say unto you Ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you Luke 6. 12. He went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God Daniel would not give over praying three times a day in his house for thirty dayes space at the Kings command no not to save his life from devouring Lions David saith Psalm 119. 164. Seven times a day do I praise thee Lam. 2. 19. Arise cry out in the night in the beginning of the watches pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord Psalm 14. 4. it is part of the wicked Atheists description that They call not upon the Lord. Jer. 10. 25. Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not and the families that call not on thy name Psalm 145. 18. The Lord is nigh to all that call upon him to all that call upon him in truth When Paul was converted the Lord lets Ananias know it by this token Acts 9. 11. For behold he prayeth Acts 1. 14. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication Acts 2. 42. The three thousand Converts continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers Col 4. 2 Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving withall praying also for us that God would open to us a door of utterance to speak the mysterie of Christ Rom. 12. 12. Continuing instant in prayer Jam. 5. 16. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much 1 Tim. 4. 5. For every creature is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer 1 Tim. 5. 5. She that is a widdow indeed and desolate trusteth in God and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day Jude 20. Praying in the Holy Ghost 1 Thes 3. 10. Night and day praying exceedingly Ephes 6 18. Praying alwayes with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all Saints and for me c. 2 Chron. 6. 29. What prayer or what supplication soever shall be made of any man or of all thy people Israel when every one shall know his own sore and his own grief and shall spread forth his hands in this house then hear thou from Heaven c. I hope by this time if you have eyes you see that more frequent and fervent prayers then any of us use and that without Book were used by the antient servants of the Lord and were not thought too much ado nor more ado then God requireth of us 4. Is it constant diligent teaching instructing and catechizing your families and labouring that your selves and they may understand and practise the Law of God Hear also what the Spirit saith of this and then judge whether it be too much preciseness Prov. 2. 1 2 3 4 5. My son if thou wilt receive my words and hide my Commandements with thee so that thou encline thine ear unto wisdom and apply thy heart to understanding yea if thou cryest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hidden treasures then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God Deut. 6. 5 6 7. 11. 18 19 20. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou lyest down and when thou risest up And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates Gen. 18 19. For I know Abraham that he will command his children and his houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord. Josh 24. 15. But as for me and my houshold we will serve the Lord. Prov. 22. 6. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it Eph. 6. 4. Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. These and many such passages shew you that the most diligent instructing of your families is not more ado then God requireth but a most weighty needful part of godliness 5. Is it the meeting of divers neighbours together distinct from Church-meetings that you question Why if it be Schismatical in opposition to the publick meetings or to do any unlawful work we are against it as well as you But if it be but for the redeeming of their time for their spiritual advantage and orderly peaceably and soberly observed by some that have more time or care of their souls then the rest of their neighbours sure you will not for shame imagine that neighbours may lawfully meet to make merry and feast and sport and conferr about their worldly business and yet may not meet to pray and praise God and repeat what instructions they have received of their Teachers and prepare for and improve the publick Ordinances Hear what the Spirit saith also in this In the text here you find just such a meeting where Christ was teaching and Mary and his Disciples hearing and Martha cumbred with providing for the company and blamed for neglecting the advantage for her soul Acts 12. 12. Peter came out of prison to the house of Mary where many were gathered together praying Acts 10. 24. Cornelius called together his kinsmen and near friends to hear Peter who there preached to them converted and baptized them I need to instance in no more because this was the ordinary practice of Christ and the Apostles If you say Those were times of persecution I answer True But 1. yet such times in which publick Assemblies were ordinarily held and publick preaching used 2. And as the good of mens souls required it in times of persecution so when the good of souls requires it in times of liberty it is from the same general reason a duty but never forbidden by Christ in any times of greatest prosperity and peace 6. Is it the holy observation of the Lords day that is the preciseness that you cannot away with Of all men it beseems not them to quarrel at this that own our Homilies and with the Common-prayer use after the fourth Commandment to say Lord have mercy upon us and encline our hearts to keep this Law When they have heard Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day thou thy Son thy daughter thy man-servant thy maid-servant thy cattle and the stranger that is within thy gates You see all the foresaid duties must be performed and publick Assemblies for Gods worship and our instruction continued And therefore there must be some known
you speak falsly because you make the most barbarous Heathens to be most happy and the worst of men to be the best If it be best where there is least Religion and least Teaching or meddling with holy things then are the naked Indians the best and the Cannibals that live on the flesh of men These be they that are least troubled with Preaching and Religion And if you think that these miserable souls are best and happyest I pray you go to them and be happy with them And by my consent the Magistrate shall promote your happiness and send you thither 17. And would you have us believe you when you contradict your selves Out of your own mouthes will we silence or condemn you It is Christ that teacheth us to be Holy And do you not pretend your selves to believe in Christ That which you dislike as a troublesom or needless thing is nothing but serious Christianity it self And do you not say your selves that you are Christians Do not you profess the Articles of the Christian Belief And what do we but practice that which you profess We do but obey that God whom you say you believe in as the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth and all things We do but love the Lord our Saviour whom you say you believe in as your Saviour We do but obey the Holy-Ghost that sanctifieth all that God will save whom you also profess to believe in your selves We practise that Communion of Saints which you deride and yet profess that you believe We seek after the remission of sin and that life everlasting which you take on you to believe your selves And will you profess to Believe these things and yet say they are naught or that it was never a good world since they were regarded and practised And do you not profess to take the ten Commandments for the Law of God which all men should obey And what do we but endeavour to obey them All that which you hate as too much preciseness is nothing but the obeying of these ten Commandments And O that we could do it better And do you not use in the saying of the Lords Prayer to pray that the Name of God may be Hallowed and his Kingdom come and his Will be done yea even as it is done in Heaven And yet 〈◊〉 you say with the same mouth that it was never a good world since Gods name was Hallowed and since his Kingdom was â—â—vanced and his Laws so much regarded and his Will obeyed O hypocrites Is this your praying and do you look such prayers should be accepted which you hate and speak against your selves You pray that you may not be led into Temptation but delivered from evil and yet you run into temptation and take that Evil to be Good How oft have I heard men when the Commandments have been repeated which require us to take the Lord only for our God and not to take his Name in vain and to Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day to joyn to it as their prayer Lord have mercy upon us and encline our hearts to keep this Law and when they come home revile those people that are willing to keep it and that will not take Gods Name in vain and forbear the keeping holy of his day as they do themselves Either give over professing the Christian Belief and using the Lords Prayer and praying that you may keep the Commandments of God or else give over reviling those that do it Either say plainly that you are Heathens and no Christians or else never say that a Christian Life is hurtful to the world nor make it the matter of your reproach 18. And I must needs say that I am the more assured that your words against Religion are false because I know that they please the Devil who is the Father of lyes and are just such as he would have you speak and would speak himself if he had but liberty and his appearance would not marr hâ—â— cause When thou art railing at Godliness and saying that this Religion is the trouble of the world and that the servants of Christ are but a company of busie hypocrites just so would the Devil have thee speak I can prove it fully from the Scriptures and from his Nature and designs You could not speak more agreeably to his mind If he had hired you and written down every word which he would have you speak you could not more punctually obey him Do you plead against Holiness and for a careless and ungodly life Do you despise the righteous and justifie the wicked Just so would the Devil have you do If he stood by you and prompted you as indeed he doth though you do not know it those are the very words that he would have you say Indeed when he is compelled the Devil himself speaketh better then you as in Acts 16. 17. he saith These men are the servants of the most high God which shew unto us the way of salvation These are better words then yours But when he is left to himself and speaketh of his own he speaketh just as you do and shall we believe you when the Devil sets you on and you speak the words of the lying spirit 19. And I the less believe you when you say that the world is the worse for Preaching and Religiousness because I know from whence this comes You take that to be the best that is the worst and that to be the worst that is indeed the best You judge after the flesh and take those for the best times when you have most prosperity and may sin with least contradiction and molestation and be least troubled in your sensual course These are your good daies which wise men know to be your slavery and misery It is never a good world with you when your consciences are troubled and your sores are lanced and Satan cannot keep his garrison in peace and when you cannot be permitted to drink and swear and game and revell without controll And if this be your good world I had rather have a prison or a pair of stocks with Christ and the Gospel which you despise and with the means and hopes of the world to come then to have your good world which is but thee quietest passage to damnation You are not yet to be believed stay till you see the end and what comes of it and then tell us which was the good world 20. Lastly if all this will not serve I will silence you and shame you if you have any shame left If Religion and so much serving of God do make the world worse and those be the worst times where there is most of these then Heaven would be worse then Earth or Hell even the worst place in all the world For no place hath so much Holiness as Heaven Nowhere is there so much ado about the Praise and Service of God as there is in Heaven There they do nothing else but that which
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
O for a few daies or hours more to make sure of this One thing which you should have spent your lives in making sure of Will you then think thus and yet can you now afford to cast away twenty or thirty years upon Nothing If Time be worth Nothing your Lives are worth Nothing And why should a man desire to Live for Nothing You Love your lives too much and yet will you so contemptuously cast them away He hath lost his life who hath lost the End of his life The loss of an hundred pound in money is not to your selves so great a loss as the loss of a dayes or hours time What then is the loss of so many years Did you ever well consider of this If you live a thousand years it is all lost if you have not spent it in making sure of the One thing Necessary For is not that lost and worse a thousand times then lost that is spent in crossing the End that it is given for and which is no comfort but terrour in the review and which leaveth no fruit but grief and disappointment Let me tell you if you hold on thus unto the end you will wish and wish a thousand times either that you had never had an hours time or else that you had had hearts to have better perceived the worth and use of it then to cast it away as you have done upon nothing It is but One thing that is worth your Time and Lives 2. Whatsoever else you have been doing you have lost all your Labour with your Time if this One thing Needful have been neglected No doubt you have been busie since you came into the world but to little purpose You might as well have been idle as so laboriously doing nothing No doubt many a journey you have rode and gone and many a hard daies labour you have taken and sharpened perhaps with care and grief But you have lost it all if it were an hundred times more if it have not been â—aid out upon the One thing necessary And is it not a pittiful thing that men of reason should vex themselves and coil their bodies and suffer hunger and thirst and weariness and make such a stir and pudder in the world and all for nothing and in a vain shew How many mornings have you risen to your labour and how many dayes and years have you spent in it and now it is all lost How many thoughts and fears and cares have possessed and pestred your minds and now they are all lost Some of you have followed your trades and some your husbandry and some have run up and down after recreations some of you have been scraping riches and some contriving to keep up their reputation and some to satisfie their appetites and live in pleasure and contentment to the flesh and now look back upon all that you have done and gotten and tell your selves whether all this be not lost yea alas much worse then lost If you be not ready to pass this conclusion at the very heart it is because your hearts are yet blinded and hardened in sin but God will soon bring that to your hearts that shall convince you of it If God have made use of any worldly sensual person of you for publick good of Church or state as men do of thorns for hedging to their lands or of bryars to stop a gap or of fire-wood to warm their family yet as to any durable benefit to your selves I may well say that all your Labour is lost And this is not all but the pains also that you have taken in your formal hypocritical Religion your hearing reading receiving Sacraments and pretended prayer all the thoughts that ever you had of death and judgement and the life to come and all that you have done with reservations and by halves for your own salvation this also is all lost Except as a less measure of misery may go for gain If you miss of the One thing necessary you do but lose your labour whatever else you seem to gain A great stir you make in seeking for preferment or dominion over others or about your lands your honours or your delights so great that your neighbours can scarce live quietly by you and the Kingdom cannot be quiet for some of you nor your own consciences be quiet within you for the desperate work that you engage them in which they know must be heard of another day And when all is done you will find you have been but hunting of a feather You would see this now if God would open your eyes by grace but if you miss of so seasonable an information you will see it too late in the land of darkness When death hath opened your eyes and your impenitent souls do suddenly awake in another world you will understand that you made all this stir but in your sleep As busily and seriously as you acted the parts of Lords and Ladies of Gentlemen Tradesmen or Husbandmen in the world if you did not seriously and first do the work of true Believers for the world to come you will then find too late that your labour is lost and all was acted but as in a dream Do you believe this now or do you not If you do will you yet go on If you do not believe it shew me now what you have gotten by all the stir that you have made in the world that will follow you one step further then the grave and that you can say shall be your own to morrow If you were to die this hour will it be any lasting comfort to you that you have laboured to be Rich or Honourable or that you have attained it or that you had your glut of sensual delights and a merry life as to the fleshly pleasure as long as it would last Will you dye the more comfortably for any of this or much the less That yet you are alive is the great mercy of God and not to be ascribed to any of these And when you cease to live then these will be your greif and torment Beloved Hearers I have no desire the Lord knows to discompose your minds or to disquiet you with any molesting unnecessary scruples nor causelesly to dishonour either you or your imployments But I must needs say that it is a dolefull case that men in their wits should spend a life of precious time and also a great deal of care and labour in doing Nothing and much worse then Nothing when they have a work of everlasting consequence to do and they know that the Devils chiefest hopes do consist in the success of these diversions I must seriously profess to you that I am constrained by the word and teachings of God and by undenyable reason it self to look upon all the labour of your lives the highest and the busiest but as the picking of straws or playing with a feather or riding upon a staff or a hobby-horse or such like actions as
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
theirs Many a time hath he offered this mercy to them and many a time hath he urged them to accept â—…t He hath set before them life and death and given them their choice and directed and perswaded them to choose aright Impossibility of attainment is not their hinderance for Mercy beâ—eecheth and importuneth them to accept it and grace and salvation are brought unto their hands O wonderful What then â—s left to take off a reasonable creature from minding and preferring its own everlasting great concernments Is it because they have done their work already and having made sure of heaven have time to turn themselves to other matters Alas no the most are far from any such assurance and have done but little to procure it If they were to die this hour they know not where their souls shall be the next And if death even now should lay its terrible hands upon them they have no other comfort then to yield â—â—to necessity and leave their souls by a short security to 〈…〉 passage of their unavoidable change Unless they are comâ—… by such presumptuous self-deceit which the next moment after death will vanish and never return unto them more Job 8. 13 14. 11. 20. 27. 8. Prov. 11. 7. This is the case of the miserable world but they have not hearts to 〈…〉 themselves nor can we make them willing to be delivered â—…use we cannot make them know their case If a man fall in 〈…〉 pit we need not spend all the day to perswade him that he is there and to be willing to be helpt out of it But with these fleshlyâ—â—iserable souls the time that should be spent by themselves and us for their recovery must be spent to make them believe that they are lost and when all is done we leave them lost and have lost our labour because we cannot prevail with them to believe it Drown they will and perish everlastingly because the time that should be spent in saving them must be spent in making them know that they are sinking and after all they will not believe it and therefore will not â—ay hold on the hand that is stretched forth to pull them out The Narrative of the savage people of Soldania doth notably represent their state Those people live naked and feed upon the carrion-like carkasses of beasts and hang the stinking guts about their â—ecks for ornamentâ— and wear hats made of the dung and carve their skins and will not change these loathsom customs Some of them being drawn into our Ships were carried away for England when they came to Landon and saw our stately buildings and cloathing and provisions they were observed to sigh much which was thought to have been in compassion of their miserable Countrey which so much differed from ours When they had stayed long among us and got so much acquaintance with our civility and order and all that belongs to the life of man as that they were thought fit to communicate it to their Countrey-men the next Voyage they were brought back and set on shoare in their own Countrey to draw some of the rest to come into the Ships and see and enjoy what they had done who had purposely been used as might most content them But as soon as they were landed they lept for joy and cryed Soldania and cast away their cloathes and came again in the sight of our Ships with dung on their heads and guts hanging about their necks triumphing in their sordid nakedness Just so do worldly sensual men in the matters of salvation If against their wills they are carryed into cleaner wayes and company and the beauty of holiness and the joyes of heaven are opened to them they are aweary of it aâ— the while and when we expect they should delight themselves in the felicity that is opened to them and draw their old acquaintance to it and be utterly ashamed of their former base and sinful state they are gone when the next temptation comes and return with the dog unto their vomit and with the washed Swine to wallow in the mire 2 Pet. 2. 21 22. and glory in their filth and shame and only mind their earthly things Phil. 3. 18. Use 3. BY this time you may see your selves that the disease of sinners is in their own hearts and it is that that must be healed if they will be saved But what should we do to get into those hearts to search your sores and work the cure I come now to the principal part of my message to you but will you indeed entertain it if it prove it self to be from God How the case standeth with mankind you have heard in my Text from Christ himself How One thing is needful and how the busie-idle world is diverted from this One thing by many needless troublesom things to their own destruction If hence I warn you of your danger and tell you of your duty and exhort you to take another course then you have done I hope you will confess I do but what is needfull both for you and me and what you have no reason to contradict Come then for the Lords sake and let us treat practically and successfully about so great a business and make something of it before we leave it and end not till we amend what we find amiss What course then will you take for the time to come Will you go on to trouble your selves about Many things and neglect the One thing needful as you have done Dare you harbour such a purpose Or dare you stifle those thoughts and motions that would tend to better purposes Or may I not hope that the Light hath shamed your sleepiness and works of darkness and that you are grieved at the heart for the sinful negligence of heart and life and resolved now to be new men For Gods sake Resolve Sirs What will you do Waver not but Resolve It s more then a thousand lives that lyeth on your Resolution I come to you this day as the Minister of the great Pastor of the flock that spake these words not only to acquaint you if you know not or to remember you if you know that One thing is needful but also with authority to command you in his name to Value it to Love it to Choose it to seek it and labour for it as the One thing needful What say you will you or will you not This unspeakable mercy I offer you from the Lord He is willing to put up at your hands all that is past and to lay all your sins on the score of Christ and freely to forgive you through the vertue of his blood if you will now at last bethink you better and come to Christ and live as men that know what they have to do If you will but see your former folly and heartily bewail it and set your hearts on the One thing needful he will encourage you and help you and bid you welcome and number you with his
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
and all right reason required of thee For surely he that made thee hath in wisdom proportioned thy time to thy work and hath not given thee an hour too much A long life is short enough to prepare for everlasting And shall a loytering Rebell that hath wasted so much of his little time cry out What needs so much ado Quest 25. Is it not the graceless miserable sort of men that cry out What needs all this ado Certainly it is For Scripture and Reason and Experience tell us that all that are godly are of another mind The more grace they have the more they would have The more they love God the more they would love him The more good they do the more they would do Do you not see how they labour after more grace and hear how they complain that they are no better O how it would glad them to be more Holy and more Heavenly It is therefore the strangers and despisers of grace that never knew by experience the nature and power and sweetness of it than say It is more ado then needs And is it not a most unreasonable thing for a man that hath no saving grace and holiness at all to cry out against excess of holiness And for a man that is in the captivity of the Devil and ready suddenly to drop into Hell if death do but strike the fatal blow before he be regenerate to talk against doing too much for heaven And for a man that never did God one hours pleasing service Heb. 11. 6. to prate against serving God too much O poor wretch were thy eyes but opened thou wouldst see that of any man in the Town or Countrey this language ill beseemeth thee When God hath been so long offended and thy soul is almost lost already and death and hell is hard at hand and may swallow thee up in endless desperation for ought thou knowest before thou hast read this Book to the end or before thou see another year or moneth or day is it time for such a one as thee to say What needs so much ado One would think if there be any life in thee thou shouldst stir as for thy life and if thou have a voice to cry thou shouldst cry out to God hoth day and night in the fervour of thy soul even now while mercy may be had lest time should over-slip thee and thou be shut up in the place of torment If Hell-fire will not make thee stir What will Should a weak Christian that is cast behind hand by his negligence but once speak against a diligent life he were exceedingly too blame But for thee that art yet in the gall of bitterness and the misery of an unregenerate state to speak against holy diligence for salvation when thou art in such great and deep distress and like a man that is drowning or a house on fire that must presently have help or perish this is a madness that hath no name sufficient to express it by which its a wonder that a rational soul should be guilty of Quest 26. Art thou not afraid of some sudden vengeance from the Lord for thus making thy self his open enemy and contradicting him to his face Mark his language and then mark thine Christ saith Enter in at the strait gate For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go iâ— thereat because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it Matth. 7. 13 14. Strive to enter in at the strait gate for many I say unto you will seek to enter in and shall not be able Luke 13. 24. See then that ye walk circumspectly or exactly not as fools but as wise redeeming the time Ephes 5. 15 16. For I say unto you thâ—â— except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribâ—s and Pharises ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of heaven Matth. 5. 20. Wherefore brethren give all diligence to make your Calling and Election sure 2 Pet. 1. 10. Workout your salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2. 12. Seeing then all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting to the coming of the day of God 2 Pet. 3. 11 12. And if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear 1 Pet. 4. 18. Lay not up for your selves a treasure on earth c. but lay up for your selves a treasure in heaven c. For where your treasure it there will your hearts be also Matth. 6. 19 20 21. Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness Matth. 6. 33. Labour not for the meat that perisheth but for that which endureth to everlasting life John 6. 27. The Kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force Matth. 11. 12. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all but one receiveth the prize So run that ye may obtain And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things Now they do it to obtain a corruptible Crown but we an incorruptible I therefore so run not as uncertainly so fight I not as one that beateth the air but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest that by any means when I have preached to others I my self should be a cast-away 1 Cor. 9. 24 25 26 27. Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which satisfieth not Hearken diligently unto me 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 Isa 55. 1 2 3. Be servent in spirit serving the Lord. Rom. 12. 11. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and sanctifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 2. 11 12 13 14. Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully Jer. 48. 10. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do do it with thy might For there is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave whether thougoest Eccles 9. 10. These and such like are the sayings of God by which thou mayst easily understand his mind concerning the necessity of a serious diligent holy life And shall a blind and wretched worm come after and dare to contradict him and unsay all this and say What needs so much ado What! darest thou thus openly resist God to his face What art thou and
ashamed 2 John 10. If there come any to you and bring not this doctrine receive him not into your house neither bid him God speed for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds Jam. 5. 16. Confess your faults one to another Josh 7. 19. Give I pray thee glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession unto him and tell me now what thou hast done hide it not from me Prov. 28. 13. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Doth not all this justifie the exercise of Discipline and condemn the neglect of it 9. But saith the impious person why make they such a difference between themselves and other men extolling themselves as the only servants of the Lord and condemning others as ungodly and children of the Devil and terrifying mens consciences with the fears of hell Answ If any do so against such as are sanctified and renewed and have the Spirit of Christ and live to God they deal uncharitably and if you dislike their censoriousness so do I and so do all the sober considerate servants of the Lord. But if it be only against the carnal unsanctified world that they do thus it is God that maketh the difference and not they Do you not find the whole Scripture dividing all the world into two ranks the godly and the ungodly the regenerate and unregenerate the converted and unconverted the sanctified and unsanctified the carnal and the spiritual the earthly-minded and the heavenly-minded the pardoned and unpardoned the justified and unjustified the children of God and the enemies of God the servants of God and of the Devil the heirs of heaven and the heirs of hell To prove this would be to repeat the Bible Read Psalm 1. 37. 15. 10. Matth. 5. Rom. 8. Joh. 3. Matth. 13. 1 Joh 3. c. Do you not find Christ himself acquainting you before hand that one sort shall be set at his right hand in judgement and the other at his left and one part sent to life everlasting and the other to everlasting punishment Matth. 25. Do they speak any moâ—e of the everlasting torments the worm that dyeth not the fire that is unquenchable then Christ himself hath done Matth. 13. 2 Thes 1. c. Do you love to be flattered into Hell and deceived in a matter of everlasting consequence Is it not better for you to search your hearts and try whether you have the spirit of Christ or not and then search the Scripture and try whether any maâ— be his that hath not his spirit Rom. 8. 9. or can be saved that iâ— not converted and born again of the spirit Matth. 18. 3. John 3. 3 6. Examine your selves whether you be in the faith Prâ—â— your own selves Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except you be reprobates 2 Cor. 12. 5. 10. But you will say that the Reason of your distaste against these that are so forward in Religion is that they are inwardly â—â— bad as others and as proud and worldly and why do they not excell others in good works as much as they do in their deâ—â—tions Answ 1. So they do according to their ability Twenty years tryal and more I have had of them since I was a Minister of Christ and I can truly say that ordinarily I have known of many a shilling if not pounds that have come from the purses of these that you call Puritanes and precise for one groat or penny that I have known come from most others about me of their rank to any pious and charitable use But all that are godly aâ—â— not rich and though Christ extolleth the widows two mites the standers by regarded them not Matth. 12. 42. 43. 2 Cor. 8. 12. If there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not And he that hath said Take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven Matth. 6. 1. hath hereby kept his servants from making the world acquainted with much of their deeds of charity And for the sins of the heart that you charge them with they 〈◊〉 known to none but God unless they be discovered in their lives But malice in all ages hath been used to such unproved slanders of the servants of the Lord. 2. But suppose them as bad as malice doth imagine Is that any reason why both they and you should not be better It is Holiness and not sin that I am pleading for Is their godliness and care of their salvation necessary or not If it be why do you not imitate them in that and if you know any fault in them take warning and avoid it But be not so mad as to run into Hell because some fall in the way to Heaven or some miss the way that seemed to go thither Imitate not the Judas in Christs family but the rest of his Disciples and that not in their falls but in their faith and piety All that shall be saved have both Holiness towards God and Justice and Charity to men The wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits Jam. 3. 17. If you want the first you are ungodly if the later you are hypocrites And if the hypocrite and the ungodly will stand snarling here at one another they shall perish together in that misery that will convince them that neither of them were the heirs of life when Saints indeed and none but they shall live with Christ Object But it is but a few that are of so strict a mind and life and shall none be saved but these few Answ Christ hath told you whom he will save He will not falsifie his word nor take the unsanctified into heaven for want of company He hath told you that the gate is strait and the way narrow that leads to life and few there be that find it Matth. 7. 13 14. and that it is a little flock to whom the Father will give the Kingdom Luke 12. 32. You shall not want company in heaven nor find comfort in your company in hell But if you would have the number of the godly to be greater why do you not increase it by your joyning with them Why do not all the Town and Parish agree together and bind themselves in a Covenant to serve and seek the Lord as the Israelites Josh 24. 2 Chron. 15. 12 13. O happy people that will thus accord and heartily perform it And now Beloved Hearers I have finished this first Part of my task and proved to you the Necessity of a Holy life That One thing is needful while you pittifully cumber your selves about many things is the message that from Christ I have been hitherto delivering to you What say you
Are you yet resolved to seek this One thing with the chiefest of your desires and care and labour or are you not Dare any one of you say that you have not heard that which should resolve a sober considerate man I think you dare not But if you dare I am sure you shall never be able to make it good and justifie your words to God or to your Consciences at last or to any wise impartial person Now take your choice whether you will now be SAINTS and for ever like ANGELS or now be like BRUTES and for ever like DEVILS For one of these must be your case as sure as you have heard these words FINIS A SAINT OR A BRUTE The Second Part. Clearly Proving by Reason as well as Scripture 1. In general that Holiness is Best and Necessary to our felicity 2. Particularly that it is Best 1. For Societies 2. For individual persons And more distinctly 1. That it is the only way of Safety 2. Of Honesty 3. The most Gainful way 4. The most Honourable 5. The most Pleasant And therefore to be chosen by all that will obey true Reason and be Happy LONDON Printed Anne Dom. 1662. A Saint or a Brute The Second Part. CHAP. 1. Holiness and its fruits are the Best part Wherein the Happiness of Saints confisteth Luke 10. 42. But One thing is Needful and Mary hath chosen the good part which shall not be taken away from her THough I have before taken up this latter part of the Text by way of Motive in the Conclusion of the former Part of this Treatise I am very loth that a subject of so great importance should be so lightly passed over And therefore by Gods assistance I shall attempt a fuller handling of it The Necessity of Holiness I have spoken of already It is the Goodness of it that I am next to speak of And before I enter upon it let me intreat thee Reader whoever thou art that openest this Book to remember that I am writing and thou art reading of the greatest and highest matters in the world and therefore come not to it with common affections and read not this as thou wouldst do a History or a Rheroricall Oration to find delight for a curious mind but confessing thy self a Scholar to Christ with reverence take thy Lâ—… from him as that which thou camest into the world to Lâ—… which all thy comforts thy hopes thy safety and thy evâ—… happiness depend upon And here in the entrance I will freely tell you what more me to fall upon this subject and be so earnest with you in thâ—â— point One thing is the observation of the carelesness and wilfulness of the most that live in the neglect of Holiness and Everlasting Life for all that can be said to perswade them to a wiser course While they all profess themselves to be Christians and to take the Scripture for the Word of God and confess this Word in particular to be true that it is Heaven and Holiness that are the most Necessary and most to be desired and sought after yet will they not be moved to Live according to this Profession nor to Love that Most which they confess to be the Best nor to seek that first which they confess to be most Needful They have the case here decided by the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ himself and as plainly and fully and peremptorily decided â—â— they could wish If they were Infidels and understood but the Law of Nature even Reason might tell them that there is no doubt of it but that Eternal Life is more to be sought after then transitory things And yet they live as if the case had never been decided by Christ or by reason or as if they had never heard of any Life but this Look into most Towns and see whether there be not more at Martha's work and worse then at Mary's Look into most families and see whether they be not 〈…〉 Martha troubling themselves with many things when the 〈…〉 part is almost cast aside Even in the Families of Lords Kâ—… and Gentlemen that are doubly obliged to God and prâ—… be wiser then the ignorant Vulgar the matters of their 〈…〉 are turned out of doors or thrust into a corner and the 〈◊〉 of their bodies do take up the day How many Martha's â—â— one Mary shall we find among both Rich and Poor Yea that is not the worst but they that are so blind and wicked as to choose the worser part themselves would have all about them do so too And as Martha grudged at Mary's practice and conplaineth to Christ against her so these repine at the choice of the Godly and think them but melancholy crack-brâ—ind people that make more ado for their salvation then they need And thâ—â— are not content to keep such ungodly thoughts in their breaâ—… to their Own damnation but they must be the Devils mouth to spit reproach in the face of Holiness and consequently in the face of Christ as if they bid defiance to the Lord and would make it their employment to jeere and scorn mens souls from Heaven If one in a family do with Mary choose the better part though without any neglect of their calling in the world the rest make a wonder of them and some deride them and some hate and vilifie and threaten them and few will imitate them and who more forward to distaste and despise them then the Masters of the Families that are bound to teach and lead them in that way so that a poor soul even in a Land and Age that countenanceth Holiness more then almost any other in the world can scarcely sit at the feet of Christ and Learn his word and seek his Kingdom and Righteousness first but they are gazed at and censured and derided as if they did some very foolish needless yea or wicked thing As if it were the only folly for a man to follow Jesus Christ and obey his God and save his soul and do that work with greatest diligence for which he is a man for which he hath his Life and Time and Mercies and which if he neglect he is lost for ever The Lord have Mercy upon the poor deluded world whence comes this general dampe and dottage upon the understandings and the hearts of men of Great men of Learned men of men that are accounted wise in the world It is Good and Evil that constituteth all that wonderful difference that is between the Reasonable creatures both here and hereafter The Good of Holiness and the evil of sin do make the difference between the Godly and the wicked the Good of Everlasting Happiness and the Evil of Everlasting Misery doth make the difference between the Glorified and the Damned Goodness in General is so naturally the object of mans will that Evil as Evil cannot be desired and Good as Good cannot be hated What then is the matter that few attain the greatest good and few will scape the
judgement more regardable then a hundred yea many hundred 2. Nay it is no One at all Those that you say turn off arâ— only such as tryed an Opinionative Religiousness and some of the Outward duties of Christianity but they never tryed the power of a living rooted faith nor the predominant Love of God in the soul nor a Living Hope of the Heavenly Glory nor the sweetness of a Heavenly life nor the mortification of the fleshly inteâ—â—â—â— and true self-denyal These are the vital parts of Christianâ—â—â— which these few Apostates never tryed though some of them have had some acquired counterfeits of them and some good gifts of common grace and think that none had more then they had Sinner I beseech thee for the Lords sake deal faithfully with thy poor soul when all lies at the stake Wilt thou take the judgement of a swaggering Gallant or a scoffing worldly or ungodly Sot that none of them ever truly tried a state of Holiness And wilt thou refuse the judgement of God and of all his servants that have tryed it Go to any Godly man and ask him which of these wayes he hath found by experience to be best and hear what he will say to thee He will be ashamed to hear thee make a Question of it He will tell thee Alas friend I was once deceived by sin and deceived with the pleasures of my flesh and the glittering glory and riches of this world as you are now I once was a stranger to the life of faith and the Hopes of Heaven and the Holiness of the Saints But it was by the meer delusion of the Devil and it was the fruit of the blindness and deadness of my heart I knew not what I did nor where I stood nor what I chose nor what I set light by I never well considered of the matter but carelesly followed the sway of my fleshly inclination and desires But now I seee I was the Devils slave and my Pleasures were my fetters and my own corrupt affections were my bondage and I now find that I did but delude my soul I got nothing by all that the world did for me but provision for my after-sorrows I had been now in Torments if I had but dyed in that condition I would not be again in the case that I was in for all this world or a thousand such worlds That life that once I thought the best hath cost me dear even the breaking of my heart and a thousand thousand fold dearer would have cost me if the dearest blood and recovering Grace of my dearest Lord had had not prevented it O had I not been unspeakably beholden to the Mercy of the Lord even to that Mercy which I then made light of I had been undone for ever I had been laid under Everlasting desperation before this Now I find that there is no life so sweet as that which I then was so loth to choose Now it is my only grief that I was holy no sooner and can be no more Holy then I am O that I had more of that quickning comforting saving Grace O that I were further from my former sinful fleshly state O that I could get nearer God though I parted with all the prosperity of this world I now find what I lost by my continuing in sin so long but then I knew it not O friend as you love your soul take warning by me and make use of my experience and give up your self to God betimes This or to this purpose would the answer of an experienced person be if you should ask him Which is the better way But if you say that thus we would be our selves the Judges and bring the matter into our own hands I answer you 1. It is true we would be our selves your Helpers and do the best we could for your salvation And if you will neither help your selves nor give us leave to help you take what you get by it we have done our part But 2. I will not yet so part with you I will further make you this reasonable offer I demand of thee whoever thou art that Readest these words Whether thou know of any man on earth that thou thinkest to be a wiser man then thy self If not thou art so like the Devil in Pride that no wonder if thou be near him in malignity and misery If thou do know of any wiser then thy self go with me or with some faithful Minister to that man and ask him Whether a diligent holy life be not much Better then any other life on earth and if he do not say as I say here and as Christ saith in my Text that the godly choose the better part or else if I prove him not a very sot before thy face I will give thee leave to brand my understanding in thy esteem with the notes of inâ—amy and contempt Yea more then so I will allow thee to go to one that differeth from me in the way of his Religion Ask an Anabaptist if thou think him more impartial whether A Holy and Heavenly heart and life be not the best and try whether he will not say as I do Ask those that you call Episcopal or Presbyterian or Independents or Separatists Ask an Arminian or one of the contrary mind Yea ask a Papist and see whether he will not say as I do It is true they are every one of them of minds somewhat different about some points in the order and manner of their seeking God But all of them that are but sober men will confess as with One mouth that God should be loved above all and sought and served above all and that all should live a Holy Diligent Heavenly life 2. But yet if all this will not satisfie you I will come yet lower Who is it that you would have to be Judge or Witness in thâ—… case Is it thy malignant or worldly or drunken and ungodly friend I am contented that the case be referred even to him and to as many of them as thou wilt upon condition that he will but first Try the way that he is to judge of Let him but make an unfeigned tryal of a life of Holy Faith and Love and Obedience and Self-denyal as long as I have done and we will receive his Testimony Nay more let him thus try a life of Holiness inwardly and outwardly but one year yea or but one moneth or day or hour and we will take his Testimony But to be judged by a man in a matter of salvation that speaks of what he never knew nor tryed one hour but speaks against he knows not what this is a motion too bad to be made to a very Bedlam 6. If yet you are not resolved which is the Better part and way to whom do you desire to referr it Shall Heathens Jews and Infidels be Judges Why if they be they will give the cause against you Jews and most of the Heathen world do profess to believe a
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
then if they had never heard the Gospel It is you and such as you that despise the mercies of the Lord that make it a bad world and then you impudently complain of it and charge it on them that will not be as bad as your selves and take away the candle and shut the windows that the light may not trouble you 2. Well! but say you the world was better when there was less preaching and less ado about the serving of God and our salvation I do not believe you and I will tell you why yea Why I am certain that your words are false 1. Because you contradict the Lord. God saith those times are best when there is most of the Light of the Gospel and most helps for our salvation and when the people are most Holy The increase of Light and Holiness is a principal part of the Glory of the Kingdom of Christ and of the Promises to the Gospel Church as you may see Isa 9. 2. 36. 26. 42. 6. 60. 3. Mat. 4. 16. Luk. 2. 32. Joh. 3. 19 20. The word of God is the greatest blessing under heaven together with a heart to obey and practise it Luk. 11. 28. Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it Psal 106. 3. 119. 1 2. 1. 1 2. God himself pronounceth them blessed that meditate day and night in his Law and that make it their whole delight and because of the increase of Light and Holiness extolleth the times of the Gospel far above those of the Law affirming the least in this Kingdom of God to be greater as to the honour and priviledge of his station then the Prophets or John Baptist Matth. 11. 11 12. And would you wish me to believe such ignorant men as you before the God of Heaven that contradicteth you 2. I will not believe you because your objection is nothing but a Blasphemous accusation of the Living God If it were true that Preaching is bad it is Christ then that is bad that doth command it But I am sure that Christ is not bad and that such as Blaspheme him do it to their cost It is he that hath laid a Necessity on us and woe be unto us if we preach not the Gospel 1 Cor. 9. 16. and that chargeth us to feed the flock of God 1 Pet. 5. 2. Yea the spirit chargeth us before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom that we preach the word and be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long suffering and doctrine If any one be to be blamed for all this preaching and stir for heaven it is Christ that chargeth it so strictly upon us And if thou dare lay the blame upon the Lord speak out and stand to it at judgement 3. I know it is false that you say that the world is the worse for all this preachig and Godliness because it is against the very office of Christ and of the Holy Ghost Christ was a diligent preacher himself and dare you accuse him for it He came into the world to bring us the Light of heavenly Truth and dare you say that it were better be without it It is the work of the Holy Ghost to illuminate and sanctifie men and do you think that he doth us hurt Christ dyed to wash and purifie by the word and Spirit the Church which is his Body that he might present it spotless to the Father Eph. 5. 26. 27. And darest thou say that Christ came to do us harm By this thy despising of his benefits thou shewest that thou hast yet no part in him or in his saving benefits but art in the gall of bitterness and bond of thy iniquities and thy heart is not right in the sight of God 4. Moreover you are not to be belived because you speak against the experience of all the Prophets and Apostles of Christ David had rather be a door keeper in the house of God then dwell in the tents of wickedness and judged a day in his Courts to be better then a thousand Psal 84. 10. and accounted them the blessed men that might even dwell in the house of God and be daily taken up in holy praise and worship Psal 65. 4. 92. 13. 23. 6. When he was forced from the house and publick worship of God it was his daily lamentation and he fainteth and panteth and longeth after the house and worship of God again Psal 42. 84. 2 3 4 5. How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord of hosts My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord My bea rt aad my flesh cryeth out for the living God Blessed are they that dwell in thy house they will be still praising thee Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee in whose heart are the ways of them The Prophet Isaiah saith In the way of thy judgements O Lord have we waited for thee the desire of our soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of thee with my soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my spirit within me will I seek thee early This was the mind of all the Prophets and Apostles and God hath told us that it is the practice of all blessed men to Meditate in Gods word day night Psal 1. 2. And yet will you say that it was a better world when there was less of this O self-condemning Hypocrites Why do you so much profess to honour the Prophets Apostles and Martyrs of Christ if you think that they were the troublers of the world and that their doctrine and practice makes us worse Why do you honour them with the name of Saints and yet despise both their doctrine and practice in those that do but endeavour seriously to imitate them Why keep you Holy days in remembrance of the dead Saints and say that the world in the worse for the living Saints O horrible hypocrisie to honour their names and hate their doctrine and course of life and say that the world was never good since it was troubled with such as they Do we trouble you with our Preaching and praying and our stir for heaven How would Christ and his Apostles have troubled you that went so far beyond us in all these and made a greater stir then we and turned the world as their enemies charged them up side down Act. 17. 6. so busie wâ—s Christ in preaching and doing the work of God that he neglected to eat his meat for it Joh. 4. 34. and his fleshly kindred would have laid hands on him as if he had been beside himself Mark 3. 21. It seems if you had then lived you would have been among the wicked enemies of Christ and of his Disciples and have said It was never a good world since these busie fellows made so much a doe with their Religion 5. Moreover you speak against the inward feeling and
1 Pet. 1. 15 16. And how high a command and strait a Rule is that given us by Christ Matth 5. 48. Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect Well may it be called an exceeding Righteousness surpassing the Scribes and Pharisees which all have that enter into the Heavenly Kingdom Matth. 5. 20. There is nothing under Heaven that is known to man so like to God as a Holy soul Remember this the next time you reproach such All you that are the Serpents â—eed remember when you spit your venome against Holiness that it is the Image of God that your enmity is exercised against O what a strange conjunction of malignity and hypocrisie appeareth in the enemies of God among us A picture of Christ that is drawn by a Painter or a forbidden Image of God that is carved by an Image-maker in stone that hath nothing but the name of an Image of God these they will reverence and honour though God hath forbidden them to make such Images of him The Papists will 〈◊〉 before them and the prophane among us are zealous for them when in the mean time they hate the noblest Images of God on earth Forbidden Images of God have been defended by seeking the blood of his truest Images Do you indeed Love and Honour the Image of God Why then do you hate them and seek to destroy them And why do you make them the scorn of your continual malice Can you blow hot and cold Can you both Love and Hate both Honour and Scorn the Image of God Search the Scripture and see whether it be not the sanctified heavenly diligent servants of the Lord that are the Honourable Image which he owneth and magnifieth and gloryeth in before the world If this be not true then go on in your hatred of them and spare not These are not Images of stone but of Spirit not Images made by a Carver or a Painter but by the Holy-Ghost himself Not hanged upon a wall for men to look on but living Images actuated from Heaven by spiritual influence from Christ their head and shining forth in exemplary lives to the honour of their Father whom they resemble Matth. 5. 16. It is not in an outward shape but in spiritual wisdom and Love and Holiness of heart and life that they resemble their Creatour Whether you will believe it now or not be sure of it you malignant enemies of Holiness that God would shortly make you know it that you chose out the most excellent Image of your maker under Heaven to pour out your hatred and contempt against And in as much as you did it to his noblest Image you did it unto him 7. If all this be not enough to shew you the Honourable Nature of Holiness I will speak the highest word that can be spoken of any created nature under heaven and yet no more then God hath spoken even in 2 Pet. 1. 4. where it is expresly said that the Godly are partakers of the Divine Nature I know that it is not the Essence of God that is here called the Divine Nature that we partake of we abhor the thoughts of such blasphemous arrogancy as if that grace did make men Gods But it s called the Divine nature in that it is caused by the Spirit of God and floweth from him as the Light or sunshine floweth from the sun You use to say the sun is in the house when it shineth in the house though the sun it self be in the firmament so the Scripture saith that God dwelleth in us and Christ and the spirit dwelleth in us when the Heavenly Light and Love and Life which streameth from him dwelleth in us and this is called the Divine Nature Think of this and tell me whether higher and more Honourable things can easily be spoken of the sons of men 1 Joh. 4. 16. God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him O wonderful advancement high expressions of a creatures dignity Blessed be that Eternal Love that is thus communicative and hath so enobled our unworthy souls with what alacrity and delight should we exalt his name by daily praises that thus exalteth us by his unspeakable mercie Psal 75. 10. 89. 16 17. Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound they shall walk O Lord in the light of thy countenance In thy name shall they rejoyce all the day and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted For thou art the glory of our strength and in thy favour our horn shall be exalted For the Lord is our defence and the holy one of Israel is our King Psal 148. 13 14. Let them praise the name of the Lord for his Name alone is excellent his Glory is above the Earth and Heavens He also exalteth the horn of his people the Praise of all his Saints He hath first exalted our blessed Head even highly exalted him by his own right hand and given him a name above every name Act. 2. 33. 5. 31. Phil. 2. 9. and with him he hath wonderfully exalted all his sanctified ones Heb. 2. 10. 11. For it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons to Glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of One for which cause he is not ashamed to call them Brethren 1 Cor. 12. 12. For as the Body is One and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ What greater honour can man on earth be advanced to And the Honour of the just is communicative to the societies of which they are members The Churches are called Holy for their sakes Prov. 11. 11. By the blessing of the upright the City is exalted but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked Prov. 14. 34. Righteousness exalteth a nation but sin is a reproach to any people Let therefore both the persons and Congregations of the Saints continually exalt the name of God O Bless the Lord for ever and ever and blessed be his glorious name which is exalted above all blessing and praise Neh. 9. 5. The Lord liveth and blessed be our Rock and exalted be the God of our Rock of our salvation 2 Sam. 22. 47. Psal 30. 1. I will extoll thee O Lord for thou hast lifted me up Psal 27. 6. And now shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy I will sing yea I will sing praises unto the Lrrd. Psal 28. 8 9. The Lord is their strength the saving strength of his annointed He will save his people and bless his inheritance and feed them also and lift them up for ever Psal 147. 6. The Lord lifteth up the meek and casteth the wicked down to the ground Thus shall it be done to
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
own words Do we devise these sayings Or do we not shew them you in the Scripture And dare you charge God with errour or encouraging Pride Do you think he knew not what he said when he spake such Honourable things of his servants Did he need you to have taught him to have endited his word and to have warned him that he make not his servants proud As if he hated not pride as much as you 6. Yea God will do more then this for his servants he will advance them to Salvation and yet he will not make them proud There is no Pride in Heaven though there be the greatest Glory The Angels are most glorious and yet least proud If you would not wish God to keep men out of Heaven lest it make them proud you should not grudge at his Honouring them on earth with the mention of their Heavenly titles upon that account 7. The Exaltation of the Saints is a spiritual exaltation which is not so apt to make men Proud as carnal exaltation is Charity puffeth not up as â—ery knowledge doth It is selfishness that is the Life of Pride which consisteth in excessive self-esteem and desire of an excessive esteem with others and to be magnified by them And nothing but Grace can subdue this selfishness and therefore nothing else candestroy Pride 8. Moreover the Honour of the Saints is the less like to make them Proud because Humility is part of the Grace that â—â— bestowed on them To be Proud and Holy is to be sick and Holy to be Light and Dark they are plain contraries No man is proud but for want of Holiness and therefore that Holiness should efficiently make men proud is impossible any more thâ—n Health can make men sick or Darkness can be caused by Light And if objectively any be Proud of his Holiness 〈…〉 but in such a measure as he is noholy Holiness doth ever 〈…〉 Pride and contain Humility and self-denyal as an essential part All Christs Disciples learn of him in their measure to be meek and lowly 9. Let experience tell you whether it be not some worldly Honour or parts and gifts that are the much commoner object of Pride then Holiness I have oft heard talk of mens being proud of their Humility and Holiness but the Temptations of my own soul have comparatively layn but little that way nor have I observed it the common case of others in any proportion with other kinds of Pride Riches and Honours and Beauty and Dignity I see people ordinarily proud of And I see many Proud of Counterfeit Graces that have none that is sincere as far as may be perceived by others to be proud of And I see many Proud of their Learning and Knowledge and nimble tâ—ngnes a hundred fold more then ever I found true Christians Proud of the Love of God and a Heavenly mind Alas we have much a doe for the most part to discern that we have any of this at all and to find so much of it in our selves as is necessary to our support and thankfulness 10. Lastly consider what abundance of Means the Lord hath adjoyned as Antidotes with his servants Honours to keep them from being puffed up with Pride and then tell me whether you dare charge God with errour or want of wisdom in this thing 1. The nature and life of Holiness consisteth in the souls retiring home to God and adhering to him and walking as before him And there is not a more powerful means in the world to keep Humble the soul then the Knowledge of God O when a poor sinner hath but any lively apprehensions of the Greatness and Glory of the Lord it amazeth him and levelleth him with the dust and abaseth him in his own esteem and maketh him say with Job 40. 4 5. Behold I am vile what shall I answer thee I will lay my hand upon my mouth 4 5 6. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth thee wherefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes One glympse of God were enough to humble any soul that truly knoweth him A Godly man hath still to do with that Majesty that continually aweth him His 〈…〉 is with him His thoughts are on him his work is with him 〈…〉 his word that he readeth and heareth and discourseth of and therefore aâ— his word with reverence and Godly fear as knowing that our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12. 28 29. It is God that he prayeth to that he meditateth on and he praiseth and hath still to do with And therefore no wonder if he walk hambly with so holy and great a God 2. The sin and misery that once they were in while they knew not God will do much to keep humble a gracious soul as long as they live Though God so forget our sins as to forgive them yet we can scarce forgive our selves or at least can never forget them Though he see no fin in his servants as he seeth it in the world nor so as to hate and condemn them for it yet they see that once they were as bad as the world and were children of wrath as well as others They condemn themselves when God doth justifie them and set their sins before their faces which God doth cast behind his back O those dark those ungrateful and those perilous dayes will never be forgotten by the renewed soul The thoughts of them shall ever keep us humble When we look on the wicked miserable world to think that such were many of us though mercy have washed and sanctified and justified us 3. Moreover God hath so contrived the way of their salvation that they shall have all by a Redeemer and by freest Grace and none shall be justified by the works of the Law nor by any merit of his own but Boasting is excluded by the Law of faith Rom. 3. 19 27 28. and we shall have nothing but what we receive besides and contrary to our desert 4. And alas too much corruption still remaineth in us We have flesh that fighteth against the spirit Rom. 7. 24. Gal. 5. 17. We know but in part and Love God but in part and serve him with such constant weakness that these things are usually such humbling matters to a gracious soul that were it not for the Comforter they would be unable to look up O to feel how dark we are how far from God! how strange to heaven how little we believe and know and love these are humbling thought indeed to a soul that is acquainted withit self 〈…〉 â—â—verty beggery or the reproach in the world would be so humbling to them To find such remnants of that odious sin that cost them dear and had cost them dearer if it had not cost their Lord so dear this is constant matter of humiliation 5. And too often do their corruptions get advantage of them and produce some actual sin of thought word or 〈…〉 and this also must
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
the God of the whole earth For a small moment may he forsake us but with great mercy will he gather us In a little wrath he may hide his face from us for a moment but with everlasting kindness will he have mercy on us saith the Lord our Redeemer As he swore that the waters of Noah should no more goe over the earth so hath he sworn that he will not be wroth with his people nor rebuke them For the mountains shall depart and the hills shall be removed but his kindness shall not depart from us nor the covenant of his peace be removed saith the Lord that hath mercy on us Isa 54. 5 to 19. For his anger endureth but for a moment in his favour is life weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning Psal 30. 5. Storms may arise that may affright us but how quickly will they all be over Come my people saith the Lord Isa 26. 20. enter into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment untill the indignation be overpast And as the momentany sorrow of the Godly is forgotten in everlasting Joy so the Joy of the wicked is but for a moment and is drowned in everlasting sorrows Job 20. 4 5 6 7 8 9. Knowest thou not this of old since man was placed upon earth That the triumphing of the wicked is short and the Joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment Though his excellency mount up to the heavens and his head reach unto the clouds yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung They which have seen him shall say Where is he He shall flie away as a dream and shall not be found Yea he shall be chased away as a vision of the night the eye also which saw him shall see him no more neither shall his place any more behold him Job 21. 12 13. They take the Timbrell and Harp and rejoyce at the sound of the Organs they spend their daies in wealth and in a moment go down to the grave It would grieve a considerate believer to look on a worldly sensual gallant in the midst of his vain-glory or any unsanctified man in his mirth and pleasure and to think where that man will shortly be and how the case will be altered with him and where his sport and mirth will leave him As it would sadden our hearts to see one of them struck dead in the place or to see the Devil fetch them away and spoil the game so should it grieve us to fore-see the stroak of death and the condemnation of their souls to everlasting misery And can that man much value the pleasure of ungodly men that doth fore-see this end Would you not laugh at him that were a Prince but for a day and must be the scorn of the world to morrow or that would choose one day of mirth and pleasure though he knew it would fill the rest of his life with pain and misery If folly and stupidity were any wonder it were a wonder that ungodly men can be merry when their consciences tell them that they are not sure to stay one hour out of Hell nor to hold on their mirth till the end of the game But while they are saying Soul take thy ease eat drink and be merry they may suddenly be told from God Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee and then whose is thy wealth and then where is thy sport and mirth Luke 12. 19 20. As the tender flowers and Roses of the Spring do fall before the nipping Frosts and will not live in Winter storms no more will your fading mirth endure the frowns of God the face of death nor scarce a serious fore-thought of the day that you are near And such matter of horrour is continually before you while you are under the wrath and curse of God in a carnal unregenerate state that you are beholden to folly security and stupidity for that ease which hindreth your everlasting ease So that all things considered I must seriously profess that however the ungodly have some pleasant dreams and may live a while in carelesness and stupidity or fleere in the face while the beginning of hell is in their consciences yet I must judge that a life of Faith and Holiness are unspeakably sweet if it were but for this that they save the Conscience from the gripes and fears and terrible thoughts that either sometime feed on the ungodly or are ready to devour their mirth and them So sad and frightful a thing it is to be unsanctified and in a state of sin that it is an high commendation of the delights of Holiness that they so much deliver us from those grievous terrours and are so powerful an Antidote to preserve the heart from the wickeds pangs and desperation Believe it when conscience death and judgement are the messengers to declare your endless sorrows you will then wish and ten thousand times wish that you had some of the Faith and Holiness of the Saints to be a Cordial to your sinking hearts and then you would take it as a matter of unspeakable joy to be found in such a state as you now count sad and melancholy Ask but a dying man whether fleshly pleasure or Godliness be the sweeter thing Now when the delusions of prosperity are gone which do men most relish and which is it that they would own By the consent of all the wise men in the world I may well conclude that a Holy life is incomparably the most pleasant BUT I know there are many things that seem to cross all this that I have spoken which will be the matter of the Objections of ungodly men and therefore must have an answer before we pass any further And the principal Objection is from the too common case of those that fear God who walk so sadly and doubt and complain and mourn so frequently and shew so little chearfulness and joy when many of the ungodly live in mirth that you will think I speak against experience when I say that a life of Holiness is so pleasant and therefore that it is not to be believed You will say Do we not see the contrary in the sadness of their faces and hear it in their sad lamenting words To this I must give many particulars in answer which when you have laid together you may see that all this makes nothing against the Pleasantness of the waies of God And 1. You must difference between the Entrance into holiness and the Progress and between a new beginner that is but lately turned from his ungodliness and one that hath had time to try and understand the wayes of God Those that are entering or but newly come in must needs have sorrow But what is the cause of it Not their Godliness but their ungodliness I mean It is their ungodliness which they lament though it be godliness that causeth them to
you are everlastingly shut out How can you for shame beg of God to glorifie you when you take the Glory that he hath promised for a misery If you think that there is a Heaven of such sensual pleasures as you desire or that any shall be saved that only choose Heaven as a less and more tolerable misery then Hell you will shortly find your expectations deceived Lay all these five considerations together and you may perceive what miserable souls those are that can find pleasure in perishing trifles of the world and none in a Holy and Heavenly life Be assured of this whosoever thou art that if God and Heaven and a Holy life be not a thousand times sweeter and more delightful to thee then any thing that this world can afford to thy contentment it is not for want of matter of superabundant delight to be found in God and in his holy ways but it is for want of reason or faith or consideration or a sutable Heart in thee which may make thee fit to know and taste the pleasures which now thou art unacquainted with And is it not pitty that such infinite delights should be set before men and they should lose them all for want of a Heart and appetite to them and should perish by choosing the lowest vanities before them I do therefore earnestly beseech thee that readest these words if thou be one of these unhappy souls that canst find no pleasure in God and Holiness that thou wouldst speedily observe and lament that blindness and wickedness of thy heart that is the cause of this infatuation and corruption of thine apprehension and rational appetite and that thou wouldst presently apply thy self to Christ for the cure of it To which end I advise thee to these following means Direct 1. IF you would taste the pleasure of a holy life bethink you better of the necessity and excellency of it and cast away your prejudice and false conceits which have deceived you and turned your minds against it A child may be deluded to take his own Father for his enemy if he see him in an enemies garb or be perswaded by false suggestions that he hateth him A man may be perswaded to hate his meat if you can but make him believe that it is poyson or to hate his cloaths if you can make him believe they are infected with the plague If you will suffer your understandings to be deluded so far as to overlook the amiable nature of holiness and to think the image of God is but a fancie or that a heavenly life is nothing but hypocrisie and that it is but pride that maketh men seek to be holyer then others and that makes them they cannot goe quietly to Hell in despight of the commands and mercies of the Lord as others do I say if the Devil the great deceiver can possess you with such frantick thoughts as these what wonder if you hate the very name of Holiness How can you find pleasure in the greatest good while you take it for an evil If you will believe all that the Devil and his foolish malicious instruments say of God and of a holy life you shall never love God nor see any loveliness or taste any sweetness in his service Dir. 2. Come neer and search into the inwards of a holy life and try it a little while your selves if you would taste the pleasure of it and do not stand looking on it at a distance where you see nothing but the out side nor judge by bare hearsay which giveth you no taste or relish of it The sweetness of honey or wine oâ— meat is not known by looking on it but by tasting it Come neer and try what it is to live in the Love of God and in the belief and hope of life eternal and in universal obedience to the laws of Christ and then tell us how these things do relish with you You will never know the sweetness of them effectually as long as you are but lookers on It was the similitude which Peter Martyr used in a Sermon which converted the Noble Neopolitane Marquess of Uicum Galeacius Caracciolus who forsook wife and children and honours and lands and countrey and all for the liberty of the Reformed Religion at Geneva saith he If you see the motion of dancers a far off and hear not the Musick you will think they are frantick but when you come near and hear the musick and observe their harmonical orderly motion you will take delight in it and desire to joyn with them So men that judge at a distance of the truth and holy ways of God by the slanderous reports of malignant men will think of the godly as Festus of Paul that they are beside themselves But if they come among them and search more impartially into the reasons of their course and specially if they joyn with them in the inwards and vital actions of religion they will then be quickly of another mind and not go back for all the pleasures or profits of the world In the works of Nature and sometimes of Art the outside is so far from shewing you the excellencies that it is but a comely vaile to hide them Though you would have a handsome cover for your watch yet doth it but hide the well ordered frame and useful motions that are within You must open it and there observe the parts and motions if you would pass a right judgement of the work You would have a comely cover for your Books but it is but to hide the well composed letters from your sight in which the sense and use and excellency doth confist You must open it if you will read it and know the worth of it A common spectator when he seeth a Rose or other flower or fruit-tree thinketh he hath seen all or the chiefest part But it is the secret unsearcheable motions and operations of the vegetative life and juice within by which the beauteous flowers and sweet fruits are produced and wonderfully differenced from each other that are the excellent part and mysteries in these natural works of God Could you but see these secret inward causes and operations it would incomparably more content you He that passeth by and looketh on a Bee-hive and seeth but the Cover and the laborious creatures going in and out doth see nothing of the admirable operations within which God hath taught them Did you there see how they make their wax and honey and compose their combs and by what laws and in what order their Common-wealth is governed and their work carryed on you would know more then the out side of the â—ive can shew you So it is about the life of Godliness If you saw the inward motions of the quickening spirit upon the soul and the order and exercise of every grace and by what laws the thoughts and affections are governed and to whom they tend you would then see more of the beauty of Religion then you can see
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
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