purified and zealous of good works Tit. 2.14 He called you a chosen Generation a Royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar people that ye should shew forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light ye are as lively stones built up a spiritual house an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 2.5 9. You are born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible 1 Pet. 1.23 and are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light God hath delivered you from the power of darkness and translated you into the Kingdom of his dear Son in whom you have redemption through his bloud the remission of sins Col. 1.12 13 14. The spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God and if children then Heirs Heirs of God and joynt Heirs with Christ Rom. 8.16 17. All things shall work together for your good He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Vers. 28.32 Nothing but the illuminated Soul can discern the riches of the glory of Gods inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the work of his mighty power Eph. 1.18 19. When we were dead in sins he hath quickned us together with Christ and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding Riches of his Grace in his kindness towards us through Jesus Christ. He hath brough us nigh that were far off so that by one spirit we have access to the Father by Christ and are now no more strangers and forreigners but fellow Citizens of the Saints and of the houshold of God Eph. 2.5 6 7 13 17 18 19. We are members of the body of Christ we are come to Mount Zion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and 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 Heb. 12.22 23 24. Brethren shall the Lord speak all this and more than this in the Scripture of your Glory and will you not prove your selves glorious and study to make good this precious word Doth he say The righteous is more excellent than his Neighbour Prov. 12.26 and will you not study to shew your selves more excellent indeed Shall all these high things be spoken of you and will you live so far below them all What a hainous wrong is this to God He sticks not in boasting of you to call you his jewells Mal. 3.17 and tells the world he will make them one day discern the difference between the Righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not verse 18. He tells the World that his coming in Judgment will be to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in them that believe 2 Thess. 1.10 It 's openly Professed by the Apostle John We know that we are of God and the whole World lyeth in wickedâ—â—â—â— 1 John 5.19 He challengeth any to condemn you or lay any thing to your charge professing that it is he that justifieth you casting the Saints into admiration by his love What shall we say to these things if God be for us who can be against us Rom. 8.31 He challengeth Tribulation Distress Persecution Famine or Nakedness Peril or Sword to separate you if they can from the Love of God He challengeth Death and Life Angels Principalities and Powers things present and things to come height and depth or any other Creature to separate you if they are able from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom. 8.35 37 38 39. Shall the Lord of Heaven thus make his boast of you to all the World and will you not make good his boasting Yea I must tell you he will see that it be made good to a word and if you be not careful of it your selves and it be not made good in you then you are not the people that God thus boasteth of He tells the greatest Persecutors to their faces that the meek the humble little ones of his Flock have their Angels beholding the face of God in Heaven Matth. 18.10 and that at the great and dreadful day of Judgment they shall be set at his right hand as his Sheep with a Come ye blessed inherit the Kingdom when others are set at his left hand as Goats with a Go ye cursed into everlasting Fire Matth. 25. He tells the world that he that receiveth a Converted man that is become as a little Child receiveth Christ himself and that whoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in him it were better for him that a Milstone were hanged about his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the Sea Matth. 18.3 4 5 6. Mark 9.42 Luke 17.2 O Sirs must God be thus wonderfully tender of you and will you not now be very tender of his interest and your duty Shall he thus difference you from all the rest of the world and will you not study to declare the difference The ungodly even gnash the teeth at Ministers and Scriptures and Christ himself for making such a difference between them and you and will you not let them see that it is not without cause I intreat you I require you in the Name of God see that you answer these high commendations and shew us that God hath not boasted of you beyond your worth 9. Consider this as the highest Motive of all God doth not only magnify you and boast of you but also he hath made you the living Images of his blessed self his Son Jesus Christ his Spirit and his holy Word and so he hath exposed himself his Son his Spirit and his Word to be censured by the World according to your lives The express Image of the Fathers person is the Son Heb. 1.3 The Son is declared to the World by the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost hath endited the Holy Scriptures which therefore bear the Image of Father Son and Holy Ghost This holy Word both Law and Promise is written on your hearts and put into your inner parts by the sâ—me spirit 2 Cor. 3.3 Heb. 8.13 and 10.16 So that as God hath imprinted his holy nature in the Scripture so hath he made this word the Seal to imprint again his Image on your hearts And you know that common eyes can better discern the Image in the Wax than on the Seal Though I know that the hardness of the Wax or somthing lying between or the imperfect application may cause an imperfection in the Image on the
Wax when yet the Image on the Seal is perfect And therefore the World hath no just cause to censure God or Christ or the Spirit or the Word to be imperfect because that you are so But yet they will do it and their temptation is great O Sirs how would your Prince take it of you or how would your poorest friend take it of you if you should hang forth a deformed picture of them to the view of all that shall pass by and should represent them as blind or leprous or lame wanting a leg or an arm or an eye Would they not say that you unworthily exposed them to scorn So if you will take on you to be the living Images of God of Christ of the Spirit and the Word and yet will be blind and worldly and passionate and proud and untruly and obstinate or lazy and negligent and little differing from those that bear the Image of the Devil what do you but Proclaim that the Image of God and of Satan and the World do little differ and that God is thus unrighteous and unholy as you are 10. Lastly Consider That the faithful servants of Christ are few and therefore if those few dishonour him and prove not fast to him what do you but provoke him to forsake all the World and make an end of all the Sons of men It is but a little flock to whom he will give the Kingdom Luke 12.32 It is but a few from whom God expecteth any great matter And shall those few prove deceitful to him It must be you or none that must honour the Gospel You or none that must be exemplary to the World and shall it be none at all Shall all the Workmanship of God abuse him Shall he have no honour from any inferiour Creature How can you then expect that he should preserve the World For will he be at so much care to keep up a World to dishonour and abuse him If the turning of mens hearts prevent it not he would come and smite the earth with a Curse Mal. 4.6 For the Land that beareth Thorns and Bryars is rejected and is nigh unto Cursing whose end is to be burned Heb. 6.7 8. If therefore Israel play the Harlot yet let not Judah sin Hos. 4.15 If the Vessels of wrath prepared to destruction will be blind and sensual and filthy still yet let pollution be far from the sanctified Such were some of you but ye are washed ye are sanctified ye are justified 1 Cor. 6.11 O let the Lord be magnified in his Saints Blot not out his Image Receive not his impressions defectively and by the halves Let the Name of the most holy one be written in your very foreheads O that you would be so tender of the honour of the Lord and shine forth so brightly in Holyness and Righteousness that he that runs might read whose servants you are and know the Image Superscription of God upon the face of your conversations that as clearly as light is seen in and from the Sun and the power and wisdom and goodness of God is seen in the frame of the Creation and of Scripture so might the same shine forth in you that you might be Holy as God is Holy 1 Pet. 1.16 and perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Matth. 5.48 that they that would know God may see him in his Saints where his Image is or should be so lively and discernable And they that cannot read and understand the Scripture or the works of Creation or disposing-Providence may read and understand the holy and heavenly representations of your lives Men are apt to look after Images of the Godhead because they are carnal and far from God O you that are appointed to bear his Image see that you so represent him to the eyes of the world as may be to his glory and not to his dishonour and take not the Name of God in vain It is so desirable for God and for the Church and for your own peace and happiness that Christians should grow up to a ripeness in Grace and be rooted built up confirmed and abound according to my Text that it hath drawn out from me all these words of exhortation thereunto Though one would think that to men of such holy Principles and experience it should be more than needs But if all will but serve to awaken the weak to a diligent progress I shall be glad and have my end The great matter that I intended when I began this discourse is yet behind and that is the giving you such Directions as may tend to your Confirmation and perseverance Which I shall now proceed to But I intreat every Reader that hath any spark of Grace in his Soul that he will resolve to put these Directions in practice and turn them not off with a bare perusal or approbation Let me reap but thus much fruit of all my foregoing Exhortations and I shall not think my labour lost XX. DIRECTIONS FOR CONFIRMATION In a state of Grace DIRECT I. Be sure that the Foundation be well laid both in your Heads and Hearts or else you can never attain to Confirmation nor be savingly built up TO this end you must know what the Foundation is and how it must be soundly laid The Foundation hath two parts or respects according to the faculties of the Soul where it must be laid The first is the Truth of the Doctrine and Matter and the second is the Goodness of it As True the Foundation is laid in our Understandings as Good it is laid in the Will Concerning both these we must therefore first consider of the matter of the Foundation and then of the Manner how that must be received or laid And the Foundation is that matter or object of our Faith and Hope and Love which is Essential to a Christian that is to the Christian saving Faith hope and love This hath been alwayes contained in our Baptism because Baptizing us is making us visible Christians or the solemn entrance into the state of Christianity As therefore we are Baptized into the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil so the doing of this unfeignedly without equivocation according to the Scripture sense of the words is the Essence of Christianity or the right laying of the Foundation So that the Foundation-Principal or Fundamental Matter is God the Father Son and Holy Ghost The Secondary Foundation or Fundamental Doctrine is those Scripture Propositions that express our Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost When we name the three persons as the object of the Christian Faith we express names of Relation which contain both the persons nature and Offices or undertaken works Without either of which God were not God and Christ were not Christ and the Holy Ghost were not in the sense of our Articles of Faith the Holy Ghost As we must therfore believe that there is One only God So we must
Every sentence is good for somthing All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works 2 Tim. 3.16 17. Not a word is without its usefulness 5. Moreover you must grow not only in knowing the usefulness of truths but also in knowing how to use them that you may have the benefit of that worth that is in them Many a man knows what use a workmans tools are for that yet knows not how himself to use them And many a one knows the use and vertue of herbs and drugs that knows not how to make a medicine of them and compound and apply them There is much skill to be used in knowing the seasons of application and the measure and what is fit for one and what for another that we may make that necessary variation which diversity of conditions do require As it is a work of skill in the Pastors of the Church to divide the word of God aright and speak a word in season to the weary and give the children their meat in due season 2 Tim. 2.15 Isa. 50.4 Mat. 24.45 So is it also a work of skill to do this for your selves to know what Scripture it is that doth concern you and when and in what measure to apply it and in what order and with what advantages or correctives to use it as may be most for your own good You may grow in this skill as long as you live even in understanding how to use the same truths which you have long known O what excellent Christians should we be if we had but this holy skill and hearts to use it We have the whole armour of God to put on and use but all the matter is how to use it The same sword of the spirit in the hand of a strong and skilful Christian may do very much which in the hand of a young unskilful Christian will do very little and next to nothing A young raw Physician may know the same medicines as an able experienced Physician doth but the great difference lieth in the skil to use them This is it that must make you rich in grace when you increase in the skilful use of truths 6. Moreover your understandings may be much advanced by knowing the same truths more experimentally than you did before I mean such truths as are capable of experimental knowledge Experience giveth us a far more satisfactory manner of knowledge than others have that have no such experience To know by hearsay is like the knowing of a Countrey in a Map and to know by experience is like the knowing of the same Countrey by sight An experienced Navigator or Soldier or Physician or Governour hath another manner of knowledge than the most learned can have without experience even a knowledge that confirmeth a man and makes him confident Thus may you daily increase in knowledge about the same points that you knew long ago When you have tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious Psal. 34.8 1 Pet. 2.3 you will know him more experimentally than you did before when you have tasted the sweetness of the promise and of pardon of sin and peace with God and the hopes of glory you will have a more experimental knowledge of the riches of grace than you had before And when you have lived a while in communion with Christ and the Saints and walked a while with God in a heavenly conversation and maintained your integrity and kept your selves unspotted of the world you will then know the nature and worth of holiness by a knowledge more experimental and satisfactory than before And this is confirmation and growth in knowledge 7. Moreover you must labor to grow in a higher estimation of the same truths which you knew before And this will be a consequent of the forementioned acts A child that findeth a jewel may set by it for the shining beauty when yet he may value it many thousand pounds below its worth You see so much wisdom and goodness in God the first hour of your new life as causeth you to prefer him before the world and you see so much necessity of a Saviour so much love and mercy in Jesus Christ as draweth up your hearts to him and you see so much certainty and glorious excellency of the life to come that makes you value it even more than your lives But yet there is in all these such an unsearchable treasure that you can never value them neer their worth for all that thou hast seen of God and Christ and Glory there is a thousand times more excellency in them yet to be discerned For all the beauty thou hast seen in holiness it is a thousand fold more beautiful than ever thou didst apprehend it for all the evil thou hast seen in sin it is a thousand fold worse than ever thou didst perceive it to be So that if you should live a thousand years you might still be growing in your estimation of those things which you knew the first day of your true conversion For the deeper you dig into this precious Mine the greater riches will still appear to you There is an Ocean of excellency in one Article of your belief and you will never find the banks or bottom till you come to heaven and then you will find that it had neither banks nor bottom And thus I have shewed you what confirmation growth is needful for your understandings even about the very same truths which at first you knew And now I shall add 8. You must also labour to understand more truths for number than at the first you understood and to reach to as much of the revealed will of God as you can and not to stop in the meer essentials For all divine revelations are precious and of great use and none must be neglected And the knowledge of many other truths is of some necessity to our clear understanding of the essentials and also to our holding them fast and practising them Secret things belong to God but things revealed to us and to our children Deut. 29.29 But here I must give you this further advice 1. That you proceed in due order from the fundamental points to those that lye next them do not overpass the points of next necessity and weight and go to higher and less needful matters before you are ready for them 2. And also see that you receive all following truths that are taught you as flowing from the foundation and conjoyned with it Disorderly proceedings have unspeakably wrong'd the souls of many thousands when they are presently upon controversies and smaller matters before they understand abundance of more necessary things that must be first understood This course doth make them lose their labour and worse it deceiveth the understanding instead of informing it and thereupon it perverts the will it self and turns
the wisest Physician that can do most to save mens lives and not he that can best read a Lecture of Anatomy or is readiest in the terms of his Art Knowledg is to be esteemed according to the use of it and the Dignity of its Object and not according to the number and subtilty of notions And therefore I beseech you all that are young and weak in the Faith take much more pains to grow in the fuller acquaintance with that same Faith which you have received than to be acquainted with smaller controversal Truths which you never knew Men use to call these Higher points because they are more difficult but certainly the Articles of your Faith are much higher in point of excellency though they are lower in the due order of learning them as the Foundation is the lowest part of the building and is first laid but is that which must bear up all the rest And here you must observe how gracelesly and unlike to Christians those men speak that say They care not for reading such a Book or hearing such or such a Minister because he tells them no more than they know already And on that account some of them stay from Church because they hear nothing but what they know already It s a certain sign that they do not know already the blessed nature of God and the riches of Christ which they say they know For if they did they could not hear or think too much of them They would long to know more and therefore to hear more of the same things It 's a sign the Minister takes the course that tends to your edification and enriching in knowledg when he is most upon the great and most necessary truths All Saints do make it their study to comprehend the heighth and breadth and length and depth and know the Love of God in Christ but when they have done they confess that it passeth knowledg Eph. 3.17 18 19. It s a graceless wicked Soul in a state of damnation that conceits he knows so much of God and Jesus Christ and the essentials of Christianity that he cares not for hearing these things any more but had rather have novelties and let these alone and feeleth not need of knowing much more and more of the same truths and of using and living upon these vital Principles which he knows You have eaten Bread and drank Beer an hundred times but perhaps you never did eat of Sturgeon or Whale of a Bear or a Leopard of Chesnuts or Pig-nuts or many strange and dangerous fruits in all your life And yet I hope you will not seek after these because they are novelties and give over eating Bread because you have eaten of it already Nor will you churlishly refuse to go to a Feast because there is no meat but what you have eaten of before We have not a new God to Preach to you nor a new Christ nor a new Spirit nor a new Gospel nor a new Church nor a new Faith nor a new Baptismal Covenant nor a new Heaven or Hope or Happiness to propound Gal. 1.9 10. Eph. 4.3 4 5. Your growth in methods and definitions and distinctions and in additional points of knowledg is principally to be valued as it cleareth your understandings in the foresaid great essential points and brings you up to God himself Some wretches think they have quickly learned past the essential Articles of the Faith and ere long they are past the higher points and shortly they are past the Scripture it self and throw it by as a Schollar that hath learnt one Book and must be entred into another They understand not that the Ministry and spirit are but to teach them the word of the Gospel but they think they must outgrow the Word and Ministry and the Spirit must teach them some other Doctrine or Gospel which the written Word doth not contain I pray mark the Apostles warning Heb. 13.9 Be not carryed about with divers and strange Doctrines for it is a good thing that the heart be stablished with Grace And Eph. 4.14 That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carryed about with every mind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness II. Having shewed you wherein your growth consisteth in the understanding I shall be short in the rest and next I must tell you wherein it consisteth in the Will And that is 1. When upon good understanding and deep consideration you are more fixedly habitually absolutely and practically resolved for God and Glory than before So that you are grown more beyond all shaking doubtfulness or wavering of mind and beyond all unevenness mutability and unconstancy When a man is thus satisfied that none but God hath title to him or can make him happy and that none but Christ can reconcile him to God and that it were a madness to make any other choice and thereupon is setled and firm as Mount Zion and say Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none on earth that I desire besides thee Psal. 73.25 When you are firmly resolved that let God do with you what he will and come of it what will you will never choose another Master or Saviour or Rule or Happiness or Way or Body than you are in and will never forsake the path of holiness this is the fixed stability of the Will and the more of this the more you grow 2. And when you have the lowest esteem of the Creatures and greatest and most resolved aversness to all that would draw you from God and can meet the greatest worldly or fleshly allurements with a holy contempt this shews a setled confirmed Will 3. And also when you are speedy in holy Resolutions and see nothing in a Temptation how great soever that can make you demur upon it or make a stop in a Christian course but go on to duty as if the Tempter had said nothing to you and the Flesh and the World had no interest in you and you do not so much as stand to think on it whether you should yield to sin or not as abhorring to call such a matter into question This shews a confirmed fixed Will And the more of this the more of Holiness III. The strength and growth of holy Affections consisteth principally in these particulars 1. When the Affections are Lively and not dull so that we make out after God and Heaven with vigor and alacrity 2. When they are ready at hand and not to seek and need not a great deal ado to quicken them or call them in 3. When they are most pure and unmixed having least of the Creature and most of God in them 4. But principally and the surest point to try them by when they contain in them or accompany the foresaid Confirmation and Resolvedness of the Will For it is more the Willingness that is in or with our Affections than the heat of them that we must judg them by 5. And lastly when
1 Cor. 3.9 10. Christ knew the necessity that the Infants of his Family had of such Nurses and he knew what numbers of such weak ones there would be in comparison of the strong or else he had never appointed the strong to such an Office And having appointed it he will keep up the honour of his Officers and will send you his Alms your food your Physick your Pardon your Priviledges by their hands If you be drawn by Seducers to forsake or neglect the Ministry of Christs Officers you forsake or neglect your helps and mercies you refuse his Grace you are like Infants that scorn their Nurses help and like Subjects who reject all the Officers of the King and like the Chickens that forsake the Hen you forsake the School and Church of Christ and may expect to be quickly catcht up by the Devil as straglers that have no defence or guide 2. Yet is there great difference between one Minister or Pastor and another as much as between Physicians Lawyers or men of any other function And there being no case in the world that you are so much concerned to be careful in as the instructing and conduct and safety of your souls you have exceeding great reason to take heed whom you choose to commit the care and conduct of your Souls to It is not enough to say that He is a true Ordained Minister and that his administrations are not nullities no more than to say of an ignorant Physician or Cowardly Captain that he hath a valid License or Commission when for all that if you trust him it may cost you your lives Nor is it a wise mans answer to say that God giveth his Grace by the worst as soon as by the best and by the weakest as soon as by the strongest and therefore I need not be so careful in my choice For though God have not confined the working of his Spirit to the most excellent means yet ordinarily he worketh according to the means he useth And this both Scripture Reason and daily experience fully prove God worketh rationally on man as man that is as a rational free agent by Moral operation and not by a meer Physical injection of his Grace When we see the man that is made wise unto Salvation by meer infusion of Wisdom without a Teacher or the study of the Word of God or when we see God work by his Word as by a charm that a few words shall convert a man though the speaker or hearer understood them not then we may hearken to this conceit And then we may think that a Heretick may as well teach you the truth as the Orthodox or a Schismatick teach you Unity and Peace as well as a Catholick peaceable Pastor or a man that is ignorant of the mysteries of Regeneration and holy Communion with God may best teach you that which he knoweth not himself and an enemy to Piety and Charity may teach you to be Pious and Charitable as well as any other But I need not say much more of this for all parties would never so strive to have such Ministers as they like and to put out such as they dislike if they thought not that the difference between Ministers and Ministers were very great See therefore that the Guide whom you choose for your Souls be 1. Judicious for an injudicious man may pervert the Scripture and lead you into Error and Heresie and sin before you are aware As an unskilful Coachman may soon overturn you or an unskilful Waterman may drown you yea though he be a zealous fervent Preacher yet if he be injudicious he may ignorantly give you Poison in your food as the experience of this age hath lamentably proved 2. See if possible that he be an experienced man that knoweth by experience on himself not only what it is to be regenerate and sanctified and made a new Creature but also how all the combate between the Spirit and the Flesh is to be managed and what are the methods and stratagems of the tempter and what are the chief helps and defensatives of the Soul and how they are all to be used For it is not harder to be a Judicious Physician or Lawyer or Souldier without experience than a judicious Pastor And therefore the Holy Ghost commandeth that he be not a novice or raw unexperienced Christian 1 Tim. 3.6 3. See that he be Humble for if he be puft up with pride he falleth into the condemnation of the Devil 1 Tim. 3.6 And then he will either scorn the labour of the Ministry as a drudgery to preach in season and out of season to beseech and exhort and stoop to the poorest of the flock or else he will speak perverse things to draw away Disciples after him Acts 20.30 or he will as Diotrephes reject the Brethren as loving himself to have the preheminence 3 John 9 10. and will Oversee the Church by constraint for filthy lucre as being a Lord over Gods heritage 1 Pet. 5.2 3. See Doctor Hammond on the Text. 4. See that he be Holy in his life for though this be not essential to his Office yet the unholy are unexperienced yea and have a secret enmity in their hearts against that Holiness which they should daily Preach and will usually be shewing it in their close disgracing discouraging speeches against that serious Piety which they should promote And they will neglect most of the personal care of their Flock and will unpreach by their lives the good which they Preach by their tongues and harden and embolden the people in their sins and make them believe that they believe not what they Preach themselves Choose not an enemy of Holiness to lead you in the way of holiness a way that he never went himself nor an enemy of Christ to conduct you in the Christian warfare when he is a servant of the Devil the world and flesh against whom you fight 5. See that he be of a Heavenly mind or else his Doctrine will be unsavoury and dry and he will be Preaching some speculations or barren Controversies instead of Heavenly edifying truth 6. See that he be faithful and diligent in his Ministry as one that knoweth the worth of Souls and will not sell them or betray them to the Devil for filthy lucre or his fleshly ends nor make Merchandise of them as desiring rather theirs than them and preferring the Fleece before the safety of the Flock But one that imitateth the pattern Acts 20. and in meekness instructeth those that are opposers 2 Tim. 2.25 26. 2 Pet. 2.3 1 Cor. 4.2 Rom. 16.17 18. 1 Pet. 5.3 4. 2 Cor. 12.14 7. See that he be a Lively serious Preacher for all will be little enough to keep up a lively seriousness in such dull and frozen hearts as ours A cold Preacher with cold hearts is like to make cold work He that speaks senslesly and sleepily about such matters as Heaven and Hell doth by the manner of his
man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carryed about with every wind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive but speaking the truth in Love may grow up into him in all things which is the Head even Christ from whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body to the Edifying of it self in love Here you see the children are apt to be carryed into dividing parties And that they are aptest to be Proud and that way to miscarry see 1 Tim. 3.6 Not a novice or raw young Christian lest being lifted up with Pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil And then followeth the effect Act. 20.30 Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them I would not have you groundlesly accuse any Christian with a charge of Pride But I must tell you that the childish Pride of apparel is a petty business in comparison of that Pride which many in sordid attire have manifested who in their ignorance do rage and foam out words of falshood and reproach against Christs Ministers and Servants as if they were all fools or impious in comparison of them speaking evil of that which they never understood The lifting up the Heart above the people of the Lord in the Pride of supposed Holiness is incomparably worse than Pride of Learning honour greatness wit or wealth Nay it hath oft been to me a matter of wonder to observe how little all those plain and urgent Texts of Scripture which cry down Division do work upon many of the younger Christians who yet are as quickly toucht as any with a Text that speaketh against prophaneness and lukewarmness In a word they are often of the temper of James and John when they would fain have had Christ have revenged himself on his opposers by fire from Heaven They know not what manner of Spirit they are of Luk. 9.55 They think verily that it is a holy zeal for God when it is the boiling of passion pride and selfishness They feel not the sense of such words as Christs Joh. 17.20 21 22 23 24. I pray also for them who shall believe on me through their word that they All may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the World may believe that thou hast sent me c. 3. And as for the seeming Christians in this they are of several sorts When their carnal interest lyeth in complyance with the Major part and stronger side then no men do more cry up Vnity and Obedience what a noise do many thousand Papist-Prelates Jesuites and Fryers make with these two words throughout the world Vnity and Obedience unto them upon their terms do signifie Principally their worldly greatness wealth and power But if the Hypocrite be engaged in point of honour or other carnal interest on the suffering side or be out of hope of any advantage in the common rode then no man is so much for separation and singularity as he For he must needs be noted for some body in the world and this is the chief way that he findeth to accomplish it And so being lifted up with pride be falleth into the Condemnation of the Devil and becomes a firebrand in the Church LIII 1. A Christian indeed is not only zealous for the Unity and Concord of Believers but he seeketh it on the right terms and in the way that is fitest to attain it Vnity Peace and Concord are like Piety and Honesty things so unquestionably good that there are scarce any men of reason and common sobriety that ever were heard to oppose them Directly and for themselves And therefore all that are enemies to them are yet pretenders to them and oppose them 1. In their causes only 2. Or covertly and under some other name Every man would have Vnity Concord and Peace in his own way and upon his own terms But if the right terms had been understood and consented to as sufficient the Christian world had not lain so many hundred years in the sin and shame and ruines as it hath done And the cause of all is that Christians indeed that have clear confirmed judgements and strength of grace are very few and for number and strength unable to perswade or overrule the weak the passionate and the falsehearted worldly hypocritical multitude who bear down all the counsels and endeavours of the wise The judicious faithful Christian knoweth that there are three degrees or sorts of Christian Communion which have their several terms 1. The universal-church Communion which all Christians as such must hold among themselves 2. Particular Church-communion which those that are conjoyned for personal Communion in Worship do hold under the same Pastors and among themselves 3. The extraordinary intimate communion that some Christians hold together who are bosome friends or are specially able and fit to be helpful and comfortable to each other The last concerneth not our present business we must hold Church-communion with many that are unfit to be our bosome friends and that have no eminency of parts or piety or any strong-perswading evidence of sincerity But the terms of Catholick Communion he knoweth are such as these 1. They must be such as were the terms of Church Communion in the dayes of the Apostles 2. They must be such as are plainly and certainly expressed in the holy Scriptures 3. And such as the Vniversal Church hath in some ages since been actually agreed in 4. And those points are likest to be such which all the differing parties of Christians are agreed in as Necessary to Communion to this day so we call not those Christians that deny the essentials of Christianity 5. Every man in the former ages of the Church was admitted to this Catholick Church-communion who in the Baptismal Vow or Covenant gave up himself to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as his Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier his Owner Governour and Father renouncing the flesh the world and the Devil And more particularly as man hath an Vnderstanding a Will and an executive power which must all be sanctified to God so the Creed was the particular Rule for the Credenda or things to be Believed and the Lords Prayer for the Petenda or things to be Willed Loved and Desired and the Ten Commandments for the agenda or things to be done so that to Consent to these Rules particularly and to all the Holy Scriptures implicitly and generally was the thing then required to Catholick Communion The belief of the doctrine being necessary for the sanctifying of the heart and life the Belief of so much is of Necessity without which the Heart cannot be sanctified or