring men to heaven to hate and contemn him but to love and praise him and he will fit them for that work before they come thither and make them love and praise him initially on earth before they come to do it in heaven And therefore he will make them contemn all those things that stand in competition with him and hate all that stands against him SECT XI I Have shewed the necessity of crucifying the world as from Gods interest which the world doth contradict I shall next shew it you from your own interest And in these conjunct considerations it will appear 1. The world is not your happiness 2. The world is occasionally through the corruption of our nature a great enemy to your happiness 3. God only is your happiness 4. God is not fully to be enjoyed in this world 5. It is by knowing loving and delighting in him as God that he is to be enjoyed to make us happy 6. As therefore it is impossible to have two ultimate ends two chief goods and to enjoy them both so is it impossible that God and the world should both have our chiefest estimation and affection All this set together doth demonstrate the necessity of being crucified to the world unless we will renounce our own felicity 1. For the first Proposition that the world is not your Happiness I think all your tongues will readily confess it I would your hearts would do so too Do you think that God doth envy you your happiness or that he would take the world from you because he esteemeth it too good for you No it is because he pittieth your self-deceit when he seeth you take that for your happiness that is not and because he hath far better things to bestow If the world were as good for you as you take it to be and had that in it to satisfie you as you imagine it to have you might keep it and much good might it do you for God would not be about to take it from you He that made you to be Happy doth not grudge you that which should procure it Doubtless if he did not see that it is vanity and that you have made a wrong choice and do mistake your mark he would never trouble you in a worldly course nor call you off But it is because he seeth your folly and deceit and wisheth you much better Wo to you that ever you were born if you have no better Happiness then the world can afford you Is it not Necessary then that you discern your errour and be brought into your right way and spend not your time and pains for nothing If God should let you alone to catch at this shadow and play your selves with worldly toyes till the time of grace were past and then let you see that you were befooled when it is too late you would then be leâ—t to a fruitless repentance and to the sense of that unhappiness which you chose to your selves 2. And that the world is an enemy to your Happiness may appear two waies First in that it deceitfully pretendeth to be your Happiness when it is not and so would turn away your hearts from that which is Secondly in that by allurements or discouragements it is alwaies hindring you in the way to life and is a snare to you continually in all that you do And is it not Necessary to your salvation that you be delivered from the enemies of your salvation and freed from such perilous snares Can you conquer while you are conquered And if the world be not Crucified to you it doth conquer you For its victory is upon your will and affections And if it conquer you it will condemn you To be servants to the world is to be servants to sin And the servants of sin are free from righteousness Rom. 6. 20. and free from Christ and free from salvation A miserable freedom 3. The following Propositions I shall speak of together That God only is our happiness and Chief Good I need not prove to any that indeed believeth him to be God That salvation consilleth in the â—ruition of this Happiness is past doubt And as sure is it that God is not fully enjoyed in this world much less in the creature when it is loved for it self and not esteemed as a Means to him All that believe a life after this do sure believe that there is our felicity And lastly that the soul doth enjoy its own felicity by Knowing and Loving and Delighting in its object is also past doubt So that you may see that a worldly state of mind is in it self inconsistent with a state of salvation To be saved is to have the blessed vision of God and to Love him and Delight in him perfectly to everlasting And can you do this when you love and delight in the world above him or in opposition to him Would you have God to save you and yet not to take off your affections from the world to himself That were to save you and not to save you to feed you by that which is not food to comfort you by that which cannot comfort If a worldling would be saved and not be mortified either he speaks he knows not what but plain non-sense or contradiction or else he meaneth one of these two things Either that he would have an Heaven of worldly Riches or Honours or fleshly Pleasures there is no such to be had Or else that he would have the world as long as he can and have heaven when he can keep the world no longer and so would have the world Crucified to him when there is no such world or when he is taken from it But as 1. No man can truly desire future Grace and Holiness that doth not desire it at the present this being rather an unwilling submission to it as a tolerable Evil then a true desire of it as a certain Good So 2. God hath determined that this life only shall be the Way and that the End Here only must we
by it is evident that this is a damning errour for any man to feign a Christianity to himself that excludeth Mortification or is separable from it in a capable subject When men look at a predominant fleshly interest or worldly mind as they do at some particular sin consistent with true faith I say this is an errour about the very Essence of Christianity and which hazards their salvation 2. And that it is the end of the Cross of Christ and his Doctrine to Crucifie the world to us and sanctifie us to God I have already manifested in part and shall now further manifest 1. It is the end of Christ and his Cross and Doctrine to recover Gods Interest in the souls of men But it is by mortification as a part of true sanctification that Gods Interest in mens souls is recovered Therefore c. As God could have no lower ultimate end then himself in our Creation so neither in our Redemption Christ himself as Mediator is but a Means to God who is our End he is the way to the Father and no man cometh to the Father but by him Joh. 14. 6. He is the Truth that revealeth the Father and the Sun of the world which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world Joh 1. 9. revealing to us both the End and Means That as there is no light in the earth but what is communicated by the Sun which enlighteneth some by the Moon at midnight and some by its direct approaching light at the break of day before they see the Sun it self and others by its glorious rays when it is risen and visible to them and hath also in it self an objective sufficiency to enlighten those that shut their eyes or want eye-sight by which they should receive it Even so is Christ the Sun of the Redeemed World which actually affordeth all that Light to all which they do possess even some to all that have the use of Reason which hath a tendency to recovery and he hath an Objective sufficiency to the saving illumination of those that through their own fault are never so illuminated The pure Godhead is the Beatifical Light to be enjoyed for felicity The Mediator is the Mediate Light to shew uâ— the way to God And in these two consisteth Life Eternal to Know God the Beginning and End who himself hath no Beginning or End and to know Jesus Christ whom he hath sent to â— call us to himself Ioh. 17. 3. Whether he that is now to us Mediâ—tor acquisitionis will also hereafter be Mediator fruitioâ—is and whether the glorified do only see the Godhead in the glass of the glorified body of Christ and of the most glorious effects which then they shall partake of or also shall immediatly beheld it in it self and see Gods essence face to face I shall not presume to determine while Scripâ—â—â—â— seems so silent and learned conjectures are so much at odds But as he is the Redeeming restoring Mediator it is that we speak all this while of Christ And â—o his Office is to recover Gods Interest in the souls of men Now his Interest lyeth in our Estimation and our Love And these the world hath dispossest him of It is therefore the work of Christ to pull down this Idol and set up God in the throne of the soul. And therefore though faith be the principal Mediant using Grace yet Love is the most principal finall enjoying grace and more excellent then faith as the end or that act which is next the end is more excellent then the means 2. It is the End of Christ his Cross and Doctrine to Heal us and to save us to Heal us of our sin and to save us from it and its destroying fruits But by sanctification and so by mortification doth Christ thus Heal and Save us If health be worth nothing the Physician and all his Physick is worth nothing The Health of the soul objectively is God and formally is its Holiness or perfect Disposedness and Devotedness to God of which anon These therefore doth Christ come to restore And therefore he comes to call us off the Creature and bring our affections back to God 3. It is the End of Christ his Cross and Doctrine to conquer Satan and destroy his works and with him the rest of the enemies of God and of our salvation But the world is one of these enemies and the Means by which the Devil doth prevail therefore it is Christs End to overcome the World and cast it out of the hearts of men Luk. 11. 22. Ioh. 16. 33. 1 Ioh. 3. 5 8. He was manifested to this end to take away our sins and destroy the works of the Devil And therefore he causeth his followers to overcome him 1 Ioh. 2. 13 14. And herewithal observe that it is essential to the Relation to respect the End to the Physiâ—ian that he be for the health of the Patient and to Christ the Redeemer that he be the Saviour of his People from their sins and the Restorer of their souls to the Love of God So that Christ is denyed and made no Christ where Mortification and Sanctification are denied He is not believed in as Christ where he is not believed in for these Ends. And therefore he that cometh not with this intent to Christ that he may restore the Image of God upon him and bring him off from the Creature unto God that he may live to him doth not come to Christ as Christ and is not indeed a true Christian. The Doctrine of Christ doth lead us from the world in these several parts of it and by these steps How the Cross doth it I shewed before 1. It declareth to us what God is and what man is and so that God is our absolute Owner and Governour and that he is the only Primitive simply necessary being and that man was made by him and therefore for him and disposed to him 2. It declareth to us that the state of our integrity consisted in this closure of the soul with God 3. It sheweth us that our selicity consisteth in his Love and in the fruition of him by a mutual complacency 4. It sheweth us that our first sin was by turning from him to Carnal self and to the world 5. And that this is our lost estate wherein both sin and misery are conjunct to Adhere to self and Creatures and to depart from God 6. It sheweth us what Christ hath done and suffered to Reconcile God to us and open us a way of admission into his presence and how far God is Reconciled to us and thus Revealeth him in the face of a Mediater as Amiable to our souls that so we might be capable of loving him and closing with him again For if he had remained in his wrath he would have been the object of our hatred or meer terrour at least and not of our Love And no man can Love him that is not presented to him and apprehended by him
as Lovely that is as Good For it is impossible that there should be an act without its proper object Nothing but appearing Good is Loved If a lost condemned sinner have no hope given him of Gods Reconciliation or his willingness to receive him to mercy it is ex parte objecti an impossible thing that the mind of that sinner should be reconciled to God And therefore the Gospel publisheth Gods Reconcilation to sinners viz. his universal Conditional Reconciliation before it beseech them to be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. And before they believe we cannot give any one man the least assurance that God is any more reconciled to him then to others that are unconverted or that he is any willinger to Receive him then others This therefore is the great observable means whereby Christ by his Gospel recovereth the Heart of a sinner unto God even by turning the frowning countenance of God by which he deterred the guilty into a more Lovely face as being Reconcilable and Conditionally Reconciled to the world through Christ and so become to all the sinful sons of Adam a fit object to attract their Love and draw off their hearts from the deceiving world to which they were revolted and as being actually reconciled to all true Believers and thereby become a yet more powerful attractive of their Love 7. It doth also more fully reveal the face of God the object of our Love and the transcendent Glory that in him we shall enjoy 8. And it disgraceth the creatures which have diverted our Affections that we may be taken off our false estimation of them 9. It earnestly perswadeth and solliciteth us to obey and calls on us to turn from the world to God 10. It backeth these perswasions with terrible threatnings if we do not forsake the creature and return 11. It prescribeth to us the standing Ordinances and Means by which this work may be further carryed on 12. And lastly it directeth us to the right use of the creatures instead of that carnal enjoying of them that would undo us By all these means which time doth permit me but briefly to mention the Gospel of Christ doth tend to Crucifie the world to us and to recover our hearts to the Chiefest Good And besides all this which the Cross and the Doctrine of Christ do to this End that you may yet fullyer perceive how much it is the End of Christs very office and the execution thereof let me add these two things 1. That it is the End of Christs providential dispensations 2. And the work which he sendeth the Holy Ghost to perform upon the souls of his Elect. 1. As the Mercies of God are purposely given us to lead up our hearts to him that gave them So when we carnally abuse them and adhere unto the creature it is the special use of Affliction to take us off If the rod have a voice it speaks this as plain as any thing whatsoever and if it reprehend us for any sin it is for our overvaluing and adhering to the creature The wounds that Christ giveth us are not to kill us but to separate us from the world that hath separated us from God 2. And that this is the very office or undertaken work of the Holy Ghost is past all controversie His work is to sanctifie us and that is by taking us off the creature to bring us to be heartily Devoted unto God Sanctification is nothing else but our separation from the creature to God in Resolution Affection Profession and Action So that in what measure soever a man hath the Spirit in that measure is he sanctified and in what measure he is sanctified in that same measure is he crucified to the world For that is the one half of his Sanctification or it is his Sanctification denominated from the terminus à quo as many Texts of Scripture do manifest By this time I hope it is plain to you that Mortification is of the very being of Christianity and not any separable adjunct of it and that if you profess not to be Dead to the world you do not so much as profess your selves Christians SECT XIII 1. AND as you see that the Christian Doctrine teacheth this So 2. It is thence clear without any more ado that wherever the Cross and Doctrine of Christ are effectuall the world is Crucified to that man and he to the world There are some great Duties which a man may possibly be saved though he omit them in some cases but this is none such It is a wonder to see the security of worldlings how easily they bear up a confidence of their sincerity under this sin which is as inconsistent with sincerity as Infidelity it self is ◠If they see a man live in common Drunkenness or Adultry or Swearing they take him for a prophane and miserable wretch and good reason for it When in the mean time they pass no such sentence on themselves who may deserve it as much as the worst of these It is one notable cheat among the Papists that occasions the ruine of many a soul that they make a Religious mortified life to be a work of supererrogation and those that profess it and some of their own inventions with it which turn it into sin they Cloyster up from the rest of the world and these they call Religious people and some few even of these that are either more devout or superstitious then the rest they call Saints So rare a thing is the appearance of Religiousness and Sanctity among them that it must be inclosed in Societies not only separated from the world as the Church is but separated as it were out of the Church it self And yet the common people are kept in hope of salvation in their way By which means they are commonly brought to imagine that it is not absolutely necessary to salvation to be a Religious man or a Saint or one that doth really renounce and crucifie the world but that these things belong to certain Orders of Monks and Fryers and that it is enough for other men to honour these devout and mortified Saints and to crave their Prayers and do some lower and easier things And indeed their vows of Chastity and separation and unprofitableness and other Inventions of their own they may well conceive unnecessary to others being noxious to themselves But they will one day finde that none but Religious men and Saints shall be saved and that every true Member of Christ is dead to the world and not only Monks or Votaries or such like And a Conceit too like to this of the Papists is in the minds of many of our Auditors They think indeed that those are the best men that are resolved contemners of all the Riches and Honours and Pleasures of the world but they think of them as the Papists do of their votaries as People of a higher pitch of Sanctity then the rest but think not that it is essential to
Sanctity and to true Christianity it self They confess they should be all contemners of the world but God forbid say they that none but such should be saved But I tell you God hath forbidden already by his Laws and God will forbid hereafter by his sentence and execution that any other but such should be saved Do you think in good sadness that any man can be saved that is not truly dead to the world and doth not despise it in comparison of God and the great things of Everlasting Life Let me satisfie you of the contrary here once for all and I pray you see that your flesh provoke you not to mutter forth such unreasonable self-delusions any more 1 Ioh. 2. 15. Love not the world neither the things that are in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him what can be spoken more plainly or to a worldly minded man more terribly 1 Ioh. 5. 4. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith Jam. 4. 4. Know ye not that the Friendship of the world is enmity with God Whoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God Will not all this serve to convince you of this truth Rom. 8. 5 6 7 13. For they that are after the flesh do minde the things of the flesh but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit For to be carnally minded is death but to be spirituall â—â—nded is life and peace Because the carnal minde is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Joh. 3. 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Gal. 5. 16 17. 6. 8. Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting Col. 3. 1 2 3. If ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God Set your affection on things above and not on things on the earth For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in glory Mortifie therefore your members which are upon the earth Matth. 6. 19 20 21 24. Lay not up for your selves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal but lay up for your selves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal for where your treasure is there will your heart be also No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the ore and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other Ye cannot serve God and Mammon Matth. 10. 38 39. He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me He that findeth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for my sake shall finde it Mat. 16. 24. If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me Luk. 14. 26 27. If any man come to me and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my disciple And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple Verse 33. Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath he cannot be my disciple Heb. 11. 13 14 15. and to the end But I will cite no more Here is enough to convince you or condemn you If any thing at all be plain in Scripture this is plain that every true Christian is dead to the world and looks on the world as a crucified thing and that God and the life of glory which he hath promised have the Ruling and chiefest interest in their souls Believe it Sirs this is not a work of supererrogation nor such as only tendeth to the perfecting of a Christian but such as is of the essence of Christianity and without which there is not the least hope of salvation SECT XIV Use 2. BY all that hath been said you may perceive what it is to be a Christian indeed and that true Christianity doth set men at a further distance from the world then carnal self-deceiving Professors do imagine You see that God and the world are enemies not God and the world as his Creature but as his Competitor for your hearts and as the seducer of your understandings and the opposer of his interest and the fuel and food of a fleshly minde and that which would pretend to a Being or Goodness separated from God or to be desirable for it self having laid by the relation of a means to God To be a Friend to the world in any of these respects is to be an enemy to God And God will not save his enemies while enemies An enmity to God is an enmity to our salvation for our salvation is in him alone If then you have but awakened consciences if the true love of your selves be stirring in you and if you have but the free use of common reason I dare say you do by this time perceive that it closely concerneth you presently to look about you and to try whether you are crucified to the world or not Seeing my present business is for the securing of your Everlasting Peace and the healing of your souls of that which would deprive you of it let me intreate you all in the fear of God to give me your assistance and to go along with me in the work for what can a Preacher do for you if you will do nothing for your selves How can we convert or heal or save you without you I do foresee your appearance before the Lord a jealous God that will not endure that any Creature should be sweeter and more amiable to you then himself I do foresee the condemnation that all such must undergo and the remediless certain misery that they are 〈◊〉 know there is no way that the wit of man or Angels can devise to prevent the damnation of such a soul but by Crucifying the flesh and world by the Cross of Christ and dethroning these Idols and submitting sincerely to God their Happiness This cannot be done while you are strangers to your selves and will not look into your own hearts and see what abominable work is there that you may
with that which should be your food you turn your daily blessings to your bane by dropping your Poyson into the cup of Mercies which bountiful providence putteth into your hands There is not a surer way in the world to undo you then by Turning to the creature and forsaking God You cry for more of the world and you are unsatisfied till you have it and when you have it you do but destroy your souls with it by giving it your hearts which must be given only unto God What a stir do men make for temptation and destruction What cost and pains are men at to purchase them an Idol and to make provision for the flesh to satisfie its desires when they confess it to be the greatest enemy of their souls Like a man that would give all that he hath for a coal of fire to put into the thatch even such is your desires after the world and the use you make of it 8. What abundance of precious time and labour do you lose which might and should be better spent Doth not this world take up the most of your care and strength and time You are about it early and late It is first and last and almost alwaies in your thoughts It findeth you so much to do that you have scarce any time so much as to mind the God that made you or to seek to escape the everlasting misery which is near at hand It hath taken up so much of your hearts that when God should have them in any holy duty or service for his Church you are heartless When you shall see your accounts cast up to your hands as shortly you shall see it though you will not now be perswaded to do it your selves and when you shall there see how many thoughts the world had in comparison of God and how many hours were laid out upon the world when Gods service was cast by for want of time and how near the creature was to your heart while God as a stranger stood at the door And in a word how the world was your daily business while the matters of God stept in but now and then upon the by you will then confess that you laboured in vain and that your life and labour should have been better employed Hath God given you but a short uncertain life and laid your everlasting life upon it and will you cast all away upon these transitory delights How short a time have you for so great a work and shall the world have all Oh that you did but know to how much greater advantage you might have spent this time and labour in seeking God and an endless Glory One thing is needful make sure of that and waste not the rest of your daies in vanity What wise man would spend so precious a thing as Time is upon that which he knows will leave him in Repentings that ever it was so spent The world doth rob poor sinners of their time but when they see it is gone and they would fain have a little of that time again to make preparation for their everlasting state it is not all the world then that can bring them back one hour of it again Certainly such a loss of time and labour is no small aggravation of a worldlings sin 9. You are also guilty of the high contempt of the Kingdom of Glory while you prefer these transitory things before it Your hearts and lives speak that which you are ashamed to speak with your tongues You are ashamed to say that Earth is better for you then Heaven or that your sin is better for you then the favour of God but your lives speak it out If you think not your present condition better for you then heaven why do you choose and prefer it and why do you more carefully and laboriously seek the things of earth then the Heavenly Glory If your child would sell his inheritance for a cup of Ale you would think he set light by it And if he would part with father and mother for the company of a beggar or a thief you would say he had no great love to you And if you will venture your part in heaven for the pleasures of sin and will part with God for the matters of this world would you have him think that you set much by his Kingdom or his love O the unreasonableness of sin the madness of worldly fleshly men Is it indeed more desirable to prosper in their shops their fields and their pleasures for a few daies or years then everlastingly to live in the presence of the Lord Shall Christ purchase a Kingdom at the price of his blood and offer it us freely and shall we prefer the life of a bruit before it Shall God offer to advance so mean a creature to an heavenly station among his Angels and shall we choose rather to wallow in the dung of our Transgressions Take heed lest as you are guilty of Esau's folly you also meet with Esau's misery and the time should come that you shall find no place for Repentance that is for Recovery by Repentance though you seek it with tears Contempt of kindness is a provoking thing For it is the height of ingratitude And especially when it is the greatest kindness that is contemned As it will be the everlasting imployment of the Saints to enjoy that felicity and to admire and praise that infinite Love which caused them to enjoy it So will it be the everlasting misery of the damned to be deprived of that felicity and to think of their solly in the unthankful contempt of it and of the excellency of that Kingdom which thus they did contemn God sets before you Earth and Heaven If you choose earth expect no more And hereafter Remember that you had your choice 10. To make short of the rest of the aggravation of your sin and sum it up in a word Your Love of the world is the sum of all iniquity It virtually or actually containeth in it the breach of every command in the Decalogue The first Commandment which is the foundation of the Law and especially of the first Table is broken by it while you make it your Idol and give it the Esteem and Love and Service that is due to God The second third and fourth Commandments it disposeth you to break While your hearts and ends are carnal and worldly the manner of your service will be so and you will suit your Religion to the will of men and your carnal Interest and not to the will and word of God The name and holy nature of God is habitually contemned by you while you more set by your worldly matters then by him His holy daies you ordinarily violate and his Ordinances you do hypocritically abuse while your hearts are upon your covetousness or sensual delights and are far from him while you draw near him with your lips Worldlinys will make you even break the bonds of natural obligations and be
must plainly tell you that the case of multitudes not only of the sottish vulgar but of persons of Honour and Worshipful Gentlemen is so palpably miserable in the eyes of impartial discerning men that we are obliged to lament it We hear you speak as contemptibly of the world in an affected discourse as any others but we see you follow it with unwearied eagerness You dote upon it You contrive and project how you may enjoy it You think you have got some great matter when you have obtained it A filthy stir you make in the world some of you to the disquiet of all about you that you may be richer or greater then you are It takes up your heart your time your strength and visibly it is the very work you live for and the great game that you play and the main trade that you drive on and all your Religious affairs come in but on the by and God is put off with the leavings of the world And if you are low in the world or miss of your desires and suffer in the flesh you whine and repine as if you had lost your God and your Treasure If you will deceive your selves by denying tâ—is that bettereth not your case Neither God nor any wise man that seeth your worldly lives and how much you set by worldly things and how little Good you do with your wealth and how much the flesh and your posterity have as devoted unto them and how little God hath devoted unto him I say no wise man that seeth this will believe that you are mortified heavenly men I do here proclaim to you this day from the Word of the Lord that this your way is your folly Psalm 49. 13. Luke 12. 20. and that you are at present in a damnable condition that you are the enemies of God whoever of you are friends to the world and that if you love the world the love of the Father is not in you 1 Iohn 2. 15. and that you must in Affection and Resolution forsake all that you have in the world and look for a Portion in the world to come or you are not Christians indeed nor can be saved Luke 14. 33. It would grieve the heart of a Believing man to see how desperately many civil ingenuous Gentlemen and others delude and destroy themselves insensibly You will I hope all cry shame upon a common swearer drunkard or whoremonger you will hang a Thief a Murderer or a Traytor But you seem not sensible of the misery of your own Condition that are perhaps in a more dangerous case then these I beseech you consider Is not that the most sinful and dangerous state where God hath least of the heart and the creature hath most What know you if you know not this Why it is apparent that there is less Love to the world in many an one of the forementioned wretches then in many Civil Gentlemen that live in good reputation in their Countrey and little suspect so much mischief by themselves That is the most wicked man that hath in his heart the strongest Interest which is opposite unto God and all that is not subordinate is opposite Sin hath not so deep and strong an Interest in some Muderers that kill a man in a passion in some swearers that get nothing by it but swear in a passion or in some thieves that steal in necessity as it hath in many that seem sober and Religious I say again the greater creature â—nterest the more sinful is the estate Alas Sirs the abstaining from some of these crimes and living like Civil Religious men if the world be not Crucified to you and you to it doth but hide your sin and misery and hinder your shame and repentance but not prevent your damnation Nay the very Interest of the flesh it â—elf may make you forbear disgâ—acefull sins and so that may be finally your greater vice which you so much glory in and which is materially your duty All the privâ—ledge of your condition is that you shall serve the Devil in more Golden setters then the poorer and contemned for t of sinners and that you may be the children of wrath with less suspition and that you may go to Hell in more credit then the rest and by your self-deceit you may keep off the knowledge of your misery and the disquiet of soul that would follow thereupon till death make you wiser when it is too late And is this a benefit to rejoyce in Indeed you have your Good things in this life you may be cloathed in the best and fare deliciously and when you are in Hell Torments where you would be glad of a drop of water your kindred on earth may nevertheless honour your name and little suspect or believe your misery And this is the Priviledge that you have above more disgraced offendors You leave a better esteem of you on earth when your souls are in Hell I But alas if a Pope should Saint you and his followers pray to you and worship you as its possible they may do this will not ease your torments I confess I am sensible that this kind of discourse is not very like to please you but it is not my errand to Please but to Profit For my part I bear you as much respect as you are Magistrates or otherwise qualified for the common good as others do But I must deal plainly with you in hope of your recovery or at least of the discharge of my own soul. I confess to you I look upon a worldly Prince or Judge or Justice or Gentlemâ—n or Freeholder yea or Minister as men as wicked before God and in as damâ—able and dangerous a case to their own souls as the thieves that you burâ— in the hand and hang. I am far from extenuating their sin or misery but I am shewing you your own Your sin may be as deep rooted and the interest of the world may be more predominant in you then in them Your lands and houses and hopeful posterity and the other provisions that you have made for your flesh may have more of your hearts then the world hath of the heart of a poor prisoner that never had so much to Idolâ—ze Believe it Gentlemen Christ was not in jest when he so often and earnestly warneth men of your quality of their everlasting peril Even more then ever he did Adulterers or Thieves It s not for nothing â—â—â—t he tells us how the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choak the word that it becometh unfruitful Luke 8. 14 Mat. 16. 2â— The Pharisecs that were covetous derided Christ when others did believe Luke 16. 14. They cannot be true Believers that receive Honour one of another and seek not the honour that cometh from God only Iohn 5. 44. that is who prefer the former It is not for nothing that Christ assureth you that it is as hard for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God as
world do set as light by such in inconsiderable vanities And if the dead in sin can bear so easily the greatest misery that man on earth is ordinarily capable of as the slavery of the Devil the guilt of sin the curse of the Law the danger of damnation c. what wonder then if they that are Crucified to the world can bear a little poverty or sickness or reproach which is to the other but as the prick of a pin or the scratch of a thorn to a deadly poyson or a stab at the very heart 3. But yet this is not all Your inordinate love of any thing in the world will not only embitter your lives but it will be the horrour of your souls at death and judgement And therefore as ever you would leave the world in peace and as ever you would appear before the Lord your Judge with comfort and as ever you desire that the creatures should not be your Tormentors take heed that you do not over-love them now but see that they be Crucified to â—ou You cannot possibly be sensible now what a pang of horrour it will cast you into at the last when you shall see the world leaving you and see what it was that you ventured your souls and their everlasting welfare for O with what grief and tearing of heart do earthly minded persons part with the world When you are dying that one thing that had your heart will more torment your hearts to remember it then all things else will do Nothing is such a terrour to the thoughts of a a dying covetous man as his money and lands and worldly wealth Nothing so vexeth the ambitious as to think on that shadow of honour which he did pursue Nothing doth so torment the filthy fornicator as the remembrance of that person with whom he committed the beastly sin All other persons or things in the world will not then be so bitter to you as those that stole your hearts from God but at judgement and in hell the remembrance of them will be a thousand fold more bitter And who would now prepare such misery for themselves and glut themselves with that which they can no better digest or bear What wise man would not rather be without the drunkards cups then be fain to spue it up again and part with it with so much sickness and disgrace And why should you desire to be drunk with the profits or pleasures of the world when you know before hand with how much shame and trouble of conscience you must cast it up again at last 4. But yet this is not the worst but if you will needs live to the world you must take it for your portion and look not for any more And therefore as ever you would not be deprived of your hopes of eternal life and be put off with the earthly portion of the wicked see that the world be Crucified to you and you to the world How poor a portion is it that worldlings do possess Even like Nebucadnezar that had his portion with the beasts Daâ— 4. 15. How soon will all their portion be spent and then they will feed with swine yea and be denyed these very husks For they are set in slâ—ppery places and are brought to desolation in a moment Psal. 73. 18 19 20. O how much better a portion might you have had if you had not refused or neglected it when you had your choice Me thinks in your greatest pleasures and abundance it should astonish your souls to think This is my portion I shall have no more When you are past this life and entring into Eternity then where is your â—ortion Alas saith Conscience I have had it already I cannot spend it and have it too You know what you have now but what shall you have hereafter to all eternity Your Portion is almost spent already and what will you do then Oh then to think that the Eternal glory of the Saints might have been yours it was offered as freely to you as to them but you have lost it by preferring the world before it and that after a thousand convictions of your folly O what a cutting thought will this be Luke 16. 25. To remember that you chose your good things in this life will be a sad Remembrance when all is gone The Lord is the protion of his Saints inheritance Psalm 16. 5. even their portion for ever Psalm 73. 26. their portion in the Land of the living Psal. 142. 5. and this was it that encouraged them to labour patience and hope Psalm 119. 52. Lam. 3. 24 25 26. But for the worldling The heaven shall reveal his iniquity and the earth shall rise up against him the increase of his house shall depart and his goods shall slow away in the day of wrath This is the portion of a wicked man from God and the heritage appointed to him by God Iob 20. 37 38 39. If you can be content with such a Portion make much of the world and take your fleshly pleasures while you may But if you hope for the everlasting portion of Believers away with the world and Crucifie it without any more ado and set your hearts on the portion which you hope for SECT XX. HAving said as much as is suitable to the other parts of this discourse to perswade you to be willing to Crucifie the world I shall next give some Directions to those that are perswaded and tell you by what means the work may be done And I beseech you mark them and resolve to practise them Direct 1. OBserve and Practise the Direction intimated in the Text. It is the Cross of Christ that must Crucifie the world to you It s thither therefore that you must repair for help An Infidel may fetch such weapons from reason and experience as shall wound the world and diminish his esteem of it and make it less delightful to him But it is only the Cross of Christ that can furnish us with those weapons that must pierce it to the very heart Or if the Unbeliever were deprived of all earthly delight and brought into despair of ever receiving more comfort from the world as it is with many of them in some extremity and with all at death yet he himself is not Crucified to the world Though his delight in it be gone yet his love to it is not gone Though he be out of Hope of ever having content in it yet his desires after it are the same If he call it vanity and vexation as the Believer doth it is because it denyeth him his desires Not because he takes it heartily for an Enemy but for an unkind Lover that dealeth hardly with him that hath given it his heart If he look upon it as Dead and unable to help him yet doth he behold it as the carkaise of a friend with grief and lamentation It is his greatest trouble that the world cannot give him that which he would have And therefore he
of sensual things and so must be drowned in unprofitable cares What he shall eat or drink and wherewith he shall be cloathed What matter is it to a wise man Whether his meat be sweet or bitter or whether his drink be strong or small or whether his cloaths be fine or homely or whether he be honoured or derided or past by save only as these things may have relation to greater things and as the body must be kept in a serviceable plight and we must value that capacity most in which we may best do our Masters work Keep under the flesh and you will easily overcome the world Otherwise you strive against the the stream While you have unmortified raging appetites and corrupted fancies and sensual minds you are byassed to the world and if the rub of a Sermon or sickness may turn you out of your way awhile the byass will prevail and you will quickly be on it again If you dam up the stream of these unmortified affections they will rage the more and if you stop them for a while by good company or some restraint yet will they shortly break over all and be more violent then before All your striving by waies of meer restraint are to little purpose till the flesh it self be subdued It is but as if you should strive with a greedy dog for his bone and with an hungry Lyon to bereave him of his prey be sure they will not easily part with it It s the case of many deluded people that have some knowledge of Scripture enough to convince them and tip their tongues and strive to restrain them from their sensual waies but not enough to mortifie the flesh and change their souls O what a combate is there in their lives The flesh will have its prey and pleased it must be Their conscience tells them It will cost thee dear Their flesh like an hungry dog is ready to seize upon that which it desires And conscience doth as it were stand over it with a staff and saith Meddle with it if thou dare And sometime the poor sinner is restrained and sometime again he ventureth upon the prey and he that had condemned himself for his sin doth turn to his former vomit and once more he must have his whore or his cups and then conscience takes him by the throat and terrifieth him and makes him forbear a little while again And thus the poor sinner is tost up and down and Satan leads him captive at his will And because he findeth a combate within him he thinks it is the combate between the flesh and the sanctifying Spirit when alas it s no more but the combate between the flesh and an inlightened conscience assisted with the motions of common grace which because they resist and trample underfoot their condemnation will be the greater Would you then have the boiling of your corruptions abated Put out the fire that causeth them to boil or else you trouble your selves in vain Mortifie the flesh once and get it under and scorn to be a slave to a sensual appetite but let it be all one to you to displease it as to please it and leave such trifles as pleasant meats and drinks and dwellings and fine cloathes to children and fools that have no greater things to mind and use the flesh as a servant to the soul supplying it with necessaries but correcting it if it do but crave superfluities Do this and you will easily Crucifie the world For the world is only for the flesh For saith Iohn 1 Iohn 2. 16. All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and pride of life which are not of the Father but of the world And the world passeth away and the lust thereof but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever Remember that he that saith in my text that he is Crucified to the world doth say also Gal. 5. 24. that They that are Christs have Crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts This is to kill the world at the Root for it is Rooted in the fleshly Interest When otherwise you will but lop off the branches and they will quickly grow again Direct 4. BE sure to keep your minds intent upon the Greater matters of Everlasting life and all your Affections imployed thereupon Diversion must be your cure Especially to so powerful and transcendent an object Be once acquainted with Heaven by a life of faith and it will so powerfully draw you to it self that you will be ready to forget earth and take it as a kind of Nothing Get up to God and fix the eye of your soul on him and his glory will darken all the world and rescue you from the mis-leadings of that false fire that did delude you Come near him daily and taste how good he is and the sweetness of his love will make you marvail at them that think the world so sweet and marvail at your selves that you were ever of such a mind You cannot think that the world will be cast out of your Love but by the appearance of somewhat better then it self You must go to Heaven therefore for a Writ of ejectment You must fetch a beauty a pleasure from above that shall abase it and silence it and shame its competition O what is earth and all things in it to him that hath had a believing lively thought of Heaven Nothing below this will serve the turn You may think long enough of the troubles of the world and long enough confess its vanity before you can Crucifie it if you see not where you may have something that is better The poorest life will seem better then none and a little in hand will be preferred before uncertain hopes Till faith have opened Heaven to you as being the Evidence of the things invisible and have shewed you that they are not shadows but substances which the promise revealeth and Believers do expect you will be still holding fast that little that you have and you will say in your hearts as some do with their tongues I know what I have in this world but I know not what I shall have in another But the knowledge of God will soon make you of another mind Let in God into the soul and he will fill it with himself and leave no room for earth and flesh Learn what it is to walk with him and to have a conversation in heaven and it will cure you of your earthly mindedness Phil. 3. 18 19. There is no consistence between Earth and Heaven All men are either Earthly or Heavenly minded None therefore but the truly Heavenly Believer hath Crucified the world But because I have said more of this elsewhere I now forbear Direct 5. VNderstand well the right use and end of all creatures and make it your business accordingly to improve them I have told you before that they are all for God and glasses wherein we may see his face and
adversity This is a great reason why worldly Prosperity and true Holiness do so seldom go together and so few of the great ones of the world are saved O how hard is it to have the world at will and not to be ensnared by it and over-love it How hard is it heartily and practically to contemn a prosperous condition How hard to have serious lively thoughts of the great things of eternity and serious preparations for death and judgement when we have health and wealth and all the accommodations which our flesh doth desire Satan knows this well enough and therefore he is willing that his servants shall have prosperity He knows that it is not the way to get him servants to beat them and use them hardly but to please them by flatteries and fulfill their lusts that they may be enticed to imagin his service to be the best It s the custom of harlots to set out themselves to the best and to adorn themselves for the tempting of their lovers and not to go in an homely dress which no one will be taken with No wonder then if Satan the Pandor of the world do adorn it with the best cloathes and present it to you in the most enticing garb he can If the lips of this harlot did not drop as an honey-comb and her mouth were not smoother then â—yl she could not lead such multitudes to her end which is bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword her feet go down to death her steps take hold of hell lest men should ponder the path of life Prov. 5. 3 4 5 6. And it is no wonder that God to save his people from this delusion doth dress the world to them in a courser attire and when he seeth them in danger to be enamoured on it as well as others if he present it to them in the rags of poverty and in the scabs of its corruption confusion and deformity that they may see the difference between it and their home It s strange to see how highly prosperity is regarded by the most how earnestly they desire it pray for it or contrive it and how much they are troubled when they fall into adversity when yet they know or say they know that the love of the world is the bane of the soul and that it killeth men by deceiving them Can you keep your affections as loose from the world when you have houses and lands and all things at your will as you could if it were otherwise Remember I beseech you that the poyson of the world is covered by its sweetness and that it killeth none but those that love it Be suspitious therefore that there is danger where you find delight If your estate be such as is pleasing to your flesh believe it is not likely to be safe to your souls If therefore your health your wealth your honours be such as your flesh would have them if your houses your accomodations your friends be suited to your carnal desires believe it your souls are in no small hazzard and therefore look about you as you love your salvation and fear the snare The great enemy of your souls hath not baited his hook with so curious and costly a bait for nothing The cautelous fish that is afraid to swallow yea or to taste or to come neer till he knows what is under it doth save his life when that which boldly ventures and fearlessly devoureth the bait is destroyed It s not for nothing that Solomon chargeth the man that is given to his appetite to put his knife to his throat at a feast and not to be desirous of the dâ—inties which are deceitfull Prov. 23. 1 2 3. A prudent man foreseeth the evil even when it is covered with the pleasantest bait and so he hideth himself and escapeth when the simple passeth on and is punished Prov. 22. 3. It is part of the description of the sensual a postates in Iude 12. that in their feasts they fed themselves without fear And it is as dangerous a thing to cloath your selves without fear to seek after wealth and honours without fear to possess your houses and lands without fear to see any thing that 's carnally pleasing to you or hear your own prayses without fear when other men must needs have things to their will do you study your duty and let the will of God be your will and if he give you a plentiful estate without seeking it or give you reputation and the praise of men without your affecting it receive them not without fear Think with your selves What a snare is here now for my soul Though it be good in it self and as it comes from God yet what an advantage hath the Deceiver here against me How easily may such a carnal heart as mine be enticed to the inordinate love of these and to be more remiss about higher and greater things and to be forgetful or insensible about the matters of my endless state How many men of worldly wisdom yea how many that seemed Religious have been thus deceived and perished before me Yea this is the common road to hell And is it not time for me then to look about me The old Christians were so jealous of the world and afraid of being mortally poysoned by its delights that they sold what they had and gave to the poor and voluntarily thrust themselves into poverty as thinking it better to go poor to heaven then to say in Hell that once they had riches I commend not any extream to you for indeed I have ever thought that its greater self-denyal to devote and use our riches for God then at once to cast them away or shut our hands of them and that he is a better steward that improveth his Masters slock then he that rids his hands of it out of an injurious fear of his Masters austerity But yet I must say that the other extream is more common and more dangerous And they that out of excess of fear betook themselves to poverty and to wildernesses were in a far better case then many that seem now to be zealous professors and yet are looking after the pleasures and riches and glory of the world I have many a time wondered at some eminent professors that are as constant and seraphicall in the outside of duty even to admiration as almost any I know and yet as closely and busily grasping at the world and labouring to be rich as if they were the wretchedst worldlings on earth I have oft wondered how they can quiet their consciences and how they make shift so constantly to delude such knowing souls The Countrey sees them drowned in earth and the generality of their godly friends lament them as meer hypocriticall earth-worms and yet because they can carry it on smoothly and not be noted for any palpable oppression or deceit they wipe their lips they bless themselves and with gracious words would cloak their covetousness as if men did but uncharitably
censure them because they cannot prove them to be such Deceivers When yet the very bent and course of their lives proclaimeth them worldlings to almost all men but themselves who by the just but heavy judgement of God are given over to that blindness as not to see that damnable sin in themselves that the enemies of Religion see with scorn and their most impartial friends do see with lamentation but seeing it are not able to remedy for worldliness is the commonest badge of an Hypocrite and where there is a false heart at the bottom and but an hypocriticall faith and an hypocriticall love to God and the life to come there will be no effectual resistance of the world but all exhortations do come upon so great disadvantage with such souls that usually they are lost and leave them as they find them If any covetous scraping earth-worm whether he be Gentleman Tradesman or Husbandman do feel his conscience at the reading of this begin to stir I beseech him if there be any hope of such hypocrites to hearken to it in time and regard a little more the warnings of his friends and not to be so stiffly confident of his innocency nor yet to think himself free from hainous gross and scandalous sin as long as he is a covetous worldling If covetousness be idolatry and the sin of those with whom we may not so much as eat and if the covetous shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven and be such as the Holy Ghost doth joyn with thieves and the vilest sinners who then but an Infidel can think that it is not a scandalous sin and such as will be the damnation of all that be not throughly cured of it See Eph. 5. 5 6 7. 1 Cor. 5. 10 11. Psal. 10. 3. 2 Tim. 3. 2. 2 Pet. 2. 14. Luke 16. 14. Mark 7. 22. 2 Tim. 3. 2. Ier. 8. 10. 6. 13. David prayeth God to encline his heart to his testimonies and not to covetousness Psal. 119. 36. and now men think they may be enclined to both and that they have found out the terms of reconciling heaven with earth and hell I marvail these men will not see their own faces when the Prophets and Christ himself do hold them so clear a glass Ezek. 33. 31. They come unto thee as the people cometh and they sit before thee as my people and they hear thy words but they will not do them for with their mouth they shew much love but their heart goeth after their covetousness Mat. 13. 22. He that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choak the word and he becometh unfruitful I know the men that I am now speaking of have many excellent gifts and in other respects do seem the forwardest for godliness in the Countrey but the more is the pitty that men of such parts should be rotten-hearted hypocrites and damned for worldliness after so much pains in duties For an heathen may as soon be saved as a worldling When they have prayed and preached and cryed down prophanness let them hear what the Lord saith to them Luke 18. 22 23 24. and there see again their faces in that glass Yet lackest thou one thing even such an one as none can be saved without even a Love to God and Heaven above earth sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come follow me And when he heard this he was very sorrowful for he was very rich And when Iesus saw that he was sorrowful he said How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God Set not then so high a value on a full estate Let your conversation be without covetousness and be contint with such things as ye have and trust your selves on the security of his promise who hath said I will never fail thee nor forsake thee Heb. 13. 5. It is not for nothing that Christ himself hath given you so many and so terrible warnings to take heed of this sin As Luke 12. 15. Take heed and beware of covetousness for a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth As if he should say While you think you are securing your well-being you do not secure your Being it self When you have done all to provide for the delights of your life you are never the surer of life it self Read the following passages in the Text and let them warn you or condemn you If such admonitions as these will not take from the mouth of him whom you call your Lord and from whom you profess to expect your Judgement What have we then further to say to you or how should our warnings expect entertainment with you Yet I shall do that which is my duty and leave the success to God I do therefore again in the name of God advise and warn you to Take heed of having too pleasant thoughts on a prosperous state Long not after fulness and plenty in the world Be not too eager for accomodations to your flesh A Coffin of two yards long will shortly hold it and be room enough for it And will nothing but well built houses adorned rooms the neatest cloathing and plentiful possessions serve you now How sad a mark is this of a soul that never had a saving taste of the everlasting riches Away foolish children and stand not building houses with sticks and sand Home with you to God and remember where you must dwell for ever When you have feathered your nests and made them as you would have them you must leave them before you are well settled and warm in them And if it comfort you to think that you leave them to your children remember that you leave them the fruit of your sins and bequeath to them the snares that undid your souls that so they may become the heirs of your wickedness and be deceived and destroyed by the world as you have been This is your great care for them and this is your kindness to them I have told you once already from God that this your way is your folly though your posterity be like to approve your sayings because you do so much to make them of your mind Psalm 49. 13. For though your inward thoughts be that your houses shall continue and you hope to leave a name behind you yet man being in honour abideth not but is like the beasts that perish When he dyeth he shall carry nothing away his glory shall not descend after him though whiles he lived he blessed his soul and men praise them that thus do well to themselves yet shall they go to the generation of their fathers and shall never see Light Man that is in honour and understandeth not is like the beasts that perish Vers. 11 12 17 18 19 20. Though the ungodly prosper in the world and encrease in riches yet he
that goeth believingly into the Sanctuary may see their end Surely they are set in slippery places and cast down into destruction How are they brought to desolation as in a moment and consumed with terrours Psalm 73. 12 17 18 19. And in that very day do all his thoughts perish Psalm 146. 4. Then shall they eat the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices for the turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them Prov. 31. 32. See then that you be not eager for prosperity and if God cast it on you use it with fear And if ever you feel the creature begin to grow too sweet and delightful to you then spit it out as the poyson of the soul and presently take a mortifying antidote before you are past remedy As you feel the working of poyson by its burning or griping or other effects agreeable to its nature by which it seeketh the extingushing of life so you may feel when the world is poyson to your souls by its creeping into your affections and insinuating into your hearts with present delight or future hopes by seeming more Lovely and more Necessary then it is As soon as ever you feel it thus creep into your hearâ—s its time to rise up against it with holy fear and to cast it out if you love your souls And that which I would advise you to at present when the world hath got too deep into your hearts before you are aware is this Do something extraordinary in such a necessity for its crucifixion and your recovery Though a careful diet may serve to preserve health while you have it yet if you have lost it and sickness be upon you you must have recourse to Physick for your cure If honour or preferment or house or land or friends or gain or recreations begin to seem too sweet and dear to you and your hearts begin to hug them with delight or make out after them with keen desires you must now have recourse to extraordinary helps and in particular try these following 1. Withdraw your selves to some more frequent and serious meditation of the brevity and vanity of the world then you have been used to steep your thoughts longer in mortifying considerations till the bent of your hearts begin to change 2. Be ofter with God in secret and publick prayer and give up a larger portion of your time to holy things then ordinarily you have done that acquaintance with heaven may wean your mind from earth and the Love of God may drown your worldly Love When you have taken any extraordinary cold you will get nearer the fire then ordinary and be longer at it and drive it out by heating things And when the world hath insinuated into your affections and chilled and cooled them to God and heaven its time to draw nearer God then before and to be longer with him and to strive harder in every duty then you did till spiritual life do work more vigorously and expell that earthly distemper which had possessed you 3. And at such a season let prayer be furthered by fasting and extraordinary humiliation which may help down the flesh which causeth you so much to over-value the world Even an Aâ—ab found some ease by a common humiliation when he had taken a mortal surfeit of Naboths Vineyard and his Blood Much more may a true Christian find much help by special humiliation when he hath surfeited on any creature whatsoever 4. And I think it would be a very good course at such a time as that to be at some more cost for God then you were before When you feel your love to the world increase Give somewhat extraordinary then to the poor or to pious uses according to your ability Yea what if it were so far as might a little pinch your selves This were a real opposition to the world and you might turn a very temptation to a gain and get much good by occasion of a sin It might do much to dis-hearten and repell the tempter when he seeth that you over-shoot him in his own bow and make such use as this of his temptations as to do the more good and use your wealth the more for God and deny your selves more then you did before If you would but faithfully practise these few directions you would find it the surest way of recovery when you begin to be infected with this earthly disease Direct 10. THE last Direction that I shall give you for the Crucifying of the world is this Be sure to keep off the means of its livelihood and keep it still under the mortifying means Lay siege to it and stop up all the passages by which the worlds provision would come in and keep it still under the strokes of enmity and the influence of that which is contrary to it Some particulars I will but briefly mention 1. Keep a constant guard upon your senses for this way the world creeps in to your hearts It is by gazing on alluring objects or hearing or tasting or the like that the flames of concupiscence are kindled in the heart By gazing upon beauty or comliness of perâ—â—n the heart of the wanton is infected with lust and so incited to the damnable practises of uncleanness The sight of the cup doth set an edge on the desires of the drunkard and the sight of enticing meats doth awaken and enrage the appetite of the gluttonous and by the presence of the bait their disease is set awork as worms in the body are by some kind of food Clemens Alexandr saith of these men that their disease is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is A madness about the throat And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is A madness in the belly And saith of them that are given to fulness or fineness of diet for the pleasing of their bellies that they are ruled by a Belly-Devil which saith he is the worst and most pernicious of all Devils Lay siege then to this belly-Devil and starve him out It is by the sight of gawdy fashions and curious apparel that the minds of vain effeminate persons are provoked to desire the like And the sight of pomp and honours doth kindle the fire of ambition and the sight of buildings and money and lands doth help to provoke the desires of the Covetous See therefore that you alwaies keep a watch upon your eyes Let them not run up and down like a master-less dog nor roul as the eyes of the lascivious that are hunting after the prey of lust If you have cause to pray as David Psal. 119. 37. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity You must practise according to your prayers and endeavour your selves to turn them away Have not the best of us as much reason as Iob to make a Covenant with our eyes Iob 31. 1. What wonder if the Garrison surrender not where the besieged have free passage and continual supplies And what
be in Heaven from whence it is that he expecteth his Saviour to change his vile earthly body and make it like to his glorious body Phil. 3. 17 18 19 20 21. If indeed you have laid up your treasure in heaven where rust and moath corrupt not and where thieves do not break through and steal let it appear then by the effects For where your treasure is there will your heart be and where your heart is that way the Labours of your lives will tend I shall reduce my Exhortation to some particulars 1. IF you are Crucified to the world be sure that you seek it not nor any thing in it for its own sake but only as a means to higher things The sincerity of your hearts doth lie much in this and the life of your souls depends much upon it Labour in your lawful callings and spare not so you exclude not your spiritual work It is not your Labour that we find fault with But if the creature be the end of any Labour you may better â—it still and spare your pains or rather speedily change your intentions If you overtake the hastyest traveller in his journey and ask him why he takes all that pains he will not say it is For Love of the way that he travaileth in but for Love of the place to which he is going or the persons or things which â—e there expects So must it be with you if you are the heirs of heaven I blame you not to be glad of a fair way and to love it rather then a foul one but it is not for the love of the way that you must travail He that runs in a race doth not bestow all that pains for the Love of the path which he runs in but for Love of the Prize which he expecteth at the end And he that plougheth and soweth doth it more for Love of the crop which he hopeth for then for Love of his labour He that saileth through the dangerous Seas performeth not his voyage for Love of the Sea or of his Ship but for Love of the Merchandize and Gain which he seeketh The Carryer that goeth weekly to London with your wares doth not take all that pains for Love of the carriage or of the way but of the gain which he deserveth So must it be with you in all your worldly business When you seek for credit or pleasure or maintenance in the world it must not be finally for the Love of these but for the End which they are given for and which your hearts and lives and all must be devoted to Your hearts will as soon deceive you in this as in any thing if you do not watch them with jealousie and diligence How quickly will the heart begin to Love the creature for it self that seemed once to Love it but for God Look in what measure you love your wealth your houses your recreations your friends for themselves and because they accommodate the flesh so far you wrong God and abuse them to â—dolatry And if your Love do begin in greater purity if you be not watchful it will quickly degenerate to a carnal Love Many a Scholar that at first desired Learning to fit him for the service of God and his Church doth by suffering carnality to insinuate and prevail lose much of the purity of his first affections and in time grow more cold and regardless of his first ends and loveth common Learning meerly for it self and for the delight of knowing or which is worse to get him a name among men It s common with men that need recreation for their health when they set upon it as they think but to fit them for their duty to fall in love with it afterwards to the perverting of their hearts the wounding of their consciences the wasting of their time and the neglect of that work of God for which it should be used We should take our meat and drink and cloathes but to strengthen and â—it us for the service of our Master but how quickly do we turn them to the gratifying of our flesh and so the service of another Master It s too frequent for young persons of different sexes to Love each other at first as Christians only with a chast and necessary Love but when they have been tempted awhile to an imprudent familiarity their Love doth degenerate and that which was Spiritual becometh Carnal and the Serpent deceiveth them to the corrupting of their minds and it s well if it proceed not to actuall wickedness and the undoing of each other Many a poor man thinks with himself If I were but out of debt or could but live so as to serve the Lord without distractions and had such and such necessities supplyed I would not desire any more or care any further for the world But if their desires be granted them they find themselves entangled and their hearts deceived and they thirst more after fulness then before they did after necessaries And many a one thinks I care not for riches or honours but only to do good with and if I had them I would so use them But when they have their desires the case is altered the flesh then hath need of it and can spare for God as little as other men because it loves it better then before and pretendeth to have more use for it then formerly it had Watch therefore over your deceitful hearts and be sure to keep up the Love of God and actually intend him in all that you have or do and be not withdrawn to carnal affections 2. IF you are Crucified to the world be not too eager for it As God hath promised it you but as an appendix to your felicity and as an overplus to the great blessings of the Covenant so must you desire it but as such And as God hath promised it you but with certain limitations so far as he shall see it good for you and agreeable to his greater ends so you must desire it but with such limitations I observe many to have so much reason as to put up their prayers for outward blessings with those limitations and will not for shame express themselves in absolute peremptory language when yet there is apparent cause to fear that they limit not their desires as they do their words nor do they submit so freely to the disposal of God in their hearts as they seem to do in their expressions and so they make their words to be modest while their desires are inordinate their language to be chast while their hearts are committing adultery with the world their expressions are pious while their affections are idolatrous And so their prayers are made monstrous while the soul of them is so disagreable to the body Be ashamed and afraid to desire that which you are ashamed and afraid to ask You dare not say to God in your prayers Lord I must needs have a fuller estate I would fain be rich and be somebody in the
then satisfie one Whence also comes the Theevery the Lying for the sake of Commodity the over-witting and over-reaching of each other but from this sin Whence is it that most Ale sellers and Vintners will make a trade of poysoning souls and will nourish that odious vice which is the ruine of mens bodies the impoverishing of their families the dishonour of God and the shame and danger of the towns and Common-wealths in which they are committed but only for the love of a sordid gain And were it not more for fear of men then God the most of them by far would make the Lords day their chief Market-day for they care not to rob even God himself for this unprofitable gain And it s well if Butchers and many other Tradesmen would not do the like if the Laws of the Land and the severity of Magistrates did not restrain them This is the Love they have to God and eternal Glory Thus you may see whether they are dead to the world or rather to Christ Gehezi thought himself wiser then his Master when he went after Naaman for his prize And Achan thought himself wiser then all Israel when he hid the gold And Saul thought it wisdom to spare Agag and the best things from destruction But the Leprosie taught one and the stones taught another and Gods rejection taught the third to know that by experience which they would not learn by the warnings of the Lord. The like may be said of contentious Law-suits the common effects of Covetousness and Revenge and so of all other unlawfull gain If indeed you are dead to the world do not so much as tell a lie to get all the riches of the world Remember also the commands of God Lev. 19. 13. Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour neither rob him the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night And 1 Thes. 4. 6. That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter because that the Lord is the avenger of all such as we also have forewarned you and testified And 1 Cor. 6. 7 8 9. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you because ye go to Law one with another Why do ye not rather take wrong Why do ye not rather suffer your selves to be defrauded Nay you do wrong and defraud and that your Brethren Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God These lessons would be better learnt if covetousness did not stop mens ears But it s a befooling stupifying vice It makes men lose themselves for gain For as Austin saith Avarus antequam lucretur seipsam perdit antequam aliquid capiat capitur And all this is for the pleasing of their fancy that they may have more then they need For Avarus est caecus credendo enim dives est non videndo Amas pecuniam O caece quam nunquam videbis caecus possides caecus morituruses c. Idem And when they pretend Necessity it is but the voice of Covetousness For saith the same Austin Non est in carendo difficultas nisi cum fuerit in possidendo cupiditas Et alibi Pauperiorem se judicat abundans quia sibi deâ—sse arbitratur quicquid ab aliis possidetur toto mundo eget cujus non capit mundus cupiditatem 6. IF you are Crucified to the world let us see it by your improving all for God and not employing it to the pleasing of your flesh Use all that you have as men that must be accountable for them Remember that you receive them from your Master for his use Resolve therefore so to expend and employ them as may most further his service Look about you and see what good is to be done and then consider how far you are furnished and enabled to do it and accordingly lay out the talents which you are entrusted with Seek after such work and do not stay till it be brought to your hand If you love Christ indeed me thinks you should not stay for an invitation to do him service nor should you need that men come a begging to you to awaken your charity when you know before that it is a charitable and necessary work that is before you Two sorts of persons I would especially direct this advice to First to the rich and powerful in the world Secondly To all that are professors of Religion For the first sort let them consider that their Riches are snares to them and will prove a certain means of their damnation if they devote them not to God Tythes and Oblations and First-fruits were devoted to God under the Law but all is expresly devoted to him under the Gospel Which was expressed by the Primitive Christians selling all and laying down at the Apostles feet For as Life and Immortality is brought to light more abundantly in the Gospel So also is the means of obtaining it and the duty which we owe to him that giveth it And as Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ and the greatest mercies are revealed by the Gospel So the greatest holiness comes by Christ and the greatest obligations are laid on us in the Gospel Especially to self-denyal and an hearty Devoting our selves and all we have to God I beseech you observe the distinction which Christ useth Luke 12. 21. between Laying up Riches to your selves and being Rich to God and how dreadful the Application is If almost all your Riches be expended on your selves and yours or laid upin store as for provision for your flesh its plain then that you Lay up riches for your selves and so are concluded by the sentence of Christ among the miserable fools that are there described But if you are Rich to God you will study to improve your Riches for God and often bethink your selves which way they may be employed to his greatest service He that cannot spare his wealth for the service of his Redeemer and the good of his Brother and the furthering of his own salvation is very far from being Crucified to the world 2. And it is not only the great ones that have need of this advice but all in their places that are entrusted with Gods Mercies Think not your selves excused from works of Charity because you have but one talent for one talent must be proportionably improved as well as ten or else you will be condemned as unprofitable servants People of the lower rank do commonly think that God requireth nothing of them but to receive what others give them and to labour for themselves And when they have reviled sufficiently at Rich men for worldliness they often shew themselves as worldly by denying their mites and by unmercifulness to those that are poorer then themselves as the Richer do by denying their larger proportions The scarcity and defectiveness of charitable works with all sorts of men from the highest to the lowest even those that seem more forward in verbal devotions do shew us too evidently how common
Tempter is hereby disarmed and he is disabled from doing that against you which with others he can do The Living world is the Life of Temptations As a Bear for all his strength and fierceness may be led up and down by the nose when by a ring the cord is fastened to his flesh So the Tempter leadeth men captive at his will by fastening together the world and their flesh He finds it no hard matter to entice a sensuall worldly mind to almost any thing that is evil Bid him lye or steal and if it be not for shame or fear of men he will do it Bid him neglect God and his worship and he will do it Bid him hate those that hinder his commodity or speak evil of them that cross his desires or seek revenge of those that he thinks do wrong him herein and how quickly will he do it The Devil may do almost what he list with those that are not Crucified to the world They will follow him up and down the world from sin to sin if he have but a golden bait to tice them But when the world is Crucified to you what hath he to entice you with The cord is broken by which he was wont to bind and lead you Can you tice a wise man by pins and counters as you may do a child If he would draw you from God he hath nothing to do it with for the world by which he should do it is now dead If he would tice you to pride or ambition or covetousness or to sinful means for worldly ends he hath nothing to do it with because the world is dead The Devil hath nothing but a little money or sensual pleasure or honours to hire you with to betray and cast away your souls And what cares a mortified man for these Will he part with Christ and heaven for money who looks on money as other men do on chips or stones It is the frame of mens hearts that is the strength of a temptation To a man that is in love with money O what a strong temptation is it to see an opportunity of getting it by sin But what will this move him that looketh on it as on the dirt in the streets To a proud man that is tender of his reputation in the world what a troublesom temptation is it to be reproached or slighted or slandered and what a dangerous temptation is it to him to be applauded But what are these to him that takes the approbation and applauses of the world but as a blast of wind As Christ saith of himself Iohn 14. 30. The Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me that is He cometh to make his last and strongest assault but he shall find no carnall sinfull matter in me to work upon and he cometh by his instruments to perscute me to the death but he shall find no guilt in me which might make it a glory to him or a dishonour to me So in their measure the mortified members of Christ may say When Satan cometh by temptations the world is dead by which he would tempt them and he shall find little of that earthly matter in them to work upon and to entertain his seed and therefore when he afterward cometh by persecution he will find the less of that guilt which would be the oyl to enlarge and seed these flames Your innocency and safety lyeth much in this Mortification Benefit 4. ANother Benefit that followeth our Crucifixion of the world is this It will prevent abundance of needless unprofitable cost and labour that other men are at You will not be drawn to run and toyl for a thing of nought When other men are riding and going and caring and labouring for a little smoak or a flying shadow you will sit as it were over them and discern and pitty and lament their folly To see one man rejoyce that hath got his prize and another lament because he cannot get it and a third in the eager pursuit of it as if it were for their lives While they live as if they had forgotten the eternal Life which is at hand will cause you to lift up your soul to his praises that hath saved you from this dotage The world worketh on the sensual part first and thereby corrupteth and as it were brutifieth our very reason and the whole course of worldly designs and affairs even from the glorious actions of Kings and Commanders to the daily business of the plow-man and the beggar are all but the actions of frantick men or mad men I say so far as the affairs of the world are managed by this sensuall unmortified principle a sanctified Believer can look upon them all as on the runnings or tumults of children or ideots or on a game at Chests where wit is laid out to little purpose Mortification will help you to turn your thoughts and cares and labours into a more profitable course So that when the end comes you will have somewhat to shew that you have gained when others must complain that they have lost all their labour and worse then lost it What abundance of precious time do other men lose in dreaming pursuits of an empty deceiving transitory world When God hath taken off the poise from you of such unprofitable motion and taught you better to employ your time Many an hundred hours which others cast away upon worldly thoughts or discourse or practises are redeemed by the wise for their everlasting benefit Benefit 5. MOreover this Mortification Will help you to prevent a great deal of sharp Repentance which must tell unmortified worldlings of their folly When they have run themselves out of breath and abused Christ and neglected grace and either lost or hazarded their souls they must sit down in the end and befool themselves for losing their time and lives for nothing When God hath given a man but a short life and laid his everlasting life upon it and put such works into his hand as call for his utmost wisdom and diligence What a sad perplexing thought must it be to consider that all or most of this time hath been cast away upon worldly vanities If a man shall run away from his own Father and serve a Master that at last will turn him off with nothing but shame and blows will he not wish that he had never seen his face Such a Master all worldlings and sensualists do serve And he that got most by the world among them shall wish at last that he had never served it When the mortified Christian that slighted the world and laid out his care and labour for a better may so far escape the bitterness of such Repentings and be glad that he hath chosen the better part That is not the best meat that is sweetest in the eating when afterward it must be vomited up with pain because it cannot be digested The sparer dyet of Mortified men will prevent such after pains and troubles Benefit 6.
of heaven in it The stones and earth are useful for you to tread upon though they are unfit for you to feed on or too hard to rest upon So though the world be unfit to Rest or feed your souls it may be made a convenient way for you to travail in It is unmeet to be Loved but it is meet to be Used when you have learned so to use it as not abusing it When self is throughly down and denyed and God is exalted and your souls brought over so clearly to him that you are nothing but in him and would have nothing but in and with him and do nothing but for him then you shall be able to see that glory and amiableness in the creature that now you cannot see I or you shall see the Creator himself in the creature Benefit 10. WHEN once you are truly Crucified to the world You will have the honour and the comfort of an heavenly life Your thoughts will be daily steeped in the Coelestial delights when other mens are steept in Gall and Vinegar You will be above with God when your carnal neighbours converse only with the world Your thoughts will be higher then their thoughts and your waies then their waies as the heaven where you converse is higher then the earth When you take flight from earth in holy Devotions they may look at you and wonder at you but cannot follow you for whither you go they cannot come till they are such as you You leave them groveling here on earth and feeding on the dust and striving like children or rather like swine or dogs about their meat When you are above in the Spirit on the speedy wings of Faith and Love beholding that face that perfecteth all that perfectly behold it and tasting that Joy which fully reconcileth all that fully do enjoy it which we must here contend for but none do there contend about it What a noble employment have you in comparison of the highest servants of the world How sweet are your delights in comparison of the Epicures O happy souls that can see so much of your eternal happiness and reach so near it Were I but more in your condition I would not envy Princes their glory nor any sensualists and worldlings their contents nor desire to be their partner I could spare them their troublesom dignities and their burdensom Riches and the unwholsom pleasures which they so often surfet on and the wind of popular applause which so swelleth them Yea what could I not spare them if I might be more with you O happy poverty sickness or imprisonment or whatever is called misery by the world if it be nearer Heaven then a sensual life and if it will but advantage my soul for those contemplations which are the imployment of mortified heavenly men Yea if it do but remove the impediments of so sweet a life I know by some little too little experience I know that one hours time of that blessed life will easily pay for all the cost and one believing view of God will easily blast the beauty of the world and shame all those thoughts as the issues of my dotage that ever gave it a lovely name or turned mine eye upon it with desire or caused me once with complacency to behold it or ever brought it near my heart O Sirs what a noble life may you live and how much more excellent work might you be employed in if the world were but dead to you and the stream of your souls were turned upon God Had you but one draught of the Heavenly consolations you would thirst no more for the pleasures of the world Yea did you but taste of it as Ionathan of the honey from the end of his rod 1 Sam. 14. 27. your eyes would be enlightened and your hearts revived and your hands would be so strengthened in your spiritual warfare that your enemies would quickly perceive it in your more resolute prevailing opposition of their assaults And experience will tell you that you will no further reach this heavenly life then you are Crucified to earth and flesh God useth to shew himself to the Coelestial inhabitants and not to the Terrestrial And therefore you will see no more of God then you get above and converse in Heaven And if faith had not this elevating power and could not see further then sense can do we might talk long enough of God before we had any saving knowledge of him or relish of his Goodness And doubtless if we must get by faith into Heaven if we will have the reviving sight of God then we must needs away from earth For our hearts cannot at once converse in both Believe it Sirs God useth to give his heavenly Cordials upon an empty stomack and not to drown them in the mud and dirt of sensuality When you are emptyest of creature-delights and love you are most capable of God And fasting from the world doth best prepare you for this heavenly Feast Let Abstinence and Temperance be imposed upon your senses but command a totall Fast to your Affections And try then whether your souls be not fitter to ascend and whether God will not reveal himself more clearly then before It may seem a paradox that the vallies should be nearer Heaven then the Hills But doubtless Stephen saw more of it then the high Priests And Lazarus had a fairer prospect thither from among the dogs at the Rich mans gate then the Master of the house had at his plentiful table And who would not rather have Lazarus's sores with a fore-sight of Heaven then the Rich mans fulness without it yea with the fears of after misery A Heavenly life is proper to the mortified Benefit 11. MOreover those that are Crucified to the world are most fruitfull unto others and blessings to all within their reach They can part with any thing to do good with They are rich to God and their Brethren if they be rich and not to themselves If a mortified man have hundreds or thousands by the year he hath no more of it for himself then if he had a meaner estate He takes but necessary food and rayment he shunneth intemperance and excess Nay he often pincheth his body if needfull that he may tame it and bring it into subjection to the Spirit and the rest he layes out for the service of God so far as he is acquainted with his will Yea his necessary food and rayment which he receiveth himself is ultimately not for himself but for God Even that he may be sustained by his daily bread for his daily duty and fitted to please his Master that maintaineth him If they have much they give plenteously If they have but little they are faithfull in that little And if they have not silver and gold they will give such as they have where God requireth it But the unmortified worldling is like some spreading trees that by drawing all the nutriment to themselves and by dropping on the rest
will let no other prosper under them They draw as much as they can to themselves For themselves is their care and daily labour Psal. 49. 18. They all mind their own things but not the things of Christ or their Brethren Getting and Having and Keeping is their business and as swine are seldom profitable till they die Benefit 12. THE last Benefit that I shall mention is this If you are now Dead to the world and the world to you your natural Death will be the less grievous to you when it comes It will be little oâ— no trouble to you to leave your houses or lands or goods to leave your eating and drinking and recreations to leave your employments and company in the world for you were dead to all that is worldly before Surely so far as the Heart is upon God and taken off these transitory things it can be no grief to us to leave them and go to God It is only the remnants of the unmortified flesh together with the natural evil of death that maketh death to seem grievous to Believers but so far as they are Believers and dead to the world the case is otherwise Death is not neer so dreadful to them as it is to others except as the quality of some disease or some extraordinary dissertion may change the case Or as some desparate wicked ones may be insensible of their misery How bitter is the sight of approaching death to them that laid up their treasure on earth and placed their happiness in the prosperity of their flesh To such a fool as Christ describeth Luke 12. that saith to himself Soul take thy ease eat drink and be merry thou hast enough laid up for many years How sad must the tidings of death needs be to him that set his heart on earth and spent his daies in providing for the flesh and never laid up a treasure in heaven nor made him friends with the Mammon of unrighteousness nor gave not diligence in the time of his life to make his Calling and Election sure To a worldly man that sets not his heart and hopes above the face of death is unspeakably dreadful But if we could kill the world before us and be dead to it now and alive to God and with Paul die daily it would be a powerful means to abate the terrours and a certain way to take out the sting that death might be a sanctified passage into life So much of the Benefits of Mortification AND now what remains but that you that are Mortified Believers receive your Consolation and consider what the Lord hath done for your souls and give him the praise of so great a mercy Believe it it is a thousand fold better to be Crucified to the world then to be advanced to prosperity in it and to have a heart that is above the world then to be made the possessor of the world And for you that yet are strangers to this mercy O that the Lord would open your hearts to consider where you are and what you are doing and whether you are going and how the world will use you and how you are like to come off at last before you go any further that you may not make so mad a bargain as to gain the world and lose your souls O that you did but throughly believe that it is the only wise and gainful choice to deny your carnal selves and forsake all and follow Christ in hope of the heavenly treasure which he hath promised And let me tell you again as the way to this That though melancholly may make you weary of the world and stoicall precepts may restrain your lusts yet it is only the power of the Holy Ghost the Cross of Christ the belief of the promise the Love of God the Hopes of the everlasting invisible Glory that will effectually and savingly Crucifie you to the world and the world to you It is a Lesson that never was well taught by any other Master but Christ and you must Learn it from him by his Word Ministers and Spirit in his School or you will never Learn or Practise it aright The second PART Of the CHRISTIANS Glorying SECT XXIII HAving thus dispatched the first part of my subject concerning a Christians Crucifixion to the world by Christ and his Cross I come to the second Part concerning the Glorying of a Christian The Iudaizing Teachers did Glory carnally even in a carnall worship and carnall priviledges and in the carnall effects of their Doctrine on their Proselytes but Paul that had more to Glory in then they doth disclaim and renounce all such Glorying as theirs and owneth and professeth a contrary Glorying even in the Cross of Christ and his Mortification The Observation to be handled is that True Christians must with abhorrency renounce all Carnal Glorying and must Glory only in the Cross of Christ by whom the world is Crucified to them and they unto the world In handling this I shall briefly shew you 1. What is included or what we may Glory in 2. What is excluded or what we may not Glory in For the former here are two things expressed in the Text in which a Christian may and must Glory 1. The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2. Our Crucifixion to the world hereby So that the Positive part of the Doctrine containeth these two branches which I shall handle distinctly before I speak to the Negative part 1. True Christians that are Crucified to the world and the world to them by the Cross of Christ may and must Glory therein 2. Yet so as that their Glorying must be principally in Christ and their own Mortification must be Gloryed in but as the fruit of his Cross. For the first Part it must be understood with these necessary limitations 1. As Glorying signifieth a self-ascribing and Proud conceit of our own Mortification and is contrary to Christian self-denyal and humility and Glorying in God so we must take heed of it and abhor it 2. As Glorying signifieth any outward expression of this inward pride either by words or deeds we must also avoid it with abhorrence 3. So must we also do by all unseasonable offensive ostentation which may seem to others to savour of Pride though indeed it proceed from a better cause 4. But as Glorying signifieth the apprehension of the Good of the thing and our Benefit by it and the due Affections of Content and Joy and Exultation of mind that follow thereupon thus must a Christian Glory in his Mortification by the Cross of Christ. We commonly call this act a Blessing of our selves in the apprehension of our case As the carnal ungodly world do Bless themselves in their Possessing carnal things so may a Christian bless himself that he is Crucified to them that is he may rejoyce in it as a great blessing of God that tendeth to further blessedness 5. And when we are called to it we may express to others our Glorying herein But
so as that we give the Glory to God and not to our own corrupted wills 6. And when we are called hereto we must do it very cautelously as Paul doth 1 Cor. 4. 4. I know nothing by my self yet am I not hereby justified Signifying that we do it with holy intentions for the good of the hearers and the honour of God as he doth 1 Cor. 4. 1 2 6 8. to the end And 2 Cor. 2. 5 6 c. 1 Cor. 9. throughout 2 Cor. 3. 1 2 c. And we must so do it as to confess it is like to folly it being the custom of proud fools to be boasters of themselves And so Paul when he is called to mention his priviledges calls it his folly in this sense 2 Cor. 11. 1 17 19 23. lest others should be encouraged to sinfull boasting by his example if he did not brand it by the way with the note of folly though it was but materially so in him being the matter that folly is by others exprest in but formally in the proud 2 HAving told you How we may Glory in our own Mortification I shall next give you the proof of the point that we may so do And first it is proved by the example of Paul himself both here in my Text and in many other places 2 Cor. 5. 11 12 13. 2 Cor. 11. throughout 2 Cor. 12. throughout Vers. 5 6. Of such a one will I glory yet of my self I will not glory but in mine infirmities that is not in any thing that seemeth to advance me in the eyes of the world lest it should seem a carnal Glorying or men should be drawn thereby to overvalue me but in such things as men rather pitty or villifie for even my worldly meanness and contemptibleness and sufferings for Christ though before God these are honourable and therefore I will glory in them openly as secretly I may do in all other graces So it followeth For though I would desire to Glory I shall not be a fool for I will say the truth But now I forbear lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be or that he heareth of me And so Vers. 9 10 11. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me that is that my Glorying may magnifie that Power of Christ that is manifest in sustaining me and not my self therefore I take pleasure in infirmities in reproaches in necessities in persecutions in distresses for Christs sake for when I am weak that is in the flesh and the eye of the world then am I strong that is in the Spirit and the work of Christ I am become a fool that is like a fool in Glorying Ye have compelled me For I ought to have been commended of you For in nothing am I behind the very chiefest Apostles though I be nothing Yea 1 Cor. 9. 15. he saith he had rather die then any should make his glorying void concerning his self-denyal for the advantage of the Gospel 2. I also prove it thus We may and must glory in the blessed effects of the blood of Christ. Or else we shall not give him his honour But our own Mortification is one of the blessed effects of the blood or Cross of Christ therefore we may must glory in it 3. We may and must glory in the certain tokens of the Love of God But our own Mortification is one of the certain tokens of the Love of God therefore we may and must glory in it 4. We may and must Glory in Christ dwelling in us and the effects of his indwelling For if we may glory in Christ Crucified then also in Christ as our Head to whom we are united and from whom we receive continual influence and communication of graces But our own mortification is the certain fruit of Christ dwelling in us therefore we may glory in it 5. We may glory in the image of God upon our souls For as it is our glory so it is the livelyest representation of God himself But our Mortification is part of Gods Image upon us therefore we may glory in it 6. We may glory that we are the temples of the Holy Ghost and that the Spirit of Christ is in us and we may glory in his fruits and works But our Mortification is a principal fruit of the Spirit which sheweth that he dwelleth in us therefore we may glory in it 7. There is no doubt but Christians may glory in the cessation of their sin against God and that as to the dominion of sin they do not dishonour him by breaking his Laws abusing his Son his Spirit and his Mercies as formerly they did But all this is conteined in our Mortification therefore we may glory in it 8. No doubt but we may glory in the Honour of God when his wisdom and goodness and power are demonstrated to the confusion of his foes and the encouragement of his people but this is done in the Mortification of his Saints In them he conquereth and in him that loveth them they are super-victors Rom. 8. 37. If we must glorifie the workman as such then must we also glorifie the work If Moses and all Israel must sing such a song of praise to God for overthrowing Pharaoh and his Hoast in the red Sea much more must we sing his praise that conquereth Satan and all our corruptions And the work it self must be magnified in order to the Conquerours praise If Deborah must sing Gods praises for the conquest of weak men much more must we for the conquest of the world by faith and for subduing the powers of darkness to us There is more of Gods love and power seen in the Spiritual victories of a poor mortified Christian that is taken no notice of or despised in the world then in the bodily conquests of the famous Princes of the world who most of them perish everlastingly after all because they are conquered by the world and their own flesh Though it be the design of the Devil and the slanderous world to obscure or villifie the work of grace on the souls of the sanctified yet must it be the care of Believers to counter-work them and maintain and manifest the lustre of that grace to the glory of the author He that magnifieth the Cure doth honour the Physitian but he that slighteth or disregardeth it doth dishonour him To debase the work of Creation is a reproach to the Creator yea to over-look it and not admire and magnifie it is an injury to him To villifie the work of the Redeemer is horrible insidelity and ingratitude and to slight it and not to magnifie it is damnable And must it not be so then to villifie or not to magnifie the works of the Sanctifyer Why should it not be our duty to magnifie the work of Sanctification as well as the work of Creation and Redemption Especially when it is the end which the other
will it do any man to know that heaven is promised to Believers if it cannot be known whether we are Believers or not But if you confess that it may be known why should we so despise the comfort of the promise as not to search after and observe the qualification which must evidence that it is ours Will you apply this promise to all or to some or to none If to none then it s made in vain If to all you will deceive the most I mean if you absolutely promise them the benefit For it is not all that are Believers nor all that shall have everlasting life You dare not absolutely tell all men in the world that they shall not perish It must needs therefore be the proper benefit of some and how will you know but by the Text who those are There is no way of applying it that the Text or common reason will allow of but by discerning that we are Believers to conclude thereupon that we shall not perish If you say that all are bound to believe that they shall not perish I answer then most should be bound to believe a falshood which cannot be They are only bound to believe the truth of the Gospel and accept of Christ as offered therein and then discerning this faith in themselves to conclude that they shall be glorified 8. Should we not observe the lower mâ—râ—iâ—s that we possess it were great unthankfulness much more to overlook the special mercies that accompany salvation We must bless God for the very health and strength of body that is within us for our understandings and memories How much more for the graces that are within us 9. Our Mortification is part of our Salvation and our Holiness is a beginning of our Happiness and when we come to heaven we shall be perfected herein If therefore we may not take comfort in this we may not take comfort in heaven it self which is the perfection of it 10. Lastly consider that Sanctification is that mercy that makes us capable of glorifying God for the rest of his mercies and receiving the comfort of them An unsanctified man cannot give any honour sincerely to Christ. And may we not observe and glory in that mercy that enableth us to give God the glory of all mercies Can it be a wrong to Christ to rejoyce in that without which we can do nothing but wrong him and to take comfort in that without which we are uncapable of true comfort By this time I hope it is evident to you that it is an injurious dealing against Christ and his Saints for any to reproach them for Glorying in Gods graces even that they are Crucified to the world and the world to them SECT XXV Use 2. FRom hence also many disconsolate Christians may see their errour who cannot Glory in a Mortified state They can see matter of comfort in a state of exaltation when they perceive themselves prosper in all that they undertake and find a present answer of their prayers and enjoy the sense of the Love of God but to be Crucified to the world and the world to them doth seem to them but an uncomfortable state and they cannot see the greatness of the mercy It is easie to perceive the excellency of those mercies that participate of the ultimate End and are known by proper fruition and have nothing in them but pure sweetness and delight And therefore a state of Joy declareth it self But as for those mercies that have the Nature of a Means whose excellency is in order to their end and those that have some wholsom bitterness mixt because they are less grateful to sense and valued only by faith therefore we are too prone to overlook their worth and to neglect the comforts which the consideration of them might afford us and so to deny God the thanks that is his due Every sensual man can rejoyce in the having and enjoying of outward prosperity And every Christian can rejoyce in the fruition of God whether in foretaste here or in fulness hereafter But to rejoyce in the absence of worldly prosperity in that we are dead to it and have learned to set light by it and to Rejoyce in the absence of God in that we have hearts that are set upon him and cannot be satisfied without him and are desiring after him and in progress towards him and hope ere long that we shall be with him this is the joy that must be expected by believers here on earth Though an Enjoying foretaste may now and then afford them a feast yet is it this Believing desiring seeking Joy that must be their ordinary sustentation And if in this world they have no other they have cause to be abundantly thankful for this To Rejoyce in the fruition of God especially when it is full is the part of the Glorified Saints in heaven To Rejoyce in the creature as accommodating their flesh is the Joy of the Carnal Unsanctisied here on earth A remnant of which is in the imperfect Saints To rejoyce in meer outward Ordinances and the false conceits of special Grace is the Joy of hypocrites and common prosessors To be without Ioy is the part of some of the ungodly under the terrours of their consciences and of true Christians that know not their own sincerity or are under some great desertions of God To be out of all hope and possibility of Ioy is the part of the Devil and damned men But to Rejoyce in the true mortification of the flesh and in the holy contempt of worldly things and in the desires and hopes of the glory to come this is the part of the Saints on the earth and the present joy that cometh by believing And this kind of joy is most suitable to our present condition as Fruition is suitable to our Heavenly End The comforts of travailers is not of the same kind with those of a man that is at home He that is at home would have his wealth about him But you would not carry your houses with you in your journey nor would you drive your cattle with you or carry all your goods and riches with you A travailer would have as fair a way as he can get and as good a guiâ—e and necessaries for his journey and no more but all the rest he would have at home that he may find it when he comes thither It is his benefit in the way to want no more and to have no more For the more he needeth and hath the more he must be burdened and troubled Mark the descriptions of our present blessedness that you find in the Scriptures and you may see that they consist in our present Mortification to things below and desires and hopes of things to come rather then in a state of enjoyment here whether it be of the world or of God Though still the reason of our Blessedness in a mortified estate is the tendency that it hath to a glorified estate because it is
the way to that Mat. 5. 3. Blessed are the poor in Spirit It is not Blessed are the worldly rich Nor Blessed are the Glorified only But the reason is For theirs is the Kingdom of heaven that is in title but not in possession ver 2. Blessed are they that mourn And why are mourners blessed For they shall be comforted Luk. 6. 24 25. Wo unto you that are Rich for ye have received your consolation Wo unto you that are full for you shall hunger Wo unto you that laugh now for you shall mourn and weep Wo unto you when all men speak well of you c. that is Wo to you that place your comfort and felicity in Riches and Fulness and Mirth and the Applause of men Yea though you possess the things you desire yet wo to you because you shall miss of the true and durable felicity Thus also run all the rest of the blessings in Matth. 5. Blessed are the meek Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness Blessed are the merciful Blessed are the pure in heart Blessed are the peace-makers Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake that is When you are so firm in the faith and so far in love with me and the heavenly reward that you can bear all these revilings and slanders and persecutions you are Blessed even when the troubles are upon you So that you see here that our present Blessedness consisteth in Mortification to present things and Hope of future And from the future the Reason of our present blessedness is fetcht They which hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled The merciful shall obtain mercy The pure in heart shall see God The peace makers shall be called the children of God The persecuted shall have the Kingdom of heaven Indeed to the meek it is promised in present that they shall inherit the earth as Psal. 37. 11. had before said that is It shall afford them accommodations for a travailer which is all that is desirable in it or can be expected from it For godliness hath the promise of this life and of that to come 1 Tim. 4. 8. Yea moreover there is a special promise to the meek above those godly persons that are most wanting herein For their passage through this world to heaven shall ordinarily be more peaceable and quiet to them then other mens They do not so molest their own minds and vex themselves nor make themselves troubles nor provoke others against them as the passionate do and commonly they are either loved or pittyed or easilyer dealt with by all So that you may see throughout the Gospel that our present blessedness is in Mortification and Hope as the way to our future blessedness which consisteth in fruition And therefore it is a a very great errour in Believers when they overlook the blessedness of a Mortified state and can see little in any thing but sensible fruition and rejoycings When you are low in afflictions and grieved for your corruptions and fill the ears of God and men with your complaints though you have not then the joyful sense of the Love of God yet me thinks you might easily perceive your Mortification And will that afford you no refreshing Do you not feel that you are Crucified to the world and your desires after it are languid and life-less Can you not truly say that the world is Crucified to you and that you look on it but as a Carkass as an empty lifeless and unsatisfactory thing Would you not gladly part with it for more of Christ Could you not let go credit and wealth and friends so that the Kingdom of God might be more advanced within you and you might live more in the Spirit by a life of faith Could you not be content to be poor in the world so that you might but be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which God hath promised to them that love him Why do you not then consider what a blessed condition you are in and that your Mortification is a Mercy that leadeth to salvation and as sure a token of the Love of God as your most sensible joyes Did you ever mark and conscionably practise that command of Christ Mat. 5. 12. to the persecuted reviled slandered Believers Rejoyce and be exceeding glad mark what a frame your Saviour would have you live in for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you So when you are poor and afflicted and have hearts that set light by earthly things in comparison of God and Glory you have cause to Rejoyce and be exceeding glad though you live under sufferings for thus it hath been with the true Believers that have gone before you SECT XXVI I Come now to the second Branch of the Observation which is that When Believers Glory in their own Mortification it must be as it is the fruit of the Cross of Christ that so all their Glorying may be principally and ultimately in Christ and not in themselves They must take heed of ascribing the honour to themselves or of resting in themselves but all their observation of the graces that are in them must be in pure respect to him that is the fountain and the end that we may thankfully acknowledge our receivings and admire the eternall Love which did bestow them and the compassions and merits of our Crucified Redeemer and the powerfull operations of his Spirit in our souls and so may be carried out to Love and Duty in the sense of our receivings and may live to the praises of him that hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light And that you may see how great reason there is for this and so may be kept from glorying in your selves I shall open the cause to you as it lyeth both on Christs part and on ours What he is to us and what we are to our selves Consider 1. It was Christ and not we that wrought our deliverance by the wonderfull work of our Redemption Long enough might we have layen in prison before we could have paid the utmost farthing and long might we have born the wrath which we deserved before we could have done any thing to merit or any way procure our deliverance Had we wept out our eyes and prayed our hearts out and never committed sin again this would not have made satisfaction to God for the sin that was past Long enough might we have lain in our blood if this compassionate Redeemer had not taken us up and undertaken the cure Had he turned us off to any creature we had been left helpless Had we looked on the right hand for some to deliver us or on the left we should have found none Besides him there is no Saviour Isaiah 43. 11. Acts 4. 12. And moreover the way he hath
you whether all must be referred and how little you are beholden for it to your selves Meet every thought of self-exalting with abhorrenceâ— and give it no other entertainment in your souls then you would give the Devil himself who is the Father of it For casting down Christ will prove the casting down of your selves and he that exalteth himself shall be abased SECT XXVII I Come now to the third and last branch of the Observatition viz. that To Glory in any thing save the Cross of Christ and our Crucifixion thereby is a thing that the soul of a Christian should abhor Here I shall shew you what it is that is not excluded from our glorying in these words And then what it is that is excluded and conclude with some Application 1. It is none of the Apostles meaning in these words that we may not Glory in God the Father For his love to the world was the cause of their Redemption And his pleasure and glory is the end of Redemption and was intended by Christ and must be intended by us As Iustine Martyr saith he would not have believed in Christ himself if he had led them to any but the true God So I may say Christ had not done the work of Christ if he had intended any End but God and had not brought up all to God 2. When it is said that we must Glory only in the Cross of Christ the meaning is not that we must not also Glory in his Incarnation and holy Life and Resurrection and Intercession and every part of his Mediatorship For the Cross is not here put as Contradistinct from these but all these are implyed in his Cross as having their share as well as it in the work of our salvation 3. Nor is it the meaning of the Apostle to forbid us to Glory in the promise that Christ hath made us and in the glad tidings of the Gospel For this brings the blessed news to our ears this is the joyful sound the voice of Love the Charter of our inheritance and therefore sweet to all the sons of Life 4. Nor is it any of the Apostles sense that we may not Glory in the Spirit of Christ as magnifying him for the work of illumination and Sanctification As it was an high sin in Ananias and Sapphira to lye to the Holy Ghost and as it is the unpardonable sin to blaspheme the Holy Ghost So it must be a great duty to honour and magnifie the Holy Ghost And therefore it should make us tremble to hear some prophane men abuse the Holy Ghost in deriding his works saying These are the Holy Brethren these are the Saints these have the Spirit 5. Nor yet are we forbidden to Glory in the effects of the Cross of Christ upon us for these you find are included in the Text even our Crucifixion to the world thereby And the other effects of it even our Justification Adoption and the rest may be Gloried in as well as this that is here named as the Apostle doth Rom. 8. 30 31 32 33. to the end yet still referring all to God in Christ. 6. Nor are we forbidden to Glory in the helps of our salvation the Ordinances of God and means of Grace so we give no more to them then their due and look at them but as the appointed means of God that can do nothing but by him 7. No nor is it unlawfull so far to Glory in our Teachers as God hath sent them and qualified them for our good and as they are the Messengers of God and instruments of the Spirit So did Cornelius glory in Peter Acts 10. and when the Apostles brought the Gospel to Samaria there was great joy in that City Acts 8. 8. And the Apostle commandeth the Churches to know them that are over them in the Lord and submit themselves and esteâ—â— them highly in love for their works sake 1 Thes. 5. 12. 8. Nay we may Glory even in honour and riches and other outward things as they are the effects of the Love of God and the blood of Christ and as they reveal God to us or furnish us for his service and the relief of his people and any way further the Ends of our holy Faith In a word we may glory in any thing that is good as it stands in its due subordination to Christ ascribing to it no more then belongs to it in the relation and not separating it in our thoughts or affections from Christ but carrying all the Glory ultimately to God and making the creature but the means thereto And thus we may not only praise the Physitian but the Medicine the Apothâ—caâ—y the handsom administration the glass that it is brought in the silver spoon in which we take it and all this without any wrong to the Physitian or danger of displeasing him if we respect every thing but as it stands in its own place So much to shew you what is not exexcluded 2. But what is it then that we may not Glory in As I told you in the beginning not in our selves or any creature as opposite to Christ or separate from him or any way pretending to be what it is not or do what it cannot But let us enter into some particulars 1. Have you dignities and honours and high places in the world Do others bow to you and have you power to crush them or exalt them at your pleasure Glory not in it as any part of your felicity A horse is stronger then a man The great Mogal and the Turkish Emperour and many another Infidel Prince is a thousand fold beyond the greatest of you in Power and earthly dignity and yet what are they but miserable wretches Your power will not conquer death nor keep off sickness nor keep the stoutest of your Carkasses from corruption When a man shall see you gasping for breath and yielding your selves prisoners to unresistible death and closing those eyes that look so haughtily then who can discern the Glory of your greatness Who then will fear you or honour or regard you further then your deserts or their interests lead them Your flatterers will then forsake you and seek them a new Master When they are winding your Carkass and laying it up for rottenness in the dust what signs of your power will then appear Will your corpse have any reverend aspect How many have been spurned when they were dead that were bowed to while they were alive There are many in Hell and there will be for ever that were greater men then you on earth The higher you clime the lower you have to fall If the breath of a thousand applaud you now perhaps a million may reproach you when you are dead However it is not the applause of men that will carry you to heaven or abate the least of your pain in Hell Glory not then in worldly honours or greatness But rather rejoyce that you have enough without all this in God How well thinks the
that way That 's your chief honour which is most your own and least borrowed from others The deserving Son of a beggar is more truly honourable then the undeserving Son of a Lord. Glory rather that you are born again not of the flesh but of the Spirit not of corruptible seed but incoruptible the word of God that endureth for ever Your first birth how noble so ever makes you but children of wrath and slaves of Satan But your new birth is the truly honourable birth which makes you partakers of the Divine Nature the Sons of God the heirs of Heaven and Co-heirs with the Lord Jesus 1 Pet. 1. 23. Iohn 3. 6. 1. 12. Rom. 8. 17. 8. Have you friends that love you and are able to countenance you and are daily tender of you and helpful to you Bless God for them but glory not in man For Cursed is is he that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and withdraweth his heart from the Lord Jer. 17. 5. Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils for wherein is he to be accounted of Isa. 2. 22. Your best friends are uncertain and quickly lost and may turn so unkind as to break your hearts Or if their minds prove constant their lives are uncertain and the dearer they were to you with the greater grief you will lay them in the grave Or if you fall your selves into sickness they will prove but silly comforts to you They can but look on you and be sorry for you but that will not ease your pain nor succour you Oh how much more cause have you to glory in such a friend as Christ that will save you from sin and wrath and Hell In such a friend as God Almighty that can rebuke your diseases by a word Or make them tend to the cure of your souls and that will stick to you when others leave you with whom you must dwell in heaven for ever 9. Have you the pleasantest meats or drinks that your appetite desires the easiest lodgings the easiest lives the pleasantest recreations or companions Glory not in them These are the most desperate bait of the Devil and the common ruine of the world To take your fill and please your flesh and fit your lives to its desires is the very way to hell and the property of the slaves of Satan Your sweet meat will have sowre sauce If you live after the flesh you shall die but if by the Spirit you mortifie the deeds of the body you shall live Rom. 8. 13. You know what became of him Luke 16. that was cloathed in purple and fine linnen and fared deliciously every day It s a heavy case to have your portion and all your good things in this life Rejoyce rather that you have conquered the desires of your flesh and have brought it into subjection That you are Masters of your appetites and can eat and drink to the glory of God and that you can deny your ease and endure hardness as a soldiour of Christ That you have pleasanter recreations in the waies of life and sweeter comforts then the flesh can have any and that you have delights that are more durable and meat to eat that others know not of Rejoyce that you have conquered the flesh your greatest enemy and so have escaped the greatest danger For there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. 10. Have you the love of your neighbours and do all men men speak well of you Glory not in it as any of your felicity For it will be wo to many that are as well spoken of as you The world is not so wise nor so good that a man should much rejoyce in its good word Are they learned men that extoll you yet do not Glory in it They may boast you into Pride and Hell but they cannot add a cubit to the stature of your worth They see not the state of your soul and therefore you may be miserable when they have said their best Are they godly men that admire you and speak well of you yet Glory not in it as any certain Evidence of your felicity They speak as they think and may easily be deceived They are not your Judges As their hard thoughts cannot condemn you so their good thoughts or words cannot justifie you with God Oh Glory rather in Gods approbation who knows your heart to whose judgement it is that you stand or fall who judgeth not by outward appearance but in righteousness If he say Well done good and faithfull servant his words will be life to you but a thousand others may say so and do you no good at all but hurt 11. Are you famous for Learning and have you great parts in knowledge and utterance Glory not in it as any of your felicity or evidence thereof There are learneder men then you in hell the greatest knowledge of common things hath much sorrow and sheweth you so much of your ignorance and what is yet beyond your reach that it disquiets you the more Much more may you Glory that you know Christ Crucified and that you know your interest in the Love of God and can Love him whom you know without which all your knowledge would make you but as sounding brass or a tinckling Cymball Of all these together I may say Ier. 9. 23 24. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts let not the wise man Glory in his wisdom neither let the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches but let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweh me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness judgement and righteousness 12. Have you spiritual mercies as well as corporall Take heed in what respect you Glory in them For example 1. Have you abundant and excellent means of grace Have you Ministers and holy Ordinances and Christian Communion in the purest order Glory in them as Gods mercies and helps to higher things But not as your felicity or a certain Evidence of it For many are first in these respects that will be last in respect of life Eternal The greatest fall is from the highest Mercies And many that had the chiefest place in the Church will have the â—orest place in hell Abominable Sodom will scape better then many hearers of the Gospel But Glory in this that you have the Spirit of the Gospel and that Christ within you that is preached in the Gospel 2. Have you much understanding in the Doctrine of the Gospel and are you eminent teachers of it to others Glory in it as an opportunity of serving your Lord and doing and getting good But not as a certain Evidence of a good estate For many shall say Lord have we not preached in thy name whom Christ will not own because they were workers of iniquity Mat. 7. 22. And he that knoweth his Masters will and doth it not