't is next to impossible to be too shye of Sin unless when Satan frights us into the omission of some duties for fear of the Sins that inevitably cleave to them In short I would have you understand this Instance to referr to Sins past not future to Sins already committed that there 's no other possible way of undoing what 's done but by Repentance not of Sins not yet committed as if I gave so much as the least encouragement to so much as the least Sin Thus understanding the instance I dare say it over again Serious Godliness will force something of good out of the Evil of Sin These are the Persons that cannot forget the Wormwood and the Gall of their Mortification x Lam. 3.19 20. their Soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in them These are the Persons that put a due estimate upon pardoning Mercy and love Christ the more for the more Sins he hath forgiven them As Christ said of Mary Magdalen y Luke 7.47 Her Sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much but to whom little is forgiven the same love little The Blessed Apostle that brands himself for the chief of Sinners z 1 Tim. 1.15 before Conversion dare own it that a 1 Cor. 15.20 he laboured more abundantly than all the Apostles after his Conversion and 't is peculiar to him to coyn words b Rom. 5.20 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 1 Tim. 1.14 to magnifie the Grace of God in Christ Christians I beseech you let not any one take encouragement hence to Sin but let the worst of Sinners take encouragement hence to repent What thô thou hast been one of the vilest wretches upon earth thou mayest through Grace be one of the highest Saints in Heaven and the sense of what thou hast been may promote it The rising ground of a Dunghill may help to raise thy flight towards Heaven Once more Thô to your own Apprehension you have no Faith at all to believe any one word of all this nor any skill at all to know what to do yet Serious Godliness will make all this good to thee Here you see I take it for granted that one may be seriously godly who in his own present Apprehensions hath no Faith at all nor skill at all for any thing that is Spiritually good many may be in this like Moses their Faces may shine their Grace may shine to others and they themselves not c Exo. 34.29 know it Many that are dear to God live many years in the growing Exercise of Grace and yet dare not own it that they have any at all God bestows the Faith of Assurance upon those of his Children that are not able to bear up without it mistake me not as if it were not every ones duty to seek it and a great Priviledge to have assurance when others of his Children which have a stronger Faith live and 〈◊〉 without it To give you an Instance beyond all instances Our 〈◊〉 Jesus Christ who 't is certain could not want assurance yet died in as great desertion as 't was possible to befall him d Mark 15.25 with Mat. 27.46 When he had hung six hours upon the Cross He cried with a loud Voice My God my God why hast thou forsaken me q. d. This is beyond all my other Torment And when he had cryed again with a loud Voice with a vehement affection and a strong Faith e Verse 50. he lay'd down his Soul But what was that he spake with such vehemency the second time f Luke 23.46 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Father into thy hands I will commend my Spirit I will depose my Soul with thee I will thrust it into thy hands Now that Jesus Christ was under this unexpressible Desertion during the three hours preternatural Darkness 't is more than for the best of Christians to be so during their whole life which doth more than prove what I asserted That a Person of great Grace may be so much in the dark as not to see he hath any But what must he do in this case Can Serious Godliness afford any Relief Christians pray mark it these Persons they are and through Grace cannot but be seriously Godly and their serious Godliness finds 'em work enough and support enough to keep 'em from sinking They daily do what they complain they can't do g Isa 50.10 They do fear the Lord they fear nothing more than sinning against him they do obey the voice of his servants there 's none receive Instructions more Obediently thô they walk in Darkness they 'l never follow a false Fire if they have no light from God they 'l have none from any else They do trust in the name of the Lord they lye at Gods foot let him do what he will with them they do stay upon their God they come up from h Cant. 8.5 the Wilderness of the World leaning upon their beloved Religion is the whole business of their life and comparatively they do nothing else And thô they have not ravishing Comforts they have that Peace that exceeds i Phil. 4.7 all understanding that is meerly humane and that doth guard their hearts and minds through Christ Jesus against all the Stratagems and Fiery Darts of Satan Their State is good their Souls are safe and they can't but be happy in both Worlds And thus I have endeavoured to be so practical in the Doctrinal part that there needs but little to be added for the Application the Lord make that little to be like Chymical Spirits to be more effectual than a greater quantity Rouze up your selves to do your part that it may be so Vse 1 Set your hearts upon Serious Godliness This must be the first Use for you can make no Use at all of this Doctrine till you have made this Use of it Every thing without this is but an abuse of it you do not only wrong the truth but you wrong your selves what ever you say or do about it till you make it your business to experiment the truth of what hath been spoken in its Commendation and this I can assure you never any one repented of his down-right Godliness Therefore live in the practice of those plain Duties without which 't is in vain to pretend to Religion e. g. Daily read some Portion of the Old and New Testament not as your Child reads it for his Lesson but as 〈◊〉 Child reads it for his Profit Be more frequent in Prayer not as those that pass their Prayers by number but as those that pour out their Hearts to God in Holy fervour Let your thoughts be so fill'd with Heavenly Objects that you may in some respect make all things such you think of Discourse of the things of God not in a captious or Vain-glorious manner but as those that feel the Truths they speak of Receive the Sacrament not as a Civil Test but as sealing that Covenant
Word and Conscience says but the same the Scripture says Now the Comforts Believers pretend to may for methods sake be reduced to two sorts the truth and reality of both which we shall labour to evince 1. Such as proceed from the direct Acts of Grace by this sort I understand nothing else but that inward delight and pleasure which usually accompanies the exercise of any Grace or gracious performance of any Duty and is in a manner intrinsick to it And the reality of this is confirmed by the Experience of all the Saints who of them doth not find a secret sweetness delight and satisfaction in the exercise of â—aith on Christ love to God and Holiness Res jucunda est resipiscentia Luth. Nay sorrow for Sin Mortification Self-denyal have something of pleasure in them There is I dare say more pleasure in a kindly melting of the heart for sin where the sorrow is not meerly Legal but Evangelical and mingled with Love than there is in the Commission of it more in denying a mans self as to any unlawful Appetite than in gratifying himself in resisting a temptation than in yielding to it in mortifying a Lust than obeying it and how much more is there in the exercise of Faith and Love c If our natural faculties are delighted with their proper actions about sutable Objects why may not our spiritual too are they less capable of pleasure or are spiritual Operations less congruous to our faculties when renewed and spiritualized or the Objects less suited to them than natural actions and objects are to our Faculties in their meer natural state If excellent Objects and intense Operations commonly produce the greatest pleasure in our natural Powers when rightly disposed why may it not be so in spirituals too What more excellent Object than God and Christ what more noble act is there of a renewed Soul than Faith and Love what delight then may such a Soul take in closing with its chief good in those acts And so if a natural man may take pleasure in the Contemplation of natural things why may not a Saint in the meditation of heavenly If one may delight in the exercise of Moral Vertue why may not the other in the exercise of Grace If a just a generous a valiant act afford some delight to the Actor how much more an holy one If the Excuse or Applause of a natural Conscience and its testimony of our well-doing affords some delight and sweetness how much more may the approbation of a renewed Conscience yield to a renewed Soul 2. Such as proceed from the reflex Acts of Grace or mens reflecting upon and perceiving their own Graces as suppose a mans knowing he believes in Christ or that he loves God or hates Sin and this kind of comfort is no other than that which flows from Assurance which where-ever it is in Exercise alwaies brings Comfort along with it Assurance in the Act is nothing else but a Conclusion drawn by the practical Understanding of a renewed Soul through the assistance of the holy Spirit from two Premises whereof the major is of Faith the very Language of the Scripture usually some Gospel Promise For instance Joh. 3.16 Whoever believes in Christ shall have Eternal Life the minor is the language of Spiritual sence I believe in Christ the Conclusion from both is Therefore I shall have Eternal Life which following the major proposition which is of Faith and therefore inevident and consequently in a Logical sence the weaker though Theologically more strong as being more certain is it self of Faith too and therefore most certain No man that believes the Scripture will deny the Major and he that shall deny the Minor must deny all Spiritual sence and the reflection of a gracious Soul upon its own Actions and so all possibility of Assurance in any such way of ratiocination and then he may well deny the comfort of Assurance when he takes away Assurance it self And therefore there needs no more to prove the reality of this kind of comfort which is so strong and satisfactory to the Soul of a Believer that he is never at rest in himself till he have attained to it than to prove the being of that Assurance from whence it proceeds and all the Arguments which evince the one will inferr the other he that shall grant a man may be sure of Heaven cannot doubt but he may take abundant comfort and satisfaction in being so assured and that that Comfort is no Fancy And so if a man may certainly know he believes in Christ loves God above all truely fears him is pure in heart a Math. 5.8.3.6 poor in spirit b hungers and thirsts after righteousness c or hath any Grace which accompanies Salvation in sincerity in him which is an evidence of his right to and Interest in any Gospel Promise or Priviledge thereby convey'd it will amount to the same and the sight and sence of any such Evidence cannot but bring the greatest sweetness and refreshment to a gracious heart and which is as real as the delight he takes in the exercise of any of his natural faculties If a man may take much real delight in knowing his Interest in a Prince here on Earth is it a delusion when he delights in the knowledge of his interest in a Saviour in Heaven If a man be so much pleased with his being the Son of a great man may not a Believer be as much Pleased with his being a Child of God his being born of him and adopted by him If men do ordinarily comfort themselves with the hope of some worldly Inheritance they reckon themselves sure of why may not a Saint much more Rejoice in Hope of the Glory of God d Rom. 5.2 triumph in expectation of an Inheritance among the Saints in Light e Col. 1.12 When no man in the World can ever be so sure of obtaining the things of the World as a Saint may be of coming to enjoy the things of Eternity the Hope and Assurance a Christian hath is according as the Promise which is the foundation of it is but the Promise of future Blessedness is a better Promise than that of any temporal enjoyment not only because the good promised is better but because the Promise of the one is more peremptory and absolute when the other is but conditional and limited Thus much may suffice to have been spoken to the first General propounded That a true Believer may give an account of his Christianity and such a one as is satisfactory to himself and ought to be to others he may make it appear that that serious Godliness in the practice of which he lives is more than a Fancy 2. I come to the second General mentioned to give Directions and shew in answer to the Case How we may experience this in ourselves and evidence it in others There be two parts of the Question which must be distinctly spoken to How we may experience
the written Law doing the things contained in the Law are a Law unto themselves by which Law they shall at the last be judged but not by the written Law and who walking according to this Law will find their Consciences to excuse them as the Transgressors thereof shall be under the Accusations of Conscience Rom. 2.13 14 15. Besides it is said in the foregoing Chapter that the great reason why Divine Vengeance was against them was not so much because they knew not God or were unacquainted with the Methods of Salvation but because when the Gentiles who had not Moses nor the Prophets for their guide but only the Light of Nature the things made for their help glorified not God as God but were unthankful and became vain in their Imaginations And to these Considerations if we add what Peter in Acts 10.34 35. has it seems as if many of the Gentiles who were strangers to the Commonwealth of Israel were saved for saith the Apostle I perceive that God is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him every one that walketh according to that Light he has received shall be saved If this be minded without a fixing our thoughts on other Scriptural Considerations the difficulty would be removed but when we reflect on the many other Texts that assert Christ Jesus to be the only Door to Glory and that there is no other Name under Heaven whereby we can be saved but that of Jesus Christ and the Reason of this Doctrine namely That all have sinned and have fallen short of the Glory of God that such is the essential Righteousness of God as engageth him to demand Satisfaction and that unless his Justice be satisfied no Salvation can be had and that there is none other able to satisfie the Justice of God but Jesus Christ God-Man and that all who are interested in his Merits must submit unto him I say whoever will consider the foregoing Passages with these will find himself still at a loss so that on the whole I am brought to this Result that is That notwithstanding the Spirit of God doth so very much insist on the largeness of Divine Love to the World the least part thereof are made partakers of it unless Salvation is to be had out of Christ or unless a very implicit Faith be sufficient to entitle the Heathen unto any of those special Blessings that are the purchase of Christ's Blood but when we come so far if we do but intentely mind these things we shall find our selves in the dark and though we have the greatest reason to conclude That these things are reconcileable yet must we acknowledge that they are above us they are too high we cannot attain unto the height thereof 2. That such whose Lot hath been cast into more pleasant places and who have had the advantageous Helps of Sacred Scripture for their direction in the way of Life have yet been by Providence plunged into many an inextricable Labyrinths of Difficulties is surprizing Concerning the Old Testament who can without surprize converse with the Disputes there are among the Learned about the Hebrew Copy we now have or the Septuagint as whether the former or the latter is more Authentick and must be taken for the Canon There are some momentous differences between them and therefore 't is our Concern to enquire after that which is to be our Rule if it be the Septuagint we are at a loss about its Rise for it is well known that the Greek is not that Language which the Holy Ghost used with Moses and the Prophets 't is but a Translation but where is the Original Beside whatever is said by some of the Fathers concerning the miraculous Agreement of the 72 Israelites sent from Jerusalem to Ptolomy as Translaters of the Law of the Jews 't is manifest enough out of Aristaeus of whom the Learned Vsher has writ so much that they only Translated the Law of Moses and no more Neither is it very difficult to shew that the LXX we now have is more Novel than that of the New Testament But if the Hebrew must be taken for the Canon yet as to the Books of Moses some are at a loss whether the Samaritan or the Hebrew be most Authentick But whether the one or the other 't is still queried whether we have the Autograph Yet we are still in a Labyrinth not only about the various Readings the Keri and the Chetir but about the Antiquity of the Points whether they are Coaeval with the Letters or not The Points are so necessary towards the right understanding the true Import of a Hebrew Word that without them 't is not easie to find out the true sence of the Text the least alteration of a Point makes an unaccountable change in the signification of the Words Notwithstanding which the Novelty of the Hebrew Points doth now take with many whereby we are still at a loss where to find a firm Foundation on which our Faith may lean for seeing the Sence of the Text so very much depends on these Points if these Points are of late and humane Rise so is the present Sence of the Scripture and if so how can our Faith which is grounded on the Sence of Scriptures which leans only on this Humane Invention be Divine and Unshaken But might these Difficulties be removed yet as to the greatest number of professed Christians there are others which to them are as insuperable for they understand not the Original and have for their Guidance and Conduct no other help but what either some ignorant or prophane Priest affords them Such is the Neglect the greatest part of Christendom is guilty of that where there is one learned and pious Minister to direct there are two who are either very ignorant or scandalous for which reason the greatest part of the People who are under the Ministers Conduct are either to receive help from the Ignorant who cannot relieve them or from the Scandalous who cannot be confided in How can the People put any Trust in the Honesty and Truth of such who are strangers to nothing more than to such Vertues There is very much may be said to solve these Phaenomena but yet when all that can be offered has been insisted on we shall find somewhat in the Providence that doth transcend our Understandings 3. I will mention only one Providence more that does greatly amuse and astonish many that do truly fear the Lord and that is this viz. Although it be frequently asserted in Scripture That to the Godly the Promise of the good things of this Life as well as of that to come is given yet we find the godly to be without them even when the wicked who know not God do abound Many are the Afflictions and Tribulations of the Righteous Job 21.7 c. They are hated reproached and counted as sheep for the slaughter but the wicked they live become
those terms for so it doth it is the scope and end of the Promise to secure Life and Glory to those that accept of it upon the terms propounded the Command directs in the way and the Promise makes over and conveys the blessing Believe and thou shalt be saved Act. 16.31 So Joh. 3.16 and Rom. 2.7 To them that by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and Immortality Eternal life is promised Now the Word and Promise of God not only as revealing Life to us and the way to it but as conveying it is the ground of our Faith and Hope though without the Word we might have some more general Knowledge of a State of Happiness in the other World yet without the Word we cannot know the way to it nor ever attain to an Interest in it nor have so full certainty of the very being of it as by the Word we have the certainty of Faith being greater than that of any natural Knowledge whatever we have no ground at all to believe we shall be saved but what the Promise affords us And that is sufficient ground to build our Faith upon and a better we cannot have than the Word of him that is the Truth it self and so can neither deceive nor be deceived God that cannot lie hath promised Eternal life Tit. 1.2 Upon the Infallibility and Veracity of that God in his holy Word the Faith of a Christian rests and a surer Foundation for it cannot be imagined and need not be desired As the certainty of any assent of the Mind to a truth depends upon the strength and firmness of the Reason or Argument which moves to and procures that Assent and is the Cause of it so likewise the certainty of Faith proceeds from the goodness and validity of the Authority which is the Motive to and Reason of our believing or which is the same the ground of it If we believe a man that belief is more or less certain according as the Person on whose Authority our belief is grounded is more or less credible and so when we believe God our Faith is such as its Foundation is the Effect imitates the Cause the foundation of that Faith Gods Veracity is the best and therefore the certainty of our â—aith is the greatest If a man be sure that what he believes is the Word of God he may be sure it is most true and never will fail And this no doubt may be sufficient to satisfie a Believer in his own mind or any one that receives the Scripture as the Word of God concerning the reality of the Faith he professeth that the ground of it is so certain but if he have to do with those that believe not the Scripture and so question the foundation of his Faith in that case he may have recourse to all those Arguments whereby we are wont to prove the Divine Authority of the Word and they all Confirm the Faith of a Christian and so the same account a Believer may give of the foundation of his Faith as of the Divinity of the Scripture if the Scripture be the Word of God and that Word be true his Faith built upon it is certain 3. The Actings of a Christians Faith are perceivable by himself Habits which cannot be discerned of themselves when they lye still yet may be known by their actings such an Habit Faith is which though it discover not it self or be not perceived when unactive yet may be discern'd in its exercise When a man actually believes he may know he believes reflect upon his own act as well as when he hears or sees or walks he may know he doth so and is not deceived in it Inward Sense hath as much certainty in it as outward and spiritual Sense as natural if a man therefore assent to the Truth of Gods Promise he may know he assents to it and if he accept of and close with the good Promised he may know he doth so though sometimes Temptations may be so strong and the Actings of Faith so weak and the Mind so clouded and distracted that a man may hardly be able to pass a right judgement on those Acts yet it is not always so but other whiles when the workings of Faith are more strong and vigorous and a man more clear of temptations he may do it In this therefore a man may give an account to himself of his Faith that it is reall he may know that he believes the Promise of Eternal Life as really as he believes any ordinary Truth proposed to him and that his believing and resting on Gods Word is no more a Fancy than his believing the word of a man As for others with whom he hath to do I know no reason why they should not believe him when he says he believes Gods Promise as well as when he says he believes their word or why one should be a Fancy any more than the other 4. The Effects of a Believers faith are evident to others in a good measure as well as to himself more fully As he may perceive his Faith purifying his heart taking it off from the World drawing it nearer to God so others may see his Conversation ordered correspondently to his believing they may see him Shie of Sin Diligent in Duty Conscientious in his Calling Patient in Sufferings Charitable to those that Need him Meek towards those that Offend him Profitable Spiritual Savoury in his Converse Just and Righteous in his Dealings and in a wâ—â—d the main of his Course and Wayes such as is agreable to thâ— Faith he professeth and the Recompence he expects So that if the lookers on cannot be infallibly certain of the reality of his Faith or that such a Carriage proceeds from such a Faith yet they may not only have their Mouths stopped that they cannot reasonably object against it but they may be bound in Charity to believe his Faith to be true and real when they see so much in him answerable to it and what he professeth to be the effect of it when they see him live like one that expects eternal Blessedness well may they believe that his Faith concerning it and hope of it is not feigned They see him walking strictly mortifying his flesh denying himself as to his outward enjoyments and carnal liberties and generally acting at such a rate as none would do that did not expect Eternal Life and what ground can they then have to suspect the Faith he pretends to to be only a Conceit or Fancy 2. An account may be given of the Practice of a Christian his Obedience and Holy walking the strictness and as the World counts it singularity of his Manners his universality diligence and constancy in the most spiritual and difficult Duties his watchfulness over his words thoughts actions his mortification and self-denyal and whatever it is in a Believers life which the World is most apt to quarrel with and to look upon as the effect of Humour or
Heart such as that is such he is now if a mans chief work be about his heart to watch that to purifie that to suppress the corruptions of it to reduce it into order and keep it in ordâ—â— to bring it into an holy frame and maintain it in such a frame when he hath so much reason for it it cannot be the effect of Fancy or a meer pretence 4. Let Grace influence you in all you do even in your ordinary Civil actions do all graciously do your common work as your Duty labour in your Callings enjoy your Refreshments visit your Friends make use of your Recreations with a sense of Duty and an eye to God do all as commanded by him and with a respect to his Glory and your own Salvation in a word Interest God in all let all be done by his Grace as the ruling and directing Principle and when ye find it so powerful ye may well believe it to be real 5. Labour to out do all you ever did while in a state of Nature Think what have been the highest actions you have ever been put upon not only by Fancy or humour but by the best Reason you then had by natural Conscience or good Education or legal Convictions or any present impressions from things without and then make it your business to outdo them all labour so to act as nothing less than a settled principle of Holiness in your Hearts could ever make you act living in the Love of God delighting in his wayes rejoycing in Christ Jesus mortifying your beloved Lusts your most secret or most pleasant or most creditable or most profitable Corruptions renouncing all trust in your own Righteousness when yet you do your utmost to work Righteousness are such acts as nor meer nature nor any thing in Nature can reach unto and for any to say that Fancy can put a man upon so acting is it self the veriest Fancy 6. Keep an even Course of holy walking in the most different or contrary Conditions If you can hold on in Gods wayes when most disheartned in them Serve him never the worse for his Afflicting you walk holily when you have least of the Comfort of Holiness not only keep to God when the World is against you but you fear he is himself against you trust in him when you think he is slaying you follow him when he withdraws from you and on the other side not abuse his Goodness not grow wanton with his Smiles not presume upon his Encouragements if the taste of Gods graciousness k 1 Pet. 2.3 whet your desires after him his Comforts do not cloy you nor dull you nor make you grow more loose or slack in his wayes if when you rejoyce most in God ye rejoyce most in his work the Comfort of your Hearts purifies and spiritualizeth your Hearts so that the more ye enjoy of God the more ye do for him and so in a word all Gods dispensations help you forward in his wayes his Rods drive you on his Gifts draw you out and both further your Progress in Faith and Holiness neither his Consolations puff you up nor his Corrections cast you down so as to abate your Affections to him and care of pleasing him you can love the Lord and his Holiness and fear the Lord and his Goodness l Hos 3.5 love him when he Frowns and fear him when he Smiles this will certainly speak the reality of that holy Princiâ—â—â— which is in you nothing not real could ever have so real so great effects upon you 7. Be much in the exercise of those Graces which have least affinity with your Natures least footing in them and in mortifying those Corruptions which your Natures are most inclined to and that will evidence a real change in you and a real Principle Some Graces may be further off from your natural tempers than others be more in the exercise of them and some Corruptions may be more agreeable to them so in some Pride is in others Anger in others Fear be sure exercise your selves especially to beat them down go contrary to the stream and current of your own inclinations it must be something more than a Fancy that can either outdo the best of nature or mend its worst Mans Fancies usually have some foundation in their tempers and dispositions and therefore as their tempers are various so are their Fancies too some carry them one way some another but for the most part it is for the promoting or gratifying some natural inclination and then that which crosseth such inclinations most is most like to be something constant and fixed Fancy will hardly overcome Nature in a wrathful man and make him become meek and gentle nor make one that is dull and phlegmatick active and zealous nor a proud person humble nor a churl liberal though where Grace meets with a good disposition it makes the greater shew as suppose gracious Meekness in one who hath already a natural meekness yet the power of Grace is especially seen in its influence upon such inclinations in mens natures as are most contrary to it when it corrects them regulates them or makes men act most oppositely to them And that which thus rectifies the most crooked dispositions sweetens an harsh Nature moderates a furious one elevates a dull one whatever it be it is more than a Fancy 8. Labour to act to such an height of Holiness and walk so closely with God that ye may have some sensible Communion with him in Duties and Ordinances that you may see his Power and his Glory in his Sanctuary Psal 63.2 May tast his Graciousness 1 Pet. 2.3 David did tast sweetness in the Word Psal 19.10 and why may not you Why may not the spiritual senses of a Believer an enlightned Understanding and renewed Conscience take as real pleasure in spiritual Objects as his natural Senses may in natural ones God may beam in his Love into your Souls shed it abroad in your Hearts m Rom. 5.5 make you tast its Sweetness and feel its Power chearing up your Spirits and filling them with Joy unspeakable and glorious n 1 Pet. 1.8 the Father may come and the Son come and manifest themselves to you and take up their abode with you o Joh. 14.21 23. so that you may say in the joy of your Hearts This is the Lord and we have waited for him this is our God and he will save us p Isa And if you experience this in your selves in your conversing with God in his Ordinances find something you never found any where else and can scarce express or make others understand that have not felt the same like the white stone with the new Name which none knows but he that hath it Rev. 2.17 You will find Gods Consolations carry their own Evidence along with them and speak their own reality they have something Divine in them such a Stamp of God upon them that they will satisfie your Hearts
as to their being no delusions and then let Scoffers scoff on they shall never be able to laugh you out of those Comforts whereof you find such real effects in reviving your Hearts enlivening your Graces breaking the Snares of worldly Temptations abating the force of your Lusts and adorning even your outward Conversations I dare say they may as soon perswade you that Honey is not sweet when yet you tast it Snow not white when yet you see it is or not cold when you feel it so as perswade you either that these Comforts are not real or that holy Principle in you which is attended by them is but Fantastical To these Directions I shall add two general Rules by which you may best judge if you would pass a right Verdict on your selves as to your spiritual State 1. When you would judge of the reality of Grace in your Hearts Judge of your selves by what you are alone in the most secret Duties of Religion Closet-Prayer Meditation Self-Examination c. What men are when alone that usually they are for the main the Heart which may be awed or some way swayed when in Company with others is most apt to discover it self then if ever Grace be working at all it will be at such a time and if none appear then it is odds but there is none in the Heart As some Corruptions may be most apt to shew themselves such is the secret Atheism of mens Hearts and little sence of Gods Presence in secret when men are free from the restraint of Fear and Shame and such like motives which many times give check to and keep them under in the Company of others so likewise Grace may more readily act in secret where men may use such means and take such liberty for the awakening and exciting it as might not in the presence of others be so convenient and be rid withall of some Temptations which at least in some tempers may prove a hinderance to the more free actings of it If you would therefore take the just measure of your spiritual Stature and know what in you is real do it when alone when retired when your Hearts are most like to discover themselves fairly and have least Temptations to deceive you or impose upon you 2. Be curious and diligent in observing not only the inward workings of your Souls but the ordinary settled inclination and main bent of your Hearts observe them therefore as to what they are in the main and not only what they are by fits at some certain times or when it may be under Temptations The Heart of a carnal man may seem to be very good under a pang of Conscience or fit of Conviction or in relation to some more gross and scandalous sin which yet in the general is stark naught Ahab may humble himself and put on Sackcloth when under the apprehensions of threatned Judgments q 1 King 21.27 Pharaoh may cry God mercy when under his hand r Exod. 10.16 17. and Herod may do many things when convinced by John Baptists Ministry Å¿ Mark 6.20 and yet still they may continue the same they were And on the other side the Heart of a Saint may appear very wicked under a Temptation as David's did in the business of Vriah and of Numbring the People in both which Grace was for the present run down by a Lust and so many times Passion or carnal Fears or Distrust may lye uppermost in the Saints when yet there is Grace within and that which at present appears is not the ordinary settled frame of their Hearts and though whatever corruption at any time breaks out you may be sure it is within yet that may not make a discovery of the habitual temper and disposition of your Spirits nor argue that there is no Grace in you Judge therefore of your selves by your course and ordinary carriage and by that you may see what is most prevalent in you and if you find your Souls mainly looking to God and respecting his wayes and best pleased when ye keep closest to him you may be sure there is something more in you than a Fancy or humour you may in some particular go astray like lost Sheep and yet not forget Gods Commandments Psal 119. last 2. The Second part of the Case is How may we Evidence to others that serious Godliness in us is more than a Fancy In this there seems to be more difficulty than in the former we may more easily satisfie our selves concerning our inward workings and the temper of our own Minds than we can others we Judge of our selves by our inward actings and Principles of which by inspecting our own Hearts we have a more immediate knowledge and therefore are less liable to be deceived in our Judgment but when others have to do with us they can judge of what is in our Hearts only by our outward Carriage which is patent to them and so are liable to more Errors in their thoughts about us Here therefore if we cannot give so clear proofs and evident indications of a real Principle in us as may work a full Conviction of it in Gainsayers and Cavillers so as to force them to an acknowledgment of it it may be sufficient if we can go so far as to stop their mouths and put them to silence t 1 Pet. 2.15 that they may not be able reasonably to oppose what yet they are unwilling to grant and if it amount not to a demonstration which may over-power their Reason and compell it to yield us to be real in our Profession yet may as before was intimated lay an obligation upon their Charity to believe us to be so and in this we must especially have respect to that outward carriage of Professors which may make the best discovery of their inward frame and is most obvious to the sence and observation of those that are to be satisfied 1. In general Let men see that you live up to the Faith you profess that your Practice is agreable to your Principles and then they cannot deny the reality of your Faith when it is so powerful nor the reasonableness of your Practice when it is so answerable to it You profess before men to believe there is a God let them see that you walk as before him desire to approve your selves to him dare not sin against him you believe a Christ let your Conversations be an imitation of him Walk as he walked u 1 Joh. 2.6 You believe a future Judgment live as becomes those that would be able to stand in it and give an account of your selves to the Judge Let your carriage be such as not only your own Consciences but your Adversaries when they quarrel with you tell you it ought to be that is such as best suits your Faith and Hope even in their judgment as well as your own What is it makes the profane World question the reality of Godliness in Gods people but
to them that are like to give again do plainly turn Religion into Bartery and may be said to be good Traders but scarce good Christians When men appear for Religion only when and where it is countenanced or while there is something to be got by it Practice in an Employment Custom in a Trade or the favour of men or applause from them they may well be suspected if not of Fancy yet of Design and Hypocrisie But when men will do Duty and keep Gods way though they get nothing by it but frowns or blowes detriment or danger it cannot be reasonably imagined but that they have some better thing in their eye which they look for hereafter and some very Powerful Principle at present within them to support them under difficulties and prompt them to such Duties as are for ought the spectators can discern both unprofitable and hazardous 6. Labour so to carry your selves in the sight of men as to let them see that you are as much set upon gaining Heaven as getting or keeping the World Be as active as busie and shew as much concern for the things of the other life as the things of this Scarce any thing is a greater blemish to Religion or disreputation to them that profess it than their passionate and over-eager pursuit of Temporal things with a coldness and visible indifferency in seeking Eternal when they can rise up early and sit up late and eat the bread of Carefulness spend their time and strength in labouring for the World nay lose the comfort of their Lives by scrambling for the things of this life and in the mean time put God off with some little superficial Service neglect some duties and hurry over others let the croud of business thrust their spiritual work into a corner of their time if not quite out of it the world indeed justle God and Christ and Heaven out of their discourse and conversation which savours of nothing but Trades and Bargains and Adventures and getting Estates and tends to nothing but the promoting a meer Worldly Interest Are these men think their carnal Neighbours in good earnest for Religion when they are so mad upon their business doth their Happiness lie in Heaven when their labour is only for the Earth can their Treasure be above when their hearts are below and their actings plainly shew that they are so can their hope of Eternal Glory be any better than a Fancy who do so little for that Glory and lay out themselves for this World as if there were no other And indeed who can judge otherwise of some men that hears their pretences and yet sees their practice And therefore Christians think with your selves How doth it become you to act if you would perswade others that you have real designs for future happiness What would you do if you did pretend to the hope of some great Estate or enjoyment in the world to convince them that that hope were reasonable and well grounded would you not act at such a rate as to make them acknowledge you were serious would you not make it your great business to attain your great Ends Do the same in the present case let men see that your belief of things to come is as real as of present things by your pursuing them as earnestly and acting as vigorously for them Nay shew a greater concernedness for them and that will be a means to convince men that you believe a greater excellency in them and that they cannot be obtained upon easier terms 7. The more you pretend to the comforts of Christianity the more mortified let your conversation be to the things of the World and pleasures of Sense and your carriage more apparently holy Let it never be said that the Comforts of the Spirit make you give liberty to the Flesh When men see that the more you pretend to spiritual enjoyments the more spiritual you are and the more pleasure you profess to find in Gods wayes the more exactly you walk in them and the less ye dare sin against him they will have little to say against you Those comforts cannot but be real which have so great so good Effects and when men see the effects so real they cannot judge the cause to be less so Whimsies and Fancies do not use to make men grow in Righteousness and Humility and Meekness and Mortification Let men see the respect you bear to all Gods Commands and they will scarce dare to question the comforts you receive from his Promises 8. Labour to make such advances in the way to Heaven as may not only be sensible to your selves but perceivable by others let your profiting appear unto all men 1 Tim. 4.15 Let your paths be as the shining light shining forth more and more Prov. 4.18 Not only grow in Grace and inward Holiness but abound in the fruits of Righteousness A sensibly thriving Religion cannot be thought to be an imaginary one they that observe the progress you make will not be able to question the grounds upon which you go When they see that as you grow older and wiser so you grow better they cannot reasonably imagine that strength of Fancy ever raised you to that height of goodness but rather suppose that you do more good than you did because you see more reason for it and have more lively hopes of being gainers by it 9. Lastly a Heb. 10.23 Be sure to persevere and hold on in the Faith you d profess and the practice of Godliness your Constancy may be a special means to evidence your reality not only to your selves but others When men grow weary of Gods wayes their Courage fails them their Zeal is out of breath it is a sign their Religion was never real but when they act uniformly under the most contrary Providences and among all the Vicissitudes and Changes of humane affairs in Conformity to the Principles they have all along professed and owned the shock of Temptations they meet with cannot justle them out of the way of Holiness nor the Enticements and Courtship of a sometimes fawning World wheedle them into a complyance with it they hope to the end b 1 Pet. 1.13 are not weary of well doing c Gal. 5.9 labour and faint not d Rev. 2.3 bring forth Fruit with patience and persevere to do so serve God as long as they have their being e Psal 104.33 live to him as long as they live at all act by the same Rule aim at the same End while they live and when they come to die in a word when opposition from men temptations from Satan nay frowns from God himself have not discouraged them nor lessened their love to him or activeness for him or diligence in his Service and at last upon reflection they approve of that good course they have now finished and have the same thoughts of God and Holiness they had before the worst of Enemies cannot but as impudently as unreasonably charge
Hammer to be fear'd 3. A servile Hungry flattery 3. Hungry when the flatterer Croucheth for a Morsel of bread as 2 Sam. 2. ult and magnifieth the gift of a meals meat to the Skies such as Rom. 16.18 is serving of the belly by fair words 4. A Cowardly flattery when men dare not tell what is 4. Cowardly and what they think the truth concerning the Vertues or Vices of men 5. A Covetous Flattery which aims at Gain 5. Covetous and increasing our wealth by advantage on the flattered 6. An Aemulous and Envious flattery wherein the Good virtuous 6. Aemulous praise-worthy Qualities or Practices of any one of our Own party are extolled and magnifi'd above all measure So the old Hereticks so the present dividing Parties in the world exclude others from the number of Virtuous Wise Learned Pious and Loyal this is a kind of Flattery which prevails at this day Loved too much by all and dangerous to all Were that true which such factious flattery suggests how very small a remnant sho'd escape with their Life In all these there is an officiousness or pretence of Kindness Honour and Zeal for your Good your Credit your Advantage and Right which draws your Affection and Love to these undue courses and which is the disease to be Cured And what this is What Love to be Flattered is we are to enquire in the second place Love to be flattered a disease of humane nature I wo'd rather call 2. General a Love to be praised in Good or excus'd in Evil more than justly may be I cannot conceive any one who understands the falshood of a Flatterer and his foul designs can love the flattery but yet we all are prone to love the Praises and Apologies are made on our behalf by those that indeed do Flatter and unduly praise or excuse So that in the General an affecting and liking of mens praises and apologies above the nature and circumstances of our Good and Evil is the Love to be flatter'd in our Case I will present it to you in it's distinct parts It is 1. An immoderate desire 1. In immoderate desire of praise that our best and worst might be represented in fairer colours than those that are native that where Good we may seem better where Evil we may seem less evil than we are as other Species of Love first appear in our desire so here a great weakness and distemper of our nature thus to desire the forbidden fruit When this desire prevaileth we 2. Believe what the Flatterer saith thô he believeth not himself 2. In blind credence of all that is said for us in the Praise or Apology he makes for us A blind secure unsearching credence and belief of what is glozingly and deceitfully said by this deceiver makes a part of this Love As other Love so is this Credulous and in a high degree Confident believes a strangers mouth in bar to our own Eyes and in affront to our own senses Credit a Lying Elogy And then 3. In valuing ourselves by them 3. Set the value on our selves by what such affirm of us the valuation and Love mankind hath for any thing are inseparable indeed Love is an appretiating affection and so 't is here when the False Coiner hath been suffer'd to stamp the base alloy'd mettal of our Imperfect Vertues with the impress of divine Perfection we deceived mortals Prize and Love them as if they really were what they seem to be So did Alexander M. think his extract was Divine and valued himself on his suppos'd Divinity so did Herod the Great when he believed their flattery The voice of a God and not a man 4. Affecting occasions to set forth our praise 4. Another branch of Love to be Flatter'd is an Affected seeking to our selves or giving unto others unnecessary occasions of setting forth the worth of our Persons Actions and qualifications according to the standard of flatterers He loves flattery who loves to search out his own praise we know he dotes on the person who unseasonably breaks out into their commendation and wo'd have every mouth as †Resonabant Phyllida Sylvae he fancied every Wood did echo the praises of his Love 5. Acquiescence in what is given as our praise 5. A well-pleasedness to hear the Great and Good things by dissembling Flatterers ascribed to us which either we never did or did in manner much below what they report them it is a disease of the mind that thus is pleas'd with vanity with a Lying vanity yet sick of this disease are the besotted Culleys How sick were the Pygmees mind who should be perswaded to think his Stature and strength equal to Goliah's and his feats against the Cranes equal to the great atchievements of David the Macchabees or those mighty Captains who purchased to themselves the Sir-name of Great 6. Choice of such for our Company 6. A choice of such for our intimate and inseparable Companions with Licence given them without controul to lye for us He is deeply in love who cannot live without what is loved Many thousands among great ones and rich ones cannot live without such extravagant applauders of their Persons and Menages And we justly wonder how they bear with patience the extravagant notorious and incredible falsities of these Parasites This I have made the last part of this culpable Love of flattery which as other Love discovers it self by its choice Summarily Every part of this Love is a particular weakness and distemper of the mind wherein it is and the whole is much more it's disease This Love of being flattered is a very immoderate Affection longing after and delighting in ungrounded praises a feeding upon lies the effect of a secreter disease Self-love and cause of many culpable Distempers in our life Love to undue praise is pernicious 3. General Nullum animantium genus assentatoribus perniciosius Lud. Gr. It is to conclude this point originally formally and effectively a malady of mankind and unless cured proves pernicious and destructive which is the Third thing proposed Solomon tells you in our Text that it worketh ruine And beside the unaccountable multitudes of those who have perished by it already the Scriptures assure us that where 't is not cured it doth kill Psal 5.9 Where there is no faithfulness in the mouth i. e. where flattery and glozings are the inward part is wickednesses destroying wickednesses An open Sepulcher and a flattering tongue are inseparable If the Glutton diggeth his own Grave with his Teeth the designing Flatterer digs other mens with his Tongue Psal 12.1 2 with the 5. ver you find ruine attending on prevailing flattery the Poor opprest the Needy sigh when such unfaithful tongues are successful Prov. 5.3 Words that drop as an Honey-Comb and Mouth softer than Oyl Which is an accurate description of the visible part of Flattery but what is conceal'd from our eye is Bitterness and
mans Conscience in the sight of God Paul's Preaching this is the principal thing to be aimed at and it is the proper source of all profitable Preaching To conclude You that are Ministers suffer a Word of Exhortation Men Brethren and Fathers you are called to an high and holy Calling your Work is full of Danger full of Duty and full of Mercy You are called to the winning of Souls an Employment near a-kin unto our Lords work the saving of Souls and the nearer your spirits be in conformity to his holy temper and frame the fitter you are for and the more fruitfull you shall be in your work None of you are ignorant of the begun departure of our Glory and the daily advance of its departure and the sad appearances of the Lords being about to leave us utterly Should not these Signs of the times rowse up Ministers unto greater seriousness What can be the reason of this sad Observation that when formerly a few Lights raised up in the Nation did shine so as to scatter and dispell the darkness of Popery in a little time yet now when there are more and more Learned men amongst us yet the Darkness comes on apace Is it not because they were men filled with the Holy Ghost and with Power and many of us are only filled with Light and Knowledge and inefficacious Notions of Gods Truth Doth not always the Spirit of the Ministers propagate it self amongst the People A lively Ministry and lively Christians Therefore be serious at heart believe and so speak feel and so speak and as you teach so doe and then People will feel what you say and obey the Word of God And lastly for People It is not unfit that you should hear of Ministers Work and Duty and Difficulties you see that all is of your Concernment All things are for your sakes as the Apostle in another case Then only I intreat you 1. Pity us We are not Angels but men of like Passions with your selves Be fuller of Charity than of Censure We have all that you have to do about the saving of our own Souls and a great Work besides about the saving of yours We have all your difficulties as Christians and some that you are not acquainted with that are only Ministers Temptations and Tryals 2. Help us in our Work If you can do any thing help us in the work of Winning Souls What can we do say you O! a great deal Be but won to Christ and we are made Make haste to Heaven that you and we may meet joyfully before the Throne of God and the Lamb. 3. Pray for us How often and how earnestly doth Paul begg the Prayers of the Churches and if he did so much more should we begg them and you grant them for our Necessities and Weaknesses are greater than his 2 Thess 3.1 2. Finally Brethren pray for us that the Word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified even as it is with you and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men for all men have not Faith THE CHAMBER of IMAGERY IN THE Church of ROME laid open OR AN Antidote against Popery Quest How is the Practical Love of Truth the best Preservative against Popery SERMON X. 1 PET. II.III. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious WHen false Worship had prevailed in the Church of old unto its Ruine God shewed and represented it unto his Prophet under the name and appearance of a Chamber of Imagery Ezek. 8.11 12. For therein were pourtraied all the Abomination wherewith the Worship of God was defiled and Religion corrupted Things relating unto Divine Truth and Worship have had again the same event in the world especially in the Church of Rome And my present Design is to take a view of the Chambers of their Imagery and to shew what was the occasion and what were the Means of their Erection and in them we shall see all the Abomination wherewith the Divine Worship of the Gospel hath been corrupted and Christian Religion ruined Unto this end it will be necessary to lay down some such Principles of Sacred Truth as will demonstrate and evince the Grounds and Causes of that Transformation of the Substance and Power of Religion into a Lifeless Image which shall be proved to have fallen out amongst them And because I intend their benefit principally who resolve all their Perswasion in Religion into the Word of God I shall deduce these Principles from that Passage of it in the first Epistle of the Apostle Peter Chap. 2. and the three first Verses The first Verse contains an Exhortation unto or an Injunction of universal Holiness by the laying aside or casting out whatever is contrary thereunto wherefore lay aside all Malice and all guile and hypocrisie and envy and all evil speaking the Rule whereof extends unto all other vicious habits of Mind whatever And in the Second there is a Profession of the Means whereby this End may be attained namely how any one may be so strengthened in Grace as to cast out all such sinful Inclinations and Practises as are contrary unto the Holiness required of us which is the Divine Word compared therefore unto Food which is the Means of preserving Natural Life and of increasing its strength As new born Babes desire the sincere Milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby Hereon the Apostle proceeds to declare the Condition whereon our profiting growing and thriving by the Word doth depend and this is an experience of its Power as it is the Instrument of God whereby he conveys his Grace unto us if so be that ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious See 1 Thes 1.5 Therein lies the first and chief Principle of our ensuing Demonstration and it is this All the Benefit and Advantage which any men do or may receive by the Word or the Truths of the Gospel depend on an experience of its Power and Efficacy in communicating the Grace of God unto their Souls This Principle is evident in it self and not to be questioned by any but such as never had the least real sence of Religion on their own Minds Besides it is evidently contained in the Testimony of the Apostle before laid down Hereunto three other Principles of equal Evidence with it self are supposed and virtually contained in it 1. There is a Power and Efficacy in the Word and the Preaching of it Rom. 1.16 I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it 〈…〉 Pâ—â—â—r of God unto salvation It hath a divine Power the Power of God accompanying it and put forth in it unto its proper Ends for the Word of Gâ—d is quick and powerful Heb. 4.12 2. The Power that is in the Word of God consists in its efficacy to communicate Grace of God unto the Souls of man in and by it they taste that 〈◊〉 Lord is gracious that is is efficacy unto its proper Ends. These are Salvation with all things requisite
thereunto such as the Illumination of our Minds and the Renovation of our Natures the Justification of our Persons the Life of God in holy Worship and Obedience all leading unto our eternal enjoyment of him These are the Ends whereunto the Gospel is designed in the wisdom of God whereunto its efficacy is confined 3. There is an Experience to be obtained of the power and efficacy of the Word In that place of the Apostle it is expressed by tasting But there is something antecedent unto their tasting specially so called and something consequent unto it both inseparable from it and therefore belonging unto the Experience whereof we speak 1. Wherefore The first thing required hereunto is Light that is a spiritual supernatural Light enabling us to discern the Wisdom Will and Mind of God in the Word in a spiritual manner without which we can have no experience of its Power Hence the Gospel is hid unto them that perish though it be outwardly declared unto them 2 Cor. 3.4 This is the only Means which lets into the Mind and Conscience a sence of this efficacy This in the increases of it the Apostle prays for on the behalf of Believers that they may have this experience Eph. 1.16 17 18 19. Chap. 3.16 17 18 19. and declares the Nature of it 2 Cor. 4.6 2. The Taste intended follows hereon wherein consists the Life and Substance of the Experience pleaded And this Taste is a spiritual sense of the Goodness Power and Efficacy of the Word and the things contained in it in the conveyance of the Grace of God unto our Souls in the Instances mentioned and others of a like nature for in a Taste there is a sweetness unto the Palat and a satisfaction unto the Appetite By the one in this Taste our Minds are refreshed and by the other our Souls are nourished Of both Believers have an experience And this is let into the Mind by Spiritual Light without which nothing of it is attainable God who commanded Light to shine out of Darkness shine into your hearts to give the light of the knowledge of his Glory in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 3. To compleat the Experience intended there follows hereon a Conformity in the whole Soul and Conversation unto the Truth of the Word or the Mind of God in it wrought in us by its power and efficacy So the Apostle expresses it Eph. 4.20 21 22 23 24. If so be that you have heard him and have been taught by him as the Truth is in Jesus that you put off concerning the former Conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the Spirit of your Mind and that you put on the new man which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness Hereupon follows our last Principle which is the immediate foundation of the ensuing Discourse or that which is to be confirmed and it is this The Loss of an Experience of the Power of Religion hath been the Cause of the loss of the Truth of Religion or it hath been the Cause of rejecting its Substance and setting up a Shadow or Image in the room of it This Transformation of all things in Religion began and proceeded on these Grounds Those who had the Conduct of it were always possessed of the General Notions of Truth which they could not forget without a total Renunciation of the Gospel it self But having lost all Experience of this power in themselves they wrested them unto things quite of another nature destructive to the Truth as well as devoid of its Power Hereon it came to pass that there was a dead Image made and set up of Religion in all the parts of it called by the Name of that which was true and living but utterly lost All Experience I say of the power and efficacy of the Mystery of the Gospel and the Truths of it in communicating the Grace of God unto the Souls of men being lost retaining the general Notion of it they contrived and framed an outward Image or Representation of them suited unto their Ignorance and Superstition Thus was the truth of Religion once almost totally lost in the world as we shall see neither will it ever be lost any other way or by any other means When Churches or Nations are possessed of the Truth and the Profession of it it is not Laws nor Fines nor Imprisonments nor Gibbets nor Fires that shall ever dispossess them or deprive them of it Whilst an Experience of the Power of Religion continued in the Primitive Times all the bloody Rage and Cruelty of the world all the Craft of Satan and the Subtilty of Seducers who abounded did utterly fail in attempting to deprive Christians of the Truth and the Profession of it But when this began to decay and be lost amongst them they were quickly deceived and drawn off from the Simplicity of the Gospel Upon the Reformation of Religion in these parts of the world when the Truth was received in the Love and Power of it and multitudes had experience of the spiritual benefit and advantage which they received thereby in Liberty Holiness and Peace all the Prisons Tortures Swords and Fires that were applied unto its extirpation did nothing but diffuse the Profession of it and root it more firmly in the minds of men It cannot be lost but by another way and other means The Jesuites and their Associates have been for an hundred years contriving Methods and Arts for the dispossessing Nations and Churches of the Truth which they have received and the introducing the Romish Superstition They have written Books about it and practised according to their Principles in every Kingdom and State of Europe who own the Protestant Religion But the folly of most of their pretended Arts and Devices unto this end hath been ridiculous and unsuccessless and what they have added hereunto of Force hath been divinely defeated There is but one way one effectual Engine to deprive any People of the Profession of the Truth which they have once received and that is by leading them into such Prophaneness and Ignorance as whereby they may lose all Experience of its Power and Efficacy in communicating the Grace of God unto their Souls and therein of all sense of the advantage which they might have had by it When this is done men will as easily lay aside the Profession of Religion as burdensom Cloaths in Summer There is much talk of a Plot and Conspiracy to destroy the Protestant Religion and introduce Popery again amongst us they may do well to take care thereof who are concern'd in publick Affairs but as unto the Event there is but one Conspiracy that is greatly to be feared in this matter and that is between Satan and the Lusts of men if they can prevail to deprive the Generality of men of an Experience in their own minds of the Power and Efficacy of the Truth with the spiritual Advantage which
Spiritual Light and Experience men of superstitious minds found themselves intangled They knew it necessary that there should be such a Representation made of Christ as might render him a present Object of Faith and love wherewith they might be immediately affected How this was done in the Gospel they could not understand nor obtain any experience of the power and efficacy of it unto this end Yet the Principle it self must be retained as that without which there could be no Religion wherefore to explicate themselves out of this difficulty they break through all Gods Commands to the contrary and betook themselves to the making Images of Christ and their adoration And from small beginnings according as Darkness and Superstition increased in the minds of men there was a progress in this practise until these Images took the whole work of representing Christ and his Glory out of the hands as it were of the Gospel and appropriated it unto themselves For I do not speak of them now so much as they are Images of Christ or Objects of Adoration as of their being dead Images of the Gospel that is somewhat set up in the room of the Gospel and for the ends of it as means of teaching and instruction They shall do the work which the Gospel was designed of God to do For as unto this end of the representation of Christ as the present object of the Faith and Love of man with an efficacy to work upon their affections there is in the Church of Rome a thousand times more ascribed unto them than unto the Gospel it self The whole matter is stated by the Apostle Rom. 10.6 7 8. The Righteousness which is of Faith speaketh on this wise say not in thine heart who shall ascend unto heaven that is to bring Christ down from above or who shall descend into the deep that is to bring Christ up again from the dead but what saith it The word is nigh thee in thy mouth and in thy heart that is the word of faith which we preach The Enquiry is how we may be made partakers of Christ and righteousness by him or how we may have an interest in him or have him present with us This saith the Apostle is done by the word of the Gospel which is preached which is nigh unto us in our mouths and in our hearts No say these men we cannot understand how it should be so we do not find that it is so that Christ is made nigh unto us present with us by this word Wherefore we will ascend into Heaven to bring down Christ from above for we will make Images of him in his glorious state in Heaven and thereby he will be present with us or nigh unto us And we will descend into the deep to bring up Christ again from the dead and we will do it by making first Crucifixes and then Images of his glorious Resurrection bringing him again unto us from the dead This shall be in the place and room of that word of the Gospel which you pretend to be alone useful and effectual unto these ends This therefore is evident that the Introduction of this Abomination in principle and practise destructive unto the Souls of men took its Rise from the loss of an Experience of the Representation of Christ in the Gospel and the transforming power in the minds of men which it is accompanied with in them that believe Make us Gods say the Israelites to go before us for as for this man Moses who represented God unto us we know not what is become of him What would you have men do would you have them live without all Sense of the presence of Christ with them or being nigh unto them Shall they have no Representation of him no no make us Gods that may go before us let us have Images unto this end for how else it may be done we cannot understand And this is the Reason of their obstinacy in this practise against all means of conviction yea they live hereon in a perpetual contradiction unto themselves Their Temples are full of Graven Images like the house of Micah houses of God and yet in them are the Scriptures though in a Tongue unknown to the people wherein that practise is utterly condemned that a man would think them distracted to hear what their Book says and to see what they do in the same place But nothing will reach unto their conviction until the vail of Blindness and Ignorance be taken from their minds until they have a Spiritual Light enabling them to discern the Glory of Christ as represented in the Gospel and to let in an Experience of the transforming power and efficacy of that Revelation in their own Souls they will never part with that means for the same end which they are sensible of to be useful unto it and which is suited unto their inclination Whatever be the issue though it cost them their Souls they will not part with what they find as they suppose so useful unto their great end of making Christ nigh unto them for that wherein they can see nothing of it and of whose power they can have no experience But the principal Design of this Discourse is to warn others of these Abominations and to direct unto their avoidance for if they should be outwardly pressed unto the practice of this Idolatry whatever is of carnal Affection of blind Devotion or Superstition in them will quickly be won over unto a Conspiracy against their Convictions Nothing will then secure them but an experience of the efficacy of that Representation which is made of Christ in the Gospel It is therefore the Wisdom and Duty of all those who desire a stability in the profession of the Truth continually to endeavour after this Experience and an increase in it He who lives in the exercise of Faith and Love in the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in the Gospel as evidently crucified and evidently exalted therein and finds the fruit of his so doing in his own Soul will be preserved in the time of Trial. Without this men will at last begin to think that it is better to have a false Christ than none at all they will suppose that something is to be found in an Image when they can find nothing in the Gospel SECT II. II. It is a prevalent Notion of Truth That the Worship of God ought to be beautiful and glorious The very Light of Nature seems to direct unto Conceptions hereof What is not so may be justly rejected as unbecoming the Divine Majesty And therefore the more holy and heavenly any Religion pretends to be the more glorious is the Worship prescribed in it or ought so to be Yea the true Worship of God is the height and excellency of all Glory in this world it is inferiour unto nothing but that which is in Heaven which it is the beginning of the way unto and the best preparation for Accordingly even that Worship is declared to be
Conviction but endeavour the temporal and eternal destruction of all that are otherwise minded This Image like that of Nebuchadnezzar was once set up in this Nation with a Law that whoever would not bow down to it and worship it should be cast into the fiery Furnace God grant it to be so no more But if it should there is no preservation against the Influence of Force and Fires but a real experience of an efficacious Communication of Christ unto our Souls in this holy Ordinance administred according to his appointment This therefore is that we ought with all diligence to endeavour and this not only as the only way and means of our edification in this Ordinance by an exercise in Grace the strengthning of our Faith and present Consolation but as the effectual means of our preservation in the profession of the Truth and our deliverance from the Snares of our Adversaries For whereas it is undeniable that this peculiar Institution distinct from all other doth intend and design a distinct communication and exhibition of Christ if it be pressed on us that these must be done by Transubstantiation and Oral Manducation thereon and can be no otherwise nothing but an Experience of the power and efficacy of the Mystical Communion with Christ in this Ordinance before described will preserve us from being ensnared by their Pretences There is not therefore on all accounts of Grace and Truth any one thing of more concernment unto Believers than the due exercise of Spiritual Light and Faith unto a satisfactory experience of a peculiar participation of Christ in this Holy Institution The same is fallen out amongst them with reference unto the Church and all the principal Concerns of it having lost or renounced the things which belong unto its primitive Constitution they have erected a deformed Image in their stead as I shall manifest in some Instances SECT IV. IV. It is an unquestionable Principle of Truth that the Church of Christ is in it self a Body such a Body as hath an Head whereon it depends and without which it would immediately be dissolved a Body without an Head is but a Carkass or part of a Carkass and this Head must be always present with it An Head distant from the Body separated from it not united unto it by such ways and means as are proper unto their Nature is of no use See Eph. 4 15 16. Col. 2.19 But there is a double Notion of an Head as there is of a Body also For they both of them are either Natural or Political There is a Natural Body and there is a Political Body and in each sence it must have an Head of the same kind A Natural Body must have an Head of Vital Influence and a Political Body must have an Head of Rule and Government The Church is called a Body compared to it is a Body in both Sences or in both parts of the comparison and in both must have an Head As it is a Spiritually living Body compared to the Natural it must have an Head of Vital Influence without which it cannot subsist and as it is an Orderly Society for the common Ends of its Institution compared unto a Political Body it must have an Head of Rule and Government without which neither its Being nor its Use can be preserved But these are only distinct Considerations of the Church which is every way one and the same It is not two Bodies for then it must have two Heads but it is one Body under two distinct Considerations which divide not its Essence but declare its different Respects unto its Head And in General all who are called Christians are thus far agreed nothing is of the Church nothing belongs unto it which is not dependant on which is not united to the Head That which holds the Head is the true Church that which doth not so is no Church at all Herein we agree with our Adversaries namely that all the Privileges of the Church all the Right and Title of men thereunto depend wholly on their due Relation to the Head of it according to the distinct Considerations of it be that Head who or what it will that which is not united unto the Head which depends not on it which is separated from it belongs not to the Church This Head of the Church is Christ Jesus alone for the Church is but one although on various considerations it be likened unto two sorts of Bodies The Catholick Church is considered either as believing or as professing but the Believing Church is not one and the professing another If you suppose another Catholick Church besides this one whoso will may be the Head of it we are not concerned therein but unto this Church Christ is the only Head He only answers all the Properties and Ends of such an Head to the Church This the Scripture doth so positively and frequently affirm without the least intimation either directly or by consequence of any other Head that it is wonderful how the imagination of it should befall the Minds of any who thought it not meet at the same time to cast away their Bibles But whereas an Head is to be present with the Body or it cannot subsist the Enquiry is how the Lord Christ is so present with his Church And the Scripture hath left no pretence for any hesitation herein for he 〈◊〉 so by his Spirit and his Word by which he communicateth all the Powers and Vertues of an Head unto it continually His Promises of this way and manner of his Presence unto the Church are multiplied and thereon doth the Being Life Use and Continuance of the Church depend where Christ is not present by his Spirit and Word there is no Church and those who pretend so to be are the Synagogues of Satan and they are inseparable and conjunct in their operation as he is the Hâ—â—d of influence unto the Church as also as he is an Head of Rule for in the former sense the Spirit worketh by the Word and in the latter the Word is made effectual by the Spirit But the Sense and Apprehension hereof was for a long time lost in the world amongst them that called themselves the Church An Head they did acknowledge the Church must always have without which it cannot subsist and they would confess that in some sense he was an Head of influence unto it they know not how to have an Image thereof though by many other pernicious Doctrines they overthrew the Efficacy and Benefit of it But how he should be the only Head of Rule unto the Church they could not understand they saw not how he could act the Wisdom and Authority of such an Head and without which the Church must be headless They said he was absent and invisible they must have one that they could see and have access unto he is in Heaven and they know not how to make Address to him as occasion did require all things would go to disorder notwithstanding
such an Headship The Church is visible and it must they thought have a visible Head It was meet also that this Head should have some such Grandeur and Pomp in the World as became the Head of so Great and Glorious a Society as the Church is How to apply these things unto Christ and his Presence with the Church by his Word and Spirit they knew not Shall they then forgo the Principle That the Church is to have such an Head and Supream Ruler That must not be done but be sacredly retained not only because to deny it in general is to renounce the Gospel but because they had found out a way to turn it unto their own advantage they would therefore make an Image of Christ as this Head of the Church to possess the Place and act all the Powers of such an Head for the Church they say is visible and must have a visible Head as though the Catholick Church as such were any other way visible but as the Head of it is that is by Faith That there must be an Head and Center of Union wherein all the Members of the Church may agree and be united notwithstanding all their distinct Capacities and Circumstances and how this should be Christ himself they know not that without a Supream Head present in the Church to compose all Differences and determine all Controversies even those concerning himself which they vainly pretend unto they expresly affirm that there was never a Society so foolishly ordered as that of the Church And hereon they conclude the Insufficiency of Christ to be this fâ—le Head of the Church another they must have for these Ends. And this was their Pope such an Image as is one of the worst of Idols that ever were in the world Unto him they give all the Titles of Christ which relate unto the Church and ascribe all the Powers of Christ in and over it as unto its Rule to him also But here they fell into a Mistake for when they thought to give him the Power of Christ they gave him the Power of the Dragon to use against Christ and those that are his And when they thought to make an Image of Christ they made an Image of the First Beast set up by the Dragon which had two Horns like a Lamb but spake as a Dragon whose Character and Employ is at large described Rev. 13.11 12 13 14 15 16 17. This is the Sum of what I shall offer on this Head Those who called themselves the Church had lost all Spiritual Light enabling them to discern the Beauty and Glory of the Rule of Christ over the Church as its Head and hereon their Minds became destitute of all Experience of the power and efficacy of his Spirit and Word continually to order the Affairs thereof in the ways and through the use of Means by himself appointed they knew not how to acquiesce in these things nor how the Church could be maintained by them Wherefore in this case they helped every one his Neighbour and every one said to his Brother be of good comfort so the Carpenter encouraged the Goldsmith and he that sâ—â—â—teth with the Hammer him that smiteth the Anvil They set themselves in their several capacities to frame this Idol and set him up in the place and stead of Christ so fixing him in the Temple of God that he might shew himself from thence to be as God Neither will this Idol be ever cast out of the Church until the Generality of Christians become spiritually sensible of the Authority of Christ exerting it self in the Rule of the Church by his Spirit and his Word unto all the Ends of Unity Order Peace and Edification until that be done a Pope or somthing like him will be thought necessary unto these Ends. But never was there a more horrid deformed Image made of so beautiful and glorious an Head All the Craft of Satan all the Wits of men cannot invent any thing more unlike Christ as the Head of the Church than this Pope is A worse Figure and Representation of him cannot possibly be made This is he of whom nothing not great nothing common nothing not exceeding the ordinary state of Mankind on the one hand or the other is thought or spoken Some say he is the Head and Husband of the Church the Vicar of Christ over the whole World God's Vicegerent a Vice-God Peter's Successor the Head and Center of Vnity unto the whole Catholick Church endued with a plenitude of Power with other Ascriptions of the same nature innumerable whereon it is necessary unto every Soul under pain of Damnation to be subject unto him Others aver that he is Antichrist the Man of Sin the Son of Perdition the Beast that came out of the Earth with two Horns like a Lamb and a Voice like the Dragon the false Prophet the Idol Shepherd the evil Servant that beateth his fellow-Servants the Adulterer of a Meretricious and false Church and there is no Mean betwixt these He is undoubtedly the One or the Other The Lord Jesus Christ who hath determined this Controversie already in his Word will ere long give it its ultimate Issue in his own glorious Person and by the brightness of his coming And this is an eminent Idol in the Chamber of Imagery in the Roman Church But at present it is evident wherein lies the preservation of Believers from being inveagled to bow down to this Image and to worship it A due sence of the sole Authority of Christ in and over his Church with an experience of the power of his Word and Spirit unto all the Ends of its Rule and Order will keep them unto the Truth herein and nothing else will so do And if once they decline from this in any Instances seem they never so small so as to admit of any thing in the Church or its Worship which doth not derive immediately from his Authority they will be disposed to admit of another Guide and Head in all other things also SECT V. Again it is a Notion of Truth That the Church of Christ is beautiful and glorious There are many Prophesies and Predictions concerning it that so it should be and there are sundry descriptions given of it as such It s Relation unto Christ with his Love unto it and valuation of it do require that it should be so glorious yea his great Design towards it was to make it so to be Eph. 5.25 26 27. This therefore all do agree in who profess Christian Religion but what that Glory is and wherein it doth consist whence it is and is said to be glorious is not agreed upon The Scripture indeed plainly declares this Glory to be Spiritual and internal that it consists in its Union unto Christ his presence with it the communication of his quickning Spirit unto it the cloathing of it with his Righteousness in its Sanctification and Purification from the defilement of Sin with its fruitfulness in Obedience unto
of Jesus Christ THE CVRE of MELANCHOLY AND OVERMUCH-SORROW BY FAITH and PHYSICK Quest What are the best Preservatives against Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow SERMON XI 2 COR. II. VII Lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow THe Brevity of a Sermon not allowing me Time for any unnecessary Work I shall not stay to open the Context nor to enquire whether the Person here spoken of be the same that is condemned for Incest in 1 Cor 5. or some other nor whether Chrysostom had good Tradition for it that it was a Doctor of the Church or made such after his Sin nor whether the late Expositor be in the right who thence gathers that he was one of the Bishops of Achaia and that it was a Synod of Bishops that were to excommunicate him Dr. Hammond who yet held that every Congregation then had a Bishop and that he was to be excommunicated in the Congregation and that the People should not have followed or favoured such a Teacher It would have been no Schism or sinful Separation to have forsaken him All that I now intend is to open this last Clause of the Verse which gives the Reason why the censured Sinner being penitent should be forgiven and comforted viz. Lest he should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow as it includeth these three Doctrines which I shall handle all together viz 1. That Sorrow even for Sin may be overmuch 2. That overmuch Sorrow swalloweth one up 3. Therefore it must be resisted and asswaged by necessary Comfort both by others and by our selves In handling these I shall observe this Order 1. I shall shew you when Sorrow is overmuch 2. How overmuch Sorrow doth swallow a man up 3. What are the Causes of it 4. What is the Cure I. It is too notorious that overmuch Sorrow for Sin is not the ordinary Case of the World A stupid blockish Disposition is the common Cause of mens perdition The Plague of a hard Heart and seared Conscience keeps most from all due sense of Sin or Danger or Misery and of all the great and everlasting Concerns of their guilty Souls A dead sleep in sin doth deprive most of the use of Sense and Understanding they do some of the outward Acts of Religion as in a Dream they are vowed to God in Baptism by others and they profess to stand to it themselves they go to Church and say over the Words of the Creed and Lords Prayer and Commandments they receive the Lords Supper and all as in a Dream They take on them to believe that Sin is the most hateful thing to God and hurtful to man and yet they live in it with delight and obstinacy they dream that they repent of it when no perswasion will draw them to forsake it and while they hate them that would cure them and will not be as bad and mad as they who feel in them any effectual sorrow for what is past or effectual sense of their present badness or effectual resolution for a new and holy Life They dream that there is a Judgment a Heaven and a Hell but would they not be more affected with things of such unspeakable Consequence if they were awake would they be wholly taken up with the Matters of the Flesh and World and scarce have a serious thought or word of Eternity if they were awake O how sleepily and senselesly do they think and talk and hear of the great Work of mans Redemption by Christ and of the need of Justifying and Sanctifying Grace and of the Joys and Miseries of the next Life and yet they say that they believe them When we preach or talk to them of the greatest things with the greatest evidence and plainness and earnestness that we can we speak as to the dead or to men asleep they have Ears and hear not nothing goeth to their hearts One would think that a man that reads â—n Scripture and believes the everlasting Glory offered and the dreadful punishment threatned and the necessity of Holiness to Salvation and of a Saviour to deliver us from Sin and Hell and how sure and near such a passage into the unseen world is to us all should have much ado to moderate and bear the sense of such overwhelming things But most men so little regard or feel them that they have neither time nor heart to think of them as their Concern but hear of them as of some foreign Land where they have no interest and which they never think to see Yea one would think by their senseless neglect of preparation and their worldly minds and lives that they were asleep or in jest when they confess that they must die and that when they lay their Friends in the Grave and see the Skulls and Bones cast up they were but all this while in a Dream or did not believe that their Turn is near Could we tell how to waken Sinners they would come to themselves and have other thoughts of these great things and shew it quickly by another kind of Life Awakened Reason could never be so befooled and besotted as we see the wicked world to be But God hath an awakening day for all and he will make the most senseless soul to feel by Grace or Punishment And because a hardned Heart is so great a part of the Malady and Misery of the unregenerate and a soft and tender Heart is much of the New Nature promised by Christ many awakened Souls under the work of Conversion think they can never have Sorrow enough and that their danger lies in hard-heartedness and they never fear overmuch sorrow till it hath swallowed them up yea though there be too much of other Causes in it yet if any of it be for sin they then cherish it as a necessary Duty or at least perceive not the danger of Excess and some think those to be the best Christians who are most in doubts and fears and sorrows and speak almost nothing but uncomfortable Complaints but this is a great mistake 1. Sorrow is overmuch when it is fed by a mistaken Cause All is too much where none is due and great sorrow is too much when the Cause requireth but less If a man thinketh that somewhat is a Duty which is no Duty and then sorrow for omitting it such sorrow is all too much because it is undue and caused by errour Many I have known that have been greatly troubled because they could not bring themselves to that length or order of meditation for which they had neither Ability nor Time And many because they could not reprove sin in others when prudent instruction and intimation was more suitable than reproof And many are troubled because in their Shops and Callings they think of any thing but God as if our outward Business must have no thoughts Superstition always breeds such sorrows when men make themselves Religious Duties which God never made them and then come short in the performance of
Mat. 12.35 The good man out of the good Treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things And you may commonly know what treasure is within by what is brought out As if you go among vain or wordly men their foolish carnal and worldly discourse plainly shews what Treasure they have within So the wise religious and godly communication that good men entertain you with doth evidence what is laid up in their memories as he that hath nothing but farthings in his Pocket can produce nothing from them but Brass but he that hath all Guineys there brings forth Gold 5. By fitting things laid up in memory for use and practice which is plainly the work of God by his Grace For a notional memory is of little use without a practical As Treasure in a Chest is no way so useful though there be much of it as a penny in the Purse when there is occasion for it The Fringes that were appointed to the Children of Israel Numb 15.39 40. Were to this end that ye may look upon it and remember all the Commandments of the Lord and do them And that everlasting Mercy of God is promised Psal 103.18 To those that remember his Commandments to do them And certainly they why commit things to their memories on this design to practice them shall be able to remember them when they have need of them in the course of their practice And thus the Memory is by sanctifying grace restored which is the fourth Point V. I come in the fifth placâ— â—o shew the Ordinary Impediments of a good memory or the Causes of a bad one which as ever you desire better memories you must beware and seriously strive against And they are these 1. A weak or dark Vnderstanding Such indeed may have a great sensitive memory as we see in Children yea in some brute Creatures but a sound rational memory they cannot have for except a thing be clearly known it can never be clearly remembred If reason be weak and the mind be poor what can the memory be stored with but from the senses And you shall observe that your ignorant people commonly have the worst memories especially of spiritual matters Mat. 13 19. When any one heareth the Word of the Kingdom and understandeth it not then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sowr in his heart Words will be remembred to little purpose when things are not understood And therefore labour for more knowledg and a clearer understanding Beg it of God and according to your capacities use all means to increase it 2. A Carnal careless Heart that is mindless of good things for those things which we little heed we never remember Vt impressio fortior ita memoria tenacior Holdsw Lect. p. 231. According to the impression on the heart is the Retention in the memory Such an heart as this can retain abundance of a Play or a Song but of a Chapter or Sermon next to nothing for every thing keeps what is connatural to its self Nay a good mans memory in a remiss negligent frame quite differs from what it was in a religious frame and some Scriptures which were utterly insignificant to him at one time read and heard and forgotten have bin quite new to him at another when his heart hath bin rightly disposed As you know wax when it is hard receives no impression while it is so but soften the same wax and then it receives it and nothing can be retain'd in the memory if it be not first reâ—eived by the memory And therefore many of you that complain of your bad memories have more reason to lament your old dead and hard hearts and to be restless till they be renewed 3. A Darling Sin Any bosom Sin as it fills and imploys every faculty so it debauches monopolizes and disorders them all Grace though it rule every Family yet ruffles none it composes the mind and imploys the memory in a rational manner It rules like a just King orderly but the serving of any lust breeds a civil war between one faculty and another and that distracts the whole Soul whereby every power thereof is weakned And particularly the memory being prest to serve the stronger side is so stuffed with the concerns of that tyrant lust that it cannot intend any spiritual matter And therefore whatever right eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee Mat. 5 29. or else thy memory will never be â—ured A Table-book that is written and blotted all over must be wip'd before you can write any new matter upon it and so must the lines of thy darling Sin be effaced by real mortification before any good things will abide legible in thy memory 4. Excess of â—oâ—ldly cares is destructâ—â—â— to the memory Our Saviour hath plainly told us that no man can serve God and Mammon The memory is but finite though capacious and a superabundance of wordly thoughts within must needs shoulder out better things that should be thâ—re Especially these thoughts being more natural to our depraved hearts and arising from sensible things will so stuff the memory that there is no room for spiritual matters Hereupon we find that young persons that have few wordly cares have better memories than others Qui magis reminiscirentur quam pueruli ut recentiores animae ut nondum immersae domesticis publicis curis Tertull. de Anima cap. 24. as some of the Ancients observe More especially when such cares and thoughts crowd in just after we have been Reading or Hearing Gods Word Mat. 13 22. He also that received seed among thorns is hâ— that heareth the Word and the care of this world and the â—eceitfulness of riches choke the Word and he becometh unfruitful And therefore if you would heal your memories moderate your eares considering that immoderate care or labour is justly blessed or cursed of God so that it doth no man any real good you would not overload a Beast why will you overload your own Spirits particularly be sure that if possibly you can you settle and digest your spiritual matters in your mind after Reading and Hearing before they be disordered and confounded with worldly cares 5. Surfeiting and Drunkenness are great enemies to the Memory These do each of them infallibly disorder the brain and disable it from its functions Excess of meat doth this more insensibly but yet really a full belly seldom hath a clear head but that of drink is most evident Prov. 31 4 5. It is not for Kings ô Lemuel it is not for Kings to drink Wine nor for Princes strong drink that is in excess lest they drink and forget the Law It s plain that a drunken man forgets what he said and did and too many sad instances are apparent of many that have drunk away not only their Estates their Health their Credit but their very Souls and bâ—â—ins and all and are grown very sotts for Hos 4 11. Whoredom and Wine and
obstruct this work of Regeneration that either of the other Extreams have 2. Another Requisite to our eternal happiness is a progress in this way of Life by maintaining an holy and heavenly conversation God hath said let who will or dare contradict it Heb. 12.14 Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. This Holiness of heart and Life consists in our fiducial dependance upon Gods Promises and in a sincere and hearty respect to all Gods Precepts in the making the Word of God our Rule and the Glory of God with the Salvation of our Souls our main and ultimate end and this in the whole course of our Lives and Conversations This is that Trade of Godliness in which we must be exercising our selves whilst we live if we design to be really happy when we die Now a middle worldly Condition considering our present Case is the most advantageous and hath the fewest hinderances for our driving on with success this Trade 1. A man under the Extream of Poverty destitute of necessary Provisions for the supply of this Life and yet suppose him a godly man Psal 37.25 such a Supposition may be made though David tells us I have been young and now am old yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his Seed begging Bread From whence some though I judge upon a mistake would conclude that extream Poverty so as to be reduced to Beggery is a Condition that God never exposes his Children to But thus to say would doubtless be a condemning of the generation of the righteous one thing which God abhors some of whom in all Ages have been brought to such great straights that they have been necessitated to beg or starve And we read of some that were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 11.37 destitute afflicted tormented of whom yet the world was not worthy So that I rather approve of that Sence of the foregoing Text which confines it either to Davids Experience in his time or rather to lay the Emphasis of the Matter upon the Word forsaken When Paul gives us a Catalogue of his Distresses he puts in this as an alleviation of his Troubles 2 Cor. 4.9 Psal 37.24 Persecuted but not forsaken which Sence also sutes best with the Context Though he fall he shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand Now supposing a Child of God under the Extream of Poverty though de jure this ought not yet de facto it does prove very prejudicial to this Trade of Godliness and this many times several ways sometimes it does necessitate them to absent themselves from those outward means and those Soul quickning Opportunities which others enjoy whereby their hearts might be kept up warm and lively for God Are there not many at this day whilst you can spare so much time as to come hither in a morning to gather up this heavenly Manna that falls at your doors who are forced poor hearts to be hard at their Labours and that to get Necessaries for themselves and Families Sometimes though that is sad I confess are they overpowered by temptations to use indirect means for the relieving their wants which upon a review make sad work in their Consciences and set them many degrees back in the way of holiness Sometimes they are so dispirited with the weight of their Burdens that they are almost totally uncapable of doing any thing in their general or particular Callings not knowing how to pray nor how to work Oh the Temptations that such poor Souls are under to Distrust to Murmuring and Repining to Unthankfulness and Discontent every of which are very prejudicial to the life of Holiness 2. Consider the other extream riches Suppose a man to be great and in the main good and godly too a rarity but withal a singular blessing to the ages and places in which they live alass how difficult is it for such to thrive in Godliness when they are under the bright rays of worldly prosperity do we not too often sind that riches prove to a godly man what the Ivy doth to the Oak which indeed may seem to adorn it and set it forth more speciously to the eye of the beholder but sucks out that sap and nourishment that should feed and nourish the tree and if not timely look'd to may endanger its life few if any have been the better for their being rich but too many have been the worse What Temptations are such daily encountering with to carnal pleasure and sensuality to sloth and fleshly ease to pride and ambition all which so far as they are indulged prove to the detriment of serious religion how apt are such to be flattered nay even by good men to be cryed up as none such in their age if they speak but now and then a few good words and shew a little countenance to religion when upon a strict view it may be they have very little if any thing at all of the power of godliness which have given occasion to that unhappy saying that a little Religion goes a great way with great men whenas in truth that which might pass for great Religion in persons of an inferior condition should be esteemed but little in those whom God hath fixt in a higher orb and so are under greater Obligations from God and in a greater capacity of bringing more honour unto God 3. Another requisite to our eternal felicity is not only a progress Finis coronat opus Mat. 10.22 Rev. 2.10 Heb. 10.38 but a perseverance in the way of Faith and holiness to the end and that against all Temptations and Oppositions from within or from without he that endureth to the end shall be saved and be thou faithful to the death and I will give thee a Crown of Life again if any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him From all which you may conclude the necessity of Perseverance to salvation Now though a security from final and total Apostacy is the undoubted priviledg of Gods Elect and truly called ones 1 Pet. 1.5 such shall be kept by the power of God through Faith unto salvation yet such may and many times do in an hour of Temptation such an hour as this is in which God hath cast our lot fall fouly to the great dishonour of God and discredit of their profession to the hardening the wicked in their sin and wounding of their own souls and to the interrupting their peace and comfortable Communion with God many Christians may and do fall to the breaking of their bonds and like Eutychus who fâ—ll from the third Loft and was taken up for dead though Paul told them Acts 20.9 10. 1 Sam. 4.18 trouble not your selves for his Life is in him but they shall never fall as Ely did Of whom 't is said he fell backward to the breaking of his neck and the loss of his Life now a middle condition in
Sence and to be rejected as unsound and false as well as absurd and unreasonable II. Merit quoad Justitiam commutativam There are among the Papists a considerable number who assert that there may be a meriting somewhat of God according to the Rules of Commutative Justice That there may be a meriting somewhat of God according to the Rule of Justice we grant for Jesus Christ merited much of God but this Merit was not according to the Rule of Commutative Justice but of Distributive Justice Merit as to Commutative Justice does necessarily include in it the passing of somewhat over unto God unto which God had no Right antecedent unto this Transaction But God is an absolute Lord and Sovereign who has a Right unto all things Jesus Christ himself as Man is Gods Propriety and all that Jesus Christ could give must be considered as Christ's either as he is God or as he is Man Whatever belongs to him as God is God's and as he is Man whatever he has 't is God's for which Reason Jesus Christ himself is not excepted when 't is said by the Apostle Rom. 11.35 Who has first given unto him and it shall be recompensed unto him again Who As if it had been said There is none no not one not Jesus Christ himself could give first unto God could give that unto God unto which God had not antecedently to that Gift a Right that is so to give unto God as to pass over a new Right unto God for which God should be under the Obligation of recompensing it Commutative Righteousness is inconsistent with the absolute Sovereignty and Dominion of God whence it must be acknowledged that either God is not the absolute Sovereign and Lord of the Universe which if not he is not God or there is no such thing as Commutative Righteousness in God and that Christ himself much less Man could not merit of God any thing according to the Rule of Commutative Righteousness That Christ merited according to Distributive Justice is asserted by all sound Protestants and by Vasquez and other Papists yea and that Adam in Innocency according to the tenor of that Law there given him might by rendring the required perfect Obedience have merited the promised Reward i. e. the merit would have been of such efficacy that God could not have remained just and not have given out the reward of Life is also granted But a Merit as to Commutative Justice contains in it an Implication when spoken of God for in plain English 't is to say That the Absolute Sovereign is not Absolute Sovereign However this Notion is embraced by some Papists who do not only â—â—â—y That Commutative Justice is in God but that according to the Rule of Commutative Justice man may merit of God the which is the more absurd as it supposes that man can give that unto God which is of a value proportionable to Eternal Life although Eternal Life as 't is to endure infinitely includes in it somewhat of an infinite Excellency such is the Nature of Commutative Justice as to stick to an Arithmetical proportion in adjusting the Value of things commuted which cannot be by man in this case unless there were somewhat of Infinity in what he gives unto God However notwithstanding the ridiculousness as well as falseness of the Notion there are many among the Papists if we may believe Arriaga who assert it 'T is true Vasquez explodes it with an Essay to evince that the Papists generally reject it but Arriaga a later Jesuit freely rebukes Vasquez affirming that commutative righteousness is in God and may be found to be between God and man and that this is generally received in the Church of Rome for says he This is the Opinion of Suarez Valentia Granadus who introduces Medina and Alvarez to agree with him in this Point Hurtado de Mendoza Ragusa Tannerus and Albertinus and Molina also who though he expresses himself with Caution in one place yet elsewhere doth freely enough own it besides Capreolus and the Thomists generally says Arriaga do agree with him in this and that therefore Vasquez is greatly to be blamed for affirming that so many were of the contrary Opinion whereas this about Merit quoad Justitiam commutativam has many more Authorities than Vasquez could produce for his Sence of it In fine Arriaga corrects Vasquez's Mistake in saying that Hosius and Sotus were against Commutative Righteousness and then proceeds to an Attempt of demonstrating the Truth of this Doctrine By this 't is apparent That if we may believe Arriago the Papists generally assert Merit according to Commutative Justice in which Sence 't is mostly oppugned by the Protestant Writers as a ridiculous Doctrine The which from what has been already suggested has been manifested But seeing this Doctrine contradicts our Reason our Endeavours must not be how to improve it we must immediately reject it as false and unreasonable III. There are some who call themselves Protestants and who seem to be zealous Asserters of Imputed Righteousness who being ignorant of the Gospel-Notion do assert That those very Sins which actually inhered in the Elect did pass from them unto Christ and that the Righteousness of Christ which actually inhered in him passes from him unto the Elect. But this is a Notion as contrary unto our Reasons as that of Transubstantiation it being as impossible that Our Sins or Christ's Righteousness which are Accidents Inhering in Subjects should pass from Us to Christ or from Christ to Us as the Accidents of Bread and Wine should pass from the Substance of Bread and Wine and inhere in Christ's Body These Notions then I reject as False and Contrary unto Reason But there are other Doctrines reveal'd in Scripture which transcend our largest capacities There are I must acknowledg many momentous and important points which though clearly enough reveal'd and in themselves not very hard to be understood yet because either obscurely or after a perplexed manner handled by some are listed among the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which the Apostle Peter makes some mention which by the unlearned are abused to their own hurt even when by the more judicious they are clearly understood and â—eadily embrac'd However 't is as certain that there are other Doctrines which bearing the Characters of infinite Wisdom on 'em are so grand and august that they transcend the most enlarged Understandings Of the Truth of these Doctrines we may be fully assured but yet cannot fully comprehend the whole of 'em we may know enough to raise our admiration but cannot frame any adequate conceptions of them These Doctrines are many and may be distinctly considered either as they have reference more immediately unto the Nature and Being of God his Acts both immanent and transient and consequently the modes of Operation or as they have a special aspect on those profound and mysterious Transactions about the carrying on fall'n mans Salvation in a way adjusted to the Glory of all the
De cult Foem in initio c. Why then dost thou provoke Lust in thy own heart Quid autem alteri periculo sumus c. Why do we endanger the souls of others Qui praesumit minus veretur minus praecavet plus periclitatur timor fundamentum salutis est presumptio impedimentum timoris He that presumes fears little uses little precaution and runs into great danger Fear is the original of security but presumption the enemy to fear I easily grant that there is a great difference between a Cause and an Occasion of evil A Cause is much more than an occasion yet is not the latter so small and light a matter but that many of God's weighty Laws were grounded on this that the Occasion of sin in themselves and others might be avoided The Civil Law determines That if Archers shooting at rovers should kill a man passing on the Road they shall make satisfaction That they who dig Pitfalls to catch wild Beasts if accidentally a man falls into them they shall be punished and that he shall be severely punished that being set to watch a Furnace falls asleep whence a scarefire ariseth But the New Testament is very full We are not to lay a stumbling-block nor an occasion of offence nor to use our liberty in that wherein our weak brother is offended IX Lastly Let us lay it to heart That Pride is the forerunner of destruction whether Personal Domestical or National Prov. 16.18 Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall a Truth so obvious to the observation of Heathens that Seneca could say Quem dies videt veniens superbum Hunc dies vidit fugiens jacentem There is the pride of the rich who boast themselves in the multitude of their Riches there is the pride of the ambitious who swell with Titles and Dignities and there is the childish pride of Women and effeminate Men who glory in Apparel And tho this last may seem below the notice of the Divine Nemesis yet these light and small things draw down great and heavy Judgments What more trifling and ludicrous than those Fopperies mentioned Isa 3.18 The tinkling Ornaments as if they would imitate Morrice-dancers or Hobby-horses their round Tires like the Moon an Embleme of their lunacy and levity The Nose-Jewels very uncomely sure in such Epicurean Swine And tho many of them seem to be innocent as Bonnets Ear-Rings and Mantles yet God threatens v. 24. That instead of sweet smells there shall be a stink instead of a girdle a rent instead of well-set hair baldness and burning instead of beauty All which threatnings were punctually accomplisht in the Babylonish Captivity whither God sent them to spare the cost and trouble of fetching home their new Fashions their strange Apparel Archbishop Usher and Mr. Bolton Two great Lights of our Church have long since forewan'd us That God would punish England by that Nation which we were so ambitious to imitate in their Fashions of Apparel And how much is the ground of fear encreased since their days The Plague is never more easily convey'd than in cloaths And it 's to be feared that with their strange Apish Fashions we have imported their vitious Manners if not their Idolatries The Degeneracy of the Romans in this Point prognosticated their declining greatness And there 's no more easie observation than that when a People cease to be great in generous and noble Atchievements they begin to affect this Trim way of glory by Apparel But I must conclude The Use and Application must be your own This Sermon will never be compleat till you have preach'd it over to your Souls by Meditation and to the World by a thorough Reformation And if you slight this advice and counsel yet rememer the Text however That God in the day of his sacrifice will punish all such as are cloathed with strange Apparel Quest How may Child-bearing Women be most encouraged and supported against in and under the hazard of their Travail SERMON XXII 1 Tim. II. 15. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in child-bearing if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety THAT I may with all Christian tenderness give a satisfactory Answer to that Practical Case of Concernment to be resolv'd for the sake of fruitful pious Wives whose manifold sorrows call for the best aids viz. How may Child-bearing Women be most encouraged and supported against in and under the hazard of their Travail I shall by Gods assistance according as I am able with some respect to the time allottel for this Exercise open and apply this notable Text I have read to you To find out the true importance of which words it will be requisite to cast an eye upon the foregoing part of the Chapter wherein the Apostle exhorteth all Christians to pray for persons of all Ranks a Ver. 1 2 8. and particularly Christian Women to practise answerable to their profession of godliness b Ver. 9 10. instructing them about their deportment in Church Assemblies and at home both in reference to their habits that they be modest without excess in their Apparel and Dress and to their Actions which they are 1. injoyned viz. to hear with silence and subjection 2. forbidden viz. to teach because that were to usurp authority over the man c Ver. 12. which the womans posteriority in the creation d Ver. 13. and priority in the transgression e Ver. 14. doth not allow of but on the contrary brings Her by whom her Husband was deceived into subjection and Child-bearing sorrow with the Fruit of her Womb. For tho Adam was first formed Eve first sinned and so infested all with Original sin However as one notes f Testard de Nat. Gratia Thes 20. the Opposition is not to be consider'd of the Thing but in respect of the Order that the sense might be Adam was not first seduced but the Woman agreeing with the scope foregoing Yet that the Female Sex at home may not despond under the sense of that suffering which Eves forwardness to sin had more especially brought upon them the Apostle here in these heartning words prepares a most sweet and strengthning spiritual Cordial for the chearing up of all good Women and the clearing of their eyes from fumes in fainting fits And therein it eminently concerns Child-bearing ones to copy out the most approv'd Receipt in the comfortable Expressions of the Gentile Doctor That tho they breed and bear children with much trouble which may argue God's displeasure in his Sentence and is indeed a consequent of the first sin which they are very sensible of in the Antecedents Concomitants and Consequents of their sore Labour that may as it sometimes hath done in Rachael and Phineas his Wife c. bring their bodies or their Babes if not both to the Grave yet the Pains shall be sanctified and be no obstacle to their welfare their souls shall be safely deliver'd The
life that she may present her body a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is her reasonable service and so by universal obedience prove what is that good and acceptable will of God n Rom. 12.1 2. in the prevailing desires of her soul to please God who hath called her into a conjugal Relation and enabled her therein to conceive and so in her proper Office to serve her own generation by the will of God o Acts 13.36 waiting upon him with chearfulness in filling up her Relation to give her in due time an holy seed for his glory and the enlargement of his Church as holy Mrs. Joceline above mentioned earnestly desired of God that she might be a mother to one of his children * Mothers Legacy p. 1. Then 2. To submit to the effecting and disposing will of God who works all things according to the counsel of his own will p Eph. 1.11 in preparing for death not to neglect but make ready for so great salvation as is purchas'd by Christ and offered in the rich and precious promises q Heb. 2.3 If all should hearken to the charge our Saviour gives to his own Disciples r Mat. 24.44 Therefore be ye also ready then it eminently concerns a big-belli'd woman to be in a readiness for her departure that she may not be surpriz'd sith the pangs are perilous that she is to pass through and the more if she be but of a weak and not of an hail constitution * Mrs. Joceline The last mentioned pious Gentlewoman when she felt her self quick with child as then travailing with Death it self she secretly took order for the buying a new Winding-sheet thus preparing and consecrating her self to him who rested in a new Sepulcher wherein was man never yet laid and privately in her Closet looking Death in the Face wrote her excellent Legacy to her unborn child None ever repented of making ready to die And every Christian is ready who can entirely submit to Gods disposal in Life or Death Yea and then a good woman is likest to have her will in a safe temporal deliverance when she is most sincerely willing that God should have his in dealing with her as seemeth best to himself When the Yoke of Christ is easie and his Burden is light then is the good Wife in the fairest way to be most easily delivered of the burden of her belly so that she shall have the truest joys afterwards Thus of Holiness considered more generally and how the child-bearing Wife is concern'd to exercise it 2. Holiness may be considered more specially as it is conjugal and more peculiarly appropriated to the marriage-state This being a more particular exercise of Christian holiness in the Matrimonial band wherein as every one both Husband and Wife in that Relation are concerned so the childing-woman is obliged to be singularly careful to possess her Vessel in sanctification or sanctimony and honour Å¿ 1 Thes 4.4 in a special kind of conjugal cleaness and chastness which is opposite to all turpitude and lust of Concupiscence in the very appearance of it that there may be as much as possible no shew or tincture of uncleanness in the Marriage-bed but that there may be an holy seed and she may keep her self pure from any taint of Lasciviousness 'T will chear up in the hour of her Travail if she can sincerely say in the sight of God as it is said in the Apochryphal story * Tobit 3.14 15. Sara the Daughter of Raguel did Thou knowest Lord I am pure from all sin with man and that I never polluted my name nor the name of my father This is the true Eagle-stone to be constantly worn for the prevention of miscarrying that there may not indeed be labouring in vain or bringing forth for trouble but her seed may be the blessing of the Lord and her off-spring with her t Isa 65 23. with 21. who may solace her self in her Integrity and unspotted Reputation having her chast conversation coupled with fear u 1 Pet. 3.2 that all shall issue well with her and the Fruit of her Womb. But this is so much of the same Nature with the last Grace mentioned here in my Text that the Apostle annexeth that to Holiness with 4. Sobriety So we render it others Temperance others Modesty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in our old Translation others Chastity And taking it largely the word seems to speak that gracious habit which may best become a prudent grave temperate moderate or modest Mother of a Family * Beza for that seems to reach the Apostles sense comparing it with what he hath in the 9th Verse of this Chapter and elsewhere w Tit. 2.4 5. Acts 26.25 I might consider this like the former Graces more generally and specially 1. More generally as Christian every one that nameth the name of Christ being under an obligation thereby to depart from iniquity x 2 Tim 2.19 is engag'd to labour after a sound mind y 2 Tim. 1.7 to be modest sober and temperate in all things z Tit. 1.8 and 2.2 4 6. 1 Cor. 9.25 learning to use this world as if we used it not minding that which is comely and attending upon the Lord without distraction a 1 Cor. 1.31 35. Yea we should let our moderation be known unto all men as those that are Christ's who have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts b Phil. 4.5 Gal. 5.24 Certainly then a Christian Wife and that in a child-bearing condition is concern'd to seek that she may be endew'd with Sobriety which purgeth the Mind from Distempers and putteth the affections into an orderly frame acceptable to God and so doth morally give the best ensurance to the promises of temporal and eternal safety But more particularly 2. The special conjugal Grace of Temperance and Modesty is to be exercised by the child-bearing woman in sobriety chastity and gracefulness both with reference to her affections and senses I have warrant from the Apostle as well as the Philosophers * Wallaei Eâ—hic â— Arist l. 4. to take the word so largely as to comprehend both Modesty and Temperance Whereupon I conclude 1. With modesty she is to govern her passions and affections so that there may be only an humble appetition of due respect and an abstinence from those unbecoming An holy care as to avoid pride on one hand so ignominy and contempt on the other as well as to give check to boldness and indecency in her gesture speech and behaviour as to lightness and wantonness in any of these So that she may by a graceful deportment as much as she can in minding things venerable just pure lovely and of good report c Phil. 4.8 not with the outward adornings of plaiting the hair and of wearing gold or of putting on of apparel d 1 Pet. 3.3 shew her self to be a vertuous
5.3 His Vineyard were themselves in a Figure and God is willing the case should be referred to their own determination if they would give themselves time and leisure to think of it So Amos 2.11 Is it not even thus O ye Children of Israel saith the Lord as if God had said I call your own Consciences to witness and let them but speak they will testifie both my Mercies to you and your sins against me or as elsewhere Ezek. 18.25 Are not my wayes equal and your wayes unequal And oh that men would consider how self-condemned they must needs be for all their sins against God and all their neglects of Salvation and disregards of their Souls their sins usually go thus beforehand unto Judgment and men cannot but condemn themselves who can think but that a humble useful temperate pious Life is far better than a proud useless luxurious and prophane Conversation Would we but shew our selves men in the concerns of our Souls as we do in those of our Bodies or Estates acting with that caution and concern in the one as we do in the other what a vast change should we soon discover for all Gods Commandments are for our good and his ways are pleasantness would we but seriously view and consider them Howsoever this is that which will make the Worm to gnaw and the fire to burn the ungodly in the other World in that they have sinn'd against those notices of good and evil which they had or might have had and in that they have put no difference between their vile bodies and their precious Souls whereas our Saviour here appeals to them concerning the worth of their Souls and the worthlesness of all things comparatively besides 2. From the form or manner of expression here used by way of a positive interrogation or Expostulation What is a man profited or what shall a man give We observe that the Negation is intended to be more vehement It being usual not only in Scripture but in common speech by a positive question vehemently to deny as by a negative question vehemently to affirm any thing as by these Scriptures before quoted Amos 2.11 18. Ezek. 25. amongst many other places may appear so that the sense of these words amounts to this 1. It is most evident and undeniable that if any man could gain the whole World not that such a thing was ever done or is indeed possible but upon that supposition he would be a vast loser by it if he lost his Soul for it Because 2. There is nothing of worth or value sufficient to exchange for a Soul with all Now this Text is as it were a ballance or pair of Scales in which the Commodities therein spoken of are weighed 1. In the one Scale is layd the whole world 1 Jo. 2.16 here you may take in the lust of the Flesh the lust of the Eye and the Pride of Life or whatsoever serves for Pleasure Gain or Honour the worldly man's Trinity Abate nothing make good weight more than was ever weighed out to any one but supposed or granted only for Arguments sake Yet here is a Mene Mene writ against it it is weighed and found too light It is touched and found under value 2. In the other Scale only a single Soul is put yours or mine and that doth so far praeponderate and outweigh or outvie the whole World as that there is no comparison betwixt them nothing is of value to be given or taken in Exchange for any of them As to the former of these the World and the Glory of it Our present purpose is to take no further notice of it Sic transit gloria mundi The Moon is not worth the looking after whilst the Sun appears nor all these fading changeable things when the Soul comes under consideration Gal. 6.14 It is now expected that the World should be crucified to us and we to the World and then only we shall be able to hear i. e. to understand what our Saviour here says concerning our Souls which being my intended Subject I shall take occasion from his words to speak to these following Particulars 1. What is meant by the Soul here spoken of 2. What this Soul here spoken of is 3. In what more particularly the worth of this Soul does appear As to the first of these viz. 1. What is meant by the Soul What is meant by a Soul in the Text To mention no other acceptions of the word than such as may be accommodated to this place and our present purpose 1. Soul or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word here used is put for Life by a Metonymy of the Efficient for the Effect because our Life depends upon the Soul thus Matth. 6.25 take no thought for your Lives when the same word is used which is here translated Soul which well considered will give a great light into the meaning of this place For these words are looked upon as a proverbial Speech taken out of Job 2.4 All that a man hath will he give for his Life As if our Saviour had from thence inferr'd if a man being in an apparent danger of a corporal Death would give any thing or do any thing to prolong or redeem his Life how much more should a man do or part with to prevent an Eternal Death or to procure an Everlasting Life 2. The word Soul is put for the Whole Man Synecdoche Partis frequently in Scripture thus Gen. 46.26 The number of Persons that came with Jacob into Egypt are reckon'd by so many Souls as also Act. 2.41 They that were Converted by St. Peter's Sermon are counted three thousand Souls This if considered furthers our present purpose and must needs add to our esteem of our Souls for the Soul is the Man Our Souls are our selves and what by this Evangelist our Saviour calls losing of the Soul in Luk. 9.25 That Evangelist relating the same thing calls losing of our selves The Body is but the House or Cabinet the Soul is the Jewel in it the Body is but the cloathing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Soul for a while is cloathed with and must put off 3. This word Soul is taken most properly and strictly for the Form constituent and better part of Man that Breath that is breathed into him from God Gen. 2.7 when Man becomes a Living Soul And in this acception we shall take this word here in our following Discourse and are come to enquire what it is 2. What this Soul is But we shall not be throughly able to satisfie our inquiry for being all our knowledge ariseth from our Sences and there is nothing in our Understanding which was not first in one of them Our Souls not incurring into our Senses Our understanding is at a loss to frame any adaequate conceptions of them There are three things reckoned amongst the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such things as cannot be known and by consequence be defined and they are
cured Would you take Pleasure in his witty sayings and be jested into your Grave Or if you go unto a Lawyer about your whole Estate though it were in Leases that will expire would you choose one that you think did not care whether you win or lose your cause Would you be pleased with some witty sayings impertinent to the pleading of your cause Would you not say Sir I am in danger of losing all I am worth my Estate lyes at stake deal plainly with me and be serious in your undertaking for me and tell me in words that I can understand the plain Law by which my case must be tryed And will you be more careful about the Temporal Life of a Body that must dy and about a Temporal Estate which you must leave when you dy and not about your Soul that must ever live and never dye No! not so much as to set your selves under faithful Preachers that shall in words that you can understand plainly tell you the Laws of Christ by which you must be tryed for your Life and according to them be Eternally damned or saved 11. Such an Eyeing of Eternity would make you serious and lively in all your spiritual duties in all your approaches unto God If you have no Grace the serious thoughts of the unseen Eternal World would stir you up to beg and cry and call for it if you have to desire more and to exercise what you have to confess your sins with such contrite broken penitent hearts as though you saw the fire burning which by your sins you have deserved to be cast into To beg for Christ and Sanctifying Grace and pardoning Mercy with that lively Importunity as if you saw the Lake of boiling Brimstone into which you must be cast if you be not sanctifyed and pardoned to hear the Word of God that sets this Eternal World before you with that diligent attention as Men hearkning for their Lives to commemorate the Death of Christ with such life while you are at the Lords Supper while you do as it were see the Torments you are delivered from and the Eternal Happiness by Faith in a crucifyed Christ you have a Title to it will cause a fire and flame of Love in your Hearts to that Lord that dyed for you ardent desires after him complacential delight in him thankfulness hope of Heaven hatred to sin resolution to live to or dye for him that dyed for you If your Hearts are dead and dull and out of frame go and look into the unseen Eternal World take a believing view of Everlasting Joyes and Torments on the other side of time and you shall feel warmth and heat and lively actings to be produced in you Particularly this Eyeing of Eternity would make Ministers sensible of the weightiness of their work that it calls for all possible diligence and care our utmost serious study and endeavours our fervent Cryes and Prayers to God for ability for the better management of our work and for success therein for as much as our imployment is more Immediately about Eternal matters to save under Christ Eternal Souls from Eternal Torments and to bring them to Eternal Joyes When we are to Preach to people that must live for ever in Heaven or Hell with God or Devils and our very Preaching is the means appointed by God to fit men for an Everlasting state when we stand and view some Hundreds of Persons before us and think all these are going to Eternity now we see them and they see us but after a little while they shall see us no more in our Pulpits nor we them in their Pews nor in any other place in this World but we and they must go down unto the Grave and into an Everlasting World when we think it may be some of these are hearing their last Sermon making their last publique Prayers keeping their last Sabbath and before we come to Preach again might be gone into another World if we had but a firm belief of Eternity our selves and a real lively sense of the mortality of their Bodies and our own and the Immortality of the Souls of both of the Eternity of the Joy or Torment we must all be quickly in how pathetically should we plead with them plentifully weep over them fervently pray for them that our words or rather the word of the Eternal God might have Effectual Operation on their Hearts This Eyeing of Eternity should 1. Influence us to be painful and diligent in our studies to prepare a message of such weight as we come about when we are to Preach to men about Everlasting matters to set before them the Eternal Torments of Hell and the Eternal Joyes of Heaven Especially when we consider how hard a thing it is to perswade Men to leave their sins which do endanger their Immortal Souls when if we do not prevail with them to hearken to our message and obey it speedily and sincerely they are lost Eternally when it is so hard to prevail with men to accept of Christ the only and Eternal Saviour on the conditions of the Gospel You might easily see that Idleness either in young Students that are designed for this work or in Ministers actually engaged in it is an intolerable sin and worse in them than in any men under Heaven Idleness in a Shop-keeper is a sin but much more in a Minister in a Trader much more in a Preacher bear with me if I tell you an Idle Cobler that is to mend mens Shooes is not to be approved but an Idle Preacher that is to mend mens Hearts and save their Souls shall be condemned by God and Men for he lives in dayly disobedience of that charge of God 1 Tim. 4.13 Give attendance to reading to exhortation to doctrine 15. Meditate upon these things give thy self wholly to them 16 continue in them 2. It would provoke us to be faithful in delivering the whole counsel of God and not to daub with untempered mortar not to flatter them in their sin or to be afraid to tell them of their evils least we should displease them or offend them Is it time to sooth men up in their Ignorance in their neglect of duty when we see them at the very door of Eternity on the very borders of an Everlasting World and this the fruit that they shall dye in their sins and their Blood be required at our hands Ezek. 33.1 to 10. but so to Preach and discharge the Ministerial Function that when dying might be able to say as Act. 20.25 And now behold I know that ye all among whom I have gone preaching the Kingdom of God shall see my face no more 26. Wherefore I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men 27. For I have not shunned to declare to you all the counsel of God 3. To be plain in our speech that every capacity of the weakest in the Congregation that hath an Eternal Soul that
without any mixture of the contrary Quest Why is God called Light without Darkness And what is this Light I Answer 1. Wisdom is Light and Folly is Darkness 2. Knowledge is Light and Ignorance is Darkness 3. Truth is Light and Error is Darkness 4. Holiness is Light and Sin and Wickedness are Darkness So that when he saith that God is Light he means that God is Wisdom without mixture of Folly Knowledge without Ignorance or Nescience Truth without any Error or any false Conceptions in his Eternal Mind and Holiness without the least mixture of Sin so that the way to have Fellowship with God is to walk in the Light that is to say to walk in Wisdom and not as Fools to walk according to Knowledge and not in Ignorance to walk in the Truth and not in Errour to walk in the way of Holiness and not of Sin and Wickedness Now Light in men it is either Natural or Supernatural 1. Natural which is either the Light of the Body which is the Eye Matth. 6.26 Or 2. The Light of the Soul which is the Light of Reason and Natural Conscience this we are to walk in according to the utmost Sphere and extent thereof But Supernatural Light that shines from Supernatural Revelation in the Scriptures and the inlightning Spirit of God in the Souls of Men is the Light here meant in the Text and which Christians should walk in Now this is the way to have Fellowship and Communion with God as the Text saith If we walk in the Light as he is in the Light we have Fellowship one with another Now by one with another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some say the Apostle means the Saints to whom he writes we and ye shall have Fellowship together we Apostles and ye Believers And the Vulgar Latine carries it that way and renders it ad invicem But we must rather understand that the Apostle here speaks of the Fellowship that God hath with his People and they with him And so Beza understands it mutuam habemus cum eo communionem An Ancient Greek Manuscript hath in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with him that is God and we shall have Fellowship with one another And the rather we are to understand it in this sense for the Apostle he is not speaking here of the Communion which the Saints have with one another but of our Communion and Fellowship with God as in the sixth verse If we say we have Fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth And then he adds but if we walk in the Light as he is in the Light we have Fellowship one with another I shall now proceed to speak to the Subject it self and herein shall discourse of these four Generals I. What this Communion with God is II. Give some Distinctions about it III. Shew how it is to be Attained and Maintained IV. Deduce some Consequences that follow from my whole Discourse concerning it And then conclude with some practical Application General I I. What this Communion with God is The Word in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies common and so it imports something that is common and mutual betwixt God and us as Communion among men imports something mutual on each side so that our Communion with God it is either Active or Passive Active in what passeth from us to God and Passive in what is Communicated from him to us 1. Active on our part which consisteth in the Divine Operations of our Souls towards God when the faculties of the Soul are tending towards him and terminated upon him when the Mind is exercised in the contemplation of him the Will in chusing and embracing him when the Affections are fixt upon him and Center in him when by our Desires we pursue after him by our Love we cleave to him and by Delight we acquiesce and solace our selves in him 2. Passive on Gods part and so our Communion with God consists in our participation of him and in his communicating himself to us and this Communication of God to us in our Communion with him is specially in these three things Light Life and Love 1. In Light I mean the Light of Spiritual Knowledge and Understanding whereby we are inabled to discern Spiritual things Spiritually This is called Gods shining into our Hearts by the Apostle 2. Cor. 4.6 and seeing Light in Gods Light by the Psalmist Psal 36. 2. In Life whereby we are made partakers of the Life of God though in a lower degree and are no longer alienated from the Life of God as the Apostle declared the Gentiles to be Eph. 4. And by this Life of God we must understand that which the Scripture calls Sanctification For Holyness is the Life of God in Man For when God Sanctifies a Man he quickens the Soul that was dead in Sin and makes it partake of the Divine Life or the Life of God and which elsewhere is called a partaking of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 and a renewing Man into the Image of God Col. 3.10 3. In Love God communicates his Love also in the sense and tast of it to the Soul which the Apostle calls The shedding abroad the Love of God in the Heart Rom. 5. So that in this Communion with God we have not only the Theory of his Love in our minds but some taste and experience of it in our Hearts And under this is comprehended all that Peace Joy and Consolation that springs out of this to the Soul and arising from the Communication of the sence of his Love to us The Apostle James expresseth this Communion with God in both the parts of it James 4.8 when he saith Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you And Christ expresseth them both also in these words John 14.23 If a man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him He expresseth the active part of Communion with God by our loving him and keeping his Commandements and the passive part by his own and his Fathers coming to us to make their abode with us The Apostle John expresseth them by our dwelling in God and Gods dwelling in us 1 John 5.16 We dwell in God either by Faith in him whereby we make him the Object of our Trust Confidence and dependance or especially by our Love to him as he there expresseth it He that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God And then Gods dwelling in us is Communion with God in the other part of it consisting in a Communication of himself to us But this Communion with God we must think soberly of it It is not a transformation of the Soul of Man into the Divine Essence and Being as if Man was made God swallowed up into him and lost his own Existence and Being in God Neither is it a mixture of Gods Being with the Being
How long wilt thou forget me Lord for ever How long wilt thou hide thy Face from me How long shall I take counsel in my Soul having Sorrow in my Heart Daily How long shall mine Enemy be Exalted over me Psal 13.1 2. Thus is God said to hide his Face from the House of Jacob Isa 8.17 And thus when Providence treats and uses us in this World and most or all our outwards Comforts and Concerns are so perplext embittered and removed as if our God would hereby tell us That he regards and minds us not and will not be concerned for our outward peace and welfare Then is it that God may be said to hide his Face yet neither is this the thing that is principally intended in my Case 3. By Gods denying and with-holding all probabilities and presages of relief from either Men or Things and all sensible intimations of his own purpose to befriend us Psal 74.9 11. I will shew them the Back and not the Face in the Day of their Calamity Jer. 18.17 And I hid my Face from them and gave them into the hand of their Enemies so fell they all by the Sword Ezek. 39.23 Thus when God withers every helpful Arm defeats all Enterprises towards deliverance and supports and shuts up every Door of Hope and by the whole visible Frame and Posture of second Causes looks towards us and upon us as an angry frowning God Then is he said to hide his Face but this is not what the Case principally respects And therefore 4. God mainly hides his Face when he with-holds those inward sensible tokens of Respects which his Spirit usually affords to Holy Souls Psal 88.14 when he deals with us as if our Souls were utterly or very much despised and neglected by him Thus God tells us that he will no more hide his Face from his People because he had poured out his Spirit upon the House of Israel Ezek. 39.29 This is the Face of God indeed when his Spirit fills our Souls with all its Joys and Graces and his Face is hid indeed when we have no sensible Refreshments and Recruits from that Comforter the Holy Ghost by whom all Correspondencies must be maintained betwixt our God and us and thus our Case mainly intends We find a Man recorded for his Patience crying out wherefore hidest thou thy Face and holdest me for thy Enemy Job 13.24 and when looks God more like an Enemy then when he denies all sensible illapses and recruits of inward Light and Life and Joys Is it not dreadful to have our Sanctuary clusters to relish of no Blessing in them The Dews of Heaven are oft in Holy Services and Doctrines distilled upon us and our Addresses thither have been oft repeated and renewed but where is the Blessing and Success we look for Our Souls we find in our own Apprehensions to be contracted degraded and benummed Corruptions rage and make their rude resistances to all our Sentiments and Convictions Conscience oft quarrels with us and when Gods Rods are on us we sensibly discern great discomposures in our thoughts strange Mutinies and Tumults in our Passions uneasiness in our Spirits and damp upon our Hopes sadness on our Hearts and a strange readiness to resist all that God speaks and doth and how can we imagine that Gods Heart and Face stand toward us Fourthly Trusting in the Lord as his God in such a Case as this takes in abundance and amounts to much and these things it offers to the first observant and considerate glance 1. That the Object be trusty and no otherwise can he be who is God the Lord. 2. That the Act be answerable to the Object for trust is to run paralel with trustiness and 3. That this trusty Object gives us allowance to put trust in him for every one that is able and that would be faithful upon his Promise and Engagement will not Engage to be Responsible for what might otherwise be committed to him and hence this passage is inserted here the Lord his God 4. That he be a Person qualified and acceptable who here attempts to place his trust in the Lord as his God and therefore here he is styled in the Case a Gracious Person Trust then seems to be a compound of Faith and Hope and it is that Repose and Rest which both afford until desire and expectation be accomplished by that God on whom this trust is terminated so that in trust there are 1. A belief and sence of Gods existance and of his gracious Nature Heb. 11.6 Jer. 9.24 Mich. 7.18 for I must believe that there is a God and that he is kind and gracious e're I can trust in him 2. Credit given unto his Word and Promises as things clear sure and great Heb. 4.2 6 17 18. for these are both the ground and test of steady and succesful trust in God 2 Sam. 23.5 Remember thy Word unto thy Servant whereon thou hast caused me to Hope Psal 119.49 what is Gods Ability and Faithfulness to me unless he countenance my trusting in him and encourage me thereto 3. A consequent expectation of those things from him which he engages to perform and give things suitable to exigences and concernment as far as they agree with Gods Promises and Designs Psal 119.76 Ro. 4.18 21. 1 John 5.14 15. For all that God promises and would have us to expect is still with Reference to our wellfare in its subordination to His Glory and the Publick Good and all other Hopes are but extravagant and presumptuous if not reduced and conformed to this Test and Standard 4. An Acquiescence and Repose of Spirit in the thus fixing of this expectation Isa 26.3 4. for confident trust breeds satisfaction and makes Souls Patient and Serene till the thing hoped for and desired be brought to pass Ro. 8.24 25. for all these inward tumults which arise within from pressing Jealousies Griefs Cares and Fears are hereby stilled and all vain Shifts and Props rejected and all committed to and left with God Phil. 1.20 1 Pet. 4.19 2 Tim. 11.12 for here no reservations must be made nor any jealousies bad surmises or suspitions be any way Cherished or Indulged The Case explained and summed up is plainly this How may a Gracious Person one Sanctifyed and Inprincipled by Grace from whom God hides his Face gives him but little or no inward sence nor outward sensible notices of his wonted acceptance and regards trust in the Lord quiet and satisfie himself with expectations of Gods Gracious acceptance of him complacence in him and regards towards him as his God that God to whom he hath committed all and is devoted to and who will certainly regard and bless him as his true Favourite and as one by Grace in Covenant with him And how may he do it so as to abandon all disturbing Shifts and Cares elsewhere Direct I. Let him retire into himself and there Compose his Thoughts for close and serious Work Psal 4.4 77 6.
instead of humbling them he hath a more comfortable message put into his mouth some glad tidings to ballance the evil Saints sometimes tremble at those truths in which others are most concerned and wicked Men that should most fear them least regard them This verse therefore brings a Cordial for the Saints as the four former did a bitter Dose for the ungodly among them A gracious promise we have here of a remnant to be left in the midst of and after the dismal calamities before threatned But yet in it shall be a tenth c. In it In the Land mentioned verse 11 12. A tenth A definite number for an indefinite a tenth i. e. a small remnant a few in comparison of the whole Body of the Inhabitants It was a severe punishment among the Romans when for some great miscarriages in their Armies they would decimate the offending Legions put every tenth Man to Death But here is a more sormidable severity when God would destroy nine parts and save onely a tenth they that were cut off should be far more than they that were delivered It shall return and be eaten Either as some return from its Captivity and be Inhabited again and fed upon again Or as others it shall be eaten i. e. consumed or removed or burnt the Hebrew Word will bear any of these Interpretations Returning then must signifie by an usual Hebraism the Iteration of the thing mentioned the Repetition of the Judgment and so to return and be eaten is to be eaten again or consumed again which here must be understood of the remaining tenth If we take it in this sence it is not unlike that of Zack 13.8 9. where two Parts are to be cut off and die and the third to be left and then that third Part is to be brought through the fire If we thus understand the words the former part of the verse is rather a threatning than a promise which yet I conceive the whole to be and so it is if we take this clause in the former sence As a Teil-Tree and as an Oak whose substance is in them What the Trees here mentioned are whether the same with those that are so called with us or any other peculiar to those Countries as expositors are not agreed so we are not much concerned to enquire It is more material to see what is meant by Substance and their Substance being in them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word here rendred Substance is translated by some statio locatio standing or placing agreeably to the Root from whence it is derived by some statumen Pagn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tremel Mercer by others it is taken for the Trunk of the Tree or as our Margin the Stock or Stem The word is sometimes taken for a Statue or standing Image sometimes for a Pillar so Gen. 35.20 the Pillar of Rachels Grave and Absaloms Pillar 2 Sam. 18.18 I take it in the second translation for the Stock or Body of the Tree which yet is not much different from the last the Trunk or upright part of a Tree being that which most resembles a Statue or Pillar Whose Substance is in it whose Stock or Trunk is in the Tree remains to it still abides and continues and so it is opposed to that which follows its casting its Leaves When they cast their Leaves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in their casting Leaves is not in the Original but supplied by the Translators Some take the word for a proper Name of a Place 1 Cron. 26.16 mention is made of a Gate belonging to the Temple called Shallecheth where they say there was a Cawseway leading up to the Temple which they suppose Planted with Trees on both sides which not only beautified the Place but strengthened it the Roots of the Trees knitting keeping up the Earth which had been there cast up to make the way This may have a good Sence if the words in the Original will bear it I conceive our own Translation with which others agree to be best when they cast their Leaves and so the opposition is clear between the standing of the Stock and the falling of the Leaves and it notes the Strength firmness and lastingness of the Tree it self though it lose its present Beauty and Verdure The state liest Trees may cast their Leaves but then their Trunks continue firm and fast in the Earth which may afterwards Spring and Flourish afresh The Holy Seed Or Seed of Holiness by an usual Hebraism so a godly Seed or Seed of God Mal. 2.15 I doubt not but it is to be understood of the really religious or righteous among that People who are indeed the only true Seed of God which others only seem to be Shall be the Substance thereof The Body of the People are here compared to a Tree the Holy Seed to the Stock or Stem of it the rest to the Leaves A Tree in Winter casts its Leaves the Sap retiring toward the Root but yet still the Stock remains firm and unmoveable and the Sap that is in it will afterwards cause it to shoot forth a new the Tree though bare is not dead it hath lost its Leaves but not its Life So when carnal Men and common professors drop away like Leaves from a Tree in the Winter of affliction or as withered Bows and Branches are broken off by the violence of persecutions and storms of worldly troubles then the Holy Seed the truly religious among them are like the Trunk of the Tree which is not blown down nor rooted up but still continues still lives and is like to Flourish again What is here spoken of the Jews is not peculiar to them but may likewise be affirmed of other professing People the great staple priviledges of the Church being the same both in Jews then and Gentiles now The Seed of God is the Stock whether Jews or Gentiles be the Branches there may be a change in the Branches but not in the Stock that is still the same when wild Branches are grafted in as it was before the natural were cut off The Doctrine I observe from the words thus explained is in answer to the question propounded Doct. That the truly religious of a Nation are under God the strength of it What I shall say of this Doctrine may be reduced to these Heads I shall shew 1. What we are to understand by the Religious of a Nation 2 How and in what respects they may be said to be its strength 3. Upon what accounts 4. Make application of it to practice 1. Who are the Religious of a Nation 1. Negatively 1. I understand not the religious here in a Popish Sence for those that are under a religious Vow or in a religious Order this is an abuse of the word and a restraining it to those that know little of the thing 2. I do not restrain it to any particular party or way or persuasion even among those who as to their profession are really of
People shouted and Jerico fell down to the ground Our Amens must not drop like a cold Bullet of Lead out of the mouth of a Musquet bowing to the ground but they must be Fired by preparations of the Heart and warm affections they must be Discharged and Shot off with the utmost valde of the Soul and fervency of the Spirit Samuel Thundred in Prayer and God Thundred upon Israels Enemies So David Prays Psal 144.5 that God would bow the Heavens and come down c. Ps 1.8 9. he did bow the Heavens and come down verse 13. the Lord Thundred in Heaven the highest gave his Voice Hailstones and coals of Fire When Gods People can unite in one Voice God gives his Voice with them and for them Use The First Inference then is of Reproof for our deep silence and too much neglect of this hearty Amen which proceeds from these Four ill Causes 1. From thence whence all ill things come in upon us even from Popish ignorance and darkness When Men grew dull and stupid and neither understood or cared to understand either the word of God to us or ours to him in Prayer Religion was looked upon as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a By-business or troublesome laborious and needless curiosity It was enough to Beleive as the Church Beleived and to Pray as the Church Prayed and so they devolved all their Devotions on a pack of idle Monks and Friers whom they called Religious Omers who should serve God supererogate and merit for them yea not only procure a freedom from Purgatory and Pardons but Paradice also for their Moneys And as soon as their Silver did chink in the Bason of the Priest out springs the Soul from Purgatory as if the sound of Money was powerful in Purgatory as true Amens are in Heaven 2. The Divisions among Christians of the reformed Religion is another Cause of this defect and neglect 1 Cor. 14.26 when ye come together every one hath a Psalm a Doctrine a Tongue a Revelation an Interpretation One was for Singing another for Reading a Third for Preaching one for Prophesying another for Interpreting the Apostle gives two Rules to oppose this and Womens talking in the Church let all things be done distinctly and in order to edification natural decency forbids all confusion In our days some have such Schismatical Phrases Notions and Doctrines in Preaching Praying and Praising that a sober Christian cannot say Amen Some so zealous for Forms that nothing else must be a Prayer but the Lords Prayer as if because Cyprian calls it a Legitimate Form all others were spurious when 't is the Sense that is the Prayer and not the words which are differently set down in Luke from Mathew as Chemitius well observes Others are so vehement against all Forms that they would reduce all Devotion to an invisible Spirituality as if they had drop'd their Bodies and were crouded within the Vail into the Triumphant Quire of Spirits in Heaven But certainly while we are in the Body we ought to glorifie God with our Bodies as well as our Spirits and with our Tongues as the Bodies Instruments in publick Worship Verbo deus laudandus quia deus verbum says Lactan God was made Flesh to speak to us therefore we ought to speak to him Psal 16.9 the Tongue is Mans Glory as it differenceth us from Beasts so it make us Priests to God Rev. 1.6 to offer up our own and the dumb Creatures Sacrifices of Praise to God to him be Glory and Dominion for ever Amen 3. Another rate of this defect is the degenerating of Assemblies from their first Constitution and Plantation For these as all Bodies contracted defilements both in Ministers and People Formality hath over-run that Zeal Piety and Charity which formerly burned among them So that many Assemblies are run down so into the Spirit of the World that they differ little from Papists How have some Ministers been thrust in upon the Assemblies by a secular hand who never understood how to preach or pray a live Prayer and many Congregations full of such ignorance and prophaness that the Arches and Vaults in the Building give as good an Eccho as their dead Amens One comes in his Drink another pipeing hot out of their Wordly Businesses a Third in huffing Finery and Bravery to be gazed on another is heavy laden with Sleep and comes for a Nap. How can they that are not concerned for Gods Glory his Church his Word the pardon of their Sins nor think themselves beholden to God for Daily-Bread or that they need daily Grace say either Our Father or Amen with any Sense When either Ministers or People Drink and Swill and Swear and roar with one another at the Tavern all the Week and yet will be the most Vocal and Loud in their responsals on the Lords Day it turns Mens Stomacks and Consciences from publick expressions as something to rankly of Hypocritical Formality That with the wise Heathen in the Ship when a Company of wicked Persons cried and prayed hold your peace sad he least the Gods know you are here and so destroy us D. Laer. Roaring at the Ale-house and bellowing at the Church are both alike beastly and ugly to be heard 4. Worldly Peace Plenty and Prosperity dirty and dull the Wheels of the Soul so as Activity and Fervency are Bird-limed 'T is unreasonable yet too true that those Tenants who have the best Farms pay God his Rent worst When Christians were kept warm by the Zeal of their Persecutors they met in Caves and Woods with the hazard of their Lives they had a Zeal for God and the Gospel they heard and Prayed as for their lives and for the life of Religion it might be their last Sermon or Prayer they might joyn in and so they had a fervent hearty love for one another which made them not only seal their Prayers with warm Amens but they sealed one another also with an holy kiss not knowing whether they should ever see one anothers Faces again in the Flesh or no they fell on one anothers Necks and kissed at parting Rom. 16.16 another expression springing naturally from strong affection truly Christian in those times which if practised in this dirty Age would be perhaps proved as well as judged a piece of wretched carnality But their Flesh was kept under by poverty and persecutions so as such filthy tentations were burnt up by the love of God and each other And we have cause to fear God hath some such Irons in the Fire to fear of that dead yet proud Flesh which in these days is bred in the hearts of many professors In the mean time this Flesh hinders our very lips from closing in a sound Amen Use 2. This then informs us that if ever the Church recover primitive purity and fervency it must have such administrations as 1. The whole Worship of God must be in a known Tongue that so all may say Amen in the
we do not hear our selves 3. Beware of a lazy posture of the Body for the Soul is drawn into consent and sympathy with it verse 5. here the Jews stood up to shew their reverence and attention to the word of God They lifted up their hands bowed down their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground here was exalted Attention and Devotion and most humble veneration with intense affections and these could say Amen Amen But to see one sit and hang down his head and hang his hat on his nose or perhaps sleeping till he snore himself awake and then give a yawn or an idle Amen any one without breach of Charity may think him guilty of lazy Hypocrisie with detestation This is a mocking of God giving the Congregation a flap with this Foxes tail when they have cunningly slept over the greatest part of the Prayer and slipt out of the Congregation without removeal Irreligiosissimum est sedere nisi quod deo exprobamus quod oratio nos fatigaverit as Tertul. de Or. do says 'T is most indecent without a good Reason to sit at Prayer for 't is else in effect to tell God Prayer hath tired us out Use 4. Is of Direction and Exhortation how to keep up this Harmonious Amen in Publick Assemblies 1. Let Pastor and People never meet but premise some solemn preparations of Heart to meet the Lord. Rehoboam and most of the Kings of Israel and their People also Sin'd in this That they prepared not themselves to set their Hearts to seek the Lord 2 Chron. 12.14 he fitted not his Heart as the Hebrew Word imports it was no more fit to that Duty then an Ass is to play upon an Harp We should never offer God that which cost us nothing put off thy Shoes from thy Feet Vain Thoughts and Vile Affections and put on the Lord Jesus Christ e're you go into the Fathers Presence A Worldly Spirit coming off from common Employments is not fit for Communion with God A common Heart will never be inclosed in any Duty but runs wild of it self and lies open to all Incursions Vzzah was smitten though he touched the Ark out of a good intention but in an undue manner 1 Chron. 15.13 He did it not in Judgment nor according to Gods Order and Appointment 2. We must watch unto Prayer Matth. 26.41 for the Devil is there as to catch away the good Seed so to catch us away by every wandring Thought 1 Pet. 4.7 Peter and John were at Christs Transfiguration in the Mount Luke 9.32 but were sadly heavy with Sleep It is strange when they should have been taken up with Raptures and Extasies of Joy that they should be so Drossie and Drowsie But how hard a matter it is for to watch with Christ One Hour in Duty Grief might make them heavy in the Garden and yet Christ his Propassion and Sweating Drops of Blood was enough to have put them into an Agony of Compassion But alas neither the Garden nor the Mount is able to transport us or keep up Intention of Soul or Affection unless God keep Fire on his own Altar and blow up our Spark into a Flame 3. Our Intention cannot last long our Actions depending on the Body and those Spirits the finer Particles of the Blood separated from it by the Alembick of the Brain And as it is sometime e're they rise so their height and speed is soon over and then we run down into Flegm and Heaviness therefore in all Publick Duties solemn Fastings excepted for humbling Soul and Body we ought not to be too Prolix but to labour for strength rather then length thick and short as Davids Panting and Daniels Praying Chap. 9.19 Oh Lord hear Oh Lord forgive Oh Lord hearken and do defer not c. When weighty Petitions are sent up for thâ— whole Church they draw Universal Consent Not that we ought for Brevity 〈◊〉 to confine all Prayer to the Lords-Prayer as if no Bushel was a Bushel but 〈◊〉 Standard so to fall down at this and stand up against all others whereas it is 〈◊〉 diffused in Sense and so contracted in Words that the Text may very well admiâ— Comment in Conformity to its Sense and we need a more Comprehensive Mind then the Vulgar have to fill those words with 4. When all is done there is nothing done but all to do till we implore the good Spirit of God which he gave the Jews here Nehem. 9.20 And he bad them work for his Spirit was with them Hag. 2.4 And should remain among them when they Built the Temple Luke 24.49 Christ bad his Disciples tarry at Jerusalem till they were Endued with Power from on High there was no Preaching or Praying without this Spirit of Grace and Supplication Zech. 12.10 It is impossible the Organs of our Bodies or Faculties of our Souls should Praise God aright unless this Spirt of God fill them and blow them up He must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philip. 1.19 tune the Praise and form the Prayer in us he must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 James 5.16 inlay it and work it both in and out and he is the Master of the Choice to hold and keep us in Frame as well as set us in and enable us to drive all our Petitions home and through to a fervent Amen Deus solus docere potest ut velis se orari as Tertul. says None but God can teach us how to Pray tâ— God That Spirit of Adoption that enableth us to say Abba Father can only teaâ—â— us how to pronounce Amen Amen FINIS