fear the Lord. From these and such like texts it is evident that All that are truly Godly have a special Love to those that are Godly they love and honour Christ in his Image on his Saints 8. Acts 2. 42. 4. 32. You may see that The Godly love the Communion of Saints to joyn with them in holy doctrine fellowship and prayers 9. 1 Thes 5. 17. Pray continually Luke 18. 1. Christ spake a Parable to them to this end that men ought alwayes to pray and not to wax faint Acts 9. 11. Behold he prayeth Zech. 12. 10. I will pour out the spirit of prayer and supplication Rom. 8. 26. The Spirit helpeth our infirmities for we know not what to pray for as we ought c. From all these and such like it is evident that Prayer is the breath of a Godly man he is a man of Prayer When he wanteth words he hath desires with tears or groans 10. Matth. 15. 8 9. This people draweth near me with their lips but their hearts are far from me John 4. 23 24. God is Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth From such texts it is evident that Every Godly man doth make the inward exercise of his soul the principal part of his worship unto God and doth not stick in bodily exercise or lip service 11. Josh 24. 15. As for me and my houshold we wil serve the Lord. So Deut. 6. 11. 1 Pet. 2. 17 18. 3. 10. Eph. 5. 6. From many such Texts it is evident that Godly men desire the sanctification of others and make conscience of the duties of their relations and would have their housholds or friends to serve the Lord as well as they 12. Luk. 14. 26 33. 18. 22. Matth. 10. 37. Rom. 8. 17 18. From these and other texts it is evident that all things are below Christ and heaven in the practical esteem of a Godly man and that he will forsake them all rather then he will forsake him All these are Scripture Marks of Godliness HAving hastily run over these things to help you in the Tryal I will add some Directions to help you in the practice and therein yet fullyer to acquaint you Wherein true Godliness doth consist Briefly to lay before you first the meer enumeration of the chief points wherein sound Godliness doth consist to help your memories while you see them close together 1. Sound Godliness consisteth in a solid understanding of the substantial points of Religion 2. In a sound belief of the Truth of Gods word and the reality of the unseen things 3. In an adhearing to the holy Scriptures as the Divine Rule of faith and life 4. In the Love of God in Jesus Christ excited by the belief of his Love revealed by Jesus Christ 5. In true humility and low thoughts of our selves and low expectation from others 6. In a heavenly mind that most regardeth the things above and seeketh them as our only felicity at home 7. In self denyal and mortification and temperance and victory over the desires of the flesh When we can deny our own conceits and interests and wills for God and are dead to the world and are not servants to our fleshly appetites or senses or to the things below 8. In thankfulness for received Mercies and Praising the Glorious name of God 9 In the willing and diligent use of the means that God hath appointed us for salvation 10. In charity or Love to all men even our enemies and a special love to true Believers 11. In a love to the holy communion of Saints especially in publike worship 12. In a tender desire of the unity of the Saints and their concord and increase of Charity and a trouble at their discord and divisions 13. In dealing Justly in our places with all men and carefully avoiding all that may be injurious to any 14. In studying to do all the good we can and doing it to our power especially to the houshold of faith 15. In a conscionable discharge of the duties of our relations as Rulers Teachers Parents Masters subjects and inferious 16. In watchfulness against Temptations and avoiding occasions of sin 17. In serious preparations for sufferings and death and patient bearing them when they come These are the things that Godliness doth consist in And now out of all I will draw up ten practical directions which in a special manner I would intreat you to Practice if you would be solidly Godly and not be deceived with names or counterfeits Direct 1. Be sure to live upon the substantials of Religion and let them receive no detriment by a pretence of zeal for lesser points Lay not your Religion in uneffectual opinions and let lower truths and duties keep their places and not be set above the higher Dir. 2. See that your Religion be principally seated in the Heart Understand it as well as you can lest it be taken from you but never think it is savingly your own while it is but in the brain so much you believe indeed as you Love and as hath imprinted the Image of God upon your hearts Ever see that your wills be Resolved for God and holiness and that you be able truly to say I would be perfect and I would fain be better then I am Direct 3. Be sure you take up with God alone as your whole felicity and think not that there is a necessity of the approbation of men or of liberty plenty life or any thing besides God Do not only think that there is a God and a life of Glory for you but Live upon them and be moved and actuated by them Trust to them and take them for your part Live by faith and not by sight Direct 4. Live daily upon Christ as the only Mediator without whom we have no access to God acceptance with him or receivings from him Look for all that you have from God to come by him Live on him for Reconc liation for Teaching for Preservation for Communication for Consolation and for Salvation Let Christ make your thoughts of God more familiar as now Reconciled and Condescending to us Direct 5. Obey the sanctifying motions of the spirit and if you have disobeyed Repent not despairing but returning to obedience but see that you live not in any known sin which a sanctified will can enable you to avoid Resist sins of passion but most carefully take heed of sins of interest deliberately chosen and kept up as necessary or good Direct 6. Make it the principal work of your Religion and your Lives to inflame your hearts with the Love of God as he is presented amiable in his wonderful Grace in Jesus Christ Strive no further to effect your hearts with Fears or Griefs or other troubling passions then as tendeth to the work of Love or is a just expression of it Go daily to promises and mercies and Christ and Heaven of purpose for fewel to kindle Love Be
to hunger and thirst or cold or weariness or shame or pain nor any of the frailties that now adhere unto them but be made like the glorified body of Christ 7. The Souls of the Saints united to these Bodies shall also be Perfected having far larger capacity to know God and enjoy him then now we have being freed from all ignorance errour unbelief pride hard-heartedness and whatsoever sin doth now accompany us and perfected in every part of the Image of God upon us 8. The eyes of the Glorified Body shall in Heaven have a Glory to behold that is suitable to their Bodily capacity Heaven being not a place where the Essence of God is confined but where a prepared glory will be manifested to make Happy the Angels and Saints with Christ And whatever other senses the Glorified Bodies shall then have whether formally or eminently we cannot now conceive what they will be they will all be satisfied with suitable Delights from God 9. The Blessed person of our Redeemer in our Nature Glorified will there be the Everlasting object of our delightful iâ—â—uition and fruition An object suitable to the eye of the Glorified Body it self We shall for ever live in the sight of his face and in the sense of his unspeakable Love 10. The Glorified Soul whether mediately or immediately shall behold the Infinite most Blessed God and by knowing him be perfected in knowledge As we shall see the person of Jesus Christ and the glory of God with open face and not as in a glass as now we do so we shall know so much of the Essence of the Deity as we are capable of to our felicity 11. With the Knowledge of God and the Beatifical Vision will be joyned a perfect Love unto him and closure with his blessed will So that to Love him will be the everlasting employment of the soul 12. This Love will be drawn forth into everlasting praise and it will be our work before the Throne of his Glory to magnifie the Lord for ever 13. In all this Love and Praise and Glory and in the full fruition of the Eternal God we shall Rejoyce with full and perfect Joy and we shall have full content delight and rest 14. In all this Blessedness and Glory of the Saints the Glory of God himself will shine and Angels shall admire it and the condemned spirits with anguish shall discern it that God may be Glorified in our Glory 15. In all this Happiness of Believers and his own Glory the Lord will be well pleased and that Blessed Will which is the Beginning and the End of all will be accomplished and will have an Eternal complacency as the Saints shall have an endless complacency in God This is the Glory promised to the Saints This is that Good part which they choose I cite not the Texts of Scripture that prove all this because the things are all so plainly and frequently expressed in the premises And I shall have occasion to do somewhat of this anon And so in brief I have told you what the Good part is 2. We are next to enquire What it is that is put by worldly carnal men into the other end of the scales and is set up in comparison with all this Everlasting Glory Yea what it is that is preferred by ungodly men before it What is it that fin and the world will do for men What do they find that lose the Lord What do they get that miss of Heaven What do they choose tâ—â—â— refuse the Needful Better part And here I am even amazed at that which I must give you an account of O wonderful astonishing thing that ever such base unworthy trifles should by Reasonable men be put into any comparison with God! Wonderful that so much madness and wickedness can enter into the mind and heart of man as to let go all this Glory for a toy And yet more wonderful that this should be the case of the greatest part of men on earth And yet more wonderful that so mâ—â—y make so mad a choice even when the case is opened to them and plainly opened and frequently opened and when they are earnestly entreated to be wiser and importuned to make a better choice In a word All that is set against the Lord and All that is preferred before this Everlasting Life and All the Portion of ungodly men is no more then this The Pleasure of sin for a season The satisfying of the flesh A little ease and pelf and fair words from men as miserable as themselves and all this but for a little a very little time when Temperance is as sweet at least a little that is excessive or forbidden in wealth or meat or drink or cloathes or lust or other fleshly pleasures is the Joy and the Heaven and the God of the ungodly The fleshly pleasures which are common to the beasts and a little vain-glory among men and this for a short uncertain time and then to paâ—â— to everlasting punishment this is the chosen portion of the wicked This is All for which they refuse the Lord and for which â—â—â—y refuse a Holy life This is All 〈◊〉 which they part with 〈◊〉 and part with their Everlasting Peace This is All that they have for Heaven and their salvation and All for which they seâ—â— their souls To the everlasting shame of sin and sinners it shall be known that this was All To the abasing of our own soulâ— that sometime were guilty of this madness I shall tell you again that this is All To the humbling of the best to the conâ—ounding of the wicked and the amazement of us all I must say â—â—â—â— this is All This dirt this dream this cheat i◠〈…〉 wicked have for God and Glory This Nothing â—◠〈…〉 obstinately preferr and choose before him that 〈…〉 O wonderful madness stupidity and deceitâ— so 〈…〉 wilful and so uncureable till tender 〈…〉 cure it in them that shall be saved Well the ballance is now set before yoâ—… in the One end and in the other You see the 〈…〉 choose and the part that is chosen by the rest of the world And are you not yet resolved which is Best and which to choose TWo sorts I look to meet with here to whom I shall apply my self distinctly before I come to the comparative work First some will tell me that all these are needless words and that there is no man so senseless as to think that Temporal things are better then Eternal or the world then God or sin then Holiness Answ O that this were true how happy then were all the world I grant that many are superficially convinced that are not converted and that many have a slight opinion that Heaven and Holiness is best that yet have no Love to it and will not seek it above All. But their practical judgement doth not go along with their Opinions Thy relish the world as sweetest unto them In the prevailing deepest thoughts of their
the renewed state that grace hath brought them into For the Kingdom of God consisteth as in Righteousness so in Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14. 17. Believers receive not the spirit of bondage again to fear that is they are not under the bondage of the Law nor have the spirit or state of mind which is suited to those Legal impositions and terrible comminations but they have received the spirit of Adoption by which they cry Abba father that is As they are brought under a more gracious dispensation and a better Covenant and promises and God is revealed to them in the Gospel as a Reconciled Father through his son so doth he treat them more gently as reconciled children and the spirit which answereth this gracious Covenant and is given us thereupon doth qualifie us with a child-like disposition and cause us with boldness Love and confidence to call God Father and fly to him for succour and supply in all ouâ— dangers and necessities And how Pleasant it must be to a believing soul to have this spirit of Adoption this childlike Love and confidence and freedom with the Lord methinks you might conjecture though its sensibly known by them only that enjoy it Gal. 5. 22. The fruit of the spirit is Love Joy Peace c. when the word is first received by Believers though it may be in much affliction through the persecutions and cross that attend the Gospel yet is it ordinarily in the Joy of the Holy Ghost 1 Thes 1. 6. The Holy Ghost is the Comforter of true Believers And if he have taken it upon him as his work he will surely do it in the degree and season fittest for them And if Joy it self be part of the state of Grace and Holiness you may see that it is the most delightful Pleasant course 7. Yea that we may have a Pleasant and comfortable life the Lord hath forbidden our distracting cares and fears and doubts and our inordinate sorrows and commanded us to cast our care on him and promised to care for us 1 Pet. 5. 7. and he hath bid us be careful for nothing but in all things make our wants known to him Phil. 4. 6. And can there be a course of life more Pleasant then that which dost consist in faith and Love and hope and Joy that 's built on God and animated by him and that excludeth inordinate cares and sorrows as health doth sickness where it is unlawful to be miserable and to grieve our selves and no sorrow is allowed us but that which tendeth to our joy where it is made our work to Rejoyce in the Lord yea always to Rejoyce Phil. 4. 4. A servant or tradesman will judge of the pleasure of his life by his work If his work be a drudgery his life is tedious and filled with grief If his work be Pleasant his life is Pleasant Judge then by this of a Holy life Is it care and fear and anguish of mind that God commandeth you no it is these that he forbiddeth Care not Fear not are his injunctions Isa 35. 4. 41. 10. Do you fear Reproach Why you do it contrary to the will of God who biddeth you Fear not the reproach of men Isa 51. 7. Do you fear the power and rage of enemies Why it is contrary to your Religion so to do God biddeth you Fear them not Isa 43. 5 13 14. 44. 2 8. Do you fear persecution or death from the hands of cruel violence why it is contrary to the will of God that you do so Matth. 10. 26 28 31. Fear not them which kill the body c. O blessed life where all that is against us is forbidden and all that is truly Joyous and delightful and necessary to make us happy is commanded us and made our duty which is contrary to misery as life to death and as light to darkness Come hither poor deluded sinners that fly from care and fear and sorrow If you will but give up your selves to Christ you shall be exempted from all these except such as is necessary to your joy You may do any thing if you will be the servants of the Lord except that which tendeth to your own and other mens calamity Come hither all you that call for pleasure and love no life but a life of mirth Let God be your master and Holiness your work and Pleasure then shall be your business and holy Mirth shall be your employment While you serve the flesh your pleasure is small and your trouble great vexation is your work and unspeakable vexation is your wages But if you will be the hearty servants of the Lord Rejoycing shall be your work and wages If you understand not this peruse your lesson Psal 33. 1. Rejoyce in the Lord O ye Righteous for Praise is comely for the upright Psal 97. 11 12. Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart Rejoyce in the Lord ye Righteous and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness Phil. 3. 1. Psal 5. 11. Let all those that trust in thee rejoyce let them ever shout for joy because thou defendest them let them also that Love thy name be joyful in thee Psal 32. 11. Be glad in the Lord and rejoyce ye righteous and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart Psal 132. 9. 16. Let thy Priests be cloathed with Righteousness and let thy Saints shout for joy 16. I will also cloath her Priests with salvation and his Saints shall shout aloud for joy such precepts and promises abound in Scripture which tell you if you will be Saints indeed that Joy and gladness must be your life and work I know objections will be stirring in your minds But forbear them but a while and I shall fully answer them anon 2. I have told you wherein the Inward part of Holiness is Delightful I shall briefly shew you that the Outward part also is very Pleasant and fit to feed these inward joys And 1. let us view the Duties that are more directly to be performed unto God and 2. The works of charity and righteousness unto men 1. How sweet is it to be exercised in the word of God In hearing or reading it with serious meditation For the man that hath been revived by it renewed sanctified saved by it to hear that powerful heavenly truth by which his soul was thus made new For the soul that is in Love with God to hear or see his blessed name on every leaf to read his will and find the expressions of his Love his great eternal wonderous love how sweet this is experience tells the Saints that feel it If you that feel no sweetness in it believe not them that say they feel it at leaâ—â— believe the word of God and the professions of his ancient Saints Psal 119. 97. O how I love thy Law it is my meditation all the day v. 103. How sweet are thy words unto my tast yea sweeter then
no relief 3. Another duty that Holiness consisteth in is Thanksgiving and Praise to the God of our salvation He that knows not that this work is Pleasant is unacquainted with it If there be any thing Pleasant in this world it is the praises of God that flow from a believing loving soul that is full of the sense of the mercies and goodness and excellencies of the Lord Especially the â—â—animous conjunction of such souls in the high praises of God in the holy Assemblies Is it not pleasant even to Name the Lord to mention his Attributes to remember his great and wonderous works to magnifie him that rideth on the Heavens that dwelleth in the light that cannot be approached that is cloathed with Majesty and Glory that infinitely surpasseth the Sun in its â—rightness that hath his Throne in the Heavens and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain him and yet he delighteth in the humble soul and hath respect to the contrite yea dwells with them that tremble at his Word Is any thing so pleasant as the Praises of the Lord How sweet is it to see and praise him as the Creator in the various wonderful creatures which he hath made How pleasant to observe his works of providence to them that read them by the light of the Sanctuary and in Faith and Patience learn the interpretation from him that only can interpret them But O how unspeakably Pleasant is it to see the Father in the Son and the God-head in the man-hood of our Lord and the Riches of Grace in the glass of the holy Gospel and the manifold wisdom of God in the Church where the Angels themselves disdain not to behold it Ephes 3. 10 11. The praising of God for the incarnation of his Son was a work that a chore of Angels were employed in as the instructors of the Church Luke 2. 13 14. There is not a promise in the book of God nor one passage of the Life and Miracles of Christ and the rest of the History of the Gospel nor one of the holy works of the spirit upon the soul nor one of those thousand mercies to the Church or to our selves or friends that infinite Goodness doth bestow but contain such matter of Praise to God as might fill believing hearts with Pleasure and find them most delightful work Much more when all these are at once before us what a feast is there for a gracious Soul O you befooled fleshly minds that find no pleasure in the things of God but had rather be drinking or gaming or scraping in the world awaken your souls and see what you are doing With what eyes do you see with what hearts do you think of the Works and Word and Wayes of God and of the Holy employments that you are so much against For my own part I freely and truly here profess to you that I would not exchange the Pleasure that my soul enjoyeth in this one piece of the holy Work of God for all your mirth and sport and gain and whatever the world and sin affords you I would not change the delights which I enjoy in one of these holy dayes and duties in the mentioning of the eternal God and celebrating his praise and magnifying his Name and thinking and speaking of the riches of his Love and the glory of his Kingdom no not for all the pleasure of your lives O that your souls were cured of those dangerous diseases that make you loath the sweetest things You would then know what it is that you have set light by and would marvail at your selves that you could taste no sweetness in the sweetest things Can you think that your work or your play your profits or your sports are comparable for pleasure to the Praises of the Lord If Grace had made you competent Judges I am sure you would say There is no comparison Hear but the testimony of a holy soul yea of the Spirit of God by him Psal. 147. 1. Praise ye the Lord for it is good to sing Praises to our God for it is pleasant and praise is comely Psalm 149. 1 2. Praise ye the Lord sing unto the Lord a new song and his Praise in the Congregation of Saints Let Israel rejoyce in him that made him let the children of Zion be joyful in their King For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people he will beautifie the meek with salvation Let the Saints be joyful in Glory let them sing aloud upon their beds Let the high Praises of God be in their mouth c. Psal 95. 1 2 3. O come let us sing unto the Lord let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise to him with Psalms For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all Gods Psalm 96. 1 2 3 4. O sing unto the Lord a new song Sing unto the Lord all the earth Sing unto the Lord bless his Name shew forth his salvation from day to day Declare his glory among the Heathen his wonders among all people For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised Honour and Majesty are before him strength and beauty are in his Sanctuary Did not this holy Prophet find it a Pleasant work to Praise the Lord Yea all that Love the Name of God should be Joyful in him Psalm 5. 11. Every one of his upright ones may say with the Prophet Isa 61. 10. I will greatly rejoyce in the Lord My soul shall be joyful in my God For he hath cloathed me with the garments of salvation he hath covered me with the robes of righteousness as a Bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments and as a Bride adorneth her self with her Jewels For as the earth springs forth her bud and as the Garden causeth the things sown in it to spring forth so the Lord will cause Righteousness and Praise to spring forth before all the Nations It is a promise of Joy that is made in Isa 56. 6 7 8. To the sons of the stranger that joyn themselves to the Lord to serve him and to love the Name of the Lord to be his servants every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it and taketh hold of my Covenant Even them will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my House of Prayer What a joyful thing is it to a gracious soul when he may see the reconciled face of God and feel his Fatherly reviving Love and among his Saints may speak his Praise and proclaim his great and blessed name even in his Temple where every man speaketh of his Glory Psalm 29. 9. If the Proud are delighted in their own praise how much more will the humble holy soul be delighted in the Praise of God! When the Love of God is shed abroad in the heart and Faith doth set us as before his Throne or at least doth somewhat withdraw the veil and shew us him that lives
Call your able Pastors to debate it 2. And remember that they have the Scripture and the far greater part of the universal Church and the senses of all the world to confute before they can make good the cause their of ambitious Clergy If you are but sure you know Bread and Wine when you see and feel and smell and taste them then you are at the end of controversie with the Papists Above all see that you maintain the Love of God and a heavenly mind and mortified affections and grow not opinionative superficial or loose in your Religion For he that is heartily of no Religion is prepared to be of any Religion And it is because men are false to the acknowledged Truth that they are given up to make a Religion of deceit and falshood Your fidelity to your King and Countrey obligeth you to do your part to preserve the subjects from a disease so injurious to them Saith Dr. Sherman in his late Account of Faith against the Papist Pres p. 4 5. If Kings would think upon it there miâ—â—â— be no Popes since if Popes could well help it there should be no Kings 5. Take heed of all temptations to turbulency resisting of Authority or other unlawfull means in the obeying of your passions or discontents As God chose most eminently to Glorifie his Power under the Law of Works and the spirit of bondage to fear did much prevail but under the Gospel he hath chosen most eminently to magnifie his Goodness Love and Mercy so accordingly is the impress made upon his servants hearts They are animated by Love for the propagating of Love and therefore must work with Instruments of Love And if we had well learnt the Doctrine and Example of our Lord and made it our work to Love all and to do good to all and hurt to none and with meekness and patience to let any hurt us rather then do any thing for our own defence which is against the Law of Love we should see that Christianity would better thrive when it would be better understood by the practice of the professors Often have I noted that a whole flock of sheep will run away from the smallest dog and yet there is few of them killed by dogs because they are under their Masters care when a Woolf or Fox is pursued by all and few of them suffered to live And oft have I observed that when men that shift for themselves can scarce pass the streets yet children play in the way of Carts and Coaches without hurt while every one takes it for his care to preserve them that cannot take care of and preserve themselves And though the Deer that is within the Park is killed when the Owner please yet he is preserved there from others when the wild and stragling Deer that are abroad are a prey to any man that can catch or kill them He that saveth his life shall lose it and he that loseth it for Christ shall save it The Lord stablish strengthen direct and preserve you to his Kingdom and keep you from the passions of corrupted nature and from the snares and rage of a deceitful and malicious world I beseech you continue yet your prayers for him that desireth no greater advancement in the world than to be The servant of Christ and Helper of your Joy Rich. Baxter June 7. 1662. The Contents Part 1. PReface The contempt of Godliness rebuked pag. 1 Godliness described What it containeth and what I mean by Godliness throughout this Treatise p. 5 Signs of true Godliness p. 14 Directions for such as will be soundly and sincerely godly p. 18 LUke 10 41 42. The design of the Treatise p. 1 The Text explained p. 3 c. 1. Obs Nearest natural relations are not alwayes of one mind in the matters of salvation p. 8 2. Obs When Christ cometh into the house he is presently at work for the hearers souls p. 8 3. Obs When the word is preached we must hear p. 9 4. Obs The humility of Disciples in those times ib. The sense of the Text in seven Doctrines p. 10 Doct. 1. One thing is Needful It is One thing that is absolutely Necessary but they busie themselves about many that neglect this one p. 11 In what respect it is One and but One ibid. How the troubling matters of the world are many p. 13 How far the One thing is Necessary p. 15 Qâ— Are not other things Needful in their places p. 18 The Application 1. by way of inquiry how you have sought the One thing Necessary p. 20 How a true Christian differeth from all hypocrites p. 22 1. Whatever you have been doing in the world you have but lost your Time if you have not done the One thing Needful p. 25 2. And you have lost all your labour p. 26 3. You have been busily undoing your selves p. 29 4. You have unman'd your selves and lived below your Reason and as beside your wits p. 32 The madness of them that are afraid of being Godly lest it make them mad p. 34 5. You have but abused and lost all your mercies p. 37 38 6. You have neglected Christ his Grace and Spirit p. 40 7. Your hopes and peace are but delusions and irrational p. 41 Use 2. To lament the distracted course of worldlings p. 43 Use 3. Exhortation What course will you take for time to come p. 48 Consider 1. It is Necessity that is pleaded with you p. 51 2. It is but One thing that God hath made Necessary p. 56 3. This One thing is that Good part p. 59 4. This Good part is offered you and you have your choice whether God or the world heaven or earth shall be your portion p. 61 Qu. How is it in our choice have we free-will p. 63 5. If you choose it it shall never be taken from you p. 65 A full confutation of those ungodly ones that deny the Necessity of a holy life p. 69. in 30 Queries Obj. It is not Godliness but your procise way that we call needless The particulars of a holy life examined p. 83. 1. Much preaching and hearing p. 85 2. Reading Scriptures 3. and servent Prayer p. 86 3. Diligent instructing families p. 88 4. The holy observation of the Lords Day justified p. 89 7. Strictness of life in avoiding sin p. 92 8. The rigour of Church Discipline p. 94 Obj. It is but few that are so strict p. 97 The second Part. CHap. 1. Holiness and its fruits are the Best part Wherein the Happiness of Saints consisteth p. 101. Why most men choose it not What is set in the Ballance against it p. 110 The excuses of refusers answered p. 112 Chap. 2. What he must do in reason that will be resolved which is the best part and way And who shall be the judge p. 114 Chap. 3. Twenty Queries for the full conviction of all Rational men that are willing to understand the truth that There is a Life to come of
little longer in such impudent calumniations against me and other Ministers of Christ But know that thy day is coming and that for all these things thou shalt come to judgement and if thou justifie the ungodly yet remember that It is not good to have respect of persons in judgement and he that saith to the wicked Thou art Righteous the people shall curse him Nations shall abhorr him Prov. 24. 23 24. He that justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the just even they both are abomination to the Lord. Prov. 17. 15. Wo unto them that call Evil Good and Good Evil that put darkness for light and light for darkness that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter which justifie the wicked for reward and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble and the flame consumeth the chaff so their root shall be rottenness and their blossom shall go up as the dust because they have cast away the Law of the Lord of Hosts and despised the word of the holy one of Israel Isa 5. 20 23 24. Let the malicious serpent accuse Job before God in the end it shall turn to his own confusion And if any of the Princes of the earth will by Doegs be provoked to destroy the Priests or by jealousie kindled by malicious whisperers be incited to do by the servants of Christ as they did by the Waldenses Bohemians Protestants in many places c. we will remember the memorable words of David 1 Sam. 26. 18 19. and let the sufferers imitate him in the submissive part Wherefore doth my Lord pursue after his servant for what have I done or what evil is in my hand Now therefore I pray thee let my Lord the King hear the words of his servant If the Lord have stirred thee up against me let him accept an offering but if it be the children of men cursed be they before the Lord for they have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord saying Go serve other Gods By going where they are served HAving fully shewed you What Godliness is I now beseech thee Reader to enquire Whether this described case be thine Art thou Devoted to God without reserve as being not thine own but his And hast thou devoted all thou hast to him with thy self to be used according to his Will Art thou mere subjected to his Authority and observant of his Laws and Government then of mans and can his word do more with thee tâ—en the word of any mortal man or then the violence of thy lusts and passions Art thou heartily engaged to him as thy felicity and dost thou give up thy self to him in filial Love dependance and observance as to thy dearest friend and Father Dost thou highlyest esteem him and resolvedly choose him and sincerely seek him preferring nothing in thy Estimation Choice Resolution or Endeavour before him Try by these and the other particulars in the Description whether you are Godly or ungodly and do it faithfully for the day is at hand when the ungodly shall not stand in judgement nor sinners in the Assembly of the just Psal 1. 5. And besides the marks expressed in the description let me offer you some from the plain words of the Textâ— that you may see what God accounteth Godliness and consequently â—…w to judge your selves 1. In John 3. 3 5 6. it is written Verily except a â—…an be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of â—…od That which is born of the flesh is flesh and â—…at which is born of the Spirit is Spirit 2 Cor. 5. 17. 〈…〉 any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things â—…e passed away behold all things are become new â—…om 8. 9. If any man have not the spirit of Christ the â—…me is none of his From these Texts you see that a heart and life made new â—…y the Spirit of Jesus Christ is absolutely necessary to true Godliness 2. Psalm 119. 5. O that my wayes were directed to keep thy Statutes Rom. 7. 18. To will is present with â—…e Psalm 73. 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee â—nd there is none on earth c. Isa 26. 8. The desire of our soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of â—…hee From these and such like texts it is evident that The principal desires of a godly man and the choice of his will is to be what God would have him be 3. Psalm 1. 2. His delight is in the Law of the Lord and therein doth he meditate day and night 1 Pet. 2. 2. As new born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby Luke 10. 42. From these and such like Texts it is manifest That all the Godly do Love the Word of God as the food of their souls and the director of their lives 4. Matth. 6. 20 21 33. Lay up for your selves a treasure in heaven c. For where your treasure is there will your hearts be also Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness Matth. 7. 13. Luke 24. Enter in at the strait gate strive to enter in for many shall seek and shall not be able 2 Pet. 1. 10. Give diligence to make your calling and election sure Rom. 12. 11. From these and such texts you may discern that Godliness consisteth in such diligence for salvation as to seek it before any earthly thing and not to think the labour of a holy life too much for it 5. Rom. 8. 1 5 6 7 8 13. Gal. 5. 18 19. Read them and you will see that Godliness consisteth in living after the spirit and not after the flesh and in mortifying the deeds of the body by the spirit living not by sensuality but by Faith 6. John 3. 19 20. And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather then light because their deeds were evil For every one that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved but he that doth truth cometh to the light c. 1 King 21. 7 8 And the King of Israel said to Jehoshaphat there is yet one man Micaiah by whom we may enquire of the Lord but I hate him for he doth not prophesie good concerning me but evil And Jehoshaphat said Let not the King say so From these and such like Texts you see that The Godly love the discovering light and the most searching faithful preacher but the ungodly cannot endure the light which sheweth them their sins nor love the Preachers that tell them of their sin and misery 7. 1 Cor. 13. John 13. 35. By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if you love one another 1 John 3. 14. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the Brethren Psal 15. 4. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned but he honoureth them that
all your life-time that should make a wise man judge you Reasonable Is that your Reason to be penny wise and pound foolish to be wise to do evil and to have no knowledge to do good Jerem. 4. 22. To run up and down for I know not what and to leave that undone that you were created and redeemed for Can you think that it is Reasonable to make such ado for the air of dying mens applause and to be well thought of or to live like Gentlemen or to the contentment of a fleshly mind when you know that you are just ready to pass out of this world into an endless life of Joy or Torment yea certainly of torment if you thus hold on Where all these things will afford you no relief or benefit but the memory of your course will be the fuell of your misery Can that man be wise that damns his soul Can he deserve the name of a sober man that will sell his salvation for so short so small so filthy a pleasure as sin affordeth Is he worthy the name or reputation of a wise man that hath not wit enough to scape eternal fire nor wit enough to forbear laying hands upon himself and doing all this against his own soul What think you is not the case here plain enough Be not offended if I speak yet plainlyer to you for in a case so lamentable how can we be too plain or serious Suppose you knew a Prince or Lord that had an itch upon him which the Physicion offereth speedily and easily to cure but he hath so much pleasure in scratching that he doth not only refuse the cure lest it deprive him of his delight but he will give his Kingdom or Lordship to one that will scratch him but a little while though he be sure to live a beggar after it all his dayes I put it to your selves What name you would give this man or what esteem you would have of him Do you think that any ungodly worldly person is wiser than this man Alas their case is so much worse that there is no comparison They are more foolish then your hearts can now conceive or then I am able fully to express You have now the itch of Pride and Lust and your throats must be pleased in your meats and drinks and you itch after riches and honour and recreations and Christ telleth you by his Word that these are but your sick desires and that the pleasing of them tends to kill you and he offereth you for nothing a safe and certain and speedy cure But you refuse it and will not hearken to him You must be scratcht whatever it cost you You must have your riches and honour and fleshly pleasure as the felicity which you cannot part with though it cost you your salvation Though God be neglected and his favour lost and your souls be lost and the One thing needful cast aside you must have your carnal imaginations gratified And is this your wisdom The Lord bless us from such a kind of wisdom Yet this is not the worst I will shew you one strain more of the distraction of the ungodly world If these men do but see one person of an hundred that are more diligent for Heaven then carth to fall into Melancholy or distress of soul or suppose it were into some loss of reason they presently cry out against Religion and strictness and preciseness and making so much ado to be saved and say it is the way to make men mad Hence comes the proverb of the Papists Spiritus Calvinianus est spiritus melancholicus and of the prophane among our selves that A Puritane is a Protestant frightned out of his wits They dare not study the Scripture so much nor meddle with such high matters as their salvation nor be so godly nor meditate on the world to come lest it should drive them out of their wits O miserable men As if it were possible for you to be more dangerously mad then you are already Unless by growing unto greater wickedness Do you lay out your wit and strength and time in feeding a corruptible body for the grave and spend your lives in running after your own shaddows while your everlasting life is forgotten or neglected Do you sell your Saviour with Judas for a little money and change your part in God and Glory for the brutish pleasures of sin for a season And are you afraid of altering this course of life and turning to God lest it should make you mad Lord what a besotting thing is sin What a cunning cheater is the Devil What a deluded distracted sort of people are the ungodly Will you run from God from Christ from Grace from mercy from Scripture from the godly and from Heaven it self for fear of being mad Why what greater madness can you fear then this What worse is humane nature capable of Unless it be the addition of a further measure of the same and unless it be to hold on in that way and persecute the contrary with such like aggravations of your madness I know not of any worse that you should fear Will you run to Hell to prove your selves to be in your wits Again I say the Lord bless us from such a kind of wit Nay Hell it self hath no such distractedness as yours The difference between the One thing needful and your many things is there better though too late understood Is Loving God the way to be mad and loving the world and fleshly pleasures the way to be wise Is conversing with God in humble prayer and believing his love and loving him and delighting in him and speaking of his name and word and works unto his praise and hoping to live with him for ever I say is this which is the work of a Believer a liker course to make men mad then serving the Devil and drudging in the world and living under the curse of God and in continual danger of damnation What men are they that dare entertain such horrid and unreasonable suggestions I confess we are not unacquainted with the sadness and melancholy that some persons have contracted by Religious employments and perhaps one of a thousand may lose their wits But I must tell you all these folowing points that will shew you that Religion is not to be blamed for it nor avoided 1. It is ordinarily persons of the weaker sex or of very weak brains and very strong passions that are naturally inclined to it and are not able to bear any long and serious thoughts about matters of that moment which are apt to make the deepest impressions But persons that naturally are of sound and calme dispositions are seldom troubled with any such affects 2. It is usually the case of persons that mistake the nature of Religion though not in the main yet in some particulars of great concernment That study not sufficiently the Love of God declared to us in our Redeemer but feed their griefs and troubles only by
but while their power can enforce them They are subject to errour and injustice and are not the same in one Countrey as in another or in one age as in the former and their Rewards and punishments are but temporal and therefore though under the Laws of God they are necessary for the Government of Common-wealths yet without Gods Laws they would be utterly insufficient 6. The way of Holiness is contrary to all Evil whatsoever and therefore hath nothing to disturb a Common-wealth It is true we cannot say so of the persons because they are but imperfectly sanctified Were they in all things such as their Lord and Rule and Religion do require they would have nothing that might be injurious to any But surely as a sick man or a lame is better then a dead corps and as a man of mean understanding is better then an ideot and a mean Schollar better then the illiterate so a man imperfectly sanctified is better in a Common-wealth then the ungodly You blame not the Laws of this Land because that Thieves and Murderers break them The Laws are Good if they oblige men to nothing but what is Good though bad men break them The Rules of Christian Religion are most perfect and direct or command men nothing that is evil There may be faults in us but there is none in the holy Laws which we desire and endeavour to obey Religion therefore is the way to the perfecting and securing of all Societies and the want of it subverteth them 7. Holiness doth not only tell men of a right way and shew them their duty but also effectually Disposeth their very minds to the performance of it and causeth them to walk therein The nature of it is to be the very Right Disposition of the heart and right ordering of the life The truly gracious soul is habitually an enemy to all known sin and addicted to obey in all known Duties And surely persons thus habituated are liker to live according to their Dispositions then others to live well that hate the good in their hearts which they should practise Mens Laws can command good but cannot give men good hearts to practise it as God doth by his servants If you cannot tell whether wicked men that love sin or godly men that hate it are better members of a Common-wealth you know not what Societies are for 8. Holiness destroyeth the root of iniquity and teacheth men to hate even secret sins which are in the heart or which none can see but God alone The Laws of men restrain the Subjects but from open injuries but Holiness restraineth men from doing the most secret wrong to others or once thinking speaking or contriving any evil against them It reacheth the conscience it cleanseth the heart from whence all evil doth proceed 2 Sam. 12. 12. Deut. 27. 24. Psalm 90. 8. Eccles 12. 14. A man fearing God as such dare not deceive or wrong another though he were sure that it would never be known on earth For he knoweth that the Lord is the avenger of such things 1 Thes 4. 6. 9. Holiness cementeth the members of all Societies with the strongest cement of endeared Love It bindeth them together in the bond of Charity He is not Godly that Loveth not all men even his enemies with that common Love that is due to humanity and that Loveth not all that Fear the Lord with a special Love Psalm 15. 4. Joh. 13. 34 35. 15. 12 17. 1 Joh. 3. 14 23. 4. 7 11 12 20. Luke 6. 27. 10. Holiness maketh Princes and Rulers a double blessing to their people It maketh them the more Divine and bear the more excellent Image of God How precious is the name of a David an Hezekiah a Josiah a Constantine a Theodosius though they had all their falls in comparison of the name of a Saul a Jeroboam an Ahab a Nero a Julian O how sweet is the name of a Godly King in the Subjects mouthes Even those that are enemies to Godliness as in themselves because they cannot endure to be curbed and troubled with it do yet use to admire and honour it in their Kings and Governours Authority and Holiness conjunct are two such rayes of the Heavenly Majesty and Goodness as place man in the state of highest excellency on earth and make him so much to resemble his Creator as hath given such the highest place in the esteem and honour of the world of any mortals And it is not easie for a people to value such Holy and Pious Princes and Governours too highly or to be sufficiently thankful for them unto God 1. Holiness effectually teacheth Governours to Rule for God To set him highest and make it their work to seek his Glory and to avoid all selfish contradictory interests and to own nothing that stands at enmity with his honour but to judge that they have most happily attained the ends of their Government and lives if they have promoted the Gospel and Kingdom of Christ and the work of Holiness in the world 2. Holiness will cause Rulers to preferr Gods Laws before their own and to be examples to their Subjects of obedience to God and to desire that all men should stand in far greater awe of God then of them It will make them careful to form all their Laws and Government to the pleasing of God and promoting mens obedience to his Laws and to take heed that there be nothing in them injurious to Christ or contrary to his Will It will teach them with David to enquire of God and make him their Counsellour And with Josiah to search the Book of the Law and humble themselves when they have violated it And with Joshua Not to suffer it to depart out of their mouthes but to meditate in iâ— day and night that they may observe to do according to all that is written therein And then God hath promised to make their way prosperous and to give them good success Josh 1. 8. 3. Holiness will cause the Rulers of the world to Love those that are Holy and to promote the Communion of Saints and to be Nursing Fathers to the Church even that part of the Holy Catholick Church which they are entrusted with and to protect them from the violence of men It will keep them from the sins of Jeroboam that corrupted Gods worship and put forth his hand against the Prophet that spoke against it Whereby God will be engaged to be their Protector in Peace and War When Princes and people that fall out with Holiness and take part with the flesh and set themselves against the servants the worship and the wayes of Christ do put themselves from under his protection and put themselves under the battering and piercing stroakes of his displeasure And wo to him that striveth with his Maker and that kicks against the pricks of his severity Isa 45. 9. Acts 9. 5. 26. 14. The fatal ruine of the Kingdoms of the world or at least the
our refuge Psal 91. 1 2 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shaddow of the Almighty I will say of the Lord He is my refuge and my fortress my God in him will I trust This is the confidence and joy and glory of the Saints Psal 59. 16 17. I will sing of thy Power yea I will sing aloud of thy mercies in the morning for thou hast been my defence and refuge in the day of my trouble Unto thee O my strength will I sing for my God is my defence and the God of my mercie Psal 89. 26. Thou art my Father my God and the Rock of my Salvation See Psal 27. 5. 61. 2. 62. 2 6 7. 94 22. Prov. 18. 10. The Name of the Lord is a strong tower the righteous run into it and are safe Prov. 21. 31. safety is of the Lord Psal 4. 8. Quietly may we repose our selves to rest for it is the Lord only that maketh us dwell in safety But is it thus with the ungodly man O no when they say Peace and safety to themselves suddenly destruction cometh upon them as travel upon a woman with child and they shall not escape 1 Thes 5. 3. For their Rock is not like our Rock even our enemies themselves being judges Deut. 32. 31. Why else do they desire in times of danger that they were in the case of the Servants of the Lord If they thought themselves as safe as the Regenerate why do they wish at the hour of death that they might but die the death of the Righteous and their later end might be as his Numb 23. 10. 5. Moreover he is certainly more safe that is an heir of the promises and hath the word of God engaged for his safety then he that hath no promise from God at all nor any such security to shew But all the faithful have interest in the promises in which the ungodly have no share Surely he is safe to whom the Lord hath promised safety O what a precious treasure might I here open to shew you the safety of true believers I will cull out but a few of the Promises for a tast Prov. 1. 32 33. The turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of foâ—â—s shall destroy them But who so hearkenneth unto me shall awell safely and shall be quiet from fear of evil Prov. 29. 25. Who so putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe Prov. 3. 21 22 23. My Son let them not depart from thine eyes keep sound wisdom and discretion so shall they be life unto thy soul and grace unto thy neck then shalt thou walk in thy way safely and thy foot shall not stumble When thou lyest down thou shalt not be afraid yea thou shalt lie down and thy sleep shall be sweet Be not afraid of sudden fear neither of the desolation of the wicked when it cometh For the Lord shall be thy confidence and shall keep thy foot from being taken Deut. 33. 12. The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him the Lord shall cover him all the day long and he shall dwell between his shoulders Psalm 55. 22. Cast thy burden on the Lord and he shall sustain thee he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved Psalm 14. 5. God is in the generation of the righteous Psalm 34. 15 17 19 20. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open to their cry The righteous cry and the Lord heareth and delivereth them out of all their trouble Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivereth him out of all He keepeth all his bones Evil shall slay the wicked and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate Psal 37. 28. For the Lord loveth judgement and forsaketh not his Saints they are preserved for ever but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off Ver. 37 39 40. Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace But the transgressors shall be destroyed together the End of the wicked shall be cut off But the salvation of the Righteous is of the Lord he is their strength in the time of trouble And the Lord shall help them and deliver them from the wicked and save them because they trust in him Psalm 73. 26. My flesh and my heart faileth but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever Isa 49. 15. Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the Son of her womb Yea they may forget yet will not I forget thee He hath said I will not fail thee nor forsake thee Heb. 13. 5. Matth. 6. 25. Take no thought for your life what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink c. Matth. 10. 28 30 31. Fear not them which kill the Body and are not able to kill the soul The very hairs of your head are all numbred Isa 41. 10. Fear thou not for I am with thee be not dismayed for I am thy God I will strengthen thee Yea I will help thee yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness See ver 13 14. Isa 43. 1 2. Fear not for I have redeemed thee I have called thee by thy name thou art mine When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burnt c. The Lord preserveth the way of his Saints Prov. 2. 8. Psalm 31. 23. O Love the Lord all ye his Saints for the Lord preserveth the faithfull Psal 97. 10. he preserveth the souls of his Saints he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked Psalm 145. 18 19 20. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him to all that call upon him in truth He will fulfill the desires of them that fear him he also will hear their cry and will save them The Lord preserveth all them that Love him but all the wicked will he destroy Prov. 20. 22. Say not I will recompence evil but wait on the Lord and he will save thee Heb. 10. 23. He is faithfull that hath promised I hope the believer will not be weary to read over all these precious promises which are his security from God for soul and body I summ up all in that one 1 Tim. 4. 8. Godliness is profitable to all things having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come Judge whether Godliness be the safest state Can a man of so many promises be unsafe But instead of these the ungodly are threatned with everlasting vengeance 6. He is safer that hath continually a guard of Angels as certainly all the faithful have then he that hath none but is a prisoner of the devil as the ungodly are Hear the Scriptures Psalm 34. 7. The Angel of the Lord
Righteousness are not a more Honourable employment then the sordid drudgery of the world must say also that the life of a worldling is more Honourable then the life of the holy Angels and the heavenly host They are obeying and praising God and living in the sense of his dearest love while you are sinning and scraping in this Earth And can you believe that your life is more Honourable then theirs If not you must confess that the Godly that come nearest the work of Angels do live a more Honourable life then you When Christ called Peter to leave his fishing and follow him and be his servant he tells him that he will make him a fisher of men as intimating that it was a more honourable work to catch souls by the Gospel and win them to God and to salvaâ—ion then to catch fishes To please God and save our souls and further others in obeying him to their salvation is the Highest work that the sons of men are capable of while they live in flesh As the Priests were sanctified to draw nearer unto God then the common people and to be employed in his most Holy service so are the godly separated by grace from the ungodly world and brought nearer God and used by him in the noblest works In a great house there are not only vessels of Gold and of Silver but also of wood and of earth and some to honour and some to dishonour 1 Tim. 2. 20. If a man therefore purge himself from sin he shall be a vessel unto honour sanctified and meet for the masters use and prepared unto every good work Ver. 21. The Vessel that Swine are fed in is not so Honourable as that which is used at a Princes table If you would know what use the Godly are employed in read 1 Pet. 2. 5 9. As lively stones they are built up a spiritual house they are a holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices unto God which shall be acceptable by Jesus Christ They are a chosen generation a royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar people that they should shew forth the praises of him who hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light The holy Scriptures tell you the work of Saints Compare them with the work of the drunkard the glutton the gamester the fornicator or the covetous or ambitious worldling and let your reason tell you which is the more Honourable Psalm 34. 9. O fear the Lord ye his Saints for there is no want to them that fear him Psal 31. 23. O Love the Lord all ye his Saints for the Lord preserveth the faithful Psal 89. 5 7. The heavens shall praise thy wonders O Lord thy faithfulness also in the Congregation of the Saints God is greatly to be feared in the Assembly of the Saints and to he had in reverence of all them that are about him These are the employments of the Saints 6. Moreover the Godly have the most Honourable entertainment by the God of all the world They are bid welcome when others are rejected The door is opened to them that is shut against the wicked They are familiar with Jesus Christ as the children of the family when others are strangers whom he will not know Cant. 5. 1. Matth. 25. 10. Matth. 7. 23. I will profess unto them I never knew you depart from me ye workers of iniquity Psalm 1. 6. For the Lord knoweth the way of the Righteous but the way of the ungodly shall perish The faithful are feasted by him when the rest are examined with a Friend how comest thou in hither not having on a wedding garment bind him hand and foot and cast him into outer darkness Matth. 22. 12 13. They are called the children that have the bread and the rest are called the dogs of which some are without and those within do feed but on the crums that fall from the childrens table Matth. 15. 26 27. Revel 22. 15. Hear the Lords invitation and his promise Isa 55. 2 3. Hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which is good and let your soul delight it self in fatness Encline your ear and come unto me hear and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you Who is it that is admitted into the Tabernacle of the Lord and who shall dwell in his holy hill He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart In whose eyes a vile person is contemned but he honoureth them that fear the Lord Psalm 15. 1 2 4. The upright shall dwell in the presence of the Lord. Psalm 140. 13. God will save Sion and the seed of his servants shall inherit it and they that love his name shall dwell therein Psal 69. 35 36. And Blessed is the man whom thou choosest O Lord and causest to approach unto thee that he may dwell in thy Courts he shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy House even of thy holy Temple Psal 65. 4. Saith David Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the Land that they may dwell with me he that walketh in a perfect way he shall serve me Yea Christ entertaineth faithful souls with a spiritual feast of his own flesh and blood His flesh to them is meat indeed and his blood is drink indeed John 6. 55. and he that eateth and drinketh these shall live for ever Verse 54 56. The returning Prodigal is met with joy and quickly embraced in his Fathers arms the fatted Calf is killed for him a ring and new apparell is provided him and musick must express the Joy for his recovery Luke 15. O how welcome are converted sinners to the God of mercy And as they are welcome at their first return so are they in all their attendance on him and addresses to him and service of him while they continue in his family They have boldness now to enter into the Heliest by the new and living way that is consecrated and are invited to draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith Heb. 10. 19 22. In Christ we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him Ephes 3. 12. And God hath made us accepted in the beloved to the praise of the glory of his grace Ephes 1. 6. We are living sacrifices acceptable unto God Rom. 12. 1. And our services though weak are sacrifices acceptable and well-pleasing to him Phil. 4. 18. 2 Tim. 2. 3. 5. 4. when the prayers of the wicked are abhorred of the Lord his people serve him acceptably in reverence and godly fear Heb. 12. 28. He answereth their prayers and often speaketh peace unto them and signifieth his acceptance of them If they could bring him a house full of Gold and Silver they would not be so welcome to him as they are in bringing him their hearts their humbled hearts their broken tender melted hearts that burn in Love to him and flame up towards him in desires and in holy praise To
and thy Will It proclaimeth thy pernicious Folly and Impiety If thou hadst no more wit then to be Pleased more with stones then gold with dung then meat with shameful nakedness then cloathing thou wouldst not be judged wise enough to be left to thy own dispose and government But the folly which thou dost manifest is unspeakably greater Darkness is not so much worse then Light and Death is not so much worse then Life as sin is worse than Holiness and the world than God And is the Worst more Pleasant to thee then the Best It is a fool indeed to whom it is a sport to do mischief Prov. 10. 23. and so great a mischief as sin is and yet hath no delight in understanding Prov. 18. 2. Delight is not seemly for such fools Prov. 19. 10. And how wicked is that Heart as well as Blind that is so averse to God and Holiness Doth not this shew thee 1. The absence of Gods holy image 2. And the presence of Satans image upon thy soul Nothing doth more certainly prove what a man is then the complacency and displacency of his Heart If you know what it is in your selves or others that pleaseth and displeaseth most you may certainly know whether you have the spirit and grace of Christ or not This is the durable infallible Evidence which Satan shall never be able to invalidate and which the weakest Christians can scarce tell how to deny in themselves Could they be more Holy it would please them better then to be more rich Could they believe more and Love God more and trust him more and obey him better it would please them more then if you gave them all the honours of the world They are never so well pleased with their own hearts as when they find them nearest Heaven and have most of the Knowledge of God and impress of his attributes and sense of his presence They are never so well pleased with their lives as when they are most holy and fruitful and may fullyest be called A walking with God They are never so much displeased with themselves as when they find least of God upon their hearts and are most dark and dull and undisposed to holy Communion with him They are never so much weary of themselves as when their lives are least fruitful holy and exact And this is a certain Evidence of their sincerty For it shews what they Love and what it is that hath their Hearts or Wills And it is the Heart or Will that is the man in Gods account God takes a man to be what he sincerely would be As he is so he Loveth and Willeth and as he Loveth and Willeth such he is His complacency or displacency are the immediate sure discoveries of his bent or inclination This certain Evidence poor doubting souls should have oft recourse to and improve And on the contrary it is as sure an Evidence of your misery when you savour not the things of the Spirit Rom. 8. 5 6 7. and when it pleaseth you more to be great then to be good to be rich then to be religious and righteous to serve your lusts then to serve the Lord When you set more by the applause of men then by the approbations of God and had rather be far from God then near him and be excused from a holy life then used to it and constant in it When you take the world and sin for your recreation or delight and a godly life for a melancholy wearisom and unpleasant course This certainly shews that you have yet the old corrupted nature and Serpentine enmity against the Spirit and Life of Christ and are yet in the flesh and therefore can no more please the Lord then his holy wayes are pleasing unto you Rom. 8. 6 7 8. and it proveth that you are yet in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of your iniquity and that your hearts are not right in the sight of God and that you are the slaves of Satan whose nature you partake of by which you are thus alienated from the Lord. Didst thou know God as Faith doth know him his Loving kindness would be better to thee then life it self Psalm 63. 3. If thou didst Love him as it is like thou wilt pretend thou dost it would be meat and drink to thee to enjoy his Love and do his Will And if thou know him not by Faith nor cleavest to him by unfeigned Love how canst thou pretend to have his Image How would you judge of that mans heart that were no better affected to his friend to his parents or children or other relations then you manifest your selves to be to God If he can take no pleasure in the company of his wife or children but is glad when he is far from them in the company of strangers or harlots or prodigals would you not say this man had a base unmanly disposition Express but such an inclination in plain words and try how honest sober men will judge of them Much more would it be odious to Christian ears if you should tell God plainly We can find no pleasure in thee or in thy holy wayes thy Word and Service are unsavoury and wearisom unto us We had rather be talking or busied about the matters of the world We have far more pleasure in recreations and sensual accommodations then in remembring thee and thy Kingdom and then we find in the life that is called holy Would not such words as these be called impious by every Christian that should hear them And is not that an impious heart then which speaketh thus or is thus affected and that an impious life that manifesteth it though dissembling lips are ashamed to profess it If God be not most to be loved and delighted in then any thing or all things else he is not God If Heaven and Holiness be not sweeter then all the pleasures of earth and sin let them have no more such honourable names Let sin and earth then be called Heaven but wo to them that have no better 2. What monstrous ingratitude is that man guilty of that when God hath provided and Christ hath purchased such high delights and freely tendred them to unworthy sinners will say I find no pleasure in them and take them for no delights at all When the Lord beheld thee wallowing in thy filth and laughing in thy misery and making a sport of thine own perdition he pittied thee and provided and offered to thee the most noble and excellent delights that thy nature is capable of enjoying And wilt thou cast them back unthankfully in his face and say They are unpleasant tedious things If your child did so by his meat or cloathes yea or a beggar at your door did so by his alms you would think it proved his great unworthyness If he throw away the best you can give him and say It is naught there is no sweetness in it would you not think it fit that want should help to
though many undo their souls for fleshly pleasures and delights yet he is a strange man indeed that will offend God even for self-tormenting grief and trouble O therefore dear Christians as you have let go all your sensual pleasures for the pleasing of your Lord do not let go the pleasures of his love for which you have let go all The Lord taketh pleasure in his people even in them that fear him in those that hope in his mercy and the meek he will beautifie with salvation Psalm 147. 11. It is meet therefore that his people take pleasure in the Lord that the Saints be joyful in glory that they sing aloud upon their beds and that the high praises of God be in their mouthes Psalm 149. 4 5 6. O let not the Spirit of God be thought to be like the evil spirit that vexed Saul that filled his mind with melancholy anguish and confusion It is the evil spirit that renteth and tormenteth those that it possesseth though the spirit of God doth humble and by ordinate sorrow prepare for joy But its proper work is to sanctifie and to comfort and to establish the Believer with Peace that passeth understanding As it is a greater sign of the operation of the Spirit of Christ to restore the lapsed by a spirit of meekness and to bear one anothers burdens and exercise tenderness compassion and charity then to censure and envy and call for fire from heaven So even at home though there we are allowed to be more rigid and censorious it is a more sure and satisfactory discovery of the Spirit of Grace within us if we are raised to a sweet delight in God and quieted in his Love and carryed out in chearful obedience thankfully acknowledging the grace that we have received and waiting in the use of means for more then if we are only turmoiled and troubled in our minds and tossed up and down with unprofitable griefs and fears that abate our Love to God and our holy joyes It is the still voice that doth most fully acquaint us that it is Christ the Prince of Peace that speaketh to us Though at first when he findeth a sinner in a state of enmity and rebellion he often useth to thunder and lighten and call to him as to Saul Why persecutest thou me Wilt thou kick against the pricks Wilt thou fight against heaven Or canst thou bear the wrath of God Almighty Yet to the humbled penitent soul there is none in all the world so tender as Jesus Christ the Lamb of God the Churches husband that cherisheth them as his own flesh O that you did but know the greatness and tenderness of his love to you while you lie trembling under the unjust apprehensions of his wrath It would then so transport you with ravishing delights that the world would see that the Saints of the most High have higher Pleasures then the world affordeth BUt I know you will say Alas what need you exhort us to spiritual pleasures and consolations Do you think there is any man in love with sorrows or unwilling to live a joyful life O that you could tell us how we might attain it and you should quickly see that we are willing Answ And if you are so willing to attain it as to be also willing to use the means you shall quicklyer see that I shall certainly inform you how you may attain it and how you may come to find a life of Holiness to be the most sweet and pleasant life I therefore desire and require you to practise these Directions following Direct 1. Make it your first and principal business to attain the fullest fixed knowledge of God in his Attributes and Covenant-Relations to you 1. Study him in his Attributes If infinite Goodness take not up the soul with Love and with Delight it is because it is not known Where there is all things that the soul of man desires to its highest felicity and content and yet contentment and delight is wanting it must needs be ignorance and distance that is the cause If the Sun seem not light to you it is because you have not eye-sight or look not on the light If you find no pleasure in the most pleasant food it is because your appetites are diseased or you do not taste it If your most suitable and most affectionate friend seem not amiable to you it is because you know not his suitableness and love So if the eternal God that is infinitely powerful wise and good most perfect and most suitable to your highest affections do not possess you with abundant Pleasures and Delights of Love it is because you are unacquainted with him Study then his infinite perfections and be much with him in secret prayer and meditation where the retired soul having fewest avocations is fittest for the most near familiar converse And still remember that it is Love it self that you have to do with For God is Love It is the fountain of all delights and pleasures that you draw near to It is a cold heart indeed that fire it self cannot warm and a dead heart indeed that life it self cannot revive Conceive of God as God and you will delight in him Abhort all unworthy diminutive thoughts of him Set up his Love and Goodness in your estimation as infinitely above all the creatures Believe it the Love of your dearest friends is an inconsiderable drop to the Ocean of his Love Think not of him as cruel or an enemy if you would love him or delight in him Love and Delight are never forced by bare commands and threatnings but drawn forth magnetically by attractive Goodness Were not God most amiable and friendly and desirable to us it is not saying Love me or I will damn thee that would ever have caused man to love him but rather to fear and hate and fly from him Think but of Gods Love and Goodness and Fidelity as you do of his Power and then you will find that there are rivers of pleasure in his presence and fulness of joy at his right hand the fore-tastes whereof are the only delights that can quiet the troubled thirsty soul 2. And if you say What is all this to me any more then to the ungodly world on whom the wrath of God abideth I answer Thou art in Covenant with him and he is thine in the Covenant Relations even thy Reconciled Father thy Saviour and thy Sanctifier No husband is so inviolably bound to a wife nor will so faithfully answer his Relation as the blessed Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier unto thee Didst thou well know and consider what it is to have God himself to be thine in Covenant to all these uses and to all the ends that thou canst reasonably desire it would fill up thy soul with satisfying delights There is nothing that thou wantest but what belongs to God to give thee in one of these three great relations And sooner shall the day be turned into night and the frame of
part with those that murmure at his servants choice and speak against them but will commend their choice and condemn the contrary All this you see lie plain here in the Text and it is all worthy our larger consideration But the first is like to hold me so long that to avoid prolixity the rest shall be but touched under that DOct. 1. One thing is Needful It is one thing only that is absolutely Necessary but many things that men busie themselves about that neglect this one In handling this I must shew you 1. In what respect it is that this Needful thing is said to be but One. 2. How it is that the troublesom matters of the world are called many 3. Whereto and how far this one thing is necessary 4. Whether the rest are indeed unnecessary 5. I shall assist you in the application of it to your selves that it may reach the end to which I do intend it I. In what respect is the Needful thing but One Which will be the easier understood when you know what the One thing Needful is And it is most directly that which is our End To be saved and to Please the Lord or to Glorifie God and enjoy him in Glory for ever Which comprehendeth or implyeth the necessary means And this blessed state is One considered 1. Objectively It is One God that we have to please and to behold and love and praise for ever 2. It is One formally that is It is only the souls fruition of this One God that is our End and Blessedness And thus the End being principally meant it is said that One thing is necessary though the Means may be more then One that are necessary to obtain it And yet even with respect unto the means it may be said that One thing is necessary by a General Comprehensive speech as One containeth many parts As to cure a sickness may be said to be the One thing needful to preserve a mans life when yet that cure must be done by many acts and means The means are but One thing as denominated from their End even our everlasting happiness And they are but One as denominated from their Original they being all but the Will of God revealed in his Word for mans direction to salvation And they are all One in the principal stock that proceedeth from this Original or root and that is the Lord Jesus Christ himself who is therefore eminently called the way because there is no other way or means but what standeth in a due subordination to the Redeemer as the chief means as well as to the pure God-head as the End Also as all the means of Gods appointment have a union of Nature or similitude with the End And as Gods Image is One in all his children so is it in their kind and measure in all his Ordinances and Means They also in their kind and place are partakers of the Divine nature The name of God is as it were written upon them and his blessed nature legible in them Also the means are all but One as all are parts of One holy frame which most harmoniously concurr to the doing of one work As all the wheels and other parts are but One Coach which carryeth us to our journeys end As Christ and his Church are one Body 1 Cor. 12. 12. So Christ and all subordinate means for the recovery and salvation of his own are one Kingdom of God and one way to the Father and one salvation I shall fullyer open it under the next head And now for the Negative you may discern by what is said 1. That here is no such unity as even in the end must confound God and man or his glory and our salvation 2. Nor is here any such Unity as doth confound the End and Means no not the God-head with the man-hood of the Redeemer much less with the inferiour kind of beings 3. Nor is there any such Unity as doth confound all the means among themselves and make all one or exclude the rest by exalting one but rather each one doth suppose the rest to constitute the perfect frame Christ doth not exclude Faith nor Faith â—xclude Repentance nor Faith and Repentance exclude Obediâ—nce nor doth the office of one of these exclude the use and â—ffice of the rest Publike duties exclude not private nor do â—rivate exclude publike One part excludeth not another â—eading excludeth not preaching nor both of them praying â—ut their nature and use bespeaketh a conjunction The whole â—ody is not an eye or hand nor doth the Unity exclude but inâ—lude even the smallest members 4. Nor is there such a Unity as excludeth difference of Degrees â—or one means may be more necessary and excellent then another â—nd the same person by growing doth differ from himself as he â—as before and one will hereafter excell another in Glory â—s now they do in holiness and faithful improvement of their â—alents II. Let us next lay both together and see how the troubling matters of the world are called Many in opposition to â—his One And 1. Every creature to a sensual man is made by him in â—ome sort his End and God For he doth not Use it only and â—eferr it as the godly do to an end that is One but he would Enâ—y it and make it objectively his end it self and so idolize it And â—herefore though in the general notion of Delight they all ageee yet materially what abundance of ends and gods have carnal men Every sense must have its own delight the eye must have its delight and the appetite its delight and so of the rest 2. And also these fleshly baits and pleasures are discordant even among themselves They draw the sinner several waies and one of them fighteth against the other The riches of the sensualist do usually contradict his ease and often his voluptuous humour and his ambition and pride doth bridle his disgraceful lust and one sin will not let another have its end but robbeth him of the poor expected fruit And thus they do distract the sinners and tear their very hearts in pieces and divide and dismember them where God would heal them and unite them in himself And the toilsome cares and labours by which these things must be obtained are many and oft contrary to each other and a great deal of stir it is that a deluded sinner makes to little purpose The summe then of both these Heads is this The matter of a Christians Faith and Religion Desire Hope and Love is therefore called One thing because God who is One is the summe of all It is but One Sun though it hath many beams and all these beams are nothing but the emanations of the Sun and have nothing but what they have from it God is All to the Religion and the Soul of a true Believer and therefore All to him is One Creatures and Duties and Ordinances which are many are all but One to him in God His Faith
every word of thy mouth and every penny of thy wealth in the way that he requireth it is it any more then is his due Should not he have all that is Lord of all Quest 2. Is it not the first and great Commandment Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and might And do not heathens confess this by the light of nature And hath not thy tongue confest it many a time And doth not thy conscience yet bear witness that it is thy duty And is it possible thou shouldst thus Love him with all thy heart and soul and might and yet not seek and serve him with all thy heart and soul and might Or can the most sanctified person do any more if he were perfect Quest 3. Dost thou not confess that we are all sinners And that the best is still too bad And that he that loveth and serveth God most doth yet come exceeding short of his duty And yet wouldst thou have such men come shorter and darest thou perswade them to do less Must not the best confess their daily failings and beg pardon of them from the Lord and be beholden to the blood of Christ and lament their imperfections And yet wouldst thou have them be such odious hypocrites as to think they serve God too much already while they confess that they come so short Shall they confess their failings and reproach those that endeavour to avoid the like Shall the same tongue say Lord be merciful to me a sinner and Lord I am good enough already What need there so much ado to please and serve thee any better What would you think of such a man Quest 4. Is it not an unquestionable duty to grow in grace and to press towards perfection as men that have not yet attained it 2 Pet. 3. 18. Phil. 3. 12 13 14. And must Paul and Peter and the holyest on earth still seek to grow and labour to be more holy and shall such a one as thou say What need I be any more holy that art utterly unsanctified Quest 5. Is it not one of the two grand Principles of faith and all Religion without which no man can please God Heb. 11. 6. Whoever cometh to God must believe first that God is that there is a God most powerful wise and good secondly that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him yea this is one of natures principles It is the Diligent seekers of God that he will reward And yet dare a fleshly negligent sinner reproach the diligent seeking of God and take it for a needless thing and say What needs all this ado Are not these the Atheists seconds even next to them that deny that there is any God or that blasphemâ— him And indeed if he be not worthy of all the Love and service that thou canst give him he is not the true God! Consider therefore the tendency of thy words and tremble Quest 6. Doth not that wretch set up the flesh and the world aboâ—â— the Lord that thinks not most of his thoughts and cares and words and time and labour for the world to be too much ado and yet thinks less for God and heaven to be too much And dost thou think in thy conscience that the flesh is better worthy of thy Love and care and labour then the Lord or that earth will prove a better reward to thee then Heaven Who thinkest thou will have the better bargain in the end The fool that laid up riches for himself and was not rich to God and shall lose all at once that he so much valued and so carefully sought Luke 12. 20 21. or he that laid up his treasure in Heaven and there set his heart and sought for the never fading Crown Matth. 6. 20 21 33. and counted all as loss and dung for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ Phil. 3. 8. Do you think that there is any thing more worth your care and time and labour or can you more profitably lay it out Quest 7. Have you not immortal souls to save or lose And are not your bodies for their service and to be used and ruled by them And should not your souls then have more of your care and diligence then corruptible flesh that must turn to dirt Quest 8. Dare any one of you say that you are wiser then the All-knowing God Is not thy wisdom less to his then a glow-worms light is to the Sun And hath not God most plainly and frequently in his Word commanded thee a holy life Yea every part and parcell of it is nothing else but the obeying of that Word For if it be not prescribed by the Lord it is not Holiness nor that which I am pleading for And when the living God hath told the world his mind and will shall a sinful man stand up and say I am wiser then my Maker I know a better way then this What need there all this stir for Heaven What dost thou less then thus blaspheme and set up thy folly above the wisdom of the Lord when thou condemnest or reproachest the holiness which he commandeth Quest 9. Dare you say that God is not only so unwise but so unrighteous and tyranical as to give the world unnecessary Laws and set them upon a needless work What King so tyranical as would require his subjects on pain of death to go pick straws against the wind What Master or Parent so foolishly cruel as to command their servants or children to weary themselves with hunting butter-flies and following their own shadows And darest thou impute such foolish tyrannie to the God of heaven as if he had made a world and set them upon a needless work and commanded them to tire themselves in vain Quest 10. Can a man be too diligent about that work which he was made for and is daily preserved and maintained for and for which he hath all the mercies of his life Thou hadst never come into the world but on this business even to serve and please God and prepare for everlasting happiness And are you afraid of doing this too diligently Why is it thinkest thou that God sustaineth thee Why dyedst thou not many years ago but only that thou mightest have time to seek and serve him Was it only that thou mightest eat and drink and sleep and go up and down and fill up a room among the living Why beasts and fools and mad-men do all this as well as thou Why hast thou thy Reason and understanding but to know and serve the Lord Is it only to know how to shift a little for the commodities of the world Or is it not to know the way to life eternal Look round about thee on all the creatures and on all the mercies which thou dost possess every deliverance and priviledge and accommodation every bit of bread thou eatest and every hour of thy precious time are all given thee for this One thing needful And yet wilt thou
never studied them with that diligence and patience as those must do that will attain a certain satisfying knowledge Quer. 5. Moreover if you are so uncertain of a Life to come I would ask you Whether in all your search and study you have behaved your selves as Learners or rather as proud self-conceited men that think themselves wise enough before they learn to try and judge their Books and Teachers If this be your case no wonder if you be Infidels If you come with such a disposition to read a Book of Astronomy or Physick you will never learn If you go to any Schoolmaster or to learn any language or science and think your selves able before you have learnt them to try and judge your Teacher and all the Books you read and so will reject all that you do not understand or agreeth not with you former conceits you will sooner prove doting fools then Schollars and sooner be the derision of Rational men then come to the knowledge â—â—â—ch you pretend to seek Come to Christs School as little children in meekness and humility and a willingness to be taught and patiently continue in the use of means till Learning can be attained before you think your selves fit to censure the Truth of God which you are learning and then tell me whether God doth not resolve you Quer. 6. Moreover I would know of you that doubt so of the life to come Whether you have been true to so much Light as you received and have lived in obedience to the Truth which God revealed to you Or rather whether you have not wilfully and knowingly lived in some secret or open sin and striven against the Light and Spirit of Christ and abused the truth which you have known and used violence with your own conscieâ—â—â—â— If so which it s ten to one is your case it is no wonder 〈◊〉 are Infidels forsaken of God whom you first forsook and given up to Pride and Self-deceit Quer. 7. If Man have no Life to live but this and no further End of his Actions then a Beast nor any further account to give then he is indeed but one of the higher sort of Beasts differing but gradually from a Dog as a Dog doth from a Swine And if this be indeed thy judgement of thy self I demand Whether or no thou be content to be used as a Beast Wilt thou not take it ill to be called or judged a Beast by another Or wouldst thou have others judge better of thee then thy self Wouldst thou have no man regard thy Propriety or Life any more then a Beast is to be regarded A Beast hath no Propriety no not of that which Nature hath given him You accuse not your selves of doing him any wrong when you deprive the sheep of his fleece nor when you make a constant drudge of your Horse or Ox. And do you think it lawful before God for any one that can but master you to do the like by you to strip you naked and to make pack-horses of you and use you as their slaves We take it to be no sin to take away the lives of Beasts if it be but for our own commodity We kill Oxen and calves and sheep and swine and fowle and fishes for our daily food And is it lawful before God for others to do so by you Should nothing restrain them but want of Power to overcome you If you say that you are Beasts as Beasts you should be used Quer. 8. Moreover I would know of you Whether you think that there is any other world which spiritual inhabitants do possess If you say No you go against all Reason and experience Against Experience because that many a hundred Witches and many Apparitions and haunted houses have put the matter out of question for all that many reports of such things have been false And against all Reason because we see that this inferiour world is everywhere replenished with inhabitants The earth hath men and beasts the aire hath birds the water hath fishes And can a man of common Reason then think that the superiour Regions which we see and which we see not which for greatness and for spendor and excellency are a thousand fold above this earth should all be uninhabited and destitute and that there are not creatures also there for excellency and Number incomparbly beyond the inhabitants of this lesser lower world Certainly nothing is made in vain nor are the works of God so monstrously disproportioned and discomposed as for the Nobler parts to be only for the baser The Heavens that are over us and all the vast and most excellent parts of the Creation have a use that is answerable to their excellency God makes not cottages to be inhabited and Pallaces and Cities to lie wast and desert to no use But if you grant there is another world proportionaby thus replenished with creatures you may easily see from thence a Probability that man shall be translated thither Why not the soul of man as well as those spirits that in assumed shapes have made their appearances unto man As all things ripen to their perfection why should it seem any more improbable that the soul shall pass hence into the world of spirits then that the chicken shall come out of the shell and the infant out of the wombe into so wide and light a world as this when before they were shut up in a narrow darkness and never heard nor knew any thing of that world which they enter into Quer. 9. Do you know why it is that God hath given man that knowledge and free-will and capacity to seek another life which beasts have not if he be intended for no other life then beasts If God be no most Wise he is not God If he be then he maketh not so excellent faculties as these in vain but fitteth all his Creatures to their uses Every workman will do so by his work Why is a knife made keen but to cut with And what are the wheels of your watch or clock made for but to shew you the hour of the day Look now into the whole frame of the soul of man and judge by its aptitude what it is made for 1. Man is capable of Knowing that there is a God and knowing his Attributes which Beasts are not because they be not made to enjoy him 2. Man is capable of knowing his Relation to this God that he is our Creator and we his Creatures he our Lord and we his Own he our Ruler and we he Subjects he our Benefactor and we his Benificiaries And we are capable of Knowing our Duty in these several Relations And certainly all this is not in Vain 3. Man is capable of Knowing that the Everlasting Love of God is that alone that can make him Happy And why would God shew him this if he were not capable of enjoying it Reason tells men that nothing here can make us Happy and that 〈…〉 do it 4. Man is capable of
Knowing that certain Duties are to be performed in order to the Pleasing of his Lord and what those Duties are which would not be if we were not capable of Pleasing him and so of being happy in him 5. Man is made capable of Desiring after the Everlasting Love of God and that above all things in this world And God hath not made such Desires in vain 6. Man is capable of Loving God as an Object Everlastingly to be enjoyed and that above all other things 7. Man also is capable of referring all the creatures unto God and using all things but as Means to this Everlasting end Thus do believers And surely all this is not in vain 8. Man is a Creature that cannot regularly be moved according to his nature to the performance of his Duty to God and Man unless it be by Motives fetcht from the life to come Take off that poise and all his orderly motion will soon cease Nothing below such Everlasting things are fit or sufficient Morally to govern him and cause him to live as man should live 9. He is possessed of actual fears of Everlasting Punishment and shall never perfectly overcome these fears by his greatest Unbelief 10. He is capable of fetching his highest Pleasures from the fore-thoughts of Everlasting Happiness and receiving from hence his encouragement in well doing and foretast of the Reward Now this being the Natural frame of man as is past denyal when Brutes have no such thing at all let Reason judge whether the God of Nature have made this nature of man in vain that we see hath suited every other creature to its use our horses to carry us and our Ox to draw for us and the earth to bear its several fruits for them and us And hath he mistaken only in the making of man and gone beyond his own Intention and fitted him for those uses and enjoyments that he was never meant for These are not Imputations to be cast upon the most wise and gracious God Quer. 10. Moreover I demand of you What is the End of man and all these special faculties if there be no life for him after this Either he hath an End which he is to intend or he hath â—one If none then he hath nothing to do in the world For all actions of man are nothing else but the Intending of some End and the choise and use of means for the attaining it Man must lie down and sleep out his days if this be true that he hath â—â— end Nay sleep it self hath some And he cannot choose but Intend some End and seek it if he would never so fain unless he will take some opiate stupifying potion or run mad And he that made him also and placed him here had some End in it For if man had thus no End he could have no Maker or Efficient cause For every Rational efficient intendeth an end in all his works And he that made men Rational is Eminently much more Knowing then his Creature And if we had no Maker then we have no Being and so are no Men. But if Man unquestionably have an End it is either something that is Nobler or Baser then himself and some state that is Better or Worse then that in which he seeks his end Baser it cannot be for that were Monstrous that Baser things should be the End of the more Noble Beasts are made for Man and therefore not Man for Beasts The Earth is made for Beasts and Men and therefore we are not made for the Earth Our Means is not our End If you grant that we are made for God that made us as nothing more sure then How is it that God can be our End if there be no life but this 1. Here we are but in seeking him and still are forced to complain that we fall short Here we are but in the use of means 2. We find that our Knowledge Desires and Love will here reach no higher then to carry us on towards that perfection that is in our eye and not to satisfie the soul The creature that doth attain his End hath Rest in it and is better then before But we have nothing here like Rest and should be in a worse condition hereafter if we had no more 3. Here we sin against the Lord and wrong him more then we serve him we know but little of him and his work and serve and praise him but a little and not according to the capacity of our nature And therefore if he have not a higher end for us and we a higher end to seek then any is in this world to be found our Natures seem to be in vain For my part though it be in weakness I must needs say it is my trade and daily work to serve my God and seek after an immortal blessedness And if I thought that there were no such thing to be had and no such use for me I must needs stand still and look about me or in my practice unman my self by a brutish life as I had brutified my self in my estimation and Intention For what 〈◊〉 I find to do in the world What should I do with my Reason and Knowledge or any faculty above a beast if I had no higher a work and end then beasts Verily if I had lost the Hopes of another life I knew not what to do with my self in the world but must become some other creature and live some other kind of life then now I live Quer. 11. Moreover I desire you to consider Whether it 〈◊〉 credible to a man of Reason that God made his noblest creature in this world with a Nature that should be a Necessary Misery and Vexation to it self above all the misery of the baser creatures and that the wiser any man is the more miserable he must needs be This is not credible Yet thus would it be if there were no life but this For 1. the Knowledge that man hath of a superiour Good which beasts have not would Tantalize him and torment him To know it and must not partake of it is to be used as a Horse that is tyed near his Provender which he must not reach 2. The Love and Desires and Hopes that I before described would all be our Vexation To Love and Desire that which we cannot attain and that with the chief of our Affections is but to make us miserable by vertue 3. To use all those Means and do the Duties before-mentioned in vain when we are not capable of the End is but to roll at Siâ—iphus stone and to be made to wash Blackamores or to fill a bottomless tub 4. No creature here but man hath Fears of any misery after death and therefore none would be here so miserable There is no Infidel but must confess that for ought hâ— knows there may be a life of punishment for the wicked And this may be will breed more fears in a confiderate man then Death it self alone could do 5.
what stand in due subodination to the honour of God and the common good and in due coordination with the welfare of our neighbours Whereas the ungodly are every man of them an Idol to himself self is the only Lord and Law set up against God and King and Countrey And if God or King or Countrey be served by them it is but in subserviency to themselves as they look to attain some wealth or dignity or honour by it The self-seeking man is faithful and trusty to no man but himself And the self-denying man hath no great temptation to be unfaithful 5. Holiness doth partly consist of charity and teacheth men to do as they would be done by And how can it goe ill with any societies where Love prevaileth and men are as loth to wrong as to be wronged and to do hurt to others as to themselves 6. Holiness brings down Gods blessing on each particular subject and maketh a people the delight of God and brings them under the promise of his favour Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the Life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4. 8. What abundance of promises are there to the obedient Isa 1. 19. Deut. 4. 30. Exod. 23. 22. Deut. 11. 27. 13. 4. 30. 2 8 20. Jer. 7. 23. 11. 4 7. c. 7. Holiness maketh men meek and patient and teacheth subjects not to make too great a matter of any injury that is done them nor to censure unwarrantably the actions of their superiours nor to murmur and stir up discontents but quietly to bear all in obedience to God and for the common good 8. Holiness disposeth men to Unity and Concord and is as much against discord and division as healthful nature is against wounds and sickness Whence are wars but from the lusts that war in your members Jam. 4. 1. The servant of the Lord must not strive The new Command of special Love to one another and the strange forbearance concession condescension forgiving and loving enemies themselves required in the Gospel must needs do much if truly practised to preserve the Peace of any nation 9. Holiness assureth us of so great a Reward to those that obey their superiours in things lawful and offereth us so much better things upon our patience and submission then ever disobedience or rebellion can attain that hereby it must needs tend to the quiet and benefit of Societies He that is bound to rejoyce and be exceeding glad in his persecution because his reward in heaven is great hath small reason to contrive or fight or sin to escape the persecution together with the reward Matth. 5. 11 12. 10. Holiness teacheth men both to continue obedient and faithful against all temptations and also to propagate the same resolutions and to draw all others to obedience with us It was the excellency of Christs example that he would be obedient even when he was falsly accused of treason and charged as an usurper of Cesars right If we should be called seditious disobedient rebellions when we are most loyal it must not move us from our loyalty at all In all these ten particulars I have shewed that in the nature of the thing it is undenyable that Godliness is the strength and beauty and safety of Kingdoms and of all Societies in that it engageth the subject as well as the Governours in all that tendeth to their peace and wellfare And now you may see by what is said that there can be no weight in the Objection which pretendeth from the Case of the Waldenses Albigenses Bohemians French c. to produce experience against what I am proving Health may as truly be said to be the cause of sicknesses as Godlinesse to be the cause of treachery rebellion or disloyalty there being nothing in all the world except God himself so contray to these as Godliness is But you will aske Whence is it then that we have the foresaid instunces I answer sometime not authority but malice and cruelty driveth poor Christians to a stone wall and if they turn again when they can fly no further accuseth them of Rebellion As it was with the Waldenses the Bohemians c. Sometime Princes and States fall out among themselves and cannot agree about their Titles and the Bounds and degrees of their Power And then whoever the people are against they are sure from that side to hear the most opprobrious Titles and be used accordingly if it be in their power Sometime the right of Government is not easily or generally known as in the contention between the houses of York and Lancaster here And then as one party conquereth one year and another the next so the people must be called Traytors and Rebells by each party that prevaileth if they obeyed and served the other party against them And if they refuse to obey and defend either of them they will be condemned by both Sometime the Politie of Empires and Common-wealths is so imperfect and obscure in the constitution that the several parties that pretend to interest cannot agree about their Rights nor the Lawyers agree among themselves And the people cannot be thought to be wiser then the Lawyers in the affairs of their profession If Nero and the Senate of Rome had each of them commanded the Christians to aid them against the other it would not have been easie for the wisest and holiest of the Christians then to know which part they should have adhered to and assisted Paul thought not meet to decide any such controversie He commanded every soul to be subject to the higher powers and not resist but he tells them not whether Caesar or the Senate was the higher powers in a case of contest and division Sometime a Traytor usurpeth the Government and Christians think when they see him setled and in possession that though they hate his usurpation yet they are bound to honour and obey him as being possessed of the Government Thus Gregory the great too hastily and flatteringly owned and applauded Phocas and the Christian Bishops ordinarily subjected themselves to the Emperours that came in by blood and violence Thus the Bishops of Rome and of other Churches in Italy and the adjacent parts submitted themselves I think too soon as soon as they perceived him to be conquerour to Theodorious and so they did to other conquerours Sometimes as the General Councils of Basil Constance c. determined that a Council is above the Pope and declared the contrary to be a damnable Heresie and commanded the Bishops and people to obey them against the Pope so Senates and Parliaments and the Majority of the States men and Lawyers may tell the people that are unacquainted with such Law-cases that in this or that they are bound to obey them upon highest penalties and that they shall receive to themselves condemnation if they resist them and so may mislead such as intend nothing but to obey the higher powers for
secureth every Society and interesteth them in the most impregnable defence even in the Love and favour of the Lord and in his many sure and precious promises He hath engaged his Almightiness and Fidelity for such and rendreth them as the apple of his eye and hath promised that he will be their defence Zech. 2. 8. Psalm 5. 11. 7. 10. 59. 9 16 17. 62. 2. whereas the ungodly are under his curse Psalm 1. 6. 37. And which of these Societies is liker to be happy 18. Godliness is the surest way to furnish every Society with all the blessings that are truly good for them For they have the favour and promise of him that is the giver of them all Rom. 8. 28. Psalm 34. 10. 84. 11. 23. Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4. 8. 6. 6. Mat. 6. 33. But wickedness is the certain way to ruine Even one sinner destroyeth much good Eccl. 9. 18. and one godly man hindreth much evil as the case of Joseph Moses Daniel and many others tells you 19 Moreover it is Godliness that is the honour of all Societies Without this their wisdom is meer folly and their Riches are but the â—etters of their slavery and canker to gnaw them and testifie against them and their greatest victories may be but murders which shall damn them and their splendour in the world is but the sign of their misery in the eyes of all fore-seeing men Prov. 14. 34 Righteousness exalteth a Nation but sin is a reproach to any people What Glory can be equal to the Glory of our interest in God and of our being his people and doing his work and having his presence 20. Lastly How can that be worst on earth that is so good in Heaven The perfection of Holiness hereafter with the Holy Love and Praises and Enjoyments of the Saints will be their Glory If you think this worst in your Societies on earth what do you but renounce it If Heaven be worst for you come not thither If the participation of that which is the felicity of the glorified be not the felicity of all Societies I desire none of their felicity What if Saints from Heaven would come down and dwell among you here on earth I beseech you as men of reason answer me these two Questions 1. Whether you do not know or verily believe that they would be more Holy and Pure and Exact and strict and more averse to all sin then any of those are that now you dislike as too precise 2. Whether you would therefore call them Puritanes and hate them and cast them out or imprison them or take them for the troublers of your Countries or rather for the honour and blessing of your Countries What you would do by them that do by those that come nearest to them among you CHAP. V. Times of Holiness are the Best Times AND now I have given you all this Evidence I dare leave it to the judgement of any man that is fit to judge Whether it be the godly or ungodly that are the Better Magistrates or Better Pastors of the Churches or Better Members of the Common-wealth or of any Society Judge now whether the Places and Times are not Best that are most Godly And whether it be the Godly or the Ungodly that are the Troublers of the world And yet it hath ever been the practice of ungodly men to charge it upon them that Fear the Lord that all the troubles of the world are long of them We were all quiet say they before this Religion and preciseness troubled us and this is it that since it came among us hath set us all together by the ears But if these men be yet reasonable I desire them to consider 1. That this hath alwayes been the old complaint of the most wicked men which God himself hath testified against When Lot did but gently admonish the abominable Sodomites to forbear a villany not to be named Gen. 19. 7 8 9. I pray you Brethren do not so wickedly What said they to him and how did they take it Why they said stand back and they said again This One fellow came in to sojourn and he will needs be a Judge Now will we deal worse with thee then with them Is not this the case between us now How are we unpeaceable Because we are against sin If we would hinder men from wronging God and from condemning their own souls and others then forsooth we are their troublers and we judge them and we disturb their Peace Just like the Sodomites These precise fellows say they will neede be our Judges and we must be ruled by them before they came among us we had none of this ado But did not God think you decide the controversie aright He first took Lot and his family away that the Sodomites might be troubled with that precise and busie fellow no more and then he sent fire from Heaven on Sodom and consumed them all making them an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. Or as it is fully set forth by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 2. 6 7 8 9. Turning the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes he condemned them with an overthrow making them an example to those that after should live ungodly Mark this And delivered just Lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked For that righteous man dwelling among them in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust to the day of Judgement to be punished And now who is it that was troublesom and the cause of evil Was it Lot or was it Sodom Take heed lest God take the Lots that trouble you from among you and when you are rejoycing that you are rid of them he serve you worse then he served Sodom In the daies of Noah no question but that Preacher of Righteousness seemed to the world a singular and a self-conceited fellow But did not God decide the controversie whether it were Noah or they that were the troublers of the world Saith Peter 2 Pet. 2 5. God spared not the old world but saved Noah the eighth person a Preacher of righteousness bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly When Israel â—ell before the men of Ai it was a doubt who it was that was the cause of that calamity but God proved it to be Achan who is stoned upon this sentence of Joshua Josh 7. 25. Why hast thou troubled us the Lord shall trouble thee this day 2. And consider I pray you What a Quietness it is that you have before you are troubled by the Godly It is a Quietness in the high way to Hell You had the priviledge of damning your souls without disturbance from these precise controllers Hath not
you revile and that in highest fervour and perfection They Rest not day or night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come Rev. 4. 8. Dost thou know the man on earth that is most precise and holy and diligent for God Why the lowest of the Saints in Heaven go quite beyond him And in good sadness dost thou take Heaven to be the worst place and think that so much Holiness will make it troublesom Bear witness then against thy self Out of thy own mouth art thou condemned How canst thou expect to be admitted into Heaven that takest it for so bad a place Thou teachest God to thrust thee back and say to thee Be gone here is nothing but Holiness which you could not alive You shall go to a place where Religion and Holiness shall not trouble you Well Sirs Consider now as men of Reason of all these twenty Reasons which I have given you and then tell me whether that be not the better world and the better soul where there is most Faith and Holiness CHAP. VI. Holiness is the only way of Safety I Have proved to you that Holiness is best for Common wealths and given you many General undenyable evidences to prove that it is Best for all men in particular I shall now come to the particular evidences and shew you wherein it is that it is Best for all men There are three sorts of Good that men have to look after The first is the security of their Life and Being the second is their moral well-being and the third is their Natural well-being This last also is divided into three branches and consisteth in our Profit our Honour and our Pleasure So that here are five several sorts of Goodness to be considered of and you will find that Holiness is Best beyond all comparison in each respect 1. In respect of Safety 2. In point of Honesty 3. In point of Gain 4. In point of Honour And 5. In point of Pleasure or Delight If I prove not every one of these then tell me I promised more then I could perform But if I do prove them I look that you that Read it should promise presently to come in to God and a Holy life and faithfully perform it 1. And that HOLINESS IS THE SAFEST WAY I prove thus 1. That man is in a safer state that is delivered from the power of Satan then he that is in his bondage and taken captive by him at his will But all the unsanctified are in this captivity and all the sanctified are delivered out of it as the Scripture most expresly tells us Ephes 2. 1 2. 3 And you hath be quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world according to the Prince of the Power of the air the Spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience among whom we also bad our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind c. So 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God eradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil who are taken captive by him at his will And Acts 26. 17 18. I send thee to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God And Col. 1. 13. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son Satan is the Ruler and the Jaylor of the ungodly that leadeth them to sin and so to destruction and keepeth them for torments at the day of wrath And is he safe that is in the Devils power If he should appear to thee and lay hold of thee thou wouldst not think that thou were safe But his possession of thy soul is far more dangerous Thou dost not believe that thou art in his power But thy blindness sheweth it and thy enmity to the way of Holiness sheweth it and thy ungodly life doth fully shew it and the Scripture affirmeth it of all such and what need there any further proof But the sanctified are all dilivered from this slavery and though the Devil may rage against them he shall not prevail 2. Moreover those that are United to Jesus Christ and are become the living Members of his Body are certainly safer then those that are yet strangers to him and have no special interest in him But all that are sanctified are thus united to Christ and made his members and all the unsanctified have no part in him He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life 1 John 5. 12. John 15. 6 7 9 10. If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned If ye abide in me and my words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you As the Father hath loved me so have I loved you continue in my love If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love Yee are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you v. 14. Eph. 5. 25 26 27 29 30. Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and â—â—â—aâ—â—â— it with the washing of water by the word that be might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish No man ever hated his own flesh but nourisheth and cheri â—ath it even as the Lord the Church For we are Members of his Body of his flesh and of his bones Judge by these passages whether the sanctified are not safe If the Love of Christ and his Merits and his Power cannot keep them safe then nothing can If the Saviour cannot save them none can Is not the very flesh of Christ safe are not the members of his Body safe are not his friends his spouse and beloved safe If Christ can save us we are safe For who can conquer him Or who can take us out of his hands John 10. 28. If he be for us who shall be against us and if he justifie us who shall condemn us Rom. 8. 33 34 35. But is it so with the ungodly No they have no part nor lâ—t in this matter but are in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity because their heart is not right in the sight of God Act. 8. 21 23. 3. Moreover he that hath escaped the Curse of the Law and hath his sins forgiven him and is justified from all things that could by the Law be charged on him is safer then he that is under the Curse and hath all his sins yet lying on his soul But the first of
and Honesty 1 Tim. 2. 2 3. Indeed the Greek word here is that which signifieth gravity and seemliness of behaviour but that which is frequently translated good is it which signisieth the truly Honest And you know none of the ungodly are ever called Good in Scripture but clean contrary Prov. 11. 6. The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them but transgressâ—rs shall be taken in their own naughtiness So vers 18. 19 20. The wicked worketh a deceitful work but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward As righteousness tendeth to life so he that pursueth evil doth it to his own death They that are of a froward heart are an abomination to the Lord but such as are upright in their way are his delight Everywhere you see how God abhorreth the ungodly and extolleth those that love and fear him Christ calleth the ungodly Evil men that â—â—t of the evil treasure of their hearts do bring forth evil things Matth. 12. 35. All is evil the life evil the heart evil and the man evil Prov. 12. 26. The Righteous is more excellent then his neighbour but the way of the wicked seduceth them And Psalm 16. David calleth the godly The excellent in whom is all his delight It is an excellent spirit that is in them Dan. 3. 12. 14 and 63. and an excellent way in which they go 1 Cor. 12. 31. and an excellent knowledge which the spirits illumination causeth them to attain Phil. 3. 18. Ephes 3. 18 19. You have Gods judgement of the case if that will satisfie you who it is that is the Best and Honestest man the Holy or the unholy 2. Do you think that man is an Honest man that will deny you your due and rob you of all that is your own Or rather is not the Just man the Honest man that will give every man his own I know you will give your voices for the latter O then take heed lest you condemn your selves If you be not Holy your own testimony doth condemn you For it is only the Godly that give God his own when the ungodly rob him of it Hast thou not thy Life and Time and Maintenance from God Hast thou not thy Reason and thy Affections and all thy faculties from him And should not all thou hast be employed for him Thou art a dishonest man that grudgest yea denyest him one day in seven when thou owest him all Thou art a dishonest man that givest away thy Makers due unto his vilest enemies That wastest thy means or strength on sin that spendest thy precious time on vanity that abusest his creatures to the satisfying of thy lusts and that livest to thy flesh when thou shouldst live to God Thou robbest him of all which thou givest to his enemies and of all which thou dost not use for his service It is less dishonesty to rob thy Master that trusteth thee with his goods then to rob the Lord that trusteth thee with thy time and parts and all things O blind unworthy sinners What makes you think him an honest man that robbeth his Maker or denyeth him his own when you call him a dishonest man that robbeth but such silly worms as you that in respect of God have nothing of your own Art thou better then God that it should be called dishonesty to wrong thee and no dishonesty to wrong him or deny him that which is his own God hath an absolute Title to you and that on more accounts then one You are his own as you are his creatures All souls are mine saith the Lord Ezek. 18. 4. And he hath Title to thee by Redemption as well as by Creation For to this end Christ dyed and rose and revived that he might be Lord of the deâ—d and of the living Rom. 14. 9. We are not our own we are bought with a price and therefore should glorifie God in our bodies and our spirits which are his 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. For if one dyed for all then were all dead that they which live should not henceforth live to themselves but to him that dyed for them and rose again 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. And as you your selves are Gods own as he is your Creator and Redeemer so all that you have is his own as the bestower or as your Master that trusteth it in your hands Exod. 19. 5. Now therefore if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my Covenant then ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people for all the earth is mine And saith God to Job Job 41. 11. What soever is under the whole heaven is mine Psalm 50. 10 11 12. Every beast of the Forrest is mine the wild beasts of the field are mine the world is mine and the fulness thereof 1 Cor. 4. 7. What hast thou which thou didst not receive Thou hast not a minute of time which thou owest not to God nor a thought nor a word nor a farthing of thy estate And is it not the basest injustice and dishonesty to give these to thy flesh and deny them to him and think his service an unnecessary thing If thou wilt give the world and thy lusts any thing let it be that which thou canst truly call thine own As God saith to the Idolators Ezek. 16. 18 19. Thou hast set mine oyl and mine incense before them my meat also which I gave thee c. so may he say â—o thee It is his Time which thou hast consumed in idleness and in sinful delights and his Provision by which thou hast â—ed thy lusts But the sanctified man is devoted to God His study is to give him his own All the business of his life which you account his over-much strictness and preciseness is nothing but his Honesty to God in giving him his own You look your horse should travail for you and your Oxe should labour for you and your servant work for you because they are your own And shall not we give up all that we have to God that are much more his own Will you hang them that take your Own from you and count them Honest that deal worse with God Say not If Christ were here we would give it him For he hath told you how you should use all his talents in his Laws and if you deny them to the poor or any holy use that he requireth them you deny them unto him Read Mat. 25. 10. 40 41 42. 3. Do you think that an unnatural man is an Honest man One that will abuse his Father or Mother and scorn the bowels from which he sprung All the world is agreed on it that such are dishonest Honour thy Father and Mother is called the first Commandment with promise Exod. 21 17. He that curseth his Father or Mother shall surely be put to death See Prov. 20. 20. 30. 17. The eye that mocketh at his Father and despiseth to obey his Mother the Ravens of the valley shall pick it out and the young
Eagles shall eat it To be without natural affections is the brand of highest wickedness Rom. 1. 31. and 2 Tim. 3. 3. And do you not know that it is worse to be without holy affections to the God that made you and the Christ that bought you and to despise forsake or abuse the Lord Thou hadst thy Being more from him then from thy Parents They knew not how thy parts were formed It was he that gave thee thy immortal soul It is by him that thou hast lived until now much more then on the food thou eatest or the air thou breathest in And art thou so unnatural as to be ungodly and deny him thy love and care and service that hath made thee and to call a holy heavenly life a needless toyl Deut. 32. 6. Do you thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unwise Is he not thy Father that hath bought thee hath he not made thee and established thee If an unholy man be an honest man that is so unnatural as to cross the end of his Creation and deny his service to the Lord that made him then he is honest that spits in his Fathers face and despiseth his Mother that brought him forth 4. Do you think that he is an honest man that is unthankful It is agreed on by all the world that unthankfulness is a principal point of dishonesty He is no honest man that will abuse or despise those by whom he liveth or that have engaged him by kindness If you were so used your selves by one whose lives or estates you had preserved would you not say What an unworthy wretch is this have I deserved this usage at his hand Why all the unthankfulness against men in the world is not to be compared to thy unthankfulness against God What are the Benefits which man hath given thee in comparison of his Did ever man do any thing for thee that is comparable to thy Creation and Redemption and offering thee salvation from everlasting misery and a room with Angels in everlasting glory besides every hourâ— mercy that ever thou hadst here in this world And is that an honest man that will requite this God with prophaneness and ungodliness and return him sin for all his mercies and refuse to live a holy life Doth thy flesh deserve all thy care and labour and is this God unworthy of it and dost thou call his service a needless work If ingratitude can make a man dishonest thou art then a dishonest man But it is the business of the godly to give up themselves to him that made them and to exercise their thankfulness in their capacities for these greatest mercies 5. Do you think that a cruel unmerciful man or a loving and merciful man is the more honest Surely I shall here have all your voices He that hateth those that hurt him not and would kill them and set their houses on fire and carryeth malice in his face and speeches will be called an honest man but by few And he that is Loving and studyeth to do Good to all about him will be counted Honest Why try the ungodly and the Saints by this No more malicious men in the world then the ungodly They have an enmity even to the God that made them Col. 1. 21. and to the Christ that bought them Luke 19. 27. and to the Word of God that offereth them salvation and would lead them to eternal life and hate the Knowledge of the way of life Prov. 1. 22. They are enemies to the servants of the Lord and hate the upright that desire their salvation and would but draw them from their sins Prov. 29. 10. 9. 8. They curse those that bless them and persecute those that pray for them Matth. 5. 44. The first wicked man that was born into the world did kill his brother because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous 1 John 3. 12. But this is not their greatest cruelty They are enemies to their own salvation They will run into Hell in despight of Christ and all the Preachers in the world For there is but one way thither the way of ungodliness and that way they will go Yea that is not all but bloody wretches they would have all the Countrey do as they do and be damned with them They are angry with a man if he will not live an ungodly life and tipple and swear and do as they They revile him if he will not give over his diligent serving of the Lord which is all one as to fall out with men because they will not forseit heaven and run from God and damn their souls and all for nothing When they might more mercifully scorn us because we will not give over eating or that we will not cut our own throats And are these cruel persons honest men Is that merciless wretch an honest man that is not content to cast away his own everlasting happiness for nothing upon his fond conceits but must needs have others do so too That is not content to wrong the Lord but would have others wrong him also The Devil is Honest if these be Honest But for the Godly it is their desire their care their work to save themselves and further the salvation of all others O how they long to hear of the Conversion of Towns and Countries and how glad are they when they hear it Not for any worldly commodity to themselves but because they rejoyce at the good of others And what would they not do to promote it which they could do 6. Do you think that a perfidious unfaithful man or a faithful man that will not be hired to break his word is the honester man Sure this is no hard question neither A Knight of the Post that will say and unsay swear and forswear and will betray his dearest friend for a groat is taken by few for an honest man in comparison of him that will rather die then lye or be unfaithful Why nothing is more plain then that all you that are ungodly are treacherous to the Lord himself You are perfidious Covenant-breakers You owe him your selves wholly on the grounds that I before expressed and yet you are unfaithful to him You have all from him and you serve his enemy with it You call him your God and will not Love nor honour nor serve him as your God Mal. 1. 6. You bound your selves to him in your Baptism and many a time since by a solemn Vow or Covenant but you live in the treacherous breach of it continually You Covenanted to take the Lord for your God and yet you will not seek him nor be Ruled by him You Covenanted to take Jesus for your saviour and yet will not be saved by him from your sins Matth. 1. 21. You Covenanted to take the Holy-Ghost for your Sanctifier to purifie your hearts and lives and yet you resist his holy motions and hate his sanctifying word and work and some of you will mock at Sanctification
Power Wisdom and Goodness engaged to us for our Good and to be ours according to our necessity and capacity This O ye worldlings is the Riches of the Saints This is the Wealth that we will boldly boast of Boast you of your houses and lands and money and we will boast of our God Have you Houses and Towns and Countreys at command Be it so but the Saints have the God of the world to be their God Have you Kingdoms and Dominions We have the God of all the earth the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Set all your Riches in the ballance against him and try what they will prove Set all the world and the Kingdoms and Glory and Wealth of it in the ballance and try whether they are any more to God then one dust or feather to all the world yea they are nothing and less then nothing vanity and lighter then vanity it self Isa. 40. 16 17. This one Jewel containeth all our Treasure He is ours that hath all things What then can we need Psal 23. 1. He is ours that knoweth all things Who then can overreach us or undo us by deceit He is ours that can do all things What then should we fear and what power shall prevail against us He is ours that is Goodness and Love it self How then can we be miserable or what imperfection can there be in our Felicity They that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches none of them can by any means redeem his brother nor himself that he should live for ever and not see corruption Psalm 49. 6 7 9. But God will redeem us from the power of the grave for he shall receive us Ver. 15. Let the workers of iniquity boast themselves a while Psalm 94. 4. Let the wicked 〈…〉 desire and bless the coveâ—â—â—â— whom the Lord abhorreth Psalm 10. 3. It is the Lord that is King for ever and ever that heareth the desires of the hamble that prepareth our hearts and prepareth his ear to hear Ver. 16 17. Our souls shall make their boast in God Psalm 34. 2. O tast and see that the Lord is good blessed is the man that trusteth in him But you cannot say truly Blessed is the man that hath Lands and Lorships Blessed is the man that hath Crowns and Kingdoms Yea truly may you say Cursed is the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and withdraweth his heart from the Lord. Jer. 17. 5. Fear the Lord ye his Saints for there is no want to them that fear him Psalm 34. 8 9 10. But when you have all the world you cannot say that you have no want Confounded then be the covetous Idolaters that boast themselves of their Idols Psalm 97. 7. But in God will we boast all the day long and praise his name for evermore Psalm 44. 8. What have you but the gleanings of our harvest and the crums that fall from the childrens table Our God is he that giveth you your prosperity He droppeth you these leavings from the redundancy of his Goodness when he hath given himself his Son and all things to his own All that we want and all that our souls desire is in God We have none in heaven but him nor any in earth that we desire besides him Psalm 73. 25. His loving kindness is better to us then life Psalm 63. 3. Our flesh and our heart faileth us and all the creatures fail us but God is the strength of our hearts and our portion for ever Psalm 73. 26. Verily the Riches of all the Princes of the earth is less in comparison of him that is the Treasure and Portion of the Saints then a straw is to all the earth or a little dung to the shining Sun 2. Would you yet hear more of the Riches of Believers though more then God there cannot be The Lord Jesus Christ is their Head and Husband their Saviour and Intercessour at Gods right hand They are Married to him His Merits are thâ—irs for all those uses to which they need them It is he that Justifieth Who then shall condemn them He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall be not with â—iâ— also freely give us all things Rom. 8. 32 34. Christ is the Pearl of infinite valuâ— for whom we have willingly sold all Matth. 13. 45 46. And what are all your Treasures to this Treasure Ask â—â—â—l and he will tell you that had tryed both Phil. 3. 7 8. His 〈…〉 â—e counteth Loss for Christ yea all things he accounted but loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ It is Love incomprehensible surpassing knowledge that is revealed to us in Christ Eph. 3. 18 19. The Riches of Christ are unsearchable Riches Eph. 3. 8. It is Christ that bindeth up our broken hearts that is the Peace-maker and Reconciler of our souls to God What he hath done for us and what he will do I shall tell you anon But the ungodly have no part in him nor have they any such treasure that will do for them what Christ will do for us Their Treasure is the wrath of God which they are heaping up against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God Rom. 2. 5. All the Treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in Christ Col. 2. 3. And he hath them for us according to our measure as being our Treasurie our Head and made of God to us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption 1 Cor. 1. 30. They are exceeding Riches of Grace that are shewed in the kindness of God through Jesus Christ to all that are sanctified by that grace Ephes 2. 6 7 8. Yea that you may see there is no comparison even that which you abhorr in a Christians case and account his misery and the worst of Christ is better then the best of your condition and then that for which you lose your souls For the very Reproach of Christ is greater riches then the Treasures of the world Heb. 11. 26. And it is the reproach that we undergo for Christ that you most abhorr and the treasures of the world that you highlyest esteem It is greater Riches to be one of them that are scorned and derided for the sake of Christ then to be one of them that hath the wealth of the world at his dispose And if the Reproach of Christ be greater Riches then all yours What then is his Life and Love and Benefits his Grace and Glory 3. Would you have the Riches of the Saints yet further opened to you Why the Holy-Ghost is in Covenant with them as their Sanctifier and Comforter And he is not only theirs himself by Covenant and Relation but he also dwelleth in them by his graâ—â—s and restoreth the image of God upon them They are the â—…ples of the Holy-Ghost which is in them 1 Cor. 6. 19. And by the Spirit and by Faith Christ dwelleth
that are but honest-hearted may certainly understand them Which quiets and pleaseth and satisfies the mind 3. And yet there is an exciting Difficulty in many things that are offered to our Knowledge which doth but make our holy studies the more delightful If the Word of God were so plain and obvious to all that it might be all understood at the first reading the plainness would bring our Sacred Knowledge into contempt as being an easie common thing Things common and easily got are little set by But when the plainness is such as may prevent our despair and dissatisfaction and yet the Difficulty such that it may hold us in study and prevent our contempt it makes the most delightful Knowledge It is Pleasant to find some daily addition to our Light and to be on the gaining and thriving hand and this upon our diligent search Successes are as pleasant as a present fulness of supplies The daily blessing of God upon our studies and humble learning addeth to our delight So that all this set together may shew you how pleasant a thing it is to have the Knowledge of a Saint Especially if you add that he hath an Exporimental and so a sweeter Knowledge then the most learned men have that are ungodly He hath tasted that the Lord is gracious and he hath tasted the sweetness of his Love and of all the Riches of his Grace in Christ and of his full and precious promises and of the inward powerful workings of his spirit His experimental Knowledge is the most Delightful Knowledge The Pleasure of Natural Knowledge is great but the Pleasure of saving Knowledge is much greater I do not believe that ever any of the Ambitious troublers of the world that let go Heaven that they may Rule on Earth have half the Pleasure in their Greatness and usurped Dignities as an honest Student hath in his Books and studious exercises and successes But if you compare the Pleasures of their Greatness and Commands with the Pleasure of a true Believing soul in his life of Faith and sweet fore-thoughts of his Heavenly Inheritance I must plainly tell you that we disdain the comparison Again I say that if you will compare the Drunkards the Fornicators or the Ambitious or Covetous mans delight with the solace that I find in my retired studies even about natural common things I disdain the comparison But if you compare their Pleasure with that little alas too little pleasure that I find in the believing thoughts of Life Eternall I do not only disdain your comparison but detest it Were I minded to be long I would shew you from these twelve particular Instances the abundant Pleasure of Holy Knowledge 1. What a Pleasant thing is it to know the Lord the Eternal God in his blessed Attributes The dimmest glimmering Knowledge of God is better then the clearest Knowledge of all the mysteries of nature 2. How Pleasant is it to know the works of his Creation How and why and when he made the world and all that is therein 3. How Pleasant is it to know the blessed Son of God and to behold the face of his Fathers Love that is revealed in him as his fullest Image 4. How Pleasant is it to know the Law and Gospel the Matter and the Method the litteral and spiritual sense to see there the mind and will of God and to see our Charter for the Heavenly Inheritance and read the Precepts and the Promises and the Examples of the faith and patience of the Saints 5. How Pleasant is it to know the Heavenly operations of the Holy Ghost and the nature and action of his several Graces and the uses of every one of them to our souls and especially to find them in our selves and to be skilled in using them 6. How Pleasant is it to know the nature and frame of the Church of Christ which is his Body and to know the difference and use of the several members To understand the office of the Ministry and why Christ hath set them in the Church and how much love he hath manifested therein that they should preach to us and offer us Reconciliation in his name and stead 2 Cor. 5. 19. and marry us unto Christ in Baptism receiving us in his name into the Church and holy Covenant and that in his name and stead they should deliver us his body and blood and absolve the penitent sinner from his sins and deliver him a sealed pardon and receive the returning humbled soul into the Church of Christ and Communion of the Saints 7. How Pleasant is it to know the nature and use of all Christs Ordinances The excellencies of his Holy Word the use of Baptism and the refreshing strengthening use of the Supper of the Lord the use and benefit of Holy prayer and praises and thanksgiving and Church-order and all parts of the Communion of the Saints 8. Yea there is a holy Pleasure in knowing our very sin and folly When God bringeth a sinner to himself though his sin be odious to him yet to know the sin is Pleasant and therefore he prayeth that God would shew him the bottom of his heart and the most secret or odious of his sins 9. And it is Pleasant to a Christian to know his Duty It very much quieteth and delighteth his mind when he can but know what is the will of God When the way of Duty is plain before him how chearfully can he go on whatever meet him and how easie doth it make his labour and his suffering 10. Yea it is Pleasant to a Believer to understand his very danger Though the Danger it self be dreadful to him yet to know it that he may avoid it is his desire and his delight 11. And how Pleasant is it to understand all the Helps Encouragements and Comforts that God hath provided for us in our way and how many more are for us then against us 12. But above all how Pleasant is it to know by faith the life that we must live with God for ever and what he will do for us to all eternity in the performance of his holy Covenant I do but briefly name these Instances of Delightful Knowledge which are sweeter to the holy soul then all the Pleasures of sin to the ungodly Do you think that any of you hath such solid Pleasure in your sins as David had in the Law of God when he meditated in it with such delight and saith How sweet is it to my mouth even sweeter then the honey and the hony-comb Surely you dare not compare with him in Pleasures 2. Another part of Holiness that is Pleasant in the Nature of it is that which is subjected in the heart or affections And here is the chiefest of its sweetness and delights 1. The very compliance of the Will with the Will of God and its Conformity to his Law doth carry a quieting Pleasure in it That soul is happyest that is nearest God and likest to him and that
soul may well be fullest of Delight that is most Happy And that soul is nearest and likest unto God whose Will is most conformed to his Will The trouble of the Heart is its unsettledness when it is not bottomed on the Will of God When we feel that Gods Will doth Rule and satisfie us and that we would fain be what he would have us be and rest in his Disposing Will as well as obey his Commanding Will this gives abundant Pleasure and quietness to the soul 2. The holy workings of Charity in the soul are exceeding Pleasant All the acts of Love to God and man are very sweet This is the holy work that is its own wages 1. The â—â—â—â— of God is so sweet an exercise that verily my soul had rather be employed in it with sense and vigour then to be Lord of all the earth O could I but be taken up with the Love of God how easily could I spare the Pleasure of the flesh Might I but see the Loveliness of my dear Creator with a clearer view and see his glory in his noble works Might I but see and feel that saving Love which he hath manifested in the Redeemer till my soul were ravished and filled with his Love how little should I care who had the Pleasures of this deceitful world Had I more of that blessed spirit of Adoption and more of those filial affections to my heavenly Father which his unutterable Love bespeaks and were I more sensible of his abundant mercy and did my soul but breath and long after him more earnestly I would pitty the miserable Tyrants of the world that are worse then Beggars while they domineer and tast not of that Kingdom of Love and Pleasure that dwelleth in my breast All the Pleasures of the world are the laughing of a mad man or the sports of a child or the dreams of a sick man in comparison of the Pleasures of the Love of God 2. And the Love of Holiness the Image of God hath its degree of Pleasure And so hath the Love of the Holy servants of the Lord. There is a sweetness in the soul in its goings out after any Holy object in spiritual Love Yea more our very common Love of men and our Love of Enemies hath its proportion of pleasure far better then the sensual Pleasure of the ungodly To feel so much of the operations of grace and to answer our holy pattern in Loving them that hate us doth give much ease and pleasure to the mind The exercises of Love to God and man and that for his sake are the exceeding Pleasure of a gracious soul And here by the way you may take notice of one reason why Hypocrites and ungodly men find no such sweetness in the exercises of Religion Because they let alone the inward Pleasant work of Love which is the soul and life of Outward duty This inward work is the Pleasant work while they are strangers unto this their outward duties will be but a toll 〈…〉 seem a drudgery or a wearysome employment There is a Pleasure even in Holy Desires When a Christian feeleth his heart enlarged in longing after the wellfare of the Church and the good of others Though the absence of the thing desired be aâ—…e yet the exercise of holy desire which is an act of Love is pleasant to us If the Lustfu have a pleasure in their vile Desires and the Ambitious and the Covetous have a pleasure in their vain and delusory desires the wise well-guided desires of a true believer must needs be pleasant 4. Especially when Desire is accompanied with Hope All the Pleasures of this world are far short of affording that Rest and quiet to the soul as the Hope of Glory doth to the believer O happy soul that is acquainted by experience with the lively Hopes of the everlasting Happiness It is not the Hope of corruptible Riches nor of a fading inheritance but of the Crown that sadeth not and of the precious certain durable treasure It is not a Hope in the promise of a deceitful man but in the word of the everliving God! The soul that hath this Anchor needs not be tossed with those fears and cares and anxieties of mind that worldly men are subject to This Hope will never make them ashamed If a man were in a consumption or sentenced to Death would not the Hopes of Life upon certain Grounds be pleasanter to him then sport or mirth or lustful objects or any such present sensitive delights Much more if with the hopes of Life he had the hopes of all the felicities of Life and of the perpetuity of all these O may I but be enabled by faith to lift up the eye of my soul to God and view the everlasting mansions and by hope to take possession of them and say All this is mine in Title even upon the Promise of the faithful God! what greater Pleasure can my soul possess till it enter on the full Possession of those eternal Pleasures O poor deluded worldly men What is the Pleasure of your wealth to this O brutish sinners what is the Pleasure of your mirth and jollity your meat and drink your pride and bravery your lust and filthiness in comparison of this O poor Ambitious dreaming men that make such a stir for the Honour and Greatness of this world What is the Pleasure of your Idol-honour and short vainglory in comparison of this while you have it you have no Hope of Keeping it you are troubled with the thought of leaving it Had we no higher Hopes then yours how miserable should we be 5. The Trust and repose of the soul on God which is another part of the life of grace is exceeding Pleasant and quieting to the soul To find that we stand upon a Rock and that under us are the everlasting arms and that we have so full security for our salvation as the promise and Oath of the immutable God what a stay what a Pleasure is this to the Believer The troubles of the godly are most from the remnants of their unbelief The more they believe the more they are comforted and established The life of faith is a Pleasant life Faith could not conquer so many enemies and carry us through so much suffering and distress as you find in that cloud of testimonies Heb. 11. if it were not a very comfortable work Even we that see not the salvation ready to be revealed may yet greatly rejoyce for all the manifold temptations that for a season make us subject to some heavyness 1 Pet. 1. 5 6. And we that see not Jesus Christ yet Believing can love him and rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory v. 8. The God of Hope doth sometimes fill his servants with all Joy and peace in believing and makes them even abound in Hope through the Power of the Holy Ghost Rom. 15. 13. 6. Yea Joy is it self a part of the Holy qualification of the Saints and of
the honey and the hony-comb v. 14. 16. I have rejoyced in the way of thy testimonies as in all riches I will delight my self in thy statutes I will not forget thy word 24. Thy testimonies are my delight and my counsellors 47. I will delight my self in thy Commandments which I have loved and I will meditate in thy statutes 72. The Law of thy mouth is better to me then thousands of Gold and Silver 92. Unless thy Law had been my delight I had perished in my affliction 93. I will never forget thy precepts for with them thou hast quickned me 111. Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever for they are the rejoycing of my heart 117. I love thy commandments above Gold yea above fine Gold 162. I rejoyce at thy word as one that findeth great spoile 165. Great peace have they that love thy Law and nothing shall offend them I should but weary you to recite one quarter of the expressions of holy men in Scripture concerning the sweetness and Pleasures which they found in the Law of God In a word it is the work and marke of the Blessed man that His delight is in the Law of the Lord and in his Law doth he meditate day and night Psal 1. 1 2. Do you think that an unpleasant tedious life that doth consist in such employment 2. Another Holy Duty is Prayer both secret and with others in familie and publike Assemblies And do you think it is a grievous tedious work for a needy soul to beg of God that is so ready to relieve him For a guilty soul to pray to God that is so ready to forgive him for a sinful soul to return to God and confess his sins and beg for mercy that is so ready to meet him and entertain him for a Loving soul to converse with God when there is a mutual complacency between them Is it grievous for a child to speak to his Father or are you weary of the presence of your dearest friend What is there in holy prayer that should grieve or weary us sure it is not his company that we speak to For it is his presence that makes Heavenâ— And sure it is not the employment For it is but Asking and asking for the best and choicest thing and asking in our necessities for that which we must have or we are undone for ever And is it unpleasant to pray to a bounteous God in our necessity and that for the best and pleasantest things Perhaps there may be some of you that think it is but labour lost and that you could better spend those hours and that God regardeth not our prayers and that indeed we speed never the better for them and therefore you have no pleasure in them And no wonder If you are Atheists and believe not that there is a God you cannot love him or rejoyce in him If you believe not his Promises how should they give you any comfort If you believe not that he regardeth Prayers no wonder if you have no heart to pray They that say It is in vain to serve the Lord and it is no profit to us to keep his ordinances Mal. 3. 14. Will also say what a weariness is it Mal. 1. 13. and will give him but a lame and lifeless service If you did believe your friend to be your enemy you would have small pleasure in him Mis-conceits may easily make you loath the things that are most delightful The thoughts of Heaven it self yield little Pleasure to them that believe not that there is a Heaven or what it is The Light is not pleasant to the blind nor any object of our tast or smel to those that have lost these senses Is musick unpleasant because it delighteth not the deaf For shame do not charge the sweet and blessed ways of God with that which is the fruit of your own corruption If your lungs be rotten you may be out of breath with speaking the most delightful words or walking in the most pleasant fields or gardens But the cause of the weariness is within you If you have the hearts of Infidels or graceless stupid worldly sinners you are so unfit to approach the most Holy God in holy prayer that I marvail not if you go to it as a Bear to the stake as an Ox to the yoke or as an offender to the stocks For the God that you pray to is a bater of all the workers of iniquity and a consuming fire and therefore no wonder if his terrours should meet you and leave you but little delight in prayer Though its wonder that they do not follow you and meet you in all your ways and leave you less delight in the omission of it But if you had the hearts of believing holy men and had tasted in prayer what they have tasted and had their experience of the success you would then be easily perswaded that prayer is neither a Vain nor an unpleasnt work Surely it is not unpleasant to a burdened soul to dis-burden it self before the Lord nor to a sinner that hath felt the weight the smart the sting of sin to cry for mercy and healing to him that is able and willing to shew mercy nor iâ— it unpleasant for him that knows the worth of grace and glory to lie upon his knees in begging them of the Lord. All those that have felt how good it is to draw near to God had rather have leave to pray in hope then to please their senses with any delights that earth affordeth There is force in Prayer through the grace that hath appointed and doth accompany it to procure comfort to the distressed mind and safety to them that are in danger relief to them that are in want and strength to them that are in weakness Prayer is good for all things that are good and good against all things that are evil It is good against temptations dangers enemies and sin It is good against sorrows fears and cares yea against povery shame and sickness For the God that Prayer goes to and makes use of is sufficient against all and our only help Turn away now from God if you dare and cast off earnest constant Prayer as if it were a tedious unpleasant thing but be sure the time is coming when thou even thou that thus despisest it wilt betake thy self to Prayer and cry Lord Lord when it is too late or when anguish and terrour seise upon thee Sickness and death and the terrours of the Lord will teach thee to pray as useless and tedious as now you think it Yea and teach you to do it earnestly that now put off all with a few frozen heartless words But O it is seasonable believing prayer that is comfortable It is the prayer of Faith and Love and Hope that is pleasant but the prayer of too late repentance in Hell and the prayer of despair and horrour that cannot procure a drop of water afford no pleasure as they procure
for ever and when the force of Love doth open our lips that our mouthes may shew forth his praise it is pleasant both to God and us The Lord himself doth put on joy as delighting in his peoples praise and when they joyn obedience with holy worship they are pleasant in his eyes Jer. 9. 24. Isa 62. 4. 42. 1. Zeph. 3. 17. He meeteth him that Rejoyceth and worketh righteousness and that remembers him in his wayes Isa 64. 5. Would you taste of the sweetest life on earth Learn then to Delight your selves in God Do you want recreation Be acquainted with his Praise Is there not a better cure for Melancholy here among the servants of the Lord then in an Ale-house or in the company of transgressors Their carnal pleasures are unwholsom for you like luscious fruits that will make you sick But the delights of Faith are safe and healthful Fleshly pleasure is windy and deceitful and weakeneth and befools the soul But the Joy of the Lord is our strength Neb. 8. 10. A little may be too much of fleshly pleasures and it is of very hard digestion and leaves that behind that spoils the sport But the further you go in the Delights of Faith the better they are and the sweeter you will find them You may quickly catch a dangerous surfet of your fleshly pleasures but of spiritual Delights the more the better For they are curing reviving and much confirm and exalt the soul Our spiritual pleasures are so heavenly and have so much of God and Glory in them that they must needs prepare the soul for heaven and be excellent helps to our salvation O therefore if you would live a Pleasant life draw near to God and by Faith behold him and by Love adhere to him and take a view of his infinite Goodness and all his perfections and behold him in his wonderous works and then break forth into his chearful praises and you shall taste such pleasures as the earth affordeth not Lanch forth into the boundless Ocean of Eternity and let your hearts and tongues expatiate in the Praise of the Heavenly Majesty and use this work and ply it close and be not too seldom or customary or careless in it and you shall find the difference between the Pleasures of Faith and of the flesh of a Holy and of a sensual life Psalm 135. 2 3. Ye that stand in the House of the Lord in the Courts of the House of our God Praise the Lord for the Lord is Good sing praises to his Name for it is pleasant Psal 71. 8. Let my mouth be filled with thy Praise and with thy honour all the day Psal 96. 2. 6. Sing unto the Lord bless his name shew forth his salvation from day to day Honour and Majesty are before him strength and beauty are in his Sanctuary O that the Lord will but shine upon my soul with the Light of his countenance and open my heart to the entertainment of his Love and hold a gracious Communion with my soul by his holy Spirit and keep open these doors to me and continue this liberty of his House and Ordinances which we enjoy this day that I may joyn with a faithful humble people in holy Communion and in his Praise and Worship and that with a heart that is suitable to these works I shall then say with David Psal 16. 6. The lines â—â—faln to me in pleasant places I have a goodly heritage I will â—â— for no greater pleasures or honours or advancement in this world Let who will surfet on the pleasures of the flesh Here doth my soul delight to dwell Psalm 27. 4 5 6. One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the daies of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his holy Temple For in the time of trouble he will hide me in his pavilion in the secret of his Tabernacle shall he hide me he shall set me up upon a Rock And then shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me therefore will I offer in his Tabernatle sacrifices of Joy I will sing yea I will sing Praises to the Lord. Till I come to the promised Everâ—… Pleasures I shall ask of God no greater Pleasures These would be as much as my soul in the prison of flesh can bear Till 〈…〉 to the Land of Promise may I but have these clusters of 〈…〉 in my present Wilderness I shall not repine My heart 〈…〉 shall be glad and my glory shall rejoyce and at death my flesh 〈…〉 in hope For as the Lord now sheweth me the path of 〈…〉 so in his presence is 〈…〉 of Joy and at his right hand are 〈…〉 for 〈…〉 Pâ—… 4. Another Pleasant Holy Duty is Our holy Communion with Christ and his Church in the Lords Supper This is a holy Feast that is purposely provided by the King of Saints for the entertainment of his family for the refreshing of the weary and the making glad the mournful soul The night before his bitter Death he instituted this Sacramental Feast He caused his Disciples to sit down with him and when they had partaked of the Passover the Sacrament of Promise and had their taste of the old wine he giveth them the New even the Sacrament of the better Covenant and of the fuller Gospel-Grace He teacheth them that his Death is Life to them and that which is his bitterest suffering is their Feast and his Sorrows are their Joyes as our sinful pleasures were his sorrows The slain Lamb of God our Passover that was sacrificed for us that taketh away the sins of the world was the pleasant food which Sacramentally he himself then delivered to them and substantially the next day offered for them The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world John 6. 33. He is the Living Bread which came down from Heaven If any man eat of this Bread he shall live for ever and the bread that he giveth is his flesh which he hath given for the life of the world ver 50 51. Except we eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood we have no life in us Whoso eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood hath Eternal life and he will raise him up at the last day For his flesh is meat indeed and his blood is drink indeed He that eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood dwelleth in Christ and Christ in him As the Living Father hath sent the Son and he liveth by the Father so he that eateth him shall live by him This is that bread that came down from Heaven not as the Fathers did eat Maâ—â—â— and are dead he that eateth this bread shall live for ever I know that to an unbelieving carnal wretch the Sacrament is but a common thing For Christ himself and his Gospel is â—o better in his
your idle games or in spending the Lords day in idleness or sports as we have in the holy works of God Do you think our Delight is not more then yours To our shame but to the praise of God we must say that we have tryed both ways We know what it is to play away much of the Lords day and what it is to imploy it in waiting on the Lord. But since we knew the later we wish we had never known the former That 's our recreation which is your toile and that would be our prison and stocks and toile which is your sport and recreation 6. Another Delightful portion of our work is Holy Conference with the experienced servant of the Lord. There are many things considerable in holy conference that maketh it delightful 1. It is the conference of dearest friends the special Love that all the Godly have to one another doth exceedingly sweeten their communion The very presence of those that we most dearly love is a pleasure to us Much more their sweetest edifying discourse 2. Their conference proceedeth from the spirit of grace and therefore is gracious savouring of that spirit and all the breathings and manifestations of that blessed spirit are very acceptable to those that have the spirit themselves and so can savour spiritual things 3 Their conference is about the highest the most necessary the most excellent things About the most Blessed God and his several Attributes his will and works of Creation and disposing-Providence of nature and Grace about the wonderful mysteries of Redemption the person life and sufferings of the Redeemer his Offices and the performance of them on earth and in Heaven in his Humiliation and his Exaltation and of the sweet Relations that we and all his Church do stand in to Christ our Head our Saviour and Redeemer as also about the gracious workings of the Holy Ghost in first begetting and increase of holiness To open to each other the powerful workings of that Grace that hath raised them above all the creatures and brought them to a contempt of earthly glory and set their hearts on the invisible God and on eternal things that hath renewed them in the inner man and made them hate the things they loved and mortified their oldest strongest sins and quickned them in the exercise of every grace all this is edifying sweet discourse to gracious souls 4. And the rather because it is about the most pertinent affairs They are things that do so neerly concern us that we are glad to speak with those that understand them It is our own case which we hear our brethren open They speak our very hearts as if they had seen them because it is the same work of the same spirit that they describe Yea when they complain of their Infirmities it is with our complaints and they tell us of that which we are troubled with our selves and we perceive that we are not singular in our troubles but that our case is the case of other servants of the Lord. 5. And it is the more pleasant to converse with the Godly because they speak not by hearsay only but by experience They tell us of the discoveries that illuminating grace hath made to their own souls and of the many evils they have been saved from and the communion they have had with God and the prayers which he hath heard and the many and great deliverances he hath granted them They relate their conflicts with temptations and their conquests their strivings against their ancient lusts and how they have overcome them and the sweet refreshings which their souls have had in the exercise of Love and faith and hope They can dive into the Ocean of mercy and speak of the abundant kindness of the Lord and earnestly awaken and invite each other to praise him for his Goodness and to declare his wonderous works for the children of men They can direct each other in their difficulties and encourage each other in holy ways and strengthen one another in holy resolutions and comfort one another with the same comforts that they themselves have been comforted with by the Lord And may not our hearts rejoyce and burn within us while we discourse of such important things as these in such a serious experimental edifying manner They can discourse together of their meeting before the throne of Christ and of the blessed converse which they shall have in Heaven with the Lord himself and with the holy Angels and where they shall be and what they shall do to all eternity in the presence of God where is fulness of joy and before him where are the eternal pleasures O Christians did not your graces languish by your own neglects and your souls grow out of relish with these spiritual and most excellent things your speeches of them would be more savoury you would be more frequent lively and cheerful in your discourse of holy things and then your converse would be more edifying and delightful to each other We shew so little of Grace in our conference that makes it to be but little different from other mens And which is the commonest case and very doleful we most of us remain so ignorant and imprudent that we marr holy conference by our mixtures of unwise expressions and disgrace it to others by our injudicious weakness This is the bane of Christian discourse even the want of holy skill and wisdom and of understanding to speak of the things of God according to their transcendent worth and weight as much and more then the want of zeal But if we could discourse of these holy matters aright with wisdom and with seriousness how sweet how fruitful would the company of holy persons be We should be still among them as in the family of God and should hear that which our souls do most defire to hear and we should preach to one another the riches of grace in our familiar discourse and souls might be converted by the conference of Believers and not all left to the publike ministry Every man would be a helper to his neighbour For the tongue of the just is as choice silver though the heart of the wicked is little worth the lips of the righteous feed many but fools die for want of wisdom Prov. 10. 20 21. The lips of the wise disperse knowledge Prov. 15. 7. Righteous lips are the delight of Kings Prov. 16. 13. and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning v. 21. The lips of Knowledge are a precious Jewel Prov. 20. 15. A mans belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled Prov. 18. 20. The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and his tongue talketh of judgement the Law of his God is in his heart Psal 37. 30 31. Tell me I beseech you you that can be so merry in an Ale-house or in any vain and idle company why should you think that it is not to us a
Paul that had tryed both ways confesseth Tit. 3. 3. None so unlike to be the servants of Christ as they that are cloathed in purple and fine linnen and that fare sumptuously or deliciously every day Luk. 16. To live in rioting and drunkenness in chambering and wantonness in strife and envying and to make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof is the description of one that walks not honestly and is far from a Christians life and hopes Rom. 13. 13 14. It is those voluptuous sensual sinners that most obstinately shut out all reproofs and refuse him that speaketh to them from heaven and will not so much as soberly consider of the things that concern their everlasting peace and therefore are oft so forsaken of grace that they grow to be scorners of the means of their salvation and being past feeling do give themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness Eph. 4. 19. Which then is most desirable the healing or the wounding pleasures the quickening or the killing mirth the wholsome or the poysonous sweet the delights that mend us and further our salvation or corrupting pleasures that drown men in perdidition 9. The Delights of Holiness are kin to Heaven They are of the same nature with those that Saints and Angels have with God though we must acknowledge an unconceivable difference It is the same God and the same Glory that now delighteth us as seen by faith which shall then delight us when seen by intuition with open face We are solacing our selves in Love and Praise with the same employment that we must have in Heaven And therefore if Heaven be the state of Greatest joy and pleasure the state of Grace and work of Holiness that is likest to it must needs be next it But sensual pleasures are beastial and sordid and so far unlike the Joys of Heaven that nothing more withdraws the mind or maketh it unmeet for Heaven 10. Lastly the delights of Holiness are durable even everlasting The further we goe the greater cause we have of joy It is not a mutable good that we rejoyce in but in the immutable God the antient of days and in that Christ that loveth his spouse with an everlasting love and in the sure and faithful promises and in the hopes of the Kingdom that cannot be moved The spring of our pleasures is in Heaven and our rejoycing is but the beginning of that which must there be perpetuated Death cannot kill the joys of a believer the grave shall not bury them millions of ages shall not end themâ— Here they may be interrupted because the pleased face of God may be ecclipsed and sin and Satan may cast malicious doubt into our minds and the neighbourhood of the flesh will force the mind to participate of its sufferings But still God will keep their comforts alive at least in the root and help them in the act as we have need of them and are fit for them And in the world of Joy for which he is preparing us our Joy shall be perfected and never have interruption or end Holy-Festivals and Ordinances and sweetest Communion of Saints and dearest Love of truest friends and perfect health and prosperity in the world and all other comforts set together that this world affords are but short emblems and small fore-tastes of the Joyes which the face of God will afford us and we shall have with Christ his Saints and Angels to all eternity But sensual Pleasures are of so short continuance that they are gone before we feel well that we have them The drunkard the glutton the fornicator the gamester are drinking but a sugered cup of poyson and merrily sowing the seeds of everlasting sorrow Satan is but scratching them as the butcher shaves the throat of the swine before he kill them One quarter of an hour ends the pleasure and leaves a damp of sadness in its room He that hath had 40. or 50. years pleasures hath no relish of it when it is past but it is as if it had never been and much worse He that hath spent a day or moneth or year in Pleasure hath no more at night or at the years end when it is gone then he that spent that time in sorrow The bones and dust of thousands lie now in the Church yard that have tasted many a sweet cup and morsel and have had many a merry wanton day And are they now any better for it then if they had never known it And are not the poor and sorrowful there their equals And doubtless their souls have as little of those pleasures as their dust In Heaven they are abhorred In Hell they are turned into tormenting flames and remembred as fuel for the devouring fire There are Gluttons but no more good cheer There are Drunkards but no more drink There are Fornicators but no more lustful pleasures There are the playful wasters of their time but no more sport and recreation There are the vain-glorious proud ambitious souls but not in glory honour and renown but their aspiring hath cast them into the gulf of misery and their pride hath covered them with utter confusion and their glory is turned to their endless shame Those that are now overwhelmed with the wrath of God and shut up under desperation are the souls that lately wallowed here in the delights of the flesh and enjoyed for a season the pleasures of sin and now what fruit have they of all their former seeming happiness He that is feasted and gallantly adorned and attended to day is crying for a drop of water in vain tomorrow Luk. 16. 23 24 25 26. Christ tells you the gain of earthly riches and the duration of earthly pleasures to the ungodly Luk. 6. 24 25. Woe to you that are rich for you have received your consolation Woe to you that are full for you shall hunger woe to you that laugh now for you shall mourn and weep that is You that live a sensual life and take up your pleasure and felicity here shall find that all will end in sorrow But blessed are ye that hunger now for ye shall be filled blessed are ye that weep now for ye shall laugh v. 21. that is You that are contented to pass through sorrows and tribulation on earth to the Kingdom where you have placed your happiness and hopes shall find that your sorrows will end in joy and therefore you are blessed while you seem miserable to the world Joh. 16. 20. Ye shall weep and lament but the world shall rejoyce and ye shall be sorrowful but your sorrow shall be turned into joy v. 22. Now you have sorrow but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoyce and your joy no man taketh from you We have a constant interest in the Foutain of all Joy and if our sun be clouded it is but for a moment Our maker is our Husband the Lord of hosts is his name and our Redeemer the holy one of Israel
mend his rellish and cure his ingratitude And will you do so your selves by Christ and Holiness and say as those Mal. 1. 13. What a weariness is it Take heed lest you provoke the Lord to cast you into a state in which you shall have more cause to be aweary If you are weary of reading and praying and hearing and other holy exercises and weary of heart-searching penitent meditations will you not be wearyer of Hell-fire and of the dolorous reviews of this your folly and of the endless easeless remediless sense of the wrath of God and gripes of your own self-tormenting consciences How just is it with God to give those men somewhat that they have cause to be aweary of that will be thus aweary of his sweetest service and reject the greatest mercies he can offer them as if they were some burdensom worthless things 3. Will you have any pleasure at all or will you have none If any in what then will you place it and whence will you expect it if not from God in a holy life If God be thy trouble what then is fit to be thy delight Darest thou say in thy heart or with thy tongue that sin and sensuality is better Darest thou say that a good bargain or other worldly gain or cards or dice or other sports or ease or good chear or an Ale-house or a Whore are pleasanter things then walking with thy God in faith and holiness and expectation of the everlasting joyes Heaven and earth shall bear witness against thee and common Reason shall bear witness against thee for this inhumane impious folly and ingratitude if ever thou appear at the barr of God with the guilt of such unreasonable sin What! is God no better in thine eyes then a filthy brutish sinful pleasure and is the Love of God no sweeter a work then the Love of sensual delights Saith blessed Augustine He that will sell or exchange his soul for transitory commodities doth censure Christ to be a foolish Merchant that knew no better what he aâ—â— when he gave his Life for those souls that you will not lose a sin for So I may say here Hath Christ bought for you Holy and Everlasting pleasures at the price of his own most bitter pains and precious blood and do you now think them no better then your fleshly beastial delights Is it Christ or you think you that is mistaken in the value of them Did he shed his blood to purchase you that which is not worth the parting with a cup of drink for or the parting with your pleasure or unjust commodity for Sure he that judgeth thus of Christ is far from believing in him with any true Christian saving Faith 4. If you can find no pleasure in God and in a holy life you may be sure that he will have no pleasure in you Wonder not if you find in your greatest need that you are abhorred and loathed by the Lord when you loathed the very thoughts and mention of him in the day of your visitation Marvail not if the most Holy God do take no pleasure in a leathsem sinner when the sinner is so ungodly that he takes more pleasure in the most sordid fading trifles then in God You may offer the sacrifice of your heartless hypocritical prayers and praises unto God and he will count them abomination and cast them back as dung into your faces and tell you that he hath no pleasure in the sacrifice of such fools Read it in his own words Prov 15. 8. 21. 27. Isa 1. 13. Eccles. 5. 4. As you are weary of serving him so he is â—â—â—ary of your services and it is a trouble to him 〈…〉 them and when you spread forth your hands he will hide his eyes from you yea when you make many prayers he will not hear Isa 1. 14 15. When the Jews offered their lame deceitful sacrifices and said Behold what a weariness is it God sends them word that he hath â—o pleasure in them nor would regard their persons nor accept a sacrifice at their hands Mal. 1. 8 9 10. and their solemn feasts he counteth dung And dung would be no acceptable present or seast to your selves if it were offered you instead of meat Mal. 2. 3. My soul saith the Lord loathed them and their soul abhorred me Zech 11. 8. As he that despiseth him shall be lightly esteemed by him 1 Sam. 2. 30. So he that loatheth him shall be loathed by him If any man draw back saith the Lord my soul shall have no pleasure in him Heb. 10. 38. For he is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness neither shall evil dwell with him the foolish shall not stand in his sight he hateth all the workers of iniquity Psalm 5. 4 5. And little do you now imagine what a horrour it will be to you in the day of your extremity for God to tell you that he hath no pleasure in you When you look before you into an eternity of woe which you have no hope to escape but by the mercy of the Lord and he shall dash that hope by telling you that he hath no pleasure in you it will give your souls the deadly wound that never shall be healed In vain then shall you wish that you had chosen in time the durable delights and not the pleasures of filthy sin for so short a season and to your torment you shall know whether God or the world was more worthy of your sweetest affections and delights and how deservedly they are all damned that obeyed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes 2. 12. Who knowing the judgement of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death not only do the same but have pleasure in them that do them Rom. 1. 32. If you will count it your pleasure to ryot in the day-time rather then to walk and work by the light you must look to receive the due reward of such unrighteousness 2 Pet. 2. 13. If it be your sport to sin and to do mischief Prov. 10. 23. you shall have small sport in suffering the punishment of your willful folly 5. If God and Holiness seem not pleasant to you then Heaven it self cannot seem pleasant to you if you consider it truly as it is For the Heavenly felicity consisteth in the perfection of our Holiness and the perfect fruition of God himself by Sight and Love and Joy for ever If the little Holiness be unpleasant and irksom to you which appeareth in the imperfect Saints on earth what pleasure could you take in that supereminent Holiness which is the state and work of the celestial inhabitants If the thoughts and mention of God be unpleasant to you and his holy praises do seem to you as matters of no delight What then would you do in heaven where this must be your everlasting work And if Heaven seem a place of toyle and trouble to you how just will it be that
Sing unto the Lord sing Psalms unto him talk of all his wonderous works Glory ye in his holy name let the heart of them rejoyce that seek the Lord Psal 105. 1 2 3. The Saints shall shout aloud for joy Psal 132. 9 16. Be glad in the Lord O ye righteous and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart Psal 32. 11. Behold my servants shall rejoyce but ye shall be ashamed Behold my servants shall sing for joy of heart but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart and shall houle for vexation of spirit Isa 65. 13 14. Abundance such passages tell you what manner of persons it is that God delighteth in and what he would have you be and doe These I have recited to shame the godly out of their undecent troubles and dejectedness as you would shew a child his face in a glass when he cryeth that he may see how he deformeth it The very Kingdom of God consisteth in righteousness and Peace and joy in the Holy Ghost If you would live as is most pleasixg unto God and as beseemeth those that are indeed believers let the joy of believers be as far as is possible your ordinary frame And if by sin you wound your souls and bring smart upon your selves dwell not in that wounded smarting state but go to your Physicions and beg of God that he will restore to you the joy of his salvation and make you to hear the voice of joy and gladness that your broken heart and bones may rejoyce Psa 51. 8 12. And take notice throughout all the Scripture whether you find the servants of God so much complaining of their want of assurance and of their frequent doubtings of their own sincerity and his love I think you will find this a very rare thing in the ancient Saints They were sensible of sin as well as we and they were as sensible of Gods afflicting hand and oft as Job David Hezekiah c. complained under it perhaps with some excess and too much questioning Gods favour to them as if he had forsaken them But besides and without any such affliction to live in ordinary trouble of mind through the doubting of their sincerity and of Gods special love and to be exercised in the complaining and disconsolate way as now abundance of Christians are this I find little of the Scripture Saints The reason was not because they had more holiness and less sin than many that now are thus cast down For the Gospel time excelleth theirs in degrees of grace and I think the greater care that Christians have of their hearts and of inward rectitude and communion with God and their fuller apprehensions of the life to come and so of their greatest hopes and dangers is one great cause But yet there are worse concurring causes The Love of God and his readiness to shew mercy should not be more questioned now when it is so abundantly revealed by Christ then it was in times of darker revelation The servants of God did formerly conceive that nothing but sin could make man miserable and therefore when they had sinned they repented and instead of continuing doubts and fears they bent their resolutions against their sins and having cast away their gross and wilful sins and continuing the conflict against their unavoidable infirmities which they hated they knew that the door of mercy was still open to them and that if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father who is the propitiation The time that is now spent in doubting and complaining and asking How shall I know that I sincerely repent was then spent in Repenting and reforming and using the means that God hath appointed for the conquering of sin and then trusting to his grace and Covenant in the blood of Christ for pardon And it would be better with us if we did thus Judge now by all these Scriptures and by the course of former Saints how God would have you behave your selves Do you not read an hundred times of their joy and thanks and praising God and calling upon others to praise him for once that they perplexedly question their sincerity But perhaps youâ—le say that your strength is so weak and your sins and enemies so strong and all your duty so imperfect and unworthy that having such continual cause of trouble you cannot choose but walk in heaviness and in fears I answer you 1. But why do you not tell what you have as well as what you want Have you not greater cause to say My sins being mortified at the root and all forgiven and my soul renewed and reconciled unto God and I being made an heir of Heaven how can I choose but live in joy 2. Are you heartily willing to forsake your sins and overcome the things of which you so complain or are you not If you are not why do you complain of them and why will you not consent to let them go and use Gods means to overcome them If you are willing then they are but your pardoned infirmities For that 's the difference between infirmities and reigning sins Whatsoever sin consisteth with a greater Habitual willingness to avoid that and all other sin then to keep them is but an Infirmity for it stands with present saving grace and is always Habitually or virtually repented of and actually when grace by knowledge and consideration hath opportunity and advantage to produce the act 3. And when once you are truly ingraffed into Christ he is your worthiness and your righteousness and the treasury of your souls and what you want in your own possession you have in his hands and as what you have is but his gift so what you want he is able and ready to supply Look not too much to your selves as if your safety and happiness were principally in your own hand God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his son He that hath the son hath life 1 Joh. 5. 10 11. It is through him that we can do all things so far as he strenghteneth us and without him we can do nothing Make use of him therefore as the Lord of life and joyfully acknowledge all that you receive and stand not dejectedly lamenting that you need him If you would have the waters of life goe to the fountain and do not sit down and fruitlesly vex your selves with complaining of your wants instead of seeking for supplyes Is there not an all sufficient Physicion of souls at hand Doth he not freely offer you his help what though you are not suddenly cured wounds may be caused in an hour but they use not to be cured in an houre Stay his time and use his remedies and cheerfully trust him and you shall find the cure successfully go on though it will not be finished till death 5. Consider also that it must needs be the best and most desirable life which is likest to our life in Heaven And therefore as Heaven is a state of Joy so Joy
is the highest and best condition on earth He is the best and happyest man that is likest to the glorified Saints and Angels And judge your selves whether a dejected or a rejoycing Christian be liker to these inhabitants of Heaven Object But you will say by that rule we should not mourn at all for they do not Whereas God delighteth in the contrite soul Christ blesseth mourners and weepers Answ 1. Your resemblance of the Saints in Heaven must be propertionable in all the parts You must labour first to be as like them as you can in Holiness and then in Joy If you could be as far from sin as they you need not mourn at all But because you cannot you must have moderate regular sorrows and humiliation while you have sin But yet withall you must endeavour to imitate the heavenly Joyes according to the measure of your Grace received 2. And it is such a regular contrition consisting in humble thoughts of our selves and tending to restore us from our falls and sorrows unto our integrity and joy which God delighteth in And it is such mourners as these and such as suffer for righteousness sake from men that Christ pronounceth blessed But the inordinate troubles of the soul that exclude a holy delight in God though he pardon yet he never doth encourage 6. Consider also that a great part of your Religion yea and the most high and excellent part doth consist in the causes form and effects of this holy joy and chearfulness 1. As to the causes of it they are such as in themselves are requisite to the very being of the new creature Faith and Love which are the Head and Heart of sanctifying grace are the causes of our spiritual joy An unwilling heavy forced obedience may proceed from meeâ— Fears and this will not prove an upright heart But when once we Believe Everlasting Glory and Love Christ as our Saviour and the Father as our Father and felicity and Love a holy frame of heart and life as the image of God and that which pleaseth him then our obedience will be chearful and delightful unless accidentally we trouble our selves by our own mistakes If you can truly make God and his will and service your Delight you may be sure you Love him and are beloved by him as being past the state of slavish fear 2. And I have shewed you that Joy in the Holy-Ghost is it self one part of that grace in which Gods Kingdom doth consist Though not such a part as a Christian cannot possibly be without yet such as is exceeding suitable to his state and necessary to his more happy being 3. And without this holy Delight and Joy you will deny God a principal part of his service How can you be thankful for the great mercies of your Justification Sanctification Adoption and all the special graces you have received or for your hopes of Heaven it self as long as you are still doubting whether any of these mercies are yours or not and almost ready to say that you never received them Nay you will be less thankful for your health and life and food and wealth and all common mercies as doubting leâ—t they will prove but aggravations of your sin and misery And for the great and excellent work of Praise which should be your daily sacrifice but specially the work of each Lords day how unfit is a doubting drooping distressed soul for the performance of it You stiffle holy Love within you and stop your mouthes when they should be speaking and singing the praises of the Lord and disable your selves from the most high and sweet and acceptable part of all Gods service by your unwarrantable doubts and self-vexations And when all these are laid aside how poor and lean a service is it that is left you to perform to him Even a few tears and complaints and prayers which I know God will mercifully accept because even in your desires after him there is Love but yet it is far short of the service which you might perform Nay your Heavenly-mindedness will be much supprest as long as you are sadly questioning whether ever you shall come thither and it will be yours or not 7. Are you not ashamed to see the servants of the Devil and the world so jocund and your selves so sad that serve the Lord Will you go mourning so inordinately to Heaven when others go so merrily to Hell Will you credit Satan and Sin so much as to perswade men by your practice that sin affordeth more pleasure and content then Holiness 8. You could live merrily your selves before your Conversion while you served sin And will you walk so dejectedly now you have repented of it As if you had changed for the worse or would make men think so I know you would not for all the world be what you were before your change Why then do you live as if you were more miserable then before 9. You would be loth so long to resist the sanctifying work of the Spirit And why should you not be loth to resist its comforting work It is the same Holy Ghost that you resist in both Nay you dare not so open your mouthes for wickedness and plead against Sanctification it self as you open them on the behalf of your sinful doubtings and plead for your immoderate dejections If you should how vile would you appear 10. Lastly consider that God will lay sufferings enow upon you for your sins and suffer wicked men to lay enow on you for well doing and you need not lay more upon your selves You have need to use all means for strength to bear the burdens that you must undergo and it is the joy of the Lord and the hopes of Glory that are your strength And will you cast away the only supports of your soul and sink when the day of suffering comes How will you bear poverty or reproach or injuries how will you meet approaching death if you feed your doubts of your salvation and of the Love of God in Christ which must corroborate you O weaken not your souls that are too weak already Weaken not your souls that have so much to do and suffer and that of so great necessity and importance While you complain of your weakness encrease it not by unbelieving uncomfortable complaints Gratifie not the Devil and wicked malicious men so far as to inflict on your selves a greater calamity then all their malice and power could inflict It is a madness in them that will please the Devil to the displeasing of God though the pleasing of their own flesh be it that moveth them to it But for a man to please the Devil and displease God even when he displeaseth his own flesh by it also and bringeth nothing but sorrow to himself by it this is in some respects more unreasonable then madness it self Many cast away their souls for Riches and Honours and carnal accommodations but who would do it for poverty sickness or disgrace So
fancie that it is an excellent thing to be Rich and Renowned and to rule over others or to have plenty of all accommodations for your flesh and then because God satisfieth not these carnal fancies you think he neglecteth you oâ— deals hardly with you As if every person in the Town should murmur because they are not Bâ—yliffs or Justices when if they had the wit to know it they are but kept from a double encumberance and from a burden which perhaps would break their backs When the people are thus befooled by the flesh into brutish conceits of the nature of felicity and into an over-valuing of these worldly things they are then always eitheir tickled by deluding pleasures or troubled for the crossing of their carnal wills so that they grow out of relish and liking with the true and durable delights Take heed therefore of this carnality Dir. 4. Study the greatness of the mercy which you have received You abound with mercies and yet undervalue them and over look them and sweeten not your souls with the serious observation and remembrance of them you study principally your afflictions and your wants And thus when you live in a land that floweth with milke and honey you will not feed on the prepared feast but keep still the gall and wormwood in your mouths and how then should you be acquainted with the pleasures of a holy life Yea you must use to look more to the spiritual part of all your mercies and see the love of God that appeareth in them and taste the blood of Christ in them and lose not the kernel and take not up with the common carnal part which every wicked man can value and enjoy Consider in all your mercies what there is in them for the benefit of your souls much rather then how they accommodate your flesh Could you do thus you would find the benefit of afflictions and that the denyal of what you have accounted your necessary mercies is not the smallest of your mercies And thus judging truly by the spirit and not by the flesh there is no condition except that of sin in which you might not find cause of joy Dir. 5. Take heed of sinning Keep still upon your watch against temptation sin is the cause of all your sufferings when it promiseth you delight it is preparing for your sorrow when it flattereth you into presumption it is preparing for despair when it promiseth you secresie and security it prepareth for your shame and be sure your sin will find you out Numb 32. 23. If therefore you have offended delay not your Repentance and spare not the flesh in your return but unless the honour of God forbid it take shame to your selves by free confession and make the fullest reparation of the injury that you can to God and man If you would thus get out the thorn that vexeth you the ways of God would be more pleasant Dir. 6. Daily live in the exercise of faith upon the everlasting pleasures Dwell as at the gates of Heaven as men that are waiting every hour when they are called in and when death will draw aside the vaile and shew them the blessed face of God And take heed that the enmity of interposing Death prevail not against the Joys of faith But look to Christ that hath conquered it and will conquer it for you And if thus you could live as strangers here and as the Citizens of Heaven that are ready to step into the immortal pleasures you would then taste the Pleasures of a holy life in the first fruits and foretasts thereof It is your Treasure that must Delight you As your Heart must be there so your pleasure must be derived thence Strangers to Heaven will be strangers to the Believers Joys As the pleasure of the Carnal world consisteth in the sense of what they have in hand so the pleasure of Believers consisteth in the fore-apprehensions of what they shall enjoy with God for ever If therefore you exercise not those apprehensions if you look not frequently seriously and believingly into the world that you must live in for ever how can the comforts of that world illustrate and refresh you in this present world The Light and Heat which is the Beauty and Life of this lower world proceedeth not from any thing in this world but from the Sun which is so far above us and sends down hither its quickning influence and rays They are not the genuine comforts of Christianity which are not fetcht from the world above Dir. 7. If you would have the experience of the Pleasures of a life of Faith and Holiness neither desire nor cherish any fears or sorrows but such as as are subservient to Faith and Hope and Love and preparatory to Thankfulness and Joy Think not Religion consisteth in any other kind of sorrows Nay if any other should assault you be so far from taking them for your duty or religion as to resist them and lament them as your sin That is true and saving Humiliation 1. which makes you vile in your own eyes and loath your selves for sin 2. And maketh you more desirous to be delivered and cleansed from your sin than to live in it how sweet or gainful soever it may seem and 3. which maketh you set more by a Saviour to deliver you than by all the pleasures riches and honours of the world What ever want of Grief or tears you find if you have these signs your Repentance and humiliation is sincere Do not therefore refuse your Peace because you have not greater sorrows nor disturb your souls by strugling for excessive sorrow Take not part with them but do your best to cast them out if they are such as would destroy your Love and Joy and drive you from Christ and hinder your Thansgivings Know that the Life of your Religion consisteth in the Holy Love of God and of his Image and servants and holy ways Love is your duty and your felicity and reward Therefore let all tend to the exercise of Love and value most those means which most promote it and think your selves best when you abound most in Love and not when you are overwhelmed with those Fears and Griefs which hinder Love Study therefore above all the Love of God revealed in Christ which is the best attractive of your Love to him and hate all suggestions which would represent God unlovely and undesirable to you Dir. 8. Use cheerful company Not carnal but holy not such as waste their time in unprofitable frothy speeches or filthy or prophane or scornful jeastings But such as have most of the sense of Love and mercy on their hearts and are best acquainted with a Life of Faith and whose speeches and cheerful conversations do most lively manifest their sense of the Love of God and of the Grace of Christ and the eternal happiness of the Saints There is a delightful and encouraging virtue in the converse of joyful thankful heavenly believers Use
this man will I look saith the Lord even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my Word Isa 66. 2. This is the Honourable entertainment of the Saints 7. And they are members of the most Honourable Society in the world The Church is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ Luke 1. 33. Col. 1. 13. The Kingdom of God Luke 17. 21. 18. 17. The Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 3. 2. 13. 31 33 44. It is the School of Christ or his University in which Believers are his Schollars learning to know him and serve him and praise him for ever and trained up for everlasting life Acts 11. 26. Luke 6. 13. Mat. 5. 1 2 c. It is the family or houshold of God Eph. 2. 19. 1 Tim. 3. 15. Heb. 10. 21. 1 Pet. 4. 17. It is the Spouse yea the Body of Christ Eph. 5. 25. So loved by him that he gave himself for it becoming the price of our Redemption and thought not his life too dear a Ransom nor his blood too precious to cleanse and save us Eph. 5. 25 26. Tit. 2. 14. The Church which every godly man is a living member of is a Society chosen out of the world to be nearest unto God and dearest to him as the beloved of his soul to receive the choicest of his mercies and be adorned with the righteousness of Christ and to be employed in his special service 1 Pet. 2. 4 5 9. John 15. 19. Eph. 1. 4. Psalm 132. 13. 135. 4. Eph. 5. 1. The Lord that Redeemed them is their King and Head and dwelleth in the midst of them and walketh among them as the people of his special presence and delight Psalm 2. 6. 89. 18. 149. 2. 46. 5. Isa 12. 6. Jer. 14. 9. Zeph. 3. 5 15 17. Rev. 1. 13. 2. 1. Psalm 95. 2. The Church is a Heavenly Society though the militant part yet live on earth For the God of Heaven is the Soveraign and the Father of it The glorified Redeemer is their Head The Spirit of Christ doth guide and animate them His Laws revealed and confirmed from Heaven direct and govern them Heaven is their end and heavenly are their dispositions employments and conversations There is their portion and treasure Matth. 6. 20 21. and there is their very heart and hope They are risen with Christ and therefore seek the things that are above For their life is hid with Christ in God Col. 3. 2 3 4. Their Root is there and the noblest part of the Society is there For the glorified Saints and in some sort the Angels are of the same Society with us though they are in heaven and we on earth The whole family in Heaven and earth is named from one and the same Head Eph. 3. 15. Heb. 12. 22 23. 24. We are come unto Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the General Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling c. This is the Honourable Society of Saints the eye the pearl of the whole Creation 8. Moreover the Godly have the most Horourable Attendance The creatures are all theirs though not in point of Civil propriety yet as means appointed and managed by God their Father for their best advantage The Angels of God are ministring spirits for them not as our servants but as Gods servants for our good As Ministers in the Church are not the servants of men but the servants of God for men And so whether Paul or Apollo or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or to come all are ours 1 Cor. 3. 22. The Shepherds servant is not the servant of the sheep but for the sheep And so the Angels disdain not to serve God in the guarding of the weakest Saints As I formerly shewed from Heb. 1. 14. Psalm 91. 11 12. 34. 7. The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them For he giveth his Angels charge over us to keep us in all our wayes they shall bear us up in their hands left we dash our foot against a stone Sun and Moon and all the creatures are daily employed in our attendance O how wonderful is the Love of God to his unworthy servants in their advancement Remember it when thou art scorning at the servants of the Lord or speaking against them that those poor those weak despised Christians that thou art vilifying have their Angels beholding the face of God their Father in the Heavens Take heed therefore that you despise not the least of these It is the warning of Christ Matth. 18. 10. The same blessed spirits that attend the Lord and see his face in blissful Glory do attend and guard the meanest of the godly here on earth As the same servants use to wait upon the Father and the children in the same family or the bigger children to help the less 9. And it is the Honour of the Godly that they that are themselves most Honourable do Honour them To be magnified by a fool or wicked flatterer is small Honour but to be magnified by the best and wisest men this is true Honour We say that Honour is in him that giveth it and not in him that receiveth But it is God himself that Honoureth his Saints It is he that speaketh all these great and wonderous things of them which I have hitherto recited Search the Texts which I have alledged and try whether it be not he And surely to have the God of Heaven to applaud a man and put Honour upon him and so great Honour is more then if all the world had done it Yet we may add if any thing could be considerable that is added unto the approbation of God that all his servants the wisest and the best even his holy Angels are of the same mind and honour the godly in conformity to their Lord. And here Christian I require thee from the Lord to consider the greatness of thy sin and folly when thou art too desirous of the applause of men especially of the blind ungodly world and when thou makest a great matter of their contempt or scorn or of their slanderous censures What! is the approbation of the eternal God so small a matter in thy eyes that the scorn of a fool can weigh it down or move the ballance with thee If a feather were put into the scales against a mountain or the whole earth it should weigh as much as the esteem or dis-esteem of men their honouring thee or dishonouring thee should weigh against the esteem of God and the honour or dishonour that he puts upon thee as to any regard of the thing it self though as it reflecteth on God thou