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
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
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
nature be dissolved then God will violate his Covenant of Grace Jer. 33. 20 21. Thus saith the Lord If you can break my Covenant of the day and my Covenant of the night and that there should not be day and night in their season then may also my Covenant be broken c. Isa 54. 4. 5 c. Fear not for thou shalt not be ashamed c. For thy Maker is thy Husband the Lord of Hosts is his name and thy Redeemer the Holy one of Israel the God of the whole earth shall he be called For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit and a wife of youth when when thou wast refused saith thy God For a small moment have I forsaken thee but with great mercies will I gather thee In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee saith the Lord thy Redeemer For this is as the waters of Noah unto me For as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth So have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee nor rebuke thee For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed but my kindness shall not depart from thee neither shall the Covenant of my peace be removed saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee And though yet we have our troublesom imperfections it belongeth to our God through the blood of the everlasting Covenant to make us perfect in every good work to do his will working in us that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ that to him may be the glory for ever Heb. 13. 20 21. It is his work to comfort all that mourn to appoint to them that mourn in Zion and to give them beauty for ashes the oyl of joy for mourning the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness that they mighâ— be called trees of righteousness the planting of the Lord that he might be glorified They shall be named The Priests of the Lord men shall call them The ministers of our God Everlasting joy shall be unto them For the Lord will direct their work in truth and make an everlasting Covenant with them All that see them shall acknowledge them that they are the seed whom the Lord hath blessed Therefore should we greatly rejoyce in the Lord and our souls should be joyful in our God For he hath cloathed us with the garments of salvation he hath covered us with the robes of righteousness as a Bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments and as a Bride adorneth her self with her Jewels Isa 61. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put into you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgements and do them and I will save you from all your uncleanness c. Ezek. 36. 25 26 27 29. And they shall be my people and I will be their God And I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me for ever for the good of them and of their children after them and I will make an everlasting Covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me Yea I will rejoyce over them to do them good c. Jer. 32. 38 39 40 41. Happy are the people that are in such a case yea happy is that people whose God is the Lord Psal 144. 15. Nature doth not give you such security that the Sun shall shine and that the streams shall run that the earth shall be fruitful as the covenant of the Lord doth give you of all that is necessary to you Happiness Study therefore the mercies and riches of the Covenant Dir. 2. Understand and remember that it is your Covenant consent that it is the condition of your title to all the following blessings of the Covenant I add this as supposing you will say What are all these benefits to me unless I were sure that I were indeed in the Covenant It is not your merit but your consent that is required God offereth himself to be your Reconciled Father and Christ to be your saviour and the Holy Spirit to be your sanctifier Do you consent to this or not All the question is whether you are willing and whether your sin be not so sweet to you that you will rather venture your souls on the wrath of God then you will be saved from it If you heartily consent assuredly you are in the Covenant and the benefits are yours and therefore the Joy and comfort should be yours If you do not consent instead of despairing presently consent and refuse not your happiness while you lament your misery Object But it is not only Covenant-making but Covenant-keeping that must save us and I have broak my Covenant and therefore have no title to the benefits Answ What Covenant have you broken This Covenant in question that engageth you to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost If you have broken this you have withdrawn your Consent For while you heartily consent you break it not in any essential part As it is not every breach of the Laws that makes a man a traytor or rebel nor every fault or falling out between husband and wife that dissolveth their relation so is it not every sin nor any that is consistent with true consent to the terms of the Covenant that is a Covenant-breaking forfeiture of the benefits If you would not have God to be your Portion your Father your Saviour and your Sanctifier you are then Covenant-breakers And if you be so Consent yet and return to your fideliâ—y and the comforts of the Covenant may yet be yours for all your former violation Dir. 3. Moreover if you would find the Pleasure of a Holy life see that the flesh be fool you not into an over high estimation of any worldly thing that so your appetites may not be corrupted with such contrary unwholsome Pleasures nor your hearts be overwhelmed with worldly cares or griefs or troubles If you will glut your selves with other kind of pleasures you cannot expect that Holiness should be your pleasure You cannot find your delight in God when you turn from him to seek it in the creature If you â—ought for less in friends and health and prosperity in the world you might have more in God How should you find content in God when you set so light by him that the promise of beholding him in endless glory will not please you unless you may also have your fleshly desires or selfish inclinations pleased here This is it that perverteth your judgements and affections and causeth you to injure God and your selves You first
and an hundred times over would you go on to give it them because they cry for it O Sirs that you could but use your Reason in the matters for which it was given you by your Maker Either time and mercy is worth something or nothing If it be worth nothing never beg for it and never be sad when it is taken from you Why make you such a stir for that which is nothing worth I mean your corporal mercies for spiritual mercies you can be too well content to be without But if they be worth any thing why do you cast them away and make no better use of them What good do you with them or what good do they do you Believe it sinners God doth not despise his mercies as you do He will not alway give you meat and drink and health and strength and life to play with and do nothing with He will teach you better to value them before he hath done with you Not that he thinks them too good for you but he would have them be better to you then you will let them be He would have every bit you eat to be used to strengthen you in your walk to heaven and every hour of your time to help you towards eternal happiness and every present mercy to further your everlasting mercy that so by the improvement their value may be advanced and they may be mercies indeed to you Be ruled by God and you shall receive more in one mercy then you do now in a thousand But if you will do nothing with them blame him not if he take them from you and leave you destitute of what you knew not how to use Nay your sin is greater then meerly to cast away your mercies You do not only lose them but turn them all into a curse and undo your souls with that which is given for the sustentation of your bodies While you know no better use of mercies then to please your senses and accommodate the flesh and forget the One thing needful which is the End of all you turn them all into sin and fight against God by them and strengthen his enemy and your own and block up your way to Heaven by them and treasure up wrath for the dreadful day when your wealth shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire Jam. 5. 1 2 3. Rom. 2. 5. You contemptuously cast that bread to dogs which he giveth you to supply your own necessities You treacherously carry over his provision to the enemy Consider this you that say you hope to be saved because God is merciful You have found indeed that God is merciful by large experience But if you do not learn and quickly learn to make a better use of his mercies abused mercy will prove your everlasting misery O what a reckoning will you have What a load to press you down to Hell Unless you would have used them better it had been easier for you if these temporal mercies had been denyed you Can that man look to be saved by mercy that would not be intreated to consent that mercy should save him in the day of salvation in the accepted time but served the Devil with those very mercies that would have saved him God sendeth you his mercies to kill your sins and sanctifie you and engage you to himself and if you will feed your sins with them and make them your idols and forsake God for them and be false to him to your Covenant and your duty and neglect that One thing for which he gave them to you you do not only lose them but turn them to a curse And alas poor sinners what will you have to fly to to trust in or to comfort you when mercy abused hath not only forsaken you but falls upon you as a mountain and feedeth your aggravated endless misery 6. Moreover whilest you neglect the One thing necessary you neglect Christ himself and reject the saving benefit of his bloodshed and refuse the healing work of his Spirit and the precious benefits which he hath offered you in the Gospel And how can you escape if you neglect so great salvation Heb. 2. 3. How will you be saved when you refuse the only Saviour There is indeed enough in Christ to heal and save the humbled soul that thirsteth for his righteousness and salvation and valueth and seeketh him as a Saviour and if you would thus come to him you might have life John 5. 40. But whiles you give your selves to please the flesh and follow the world and look so little after Christ or after the ends and benefits of his sufferings and grace Christ is as no Christ to you and Grace is as no Grace to you and the Gospel is as no Gospel to you and you will be never the more saved then if there had no Saviour ever come into the world or there had never Grace been given to the world or there had never been promise made or Gospel preached to the world For Christ will not save them that continue to neglect him and set light by all the mercy that he offereth and the salvation which he hath purchased and do not esteem and use him as a Saviour and cannot find enough in God and Glory to take off their hearts from the pleasures and idols of the flesh If Christ would have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and you would not Matth. 23. 37. you will be as far from being saved by him as if you had never heard of his name And yet that is not all If you prevent it not by true Conversion you will wish a thousand and a thousand times that this were all But there is worse then this For Christ will not leave a man of you as he finds you If you are so far in love with worldly wealth and fleshly pleasure that you can taste no sweetness in his Grace and see no desirable glory in his Kingdom he will make you taste the bitterness of his wrath and feel the weight of his severest justice The most compassionate Saviour is the most dreadful Judge to those that will not be saved by his grace It will be easier for Sodome and Gomorrah in the day of Judgement then for those that were the obstinate refusers of his Gospel Matth. 6. 11 12. He that despised Moses Law dyed without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sure punishment shall he be thought worthy that hath trodden under foot the son of God Heb. 10. 28 29. See therefore that ye refuse not him that speaketh For if they escaped not that refused him that spake on earth how much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven Heb. 12. 23. 7. As long as you neglect the One thing Needful whatever good conceits of your selves you have entertained and whatever hopes or peace or comfort you have built upon those conceits they are all
sons though you have lived as his enemies Though you have lived like Swine and Serpents he will put you into his bosom if you will but be washed and changed by his grace Though you have set more by your worldly riches then by his glory and have set more by the favour of mortal man then by his favour and though you have set more by your bellies and your brutish pleasures and little toyes then you have done by everlasting life he will yet be merciful to you and put up all these indignities at your hands and take you into his dearest love if you will but Now become new creatures and give your hearts to him that made them and seek that first that is worth the finding and lose not the rest of your lives and labour upon unprofitable things What can you say against this offer Is it not unconceivable and unspeakable mercy O what would the damned give for such an offer O what would you your selves give another day for such an offer if you now neglect it What say you then will you accept of this offer of mercy while it may be had and close with Grace while Grace would save you or will you not As ever you look for mercy in the hour of your distress when nothing but mercy can stand your souls in any stead take mercy now while it may be had Refuse it not when it is offered you as you would not be refused by it when Hell and Desparation would devour you If you slight it because it is free you slight it because it is great and therefore greatly to be valued Think not hereafter to have it at your beck if you neglect it now when it seeks for your acceptance Do not say I will a little longer keep my sins and a little longer enjoy my pleasures for I can have Christs offer at any time before I die O little dost thou know what a stab such a trifling purpose may give to the very heart of all thy hopes and happiness and how terribly God may make thee know how ill he taketh thy unthankfulness and contempt and how dear one other week of sinful pleasure may cost thy soul In the name of God I warn you do not so despise everlasting happiness Do not so trample on the blood of Christ if you would be saved by it Do not abuse the Spirit of Grace if you would be sanctified by it Play not any longer with the consuming fire the wrath of a jealous and Almighty God Jest not with damnation Though Grace be now offered you it will not be at your command Despise this motion and you may be out of hearing before the next What can you expect if you will slight such mercy but either that Death should shortly bring you to your reckoning or that God should leave you to your selves and give you up to the hardness of your hearts And if you will needs choose the world and fleshly pleasure and God and Glory shall be thus contemptuously past by you may take your choice and see what you will get by it But remember what an offer you had this day and that heaven was once within your reach and that it might have been yours for ever if you would But because I am loth to leave you so I will try by some such Arguments as the Reason of man must needs approve Whether yet you may not be brought to your selves and yield to grace that you may be saved And they shall be the Arguments that lie before you here in the Text. 1. REmember it is Necessity that is pleaded with you in my Text. One thing is Necessary Necessity and your own Necessity is such an Argument as one would think of it self should turn the scales and fully resolve you and put you past any further deliberation or delay If Necessity your own Necessity and so great Necessity to so great an End will not prevail with you What will Necessity is that ingens telum that natural reason taketh to be unresistible Men think they may do almost any thing if they can say Necessity commandeth it Omnem legem frangit magnum illud humanae imbecillitatis patroeinium saith Seneca What is it that Necessity seemeth not sufficient to justifie with the most And we will grant the Argument to be undenyable if it be from absolute Necessity indeed and if men will not dream that it is more Necessary to be Rich or Honourable or to Live then to be Holy and to be Blessed with God and to please him that created them Ubi necessitas incumbit non ultra disputandum est sed celerrimè fortiter agendum Words signifie nothing against Necessity Reason is but hindering troublesom folly when it pleadeth against Necessity Omni arte omne ratione officacior necessitas Curt. In worldly matters how quick-sighted how resolute how active is Necessity What conquerable difficulties will it not overcome What labour will it not endure if it have but the encouragement of hope And yet this Necessity is indeed no true Necessity at all For that which is Necessary but to my credit or estate or health or life can be no more Necessary then is my credit and estate and health and life it self When men do but fancy a Necessity where there is none yet that will carry them through thick and thin But O Sirs you have a real undenyable Necessity to be Holy and to set your selves to the work of your salvation such a Necessity as is founded in your Nature and laid on you by your Maker and as all the true Reason in the world will confess to be indispensable Necessity Faxis ut libeat quod est necesse Make no more words then but Resolve and stirre when it is a matter that must be done It is pitty and shame that the Amiableness of God and Holiness will not prevail with you of themselves But if you cannot yet perceive them to be Delectable acknowledge them to be Necessary Be ashamed that pretended Necessity for the Body should be more powerful with others then real Necessity for salvation is with you Look upon almost all the travel and labour that is under the Sun and all the diligence that is used here in the world and consider Whether it be not a thousand fold smaller Necessity then I am now pleading with you that setteth almost all on work The Rich will not toil and labour but will take their ease because they think they are under no Necessity but the poor will labour because they must Though the command of God to Rich and poor should make them equally diligent in their several callings in obedience to their Creator yet many thousands that labour all the year in obedience to their own Necessities would soon give it over and take their ease if they could but be well maintained without it notwithsanding the commands of God And the poor that reproach the rich for idlendss would be idle themselves
Knowledge If I referr my health to thee as my Physicion thou must not refuse to try my pulse and see my urine and use the means to find out the disease Wouldst thou be my Lawyer and refuse to read my Evidences and study my case And wilt thou needs be judge thy self of the matters of thine own felicity or misery and yet refuse to read and hear and pray and meditate and use the necessary means of understanding Wilt thou lie in bed and work out thy salvation Wilt thou make use of no ones eyes but thy own and yet wilt thou wink or draw the Curtains or shut the windows and cast away thy spectacles and neither come into the sunshine nor use a candle This is but to say I will willfully condemn my soul and none shall hinder me 2. But yet another condition I must propose If thou wilt but as I said before of others a while make Tryal of a holy life and try in thy self what Faith and Hope and Charity are and try what selfdenyal is I will then referr the matter to thy self Go back from God if thou find any Reason for it and turn from Christ and Heaven and Holiness if thou do not like them But if thou wilt needs be the judge and wilt not be perswaded to try the thing thou art a partial self-deceiving judge 3. But it this much cannot be obtained at least be Considerate in thy judging If thou wilt but take thy self aside from the noise of wordly vanities and deceits and commune seriously with thy heart and bethink thee as before the Lord and as one that knows he must shortly dye Whether Heaven or Earth should be sought most carefully and Whether God or thy flesh should be served most resolvedly and diligently and if thou wilt but dwell so long upon these manlike thoughts till they are digested and Truth have time to shew its face I dare then leave the question to thy self The next time that the Sermon or any affliction comes near thee and awakeneth thy Conscience do but withdraw thy self into secret and soberly bethink thee of the matter what hopes thou hast from the world and what thou 〈◊〉 have from God what Time is and what Eternity is and give â—â—â— Conscience leave to speak and then I will venture the issue upon thy Conscience For thee I mean though I must stick to a better judge my self Doth not Conscience sometime tell thee that the Holyest persons are the wisest and that thy labour is liker at last to be lost and repented of than theirs Doth not Conscience sometime make thee wish that thou wert but in as safe a case as they and that thou mightest but die the death of the Righteous and that thy last end might be as theirs 4. But if all this will not serve the turn thou shalt be Judge thy self but it shall be when thou art more capable of judging If God by Grace shall Change thy heart I will stand to thy Judgement If he do not when thy graceless guilty soul shall pass out of thy pampered dirty flesh and appear before the dreadful God I will then leave the case to thy Conscience to judge of To all Eternity it shall be partly left to the judgement of thy Conscience whether sin or Holiness be better and whether Saints or careless sinners were the wiser and whether it had not been be ter sor thee to have spent that life in preparing for thy Endless life which thou spentst in slighting it and caring for the world and flesh Then thou shalt be Judge thy self of these matters but under a more severe and righteous judge And so as shall make thy tearing heart to wish with many a thousand groans that thou hadst judged wiselier in time But because that Judgement will be to desperation and too late for hope or any help let Conscience speak when thou lyest sick and seest that thou art a dying man Then judge thy self whether a Holy or a worldly life be better and whether it had not been thy wiser course to have sowed to the spirit that so thou maist reap everlasting life then to have sowed to the flesh from which thou now lookst to reap no better then corruption Be not deceived God is not mocked whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap Gal. 6. 6 7. But because it will be very late to stay till thy own Death draw so neer thee go but to thy neighbours that lie in sickness looking for the stroak of death Yea to thy companions in sin and folly and ask them then which way is better Ask them then which is the better part Whether now they had rather be the Holyest Saints or such as they have been Whether now they had not rather they had spent their time in the most careful seeking for Everlasting life then in doing as they have done Say to thy old companion now Brother I see you are near your end the mortal stroak of death is coming you are now leaving all the pleasures of this world I pray you tell me now your Judgement whether mirth and sport and feasting and drinking and wealth and honour be more to be sought then life eternal and whether Hearing and Reading the word of God and Praying and meditating and flying from sin be as bad or as needless a thing as we have formerly taken it to be Had you rather appear before the Lord in the case of those that we derided as Puritans and too precise for making such a doe about salvation or in the case that you and I have lived in Ask but this Question to thy old companions and try whether the Consciences of almost all that approach their end do not bear witness against ungodliness and do not justifie the holy diligence of the Saints It is but two days since a poor drunkard of a neighbour Parish being ready to pass out of this world did send hither and to other Parishes in the terrours of his soul to desire our Congregations to take warning by him and to strive with God if possible for some mercy for his soul that was passing in terrours into another world because of the guilt of his odious sin Well sirs I have gone along with you to all the creatures in this world that have any fitness to judge in this case and if all these will not serve we must go to another world for Judgement or stay till you come there 11. And really do you think if we could speak with Angels or departed Souls that they would not consent with God and all Believers in their Testimony O how they would rebuke their madness that make any doubt of so great so plain so sure a truth as this of the necessity and the excellency of a Holy life None are so fully resolved of this question as they that have tasted the End of both and past the righteous judgement of the Lord. They that are feeling the anguish of their
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
Judgements of the Lord God hath begun to take away the reproach of Holiness and through his great mercy to us it is more Honourable in England then formerly it hath been Is it Honoured by you Or are you hardened to perdition Fearfull is the case of him whoever he be that after all the gentle and terrible warnings of the Lord dare think or speak reproachfully of a Holy life Yet hear the calls of the Eternal Wisdom Prov. 1. 20 21 22 c. How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity and the scorners delight in scorning and fools hate knowledge Turn you at my reproof But mercies and judgements are lost on the hard-hearted Isa 26. 10 11. Let favour be shewn to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly and will not behold the Majesty of the Lord. When the hand of the Lord is lifted up they will not see but they shall see and be ashamed for their envy at his people and the enemies own fire shall devour them And then as they set at nought his counsell and would none of his reproof but mocked them that feared God so will he also laugh at their calamity and mock when their fear cometh For that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord Prov. 1. 25 26 27 29. I will add but this one word of terror To scorn at Holiness is to scorn at the Holy Ghost whose office or work it is to sanctifie us As the Father hath commanded us to be Holy as he is Holy 1 Pet. 1. 16. and made it his Image on us and as the Son hath come to destroy unholiness 1 John 3. 8. and give us an example of perfect holiness and sanctifie to himself a peculiar people Titus 2. 14. so is it the undertaken work of the Holy Ghost as sent therefore from the Father and the Son to make Holy all that God will save And though I say not that it is the unpardonable Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to scorn his very work and office yet I say it is a Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost so near that which is unpardonable that the thoughts of it should humble all that have been guilty and make men fear so horrible a sin But Bessed is he that walketh not in the Counsel of the Ungodly â—or standeth in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful but his delight is in the Law of the Lord and in his Law doth he meditate day and night The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked but he blesseth the habitation of the just Surely he scorneth the scorners but he giveth grace unto the lowly Prov. 3. 33 34. These are the true sayings of the Lord. I thought not meet to pass by this necessary reproof of the contempt of Holiness which this Land hath been so guilty of and which hath undone so many souls and made such desolations in the Land And now you shall see that I am able to make good the grounds of this reproof and that Holiness is no Dishonourable thing 1. The Holy servants of the Lord have the most Honourable Master in all the world This only is sufficient to weigh down all the Honours of the world if it were ten thousand worlds When the builders of the Temple were asked their names by the Officers of King Darius Ezra 5. 10 11. their answer was We are the servants of the God of Heaven and Earth No King on Earth no Angel in Heaven hath a more honourable Master To be the highest Officer of the greatest Prince is a Title as much more base then this as man is baser then the Infinite God If God can not put sufficient Honour on those that are Related to him tell us who can When Moses went to Pharaoh for the Israelites deliverance he was to speak in the name of the Lord and when Pharaoh spake contemptuously of the Lord as one that he knew not and would not obey how wonderously doth God vindicate his honour his people Let other men be called Knights and Lords and Kings and Emperours may I but be truly called the servant of the God of Heaven I shall not envy them their honours Our relation to so glorious a Majesty doth put an unexpressible Honour upon the poorest person and the lowest works A servant of the Lord is more Honourable in ragâ— in a smoaky cottage or the meanest state then the Emperour of Constantinople or Tartary is in all their Wealth and Worldly Glory And if you think not so your selves why do you so much honour them when they are dead What was Peter and Paul and the rest of the Apostles but poor despised men in the world that travailed about to preach the Gospel and what was their honour but to be the Holy Servants of the Lords Yet now they are dead you are desirous to keep Holy dayes in an honourable memorial of them and Kings and Princes reverence their names What were the Martyrs whose memories are now so Honourable with us but a company of hated persecuted men that were used by others as Butchers do their beasts and worse But because they were the servants of the Lord and suffered for his truth and cause their names are honourable and the names of their greatest persecutors do even stink It s said of Constantine the Great who himself was Greater by his Holiness then his Victories that he was wont to reverence the Bishops that had been sufferers for Christ and kissed the place where the eye abode that one of them had lost for the Gospels sake The Christian Princes that ruled the world were wont to Honour the poorest mortified retired servants of Christ that had cast off the world as perceiving that he is more Honourable that contemneth it then he that enjoyeth it The nearest to God undoubtedly are the most Honourable 2. Consider that as it is God that the Saints are thus Related to so their Relation is so near and their Titles so exceeding high which God himself hath put upon them that it advanceth them to the greatest height of Honour that men on earth can reasonably expect Yea with holy admiration we must say it so wonderful is the Honour which the Glorious God hath put upon his poor unworthy servants thar they durst not have owned it nor thought such Titles meet for men if God himself had not been the Author of them Nor could they have believed that God would so advance them if he had not both revealed it and given them faith to believe his revelation As if it were not enough for us to be his servants he calleth us his friends Joh. 15. 13 14 15. Greater Love hath no man then this that a man lay down his life for his friends Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you Henceforth I call you not servants For the servant knoweth not what his Lord
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
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
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
much therefore in Thankfulness and Praise which are works of Love All goeth on sweetly and easily and acceptably that is carryed on by Love That is the best soul and likest to God that hath most of Love to God and Godliness 〈…〉 that is the best service and likest to the work of 〈…〉 that hath most of Love Let the principal striving and pleading with your hearts be to kindle Love and your principal complaints for the want of it Direct 7. Keep up Charity to all even unto enemies and special Love to all the Godly And therefore hate back-biting and slandering and making the worst of other mens actions Take them as thieves that come to rob you of your Charity He that speaks evil of another perswadeth you so far to hate him unless it be in Charity perswading you to seek his cure Hear the reproacher and back-biter understandingly as if he said in words as he doth in sense I pray you hate such a man or abate your Love to him As the way to cause Love is to represent the object Lovely which doth much more then to command me to Love it So the way to cause Hatred is to represent the object hateful or unlovely which is more then to bid us hate our brother And he that hateth his brother is a man-slayer and none such have eternal life abiding in them Away theresore with those Volumes of Learned slanders and reproaches begotten betwixt uncharitableness and self love or pride and take them as the Devils Books that are written to draw thee to hate thy Brother Frown also upon the censorious Take heed also of divisions and parties because they are enemies to universal Love and are but Imposthumes or Biles of the Church where Zeal and Love are diseasedly drawn into a narrow compass and that is appropriated to a few that should be common to all Believers Cherish meekness and patience and reject all that carnal Zeal or Envy Contention and Animosities which are contrary to Love Read and study well the third Chapter of St. James and the Epistle of John Direct 8. Understand the preciousness and use of time Love Diligence the better because it is a Redeeming of time a doing much in a little time Hate that which would rob you of so precious a commodity Direct 9. See that there be no predominant selfishness or worldly interest unmortified at the heart Study duty and do it faithfully and trust God with Life Estate and Events and shift not for your selves by sinfull means Direct 10. Maintain your authority over your sense and fleshly appetites Captivate not Reason to the Brutish part especially under pretence of liberty Use your bodies as may strengthen them and best fit them for the work of God Let them have so much delight in things allowed as conduceth to this but take heed of making the delights of flesh and sense your end or allowing your selves in an unprofitable pleasing of your enemy or of corrupting your minds and rellishing too much sweetness in the things of the flesh and losing your rellish of Spiritual things Set not the bait too near you Keep the Gun-powder from the fire He that believeth that if ever he be damned it will be for Pleasing his flesh before God and if ever he be saved he must be first and principally saved from the inordinate Pleasures of the flesh will not be so forward as brutish Infidels are to seek out for â—elights and plead for all that pleaseth them as harmâ—â—ss Having thus in the Introduction shewed you What Godliness is and How it may be known and What you must do to be soundly and sincerely Godly I hope you are prepared for the following Discourse of the Certain Necessity and Excellency of Godliness which tends to â—etch over the delaying resisting unresolved wills of those that are yet in the BRUTISH state and are strangers to the Dispositions Employments Desires Hopes and Joyes of true Believers The Lord concurre effectually with his Blessing Amen LUKE 10. 41 42. And Jesus answered and said unto her Martha Martha thou art careful and troubled about many things but One thing is Needful and Mary hath chosen the good part which shall not be taken away from her IN order to the decision of the Great Controversie practically managed through the the world Whether Godliness or worldliness and sensuality be better I have already performed the first part of my task in proving the Certainty of the Principles of Godliness and of Christianity which of it self will inferr the Conclusion which I undertake to prove that the Reasons for Godliness are so sure and clear and great that every one must be A SAINT or A BRUTE He that will not choose a life of HOLINESS hath no other to fall into but a life of SENSUALITY Either the superiour faculties proper to a Rational Nature must be predominant and then we can be no less than SAINTS Or else the inferiour brutish faculties will be predominant and then though from your natural Powers you are called MEN yet if you may be denominated from your intended END and from the USE of your faculties in order to that END you are but an ingenious kind of BRUTES exceeding Aâ—â—â— and Monkies in the cunning contrivance of your unhappy designs but incomparably worse in your successes because you were indeed entrusted with the noble faculties and gifts of MEN while you captivated them unto your Appetites and Sense and lived but to the END of BEASTS The second thing that I have to do for the conquering all opposition to this Conclusion is to prove the NECESSITY of HOLINESS which being now to speak to such as profess to believe the holy Scriptures I may easily do from this plain and pregnant Text To which I shall annex such cogent REASONS as may silence those that will not acquiesce in the authority of the holy Word So great is the difference between a dreaming Opinion in Religion called a Deâ—â— Faith and a serious hearty practical Belief that if they that say and do but say they believe the holy Scriptures and yet are ungodly had soundly Believed Considered and digested this very Text it would have made such a change both in their Hearts and Lives as would have told them by happy experience that the Gospel is not a dead letter nor saving faith a lifeless uneffectual thing and that God sent not his son into the world only to be complemented with and reverently treated with a few good words nor his Gospel and Ministers meerly to be entertained with a demure silent and respectful audience nor hath proposed his Kingdom to be meerly the matter of commendation or discourse But that as man is a creature of a Noble and Capacious Nature so he hath an high and noble End and consequently the highest imployment for his Reason and that Religion is the most NECESSARY and must be the most SERIOUS business in the world Did they believe this Text as verily as they