Apostle Peter to say 1 Pet. 1.18 Ye were not redeamed with corruptible things as gold and silver but with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemlish and without spot now if we look back upon the great righteousness and sufferings of God the Son which were ingredient into our Salvation we need not doubt to call it great Salvation 3 In the third place we come to the third person and to shew what proceeds from that person that proceeds from the Father and the Son towards this great Salvation and that is 1 The Revelation of the spirit It is the spirit of God that hath brought Salvation to light through the Gospel The word is but the letter the spirit is the inditer and penman of it all Scripture being given by divine inspiration 2. Tim. 3.16 And therefore as it is called the sword of the spirit so it may be called the word of the spirit It s true that men were the penmen of Scripture or rather the penns in the hand of a ready writer as the Apostle said he was Gods pen to write Gods Epistle in the fleshly tables of the hearts of the Corinthians 2. Cor. 3.2 3. And therefore it s said that no prophesy of Scripture is of any private interpretation but holy men of God wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost 2. Pet. 1.21 And in the beginning of this Epistle to the Hebrews The writer of it saith God at sundry times and in diverse manners spake to our fathers by his servants the prophets c. but especially take notice of the verse that follows my text How shall we escape if we neglect so great Salvation which at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that hear him God also bearing them witness both with signes and wonders and diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will it was the Holy Ghost that sealed up the truth of the Gospel by diverse miracles The Apostle therefore calleth the spirit the great Teacher 1 Ioh. 2.27 Ye need not that any man teach you but as the same anointing teacheth you all things 1. Ioh. 2.27 And the spirit is said to reveale that in the word to the spirituall man which the word without the spirit cannot make the naturall man to understand 1 Cor 2.9 10. Eye hath not seen nor care heard neither hath entred into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him But God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit for the spirit searcheth all things even the deep things of God And the Apostle prayes that God would come in with the spirit of wisedome upon the word of wisedome and with the spirit of revelation upon the word of revelation to his Ephesians Eph. 1 17. 2 The Application of the spirit As this Salvation is from the spirits revelation so hath it its efficacy from the spirits application It s the spirit that must bring our hearts to the word as well as the word to our hearts that must speak us through and say to our blind eyes deafe eares and dead hearts be opened see and hear and understand and be converted and he healed It s the spirit that must perswade us to recieve entertaine and embrace Christ that must say to our understandings and wills and hearts lift up your heads O ye gates and be ye opened ye everlasting dores that the King of glory may enter in when the dead letter of the word and a dead heart meet there can be but dead worke till the spirit of life that free wind that blowes where it lists do blow through that word upon the Soul that spirit that indited the word can make it the savour of life and that spirit that formed the heart and searcheth the heart can say unto dead hearts live In this respect it is that we are said to be drawne to Christ Iohn 6.44 and to be made beleevers by the exceeding greatness of his power and according to the working of his mighty power Eph. 1.19 Now in that the Gospel needed so glorious a revelation and so powerfull an application and both by the spirit our Salvation wrought by it must be confessed to be great Salvation 3. Next we come to things in subordination that do subserve under God in Trinity towards this great Salvation and here I might enter upon a large field of matter but for brevites sake I shall only point out the hid treasures that so knowing where they lie you may digg after them And the things whose instrumentality the great God of our Salvation uses towards the effecting of this great Salvation may be laid before us in two paires 1. The First pair is 1. graces 2. duties 2. The Second pair is 1. ordinances 2. providences I thus joyne them together because God joyneth them together 1. Grace and duty grace being the principle of duty and duty being but the acting of grace 2. Ordinances and providences which usually go hand in hand for our conversion aedification and Salvation 1. We begin with grace The word saith Titus 2.12 The grace of God which bringeth Salvation teacheth us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live holily justly and soberly in this present World where the Apostle teacheth us that it is grace that makes us to abound in duty and therefore to that end that we may abound in the worke of the Lord which the Apostle presses 1. Cor. 15. ult we are taught by the Apostle Peter to abound in grace 2. Pet. 1.5 6 7 8. giving all dilligence adde unto your faith c. and then it follows If these things be in you and abound they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitfull in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ Note the graces of faith vertue knowledge temperance patience godliness brotherly kindness love must not only be in us but they must abound in us in order to this great Salvation And the fruits of the spirit that the heyres of Salvation must indeavour to abound in are laid downe in another cluster Gal. 5.22 23. The fruits of the spirit are love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance these and all the rest of the traine of heavenly graces do accompany Salvation and it must needes be great Salvation that is so greatly graced 2. Dutie is the next wherein as you heard before they must no less abound than they must in grace The Apostles exhortation is 1. Cor. 15. ult My bretheren be ye stedfast and unmovable alwayes abounding in the worke of the Lord for as much as you know that your labour is not in vaine in the Lord. And it was not only his precept but his practise to he did not like the Scribes and Pharises bind heavy burdens to lay upon others shoulders but he taught them by his own example to bear them too Phil. 3.13 14. This one thing I
as ever thou hast the Reason of a man see that thou soberly bethink thee of this matter and rest not till thou canst solidly answer this question How shall I escape Death and Hell are a little before thee if thou be an unsanctifyed person and how wilt thou escape them Neither Policy nor power riches nor reputation formality or false presumptuous hopes will procure thine escape It must be by God the Father by Christ by the Holy Spirit or by none and it must be by a God most dearly loved and by a Christ most highly valued and received and by the Holy Ghost entertained into thy heart and obeyed for a God a Christ a Spirit finally neglected will never save thee Take this warning and additionall Testimony from A Friend of thy immortall Soul Richard Baxter A PREFATORY POEM OF THE AUTHOR' 's GReat Structures should have Porches but you 'l say This Fâ—brick is not great and well you may And yet t is so a Riddle but no Cheat The volum's little but the Title 's great The Workman's low but yet the Building 's tall The Matter great though Modell be but small Much treasure lies in little room and things When it consists in jewells and in rings This work is like the Ocean which you know Is still the same at ebbe as t is at flow Or like the Sun that Magazine of light The same in Clouds as shining in its might Or like a Map where points and lines do stand For Rivers and for Counties Sea and Land Though in Octavo written you must know The Subjects are the largest Folio Though Book and Price be small excuse that wrong The names are short but yet the Things are long Salvation and Damnation Oh the height And depth of these expressions Oh the weight Of what they signify Oh who can tell The height of Heaven or the depth of Hell That 's high that hath no topp you will confess And sure that pitt is deep that 's bottomless Salvation Sin Damnation are not Theames For sleepy sluggards or for men in dreames Sin 's clâ—ath'd in Scarlet like a man of Blouds Damnation doggs it like devouring flouds Cast from the Dragons mouth Salvation stands Like to a Refuge City on all hands Sin like a Sodom to destruct on tends Damnation's like a fire whose smoak ascends Salvation's like a Zoar Soules like Lot Fly for your life make hast and linger not God and your Teachers lowdly call and cry Oh sensless sinners wherefore will ye die Soules stop and turne oh turne oh sweetest breath God sayes and sweares he joyes not in your death O hearken for the Call of this â—ill voice Sets Life and Death before the sinners choice Reader wilt live or die Consider well And then Resolve it 's more than time to tell Thy thoughts to God If he should snatch thee hence Thy best would prove a very poor defence Depart thou must into a state forlorne Will make thee wish thou never hadst been born Eternity will all thy Thoughts confound It 's such a Depth no Intellect can sound We may the World and Witts out-run yet be But at the Entrance of Eternity Now wrastle and prevaile for who can tell But Jacob may be Christened Israel Chaff now is sold for Wheat and every dream Which is but Froth is now nick-named Cream Now Hereticks and each Blasphemer vents And greedy Doggs lick up their Excrements The Presse opprest gâ—ves out like Lotteries Too manj Blanks for one poor single Prize Authors neglected lie and sleep as dead Except than others taller by the head And Bookes in such a crowd of short and long Like London Cries are vended for a Song He 'is the best Artist now that best can tell How to make Bookes and then to make them sell As in Samaria's seige the ruder throng Are fâ—d with Asses heads and Cabbs of dung How often have I dugge to find out Ore In swarming Pamphlets but alas how poore And full of Rubbish little little gaines And often less than nothing for my paines When they should feed and feed and feed agen And hold out Milk for Babes and meat for Men And draw out new and old from their full store And should with Milk and Hony feed the poore Their Entertainments like a Witches feast A shew that feeds not but deludes the guest How should Babes thrive in a Step-mothers lap When Nurses give them poison in their papp Oh that some Zealous powers would conspire To sentence all such Stubble to the fire The whole is out of Order Church and State In my Prognosticks this is Englands Fate The Land will mourne and Men will find it true Till Caesar come who will give God his due Think not kind Reader that its my designe To clowd the Sun that my dim Starr may shine It is a task for Eagles not for Wrens To staine the beauty of deserving Penns This Iron age such Authors can rehearse Whose golden penns deserve a Golden verse Works should commend their Authors this being scan'd As it deserves so let me fall or stand I never lik't those Complements at Feasts That wish the best were better for the guests Those that in midst of plenty w sh for more And guilty of exceedings call it poore I ever thought the worst dish there too much The Coursest Morsell much too good for such If here a Feast of fat things you do meet Give God the praise and eat and drink the sweet If any failing here or leaness be Take you the best and leave the worst to me Christ bids his Shepards feed and feed and feed His Lambs and Sheep lo here is for your need And fill serv'd in First Second and Third Messe All wholesome food though but in homely dresse Eat drink and feast your selves my Friends but stay When that is done do not rise up to play If you will eat to live and live to die Joyne strictest Practise with the Theory Though naked Truth be best yet Fancies quaâ—nt Esteem the face the fairer for the paint And if we will mens queasy palates woo Our meat must wholesome be and toothsome too Most are like Children and refuse to eat Unless the dish be gaudy as the meat Even Curious palates feed as they would wish When wholesome food is in a garnisht dish When pleasure is with profit twin'd it s sed Its like the bristle that draws in the thred Austine delighting Ambrose for to hear His heart was led to Heav'n by his Ear And men must be indulged in this or we Our Books with dust and Cobwebs clad may see If Musick dwell in discords here are three That make a Unity in Trinity Or if Variety delight your braine Trichotomize that Unity againe But I am word-bound starv'd in midst of store My subject is too rich my Muse too poore Reader proceed thou lt not thy labour lose If halting Verse go more upright in prose T is to catch precious Soules to God that I Do
sweet a pardon would be to a condemned malefactor when he were at the place of execution and there you have a shadow of it 2 But how great it is I cannot tell you this I can tell you that it is so great that words cannot reach it neither can our dull intellects comprehend it we read that the love that saves us hath the largest dimensions of length and bredth and heigth and depth Eph. 3.18 19. But in the same breath we also read that it passeth knowledge and to be filled with it is to be filled with the fullnesse of God This Salvation must have the same dimensions and they must be as exactly fitted to each other as the arke and mercy-seat you have already heard of the depth of it in the evills that it saves us from which are as deep as the nethermost hell You have also heard of the heigth of it in the happiness that it advances unto which is a happiness as high as the third Heaven The bredth of it you have also measured unto you in the fullness of excellent meanes that conduce to the accomplishment of it The length of it remaines only to be supplyed and the Scripture is so full of that that you may even run and read it that this great Salvation hath no shorter date for its durance than Aeternity those that are saved are saved for ever and ever Or to help our selves herein by speaking after the manner of men 1 Men set great esteeme by that which is the gift of some great friend and such is this Salvation that we are speaking of we are not saved by our merit it is the gift of God The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 6. ult Fear not little flock saith the purchaser of this great salvation for it is your Fathers good pleasure to give you the Kingdome Luke 12.32 Yea salvation and Saviour and all are the gift of God the Father Unto us a Son is given Isai 9.6 And God so loved the world that he gave his onely bogotten Son c. Joh. 3.16 2 Men count that great that hath been purchased at a dear rate and such is this Salvation less than the precious blood of Christ could never have purchased it we were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold and silver c. 1 Pet. 1.18 3 Men count that great that is hardly gained and such is this great Salvation The righteous are sâ—â—rsly saved i. e. At a hard hand and with much ado 1 Pet. 4.18 And we are commanded to strive to enter in at the streight gate Luke 13.24 And to offer violence to the Kingdome of Heaven Mat. 11 12. And to give all diligence to make our calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1.5 4 Men count him great that hath a great retinue that is a great king that hath amultitude of subjects if we do but look back and recount the multitude of evills that we are saved from and the riches of grace and glory that we are advanced to and the multitude of excellent meanes by which both are brought to pass Salvation may also pass for great upon that account 2 USE Shall be a Proclamation to all that are willing to come in and challenge their part in this great Salvation Christ hath made a full purchase of it and he is a mighty Saviour able to save to the uttermost all that do come unto the Father by him God is a free bestower of it he expects not that we should bring any thing with us but a sense of our own blindness nakedness nothingness a sense of our own want of this great Salvation He is no respecter of persons he accepts none for his goodness nor excludes any for his badness provided that they will come in and accept of it upon the tearmes it is offered observe and study those sweetest invitations one in the old Testament the other in the new Isay 55.1 2. Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters and he that hath no money Come ye buy cate yea come buy wine and milk without money and without price wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which satisfieth not hearken diligently unto me and eate ye that which is good let your soul delight it selfe in fatness Revel 22.17 The spirit the bride say come let him that heareth say come and let him that is athirst come and whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely O who can but admire at these gracious words if we do but also take into consideration those moving expostulations which we find in the word As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner turne ye turne ye why will ye die O house of Israel Ezek. 18.31 How often would Mat. 32.37 My very text hath the force of a most vehement expostulation how shall we escape c. how shall we answer it to God that we thus slight his mercy and undervalue his Son and destroy our owne Soules and refuse our owne mercies O let not any be guilty of such bedlam madness to exclude themselves when God excludes them not when God throws open his door of mercy to all comers what reason have poor lost undone sinners to barr it against themselves I may write a Noverint universi upon this Proclamation Be it known unto all the World that this Salvation as great as it is and it is greater than words or thoughts can reach unto yea and the great Saviour to boote with all their riches are freely offered unto us poor wretched worthless wormes upon no other or higher condition than our thankfull willing acceptation of them Iohn 1.12 As many as received him to them gave he power i.e. priviledge to become the Sonns of God even to them which believe on his name Oh that our everlasting doors might now flie open to give entertainment to this King of glory Oh that our understandings and wills could now close with the truth and goodness of this great Salvation that we may with one accord take up that saying of the Apostle 1 Tim. 1.15 This is a true and faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation that Iesus Christ came into the world to save sinners THIRD USE 3 Use Serves to reprove the madness of the neglecters or refusers of this great Salvation since it is so great salvation and offered on such easie terms surely the folly and madness of such as are regardless of it is exceeding great and this is the more aggravated and made out of measure sinfull by taking into consideration what toys and trifles are prized and set by while salvation is neglected the Devil World and the Flesh shall be served while Father Son and Holy Ghost are basely neglected mens profits pleasures and honours the perishing vanities of a transitory world shall be sought after with uttermost dilligence while more
durable profits and lasting pleasures and everlasting honours are made no account of The body and lust and sinne shall be satisfied when the soul and grace and glory are laid aside as not worth the minding we are ready to condemne Adam of monstrous madness that would looss Paradise for an apple and to cry out upon Esau as the foole of all fooles that would exchange his birthright for a mess of pottage and the very name of Judas the traitor in graine stinkes like rotteness that would sell his master for thirty pence but surely the World is full of such fooles and madmen and monsters Those that will please their appetite with Adam though they lose an Heavenly Paradise for so doing Those that will satisfy their craving flesh with Esau though they lose the glorious I berty of Gods Sonns and forfeit all the priviledges of the new birth-right Those that will have Balaams wages the wages of iniquity with curied Judas though they lose Soul and Saviour and Salvation and all If we do but look abroad in the World and take a view of the lives and behaviour of men and women old and young high and low rich and poor one with another We shall see that the multitude is like that heard of Swine possessed of the Legion running headlong to their own damnation Ambition carries away thousands voluptuousness ten thousands worldly-mindedness hundreds of thousands so that Millions are visibly in a perishing condition wickedness recting the wicked man to his teeth 〈◊〉 as Daved saith that there is no fear of God before his eyes and the abounding of iniquity makes proclamation that notwithstanding such great Salvation be brought to light yet there are but few that shall be saved Hell hath enlarged herselfe without measure and all the pompe and all multitude of secure and careless and senseless sinners shall fall into it This oh this is the condemnation that is come into the world that light is come into the world and men love darkness more than light that a Saviour is come into the world and men will not come unto this Saviour that there should be a proclamation of so great Salvation and men will not leave their sinns and close with God through Christ that they may be saved yet let us take a further survey for as yet we have but stirr'd in the stinke of common sinners those that give up themselves to serve the Divell by a sensuall serving the flesh and worldly mindedness these do turne their backs upon God and do in their actions profess against the dominion of Christ that they will not have him â—o reigne over them let us look towards them that seeme to look towards Heaven and observe diligently what we can find there 1 Are not many of them meerly civiliz'd and no more though they will not wallow like Swine in the mire yet they are not carefull to keep clean their garments nor to keep themselves unspotted from the world though they will not tear Gods Name by Ruffian-like oathes yet they will pawae their faith and troth for small matters 2 Some that advance higher than meere Civility yet make a stand at formality and take up with a forme of Godliness short of the power of it knowledge and grace they would have and duty they will do but it is but some knowledge and some grace and some duty that its an easy conclusion that they desire it rather to save their credit than their Soules that they may be in esteem with men rather than in favour with God but our Saviour hath said enough to dash all this Matt. 5.20 Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes who had but a forme of knowledge and Pharises who had but a forme of Godliness ye cannot enter into the Kingdome of Heaven and Luke 8.18 From him thah hath not from him shall be taken away even all that he seemeth to have 3 Many do stick in halfe coversions like a child in the birth and there is not strength to bring forth like that man in the Gospel that started aside like a broken bow at a forsake all and chose rather to forsake Christ then to forgo his wealth Herod heard John Baptist gladly in many things but would not part with his Herodias and all such as these are but like Agrippa allmost perswaded to become Christians but if they come not up to Pauls measure alltogether such as he true Israelites indeed such in whom there is no guile they are but Godless and Christless and Spiritless and graceless Soules and will be reckoned in the number of the neglecters of this great Salvation How should the servants of the Lord that have his spirit dwelling in their hearts and have the fear of the Lord before their eyes knowing the terror of the Lord against all such as are out of Christ and out of Covenant how should they pitty these poor Soules and intreat and beseech them to pitty their own Soules and to come in and be reconciled to God and to be willing to embrace the things that belong to their Salvation before they shall he hidden from their eyes And if they continue refusers still how should we ply the throne of grace with our earnest intreaties that God would forgive them who know not what they do that he would take away their hearts of stone and give them hearts of flesh That he would deliver them up unto Satan for their Salvation not for their damnations I meane that he would cast them into an Hell of conscience and plead with them there and cause them to see and feel themselves to be the vessells of sin and bondslaves of Satan that they may spend the remainder of their few and evill dayes in mourning that their flesh and body of sin may be destryed and their Spirits may be saved in the day of the Lord. And to help forward this work if God will before I pass from this use afford your attention while I expostulate the case with stubborne sinners on their Soules behalfe that they may be snatcht as brands out of the fire and pull'd out of the paw of the Lion rampant that seekes to devour them if they be not such deafe Adders as refuse to hear the voice of the Charmer charme he never so wisely I will not aske them whether grace and glory be of no reckoning with them which Salvation doth advance unto as you have heard in the second reason I will not ask them if the wisdome and love of God the Father the sufferings and righteousness of God the Son the grace and communion of the spirit be of no account If graces and duties ordinances and providences are nothing set by it s a common thing with those whose eyes the God of this World hath blinded and with such as are wedded to world and enslaved to the flesh to overlook all these as if they were not worth the looking after But can they dwell with the devouring fire
will repudiate you and give you a bill of divorce and because you were no more faithfull in keeping the Oracles of God your Candlestick shall be removed and you shall be left in darkness and that Land of yours which is the glory of all Lands shall be like a desolated Desert and a forsaken Wildernes what is it that hath made such havock of late years in Germany that hath destroyed so many Towns and made such depopulations as our ears have heard of was it not the Lords Covenant-quarrel What was it that opened such bloudy sluces in England Scotland and Ireland and the Netherlands without all peradventure this sin of Gospel-refusing hath stricken the deadlyest stroakes in all our Wars and we may say to this sin as once Zippora said to Moses thou hast been a bloudy sin to us and if we shall go on to dishonour God and slight his Gospel and notwithstanding the loud out-cries of his Word and Sword we shall nourish that viper in our bosoms and shall foment those blasphemies and heresies that strike at the foundation and shall help on those divisions that threaten to deprive us of Verity and Purity as well as Unity we may take up a lamentation when it is too late and Sword Pestilence and Famine may be sent upon that errand to bring our sins to our remembrance which the Gospel in the mid'st of peace health and plenty could not fasten upon us It should be written with a pen of iron in every thankfull heart what wonderfull deliverances the Lord hath wrought for us especially those of the Spanish Invasion and the Powder-plot of which we may say in Davids words if the Lord himself had not been on our side may England now say if the Lord himself had not been on our side when men rose up against us they had swallowed us up quik when they were so wrathfully displeased at us but blessed be the Lord that hath not given us over as a prey unto their teeth Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the Fowler the snare is broken we are delivered And shall we after all this betray our native Land into the cruel hands of our religious adversaries that would borrow all the politicks of Julian or Machiavill and make use of all the Stratagems and strength of the Devils heads and borns to deprive us of the Gospel Surely we cannot take a likelier course to effect all this than by going on to neglect this great Salvation which if this Gospel-glutted Land shall persist in doing notwithstanding the warnings of all Gods Watchmen when the Sword of the Lord shall devour greedily your flesh and his arrows shall make themselves drunk with your bloud when your sins have made this populous and plentifull Land a place of sculls and a field of bloud when the hornet of your conscience shall sting you like the pangs of death and say unto you as Nathan to David you are the men that have done this you will then know that you are Traitors to the State who have betrayed your Country into the Enemies hand We read that the Cananites dwelled in garrisons walled up to Heaven and yet their sinns delivered them up into the hands of spoilers and though our fenced Cities had walls as high and thick as the walls of Babylon yet the sin that is within would let in the enemy Though our Armies were never so mighty and numerous Our Counsellors and Statesmen the very Oracles of the time Yet they are the faithfull Ministers and people that are the Charets of Israel and horsemen of it And our greatest security under Heaven lies in such as teach and live the Gospel such as know and do and declare the will of God and indeavour to keep a conscience voyd of offence towards God and man and order their whole conversation as it becometh the Gospel of Jesus Christ 4 Reason of the greatness of this sin is because it is a Church-confounding sin There hath been a great crying down of Churches in our dayes by giddy sectaries but this is a short cut to destroy all and to turne the Lords vineyard into a howling wilderness All the secret underminings of schismes within and the malignant batteries of persecutors without can do but little hurt so long as he is our keeper that never slumbers nor sleepes and is able to make his Church bear up against the gates of Hell but when by setting light by the Gospel we do put God from us open a wide dore to our own overthrow then the wild bore and beasts may make havoek the adversaries may fall on and cry downe with it downe with it even to the ground and the Churches Enemies may say as Davids enemies did of him God hath forsaken him persecute and take him for there is none to deliver him What it was that made the Lord God of Israel to forsake his tabernacle in Shilo and utterly to forsake the Jewes you hard in the last reason for it was their setting light by Christ that did overthrow their State and Church too What was it that made Babylon the great to fall and Rome to be unchurched whose fame and faith made the world to ring but because of Christian they became Antichristian and from Apostolicall did turne retrograde and became Antipostolicall and of a Church of the living God a pillar and ground of the truth they became an Hydra of Heresy and Synagogue of Satan What removed the Candlesticks from the seven famous Churches of Asia and fills their eares with the forgeries of Mahomet where the sound of the Gospel was wont to ring read the Prophesies that went of them in the second and third Chapters of the Revelation and you will find it was for turning their backs upon the Gospel and entertaining falshood insteed of truth And what hath made the Lord to stand so often upon the threshold amongst us as if he were ready to take his leave though like a long suffering God and he yet plaies â—oath to part If we do but take these following causes among many into close consideration we may easily informe our selves 1 How many in this Goshen and Land of light do stand in open opposition to the Gospel and as it were bid defiance to God and Christ How have sectaries swarmed of late and such as openly oppose the truths of God yea the very fundamentalls opening their black mouthes wide against God and Christ and the Spirit and the Word and Seales and Sabboth and Ministry some denying the immortality of the Soul and perswading men that they are without Law and that there is neither Heaven nor Hell And besides these how many dissolute and profane Spirits abound in all places even under searching and powerfull Ministries that in words profess Christ but in workes deny him 2 How few do close with the Covenant of God so visibly that they may pass for beleiver in a large sence and be conversed with
if God must have the whole heart and strength the whole body soul and spirit what remains then for other Lords O you self-seeking and Salvation-refusing souls why do ye halt thus betwixt two opinions If God be God serve him if you can find out a better Master serve him but know assuredly when God shall send you for succour at a dying hour to the Gods that ye have chosen and to the Idols that you have set up in your hearts you will be forced to say of them as Job of his false friends miserable comforters ye are all Though the Scripture is most express that we must dedicate all our Talents of time and gifts and parts and interests and callings to the advantage of our great Lord to the serving of our generation to the benefit of other souls and to the furtherance of our own accompt yet how ordinary a thing is it for men and women to be of Agrippa's temper almost Christians of a Laodicean frame of spirit luke-warm and betwixt hot and cold They will sometimes read and perhaps pray in their families and come to the Assembly on the Sabaoth if their lusts will give them leave and much of the easiest and cheapest part of Religion they will practice and be willing to adventure as far as a name to live and a form of godliness will bear them out but still with Herod they will set themselves a stint hitherto they will go and no further ere his right eye should out by parting with his Herodias his reprovers head should off and ere these will cut off their right hands by forsaking their evil practises and their right feet by forgoing their evil company and saying away ye wicked I will keep the Commandements of my God they will do as the rich young man did when he heard that command forsake all and follow me he thought it a hard saying and forsook his Counsellor though it were a Saviour Many will be perswaded to do as much as the Jewes did Isay 2. Offer sacrifice burne incence and observe dayes and like hasty messengers run away with half their errand leaving all of substance and power behind them but for close and costly services these are hard and irksome God must have them excused for such and for the suffering part of Christianity they are meat strangers to that yea and very enemies to the crosse of Christ These are they that in praying pray not and in hearing hear not and use the things that tend to Salvation as though they used them not 3. They may passe for neglecters of this great Salvation that do not make it their greatest care God is the highest good and not to love him with the highest love is interpretatively to hate him Mistake me not I do not mean it absolutely that we must love God in the highest degree here while we are in our imperfect militant condition to know but in part to be sanctifyed but in part and to love but in part We may love sincerely on earth but we shall not love perfectly till we come to Heaven where perfect love shall cast out all fear but my meaning is that in a comparative sense we should love him best and most more than the creature or our selves more than the interests of the world or flesh for whosoever loveth the World or any thing in the World more than God is not worthy of him and whosoever loves not God and Christ more than any thing than all things in the World loves them not in sincerity Those that are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God lovers of Mammon more than lovers of God they are not better than haters of God Salvation by Christ is the greatest happiness and therefore our greatest care and pains should be spent upon it It 's the unum necessarium the only thing necessary and therefore ought to be the unicum maximum that should carry away the flowre and cream of our affections and indeavours It 's common with the vulgar to judge of the things of the third Heaven as they do by the things of the second the Moon and the Stars they think the Moon to be biggest because it is nearest and seems so when stars of a greater magnitude are thought little because they are farther off So we are ready to look upon the perishing vanities of this transitory World as great matters because they are at hand and near us and the joyes of Heaven and felicities above to be but small and inconsiderable because they are far above and out of our sight But you have heard before that the Scripture bids us strive to enter in at the streight Gate and to give all diligence to make all sure and to offer violence to the Kingdome of Heaven and tells us that the righteous are scarcely saved and with greatest difficulty and therefore not to lay out our selves our whole selves and that to our uttermost possibility is to be neglecters of this great Salvation Now the good Lord be mercifull to us and help us and give us seeing eyes hearing eares and understanding hearts to hear and feele and consider this for if this be to neglect this great Salvation not to make it our highest care not to bestow the most serious thoughts of our minds the most ardent desires of our hearts and the most effectuall indeavours of our lives upon it what will become not of loose and carnall libertines but of the greatest part of those that take themselves and are taken by others to be good Christians 2 USE Shall be of Direction for the use and benefit of such as being confounded with the greatness of the sin of setting light by this Salvation and being pricked in their hearts and covered with confusion shal be ready to cry out Men and Brethren what shall we do I shall prescribe them a remedy in foure branches of direction In regard Gospell-Salvation is great salvation and our setting light by it is great sin Therefore that this sin may not be our ruine There must be 1. Great thoughts of heart 2. Great searchings of heart 3. Great humblings of heart 4. Great changes of heart about it These have such necessary dependance one upon another that they are preparative one to another 1. Great thoughts are antecedent to great searchings 2. Great searchings are preparative to great humblings 3. Great humblings to great changings 1 There must be great thoughts of heart about this great sin When Reuben was separated from the other Tribes of Jsrael the text saith for the divisions of Reuben there were great thoughts of heart but when men and women shall be separated from God by their iniquities yea by such a partition wall as this of Gospel-refusing these divisions should beget great thoughts of heart in such whose consciences cry guilty Thoughts are the seeds of action as evil actions proceed from evill thoughts so good actions from gracious thoughts The Scripture saith out of the heart proceed first
evill thoughts and then murders and a black traine of actuall abominations Mat. 15.19 And an evill man out of the evill treasure of his heart bringeth forth evill things Mat. 12.35 As vaine and lustfull thoughts do bring forth sin so serious and sad thoughts of sin do bring forth repentance Hezekia's thoughts troubled him by day David's by night Job's day and night so should a true penitent My sin is ever in my sight saith holy David The playster of Conviction should stick close till it draw forth Compunction and that of Compunction till it being forth humiliation and that till it being forth Faith and saving Conversion David saith I considered my wayes and turned my feet unto thy Testimonies In which words David makes a turne but first he makes a stop his thoughts did drive him to a stand I considered my wayes i. e. I studyed them I turned them upside downe It s good thus to prevent God he hath threatned to turne the wayes of the ungodly upside downe its safest that we turne our own ungodly wayes upside downe for the promise is If we judge our selves we should not be judged As all sin proceeds from ignorance and inconsiderateness so all grace begins in knowledge and consideration The progress of saving and conversion is laid before us in these severall degrees 1. Consideration 2. Deliberation 3. Resignation Resignation is the uppermost step when the Soul comes up to this point of a Covenant-delivery of it selfe to God and Jesus Christ and this begins in consideration that is taking up of our most serious thoughts about it for consideration is the eye of the Soul that lookes inward or the reflecting of the Soul upon it selfe which is done by this duty of thinking or thoughtfullnesse 2. There must be great searchings of heart Lament 3.40 Let us search and try our wayes and turne unto the Lord said the Church in distress in order to the getting out of her deepes Commune with your own hearts saith holy David on your bed and be still Psal 4.4 That is when you are retired and solitary and have sequestred your selves from other thoughts and imployments then take your hearts to task ask them questions and receive their answers and hold them to it keep them from starting aside or running away till you have your desired satisfaction The heart of man is deceitfull and wicked above all things It hath many turnings and windings and lurking holes in it many back-dores and evading places Observe how David did take his heart to task to make it a heart after Gods own heart and acted what before he gave in precept Psal 77.2 3 4 5 6. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord my sore ran in the night and ceased not my Soul refused comfort I remembred God and was troubled I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed Thou holdest mine eyes waking I am so troubled that I cannot speake Sad thoughts did so throng in upon him that he could not speak for thinking he was overprest in his spirit and what course did he then take see verse 6. I commune with mine own heart and my spirit made diligent search As officers would search for hidden malefactors in every corner of an house where they are suspected to be so must we search every corner of our deceitfull hearts to find out those evill ones our selves a meipso libera me domine that body of sin and death that lies lurking secretly within us and as we would search dark vaults with lights so must we take Gods word to be a lanthorne that heart-discovering word to which all things are naked and manifest which is powerfull and mighty in operation and will pierce to the dividing asunder of the Soul and Spirit and joynts and marrow c. The cheife Quaeres that we should put to our selves should be these 1. Do we take no care about Salvation 2. Do we take but little care about it 3. Do we not make it our greatest care Our hearts should be fixed on such considerations and searchings till they are fired with them and we should have no rest in our Soules if our hearts condemne us till we have gone to God and vented our selves in a free and ingenuous confession of all our sins especially that sin with dejection of Spirit and humblings of heart which is the next thing 3. There must be great humblings of heart This sin should be for so great a lamentation that we should call downe the spirit of grace and mourning to assist us that our mourning may be deep and durable Notorious sinns must have notable repentance aggravated wickedness must have suitable sorrow where iniquity abounds humiliation must abound too if we expect grace shall super-abound Manasses having sinned greatly was said to humble himself greatly before the God of his Fathers 2. Chron. 33.12 13. and having sinned and sinned by adding sin unto sin He prayed and prayed he was instant and constant in his supplication for pardon We may not flatter our selves with the deceived multitude and think that a few good purposes towards the last or a crying God mercy upon our death beds will do the work The word indeed saith that the poor Publican that said but Lord be merciful to me a sinner went home rather justifyed than the proud Pharise that stood on upâ—oe in his own justification but observe the appurtenances to that prayer of the Publicans and you will find them to be such as do accompany deep humiliation 1. He stood afar off Eccetiâ—â—r 2. He 〈…〉 eyes to Heaven Ecce pudor 3. He smote his breast Ecce dolor That prayer of his was accompanyed with 1. Great fear in standing afar off 2. Great shame in not lifting up his eyes 3. Great sorrow in smiting his breast When souls tremble at Gods word to such will God look even to such Isa 66.2 when they take sâ—â— and shame to themselves and accept of the punishment of their iniquity and judge and condemne themselves God hath no more to â—â—y 1. Cor. 11.31 When the sinner is grieved because God and his Spirit are grieved God doth as it were sympathize with them and grieve for them he 's sorry for our afflictions and repents him of the evil Joel 2.13 and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel Judges 10.16 and I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them Jer. 18.8 I know the Scripture opens a wide door of hope to faithful prayers in times of greatest distress in that gracious promise whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved Rom. 10.13 but its physick that is administred with this corrective in the very next words But how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed The prayer of faith will not only recover health in sickness but life in death but it is not every call nor loud cry that is a prayer not every one that can say Lord Lord can pray and
beautie of holiness and power of Godliness giving up themselves bodys souls and spirits unto God upon the account of the Covenant desiring nothing more than that their hearts may be whole with God and they could be stedfast in his Covenant making God and Jesus Christ the joy of their hearts and breath of their lives and resolve to continue so doing to the death God hath provided for them suitable joyes and pleasures in the life to come Rationall delights for their reasonable souls and sensible delights for their glorified bodys Mistake not far be it from me to say or you to imagine that the glorified Saints shall enjoy such carnall delights in heaven which sensuall and flesh pleasing men do make their heaven upon earth that were a conceite better beseeming a Turk than a Christian the Proselytes of Mahomet have dreamed of such an earthly or rather hellish heaven by fancying such an Utopian Paradise into which the unclean may enter and the pleasures of sin shall meet them The sensible pleasures to be enjoyed there are such as sort and suite with the sublimated senses of glorified bodies and no other And as God hath prepared such suitable joyes and pleasures for such as love and serve him in sincerity even joyes for Soules and pleasures for bodâ—es for those that glorify him with Soules 〈…〉 so on the contrary those that will 〈…〉 â—ting call nor close with his 〈…〉 in accepting his dear Son 〈…〉 great Salvation offered with him but remaine sworne vassalls to the Divell World and Flesh giving up the parts and powers of their Soules and Bodies to serve sin in the lust of it These shall receive wages according to their work as they polluted themselves with filthiness of the flesh and spirit and dishonoured God with their Soules and Bodies so God will punish them accordingly their Soules with rationall punishments tribulation and anguish shall be upon the Soul of every one that doth evill and their bodies with sensible which the word shaddows out by fire and brimstone These two sorts of Torments are breifly contained in those Scriptures Isay 66.24 Mark 9.44 In the worme that dyeth not and the fire that never goeth out In which expressions expositors conceive the holy Ghost alludeth unto two Kinds of burialls of dead corpses some were interred in the earth and out of those wormes would breed which would eat them up and never leave devouring till all were consumed an Ancient gives this account of the degrees of that annihilation which resolves the body into its principle of nullity Caro in putredinem putredo in vermes vermis in pulvere pulvis in nihilum redigitur The flesh is turn'd into rottenness that rottenness into wormes those wormes into dust and that dust is reduced to nothing Other bodies were not buryed in the earth but were burned with fire and reduced to ashes and those ashes were reserved in urnes Only here is the difference this worme is not like that that devours bodies for when the body is consumed that worme dies nor is this fire like that that burnes carcasses for when the carcases are burnt that fire goes out but this is ignis inextinguibilis unquenchable fire By this never dying worme we are to understand the worme of an accusing and tormenting conscience that is ever gnawing and hereby we may understand all rationall torments of which the buffetings of conscience are the cheifest And by this fire that never goes out we are to understand the torments of sense set off by burning because that was the most torturing death that was inflicted by the Jewes but to open these a little more fully we will take them as they lie before us and speak of them apart 1 Rationall torments provided for damned Soules are a part and the greatest part of the torments of Hell for which this deserves to be called Great Damnation Now as the Soul is distributed into the understanding will and affections so we may assigne unto these soveral faculties their peculiar torments I only intend to touch upon them to give you a tast and not to enter upon any topicall and methodicall discourse concerning them 1 They shall be plagued in their understandings by seing and knowing and feeling themselves to be irrecoverably lost and intolerably miserable Here the messengers of the Lord knowing the terrors of the Lord did cry alowd to give warning of their sin and danger and duty they did throw Hell-fire in their faces and so gaster them with the thunder and lightning of Hell and damnation that they could never be at quiet but were even tormented before their time and when they had done their uttermost when they had studyed and preacht and prayed and waited and wept themselves into consumptions in seeking to them and to God for them that they might be saved they could make no better a report of their embassy to him that sent them but to this effect Lord who hath believed our report or to whom hath the arme of the Lord been revealed In which seat doth that Souâ— siâ— in what town is his habitation or in what family dwells he that was dead and is alive that was lost and is found Some of us thy unworthy servants Lord have through undeserved mercy been preachers ten some twenty some thirty some forty yeares and more to such and such congregations we have preacht some hundreds some of us thousands of Sermons and through grace we have indeavoured to do it faithfully in our measure we have taught publikly and from house to house we have spoken with authority and dealt personally and familiarly with the soules of refusers and all was but lost labour upon them though not a labour in vaine to our selves Will not this be a sad hearing for thousands when those that have been watchmen for their souls must come to give up this account with griefe But what will the Lord say to this Will he say to those that would not be taught be ignorant still and to those that would not be reformed be disobedient still no surely it may well be doubted whether the Lord had not formerly seared them up in their ignorance and prophaneness with such an hardning of their hardness by inflecting senslesness for their affecting senslesness But now it shall be otherwise the ignorant shall be no longer ignorant the drunkard swearer who monger sabboth-breaker shall be so no longer they shall see with their eyes and hear with their eares and understand with their hearts though they shall never be converted nor be healed Lord thy hand is lifted up said the Prophet Isay and they will not see thy wrath was in the threatning they saw a black clowd rising and a driving storme coming and would not beware but now they shall see volentes nolentes willing or nilling they shall hear and understand and be ashamed and confounded Then shall the damned know good and evill as the Angels that kept not their first estate know it and as the
GREAT SALVATION BY JESVS CHRIST TENDERED To the greatest of Sinners and in particular to such as have been Refusers of it if God shall now at last make them willing to receive it By RICHARD EEDES Teacher of the Church at Beckford in Gloucester-shire LONDON Printed by TW for the Author 1659. To the Right Honourable the Lady VEERE Grace and Peace Right Honorable most Honored Madam MY ambition to invite your Honour to be Surety to my First-Borne hath offered violence to my modesty in this Dedication yet I know not why I may not dedicate my labours unto you to whom I have long agoe dedicated my selfe When I had once the happiness to entertaine your Ladyship for a very short time I found you so ready to take meane things in the best part that I do the less scruple here to invite you to take part of the Churches Ordinary The great Salvation that this weak hand holds out may well beseeme the greatest Personages not only to own but to have in highest estimation and I am perswaded that you have so long made the attainment of it next to God the Giver and Christ the Purchaser of it your chiefest interest that you have now with your namesake in the Gospel made the better part so sure unto you that it can never be taken from you yet dear Madam it is not unknown unto you that sin is so deceitfull to deceive and the heart so deceitfull to be deceived that we can see small ground of security though some of safety on this side Heaven It s our taking heed of falling that keepes us standing and Caveats against sin and condemnation may be of excellent use to keep the Soul in awe and reverend Dr Sibbs tells us that fear is the awe-band of the soul I am not insensible that Scoffers may say that here is more Porch than house but that was so far from being an oversight that it was a part of my design I dare not inclose nor impropriate that which the Apostle hath called the common Salvation Jude 3. v. That mysticall City that was called the holy Jerusalem descending from Heaven Revel 21.10 Tipifying the Church was said to have 12 Gates which noted out the confluence of Beleivers that should come into the preaching of the Gospel and should fly unto that great Salvation like Doves unto their windows and the discourse herein offered is so like the Pool of Bethesda a common Bath or Fountaine opened for sin and for uncleanness that I thought it convenient to make the more Porches and if I could direct a particular Epistle to every particular Soul the Soules excellency would acquit me from folly in so doing I have deservedly given your Honour the Preeminence in opening unto you the first Gate and the more to ennoble it have written your honourable name upon it that it may be called beautifull and followers may throng in after you and when they are entred if they will but learne of you they may count the feet and much more the faces of them beautifull that bring unto their Soules the glad tidings of Salvation But when they have made their entrance they will find that here is house as well as porch yea and that it is very roomthy for these three Stories Salvation Sin and Damnation do resemble Heaven Earth and Hell Salvation hath Heaven at the top of it and Damnation hath Hell at the bottome of it and Sin like its Father the Divell having the whole Earth for its walke is the worst Companion that the sonns of men have Madame you are here presented with a strange sight a poor sinner hanging betwixt Heaven and Hell if he will but accept of Salvation offered Heaven is his but if he neglect in this his day to know the things that belong unto his Peace he will fall into Hell and ther 's no escaping It 's a sad thing to see so many wallowing in sin like swine in the myre under such warnings and very sad to see many of the Godly to drive so low and dull a trade with Heaven that it may be sayd of them as of poor Tradesmen whom the World favours not that they are still buying selling and live by the losse What sad lives do we lead and what comfortable lives do we lose by not bringing our practises up to the principles of invisible Christianity and for want of more intimate acquaintance with the beauty of holines and power of godlines Gregory the great was said to be the last of the good Bishops of Rome and first of the bad his life was such a medley of good and evill and therefore some Interpreters have thought him to be that Angell in the Revelation that was said to fly betwixt Heaven and Earth And Salomon's life was so particoloured that an antient Limner drew him halfe in Heaven and halfe in Hell and such is the pittifull case of many a Christian they do so halt betwixt God and the World so half it betwixt the Spirit and the Flesh that they may be thought by themselves as well as others to hang equally poysed betwixt Fear of Hell and Hope of Heaven Oh how low are souls in their consolations for want of close and circumspect walking and for want of a laborious and costly serving of God Madam you may here stand safe upon the Rock of your salvation and behold the dead and red Sea of the Almighties wrath upon which multitudes of dead Souls ly floating like the Carcases of the drowned Aegyptians when the Israelites were passed over And while you are standing upon safe ground you may here behold that Rock of Gospel-refusing which hath shipwrack'd many and that Gulfe of Damnation which hath devoured them whereas you through Grace are brought nere unto the harbour and within sight of the Haven where you would be Let Faith and Patience hold out but a little longer for yet a little while he that shall come will come and will not tarry So desiring that the God only wise may guide you with his Counsell and stablish your Mind Heart with his Truth and Grace and lead you through militant holiness into tryumphant happiness I humbly crave pardon for this boldness take leave and rest Beckford Jan. 1st 1658. Madame Your unworthy Remembrancer at the Throne of Grace RICHARD EEDES 1 Tim. 1.15 This is a true and faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the World to save sinners of whom I am chief Hebr. 7.25 He is able to save to the uttermost all them that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them 2 Tim. 2.24 25 26. The servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men apt to teach patient In meeknesse instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Divell who
are taken captive by him at his will To my indeered Friends Mr. JOSEPH JONATHAN and ISAAK BLACKWELL Grace and Peace SIRS AMong the variety of senses which the learned have put upon Christs threefold Pasce to Peter Iohn 21.15 16 17 feed feed feed my Lambes and sheep I find this to be one 1 Pasce dictis feed them with your Sermons 2 Pasce exemplis feed them with your exemplary conversation 3 Pasce scriptis feed them with your writings 1 How I have fed this people by preaching aetatem habent they are able to tell you How by Example aliorum sit judicium others must judge who have known my conversation here and elsewhere 3 And that I have also a desire to feed them with my Writings which may speak to them when I am dead I think my self concern'd to give you some accompt and to leave it upon record with you as three faithfull witnesses The right of presenting an incumbent into this Living is so mixed in two of you who pro tempore are the Patrons of its Minister and maintenance and by whose manuduction I was here seated that I know not which to Challenge for my Patron or if I did I should think my selfe a loser and therefore rather than I would leave out a second I have indeavoured to make the most of you and taken in a third As the wise disposer of your habitations hath seated you triangular in the World and made you Citizens of three famous Cities London Bristol and Hanburgh so are you seated triangular in my heart which desires unfeignedly that you may all meet in one City that new Jerusalem which is above and may have Gaius his prosperity heaped upon you internall and eternall as well as externall It is not so much the confidence of my entertainment as of your candid acceptance that emboldens me to invite you to the reading and owning of this little Treatise yet you will find that I have here apportioned my entertainment to my guests and provided you first second and third course all good plain food which I presume will be the more toothsome to you because it is so wholsome Though you have temporalls dealt out unto you with a liberall hand yet I have cause to have some confidence that the Churches ordinary will be more taking with you than the Worlds gâ—â—dies Yet I would not have you think that in this trichotomy I have carved to each his severall portion but intend to each of you more than a Beniamin's mess and dedicate my book as I do my self all to each desiring that the doctrine herein taught may be in you like the Soul in the body Tota in toto tota in qualibet parte Your memorable Father my predecessor had a large stock a going in this place upon this saving accompt what his returnes were upon the people of his charge is not so visible as I could wish it were but such as run may read that his prayers were plentifully returned into his own bosome He had three Sonns separated to the Ministry one is and two are not and your selves that yet survive are witnesses to that great truth that the seed of the righteous shall be blessed it 's seldom seen that the Houshold of faith hath been supplyed with so many plants out of one nursery and whether I were not called hither on the accompt of his prayers who can tells This I well remember that my access hither was paved with such remarkable providences that it looked very like the returne of prayer Many in this part of the Vale are gotten out of the Vale of darkness and the shadow of death since your Father and some few more entred into this part of the harvest and if readiness to hear be a promising prognostick as undoubtedly it is more are ready to break prison and to seek the way to Ziou with their faces thitherward Oh let not the building cease for want of hands but whensoever ever I shall pay my debt to nature be carefull to provide a faithfull waterer that your Fathers plantation and mine may be like a field which the Lord hath blessed So shall you have favour both with God and men These meditations were first digested and calculated for the people of mine own pastorall Charge but may serve indifferently for this Gospel-glutted Age and Land we live in That it may find acceptance with the godly to further it with their Prayers and with the ungodly to further their Conversion and with all in order to their Salvation is the hearts desire and prayer of Your Friend and servant for Christs sake RICHARD EEDES To my beloved People the Inhabitants of the Parish of Beckford Dear Soules MY hearts desire and prayer to God for you is that you may be saved you of this place may say and few villages can say the like that the Gospel hath dwelt here in power as long as you How many parishes in England have desired to hear the things that you have heard and have not heard them to enjoy the meanes that you have enjoyed and have not had them My painfull Predecessor now with God was a faithfull labourer in this vineyard above forty years and shall it be said of you as it was once said of gainsaying and refusing Israel forty years long was I grieved with this generation And I have been here a waterer where he had planted now full as many yeares as there are Articles in your Creed and yet cannot make it an article of mine that many have received our â—eport or that the arme of the Lord hath been revealed but to a few What successe the Gospel hath had with your Soules I must leave to your own consciences and to the searcher of hearts I am loath to print my thoughts least I should be constrained to speak the Apostles language 1 Cor. 15.34 Some have not the knowledge of God I speake this to your shame If you have embraced the Gospel you have bought the field in which the hid treasure is and though you are never so poor and mean of birth you are richer far and more honourable than graceless Kings and Christless Monarchs If you have refused the Gospel to imbrace the World you will find it the worst match that ever you made when you shall understand that you have pleased the flesh and gratifyed the Divel and made God your enemy and if you had never so much pelfe it will not profit in the day of wrath and you are but base and beggarly so long as you are without Christ and without God in the World Oh persist not in refusing this great Salvation you have had many offers and one must be the last and the more are past the neerer the last is and who knowes if this be not the last that ever shall be made to some of you I wish that these words which come from my very heart-root may reach to yours To espouse you to Christ is all the
business that I have with you I came not hither to take tythes but to winn Soules The malevolent adversaries of the standing Ministry of England call us hirelings and it s a miracle of providence that we have our lives for a prey in the midst of such a blood-thirsty generation of unreasonable men but we so much more desire you than yours that if you would make this our hire to give up your selves to God by our Ministry that by taking heed unto our selves and to the doctrine we may save both our selves and them that hear us let them call us Divells and it should but adde unto our Crown while we all study to be what I desire to approve my selfe A Servant of Christ for the furtherance of your Salvation Richard Eedes To the Reader Reader BEhold I bring unto thee glad tidings of great joy That whatever thy life hath been for the time past and whatever thy sinnes unrepented of are for the present If God shall render thee teachable and willing to be counselled thou maist yet die happily if thou wilt but be perswaded to live holily for the short remainder of thy few and evill daies I desire to approve my selfe a true friend unto thy Soul in my indeavour to bring this to pass and nothing can hinder it if the Tempter do not still prevaile to make thee continue thine own greatest enemy If thou be young thou canst not set out upon such work too soon which is of everlasting concernment to thy Soul and tends to the sure-making of thy Salvation If thou be old and hast spent much time already in the service of sin it is more than time that thou shouldst awake out of that dead sleep least the sleep of death surprize thee and if thou should'st be taken out of the world by death before thou be taken out of the World by grace which God forbid it had been better that thou hadst never been born or hadst been created a Toade or Viper than a Man or Woman Deferr not a day not an houer not a moment longer to consider thy waies and to turne to God hearken to this call of God while it is called to day least deferring till to morrow it should be to late whiles the breath is yet in thy body and the Lord yet offers to breathe the breath of life into thy Soul let not the Divel World and Flesh so bewitch thee as to obstruct thy seasonable and serious closing with God upon a Covenant-accompt and with Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour So shalt thou breake off that Great Sin of Gospel-refusing and escape that Great Damnation that is due to it and attaine unto that Great Salvation which is here faithfully commended and heartily wished to thee by him who is Thy Soule Friend Richard Eedes To the Reader Reader IT is the glory and happiness of the Age and country in which thou livest to have the plaine and plentifull teachings of the Lord that while we see not God or the life to come with open face by immediate intuition to our full satisfaction we may yet see him in a glass by reason sanctifyed and guided and elevated by faith so far as to quicken our desires after more and to cheer and strengthen us as a fore-tast and earnest of the everlasting inheritance Though the invisible things of God may be so farr seen in the things that are made as to leave all those without excuse that know not God or glorify him not as God Rom. 1.20 21. yet is the Gospel the much clearer glass though not as to the sensible manner of Revelation yet as to the fullness and cleerness of Discovery In this glass thou maist certainly see on earth the things that will be done in Heaven and Hell to all Eternity Thou maist know if thou canst but know thy heart both where and in what case thou must live for ever Whether with God or Divells whether in joy or torments whether in the end I less sence of the love of God and in his Soul-ravishing vision and fruition and highest returnes of Love and praise with Christ and all the Heavenly Host or in the endless feeling of his confounding to wrath and pangs of conscience for thy former willfullness and folly and comfortless despairing lamentations of thy misery This certaine glass that from God foretelleth all these things is contained in the Holy Scriptures and daily held before thee by thy teachers who are commanded to call upon thee to try and know thy selfe hereby and to prevent the eternall misery fore-seen and set thy heart on the revealed glory and make out after it with the greatest care and desire of thy Soul that it may be thine for ever This glass is here held out unto thee by this faithfull Reverend Minister of Christ a member of our Association in these united Churches who hath judiciously and concisely yet seriously and pathetically told thee how great a Price is in thy hand if thou have but a heart to the blessedness to be procured by it and the improvement of it for that blessedness He hath told thee also what a sin and desperate folly it is to slight â—nd neglect this great Salvation and turne of that God that Heaven with a triâ—le or with the leaving of this contemptable World who is thy All and should have All and will have thy First and Best or nothing He hath told thee of that great Damnation that will certainely be thy Portion if thou go on to neglect this great Salvation Bless God for this seasonable call and admonition and harden not thy heart but hear if thou have but eares to hear Abuse not a God of Love that deserves not to be abused Turne not away from him that speaketh unto thee from Heaven Deny not thy Redeemer thy first and deepest thoughts and cares thy strongest love and most resolved labours that denyed thee not his blood his doctrine and his example Away with sin Man tread downe the World or use it for the World to come Crucify the flesh that hitherto thou hast served Heaven is before thee thou art made and redeemed to be equall with the Angels Dally not about so great a matter as everlasting joy or torment is God is not mocked and therefore do not mock thy selfe by preferring the tâ—yes of the World before him What needs all this adoe for thy daily bread Having food and rayment be therewith content Get well to Heaven and all is done and thou shalt never want lose that and lose all and thou wilt certainly lose it if thou seth it not first and give it not the chiefest roome in thy heart How thinkest thou to escape if thou neglect this Salvation Will a despised or neglected Christ be thy Saviour or a neglected Heaven be thine Inheritance Dost thou think to come back from the dead into this World to mend that which now thou dost amiss or canst thou escape against Gods will and word Reader
may yet be had be not accessory to your own everlasting undoing do not tire a long suffering God out of patience and provoke him that sweares he takes no delight in the death of a sinner to sweare in his wrath that you shall never enter into his rest Do not make him your judge who is willing to be your advocate nor turne the Lamb of God into a Lion Rampant O grieve not the Spirit which would be your comforter and remember who said when he was waiting upon a rebellious people My spirit shall not alway strive with flesh O send not back Christs Embassadours to their master to tell him with teares that you will not believe their report and put them not upon that diabolicall imployment to be your accusers to God and swift witnesses against you at the barr of Christ make not the word to be the savour of death which was ordained to be the savour of life to the heires of Salvation Let not the Sermons that you have heard and the bookes that you have or might have read and this that you are now reading rise up in judgement against you what should I say more the Lord knows how willing I am to say all that I can possibly invent that may win upon you and all that he shall put into my mouth if he will open your eares and hearts to counsel who opens and none can shutt this may be enough to prevaile with you that hath been allready spoken but if he will shutt or will not open though I could speak with the tongues of men and Angells I should be but as a Sounding brass or a tinkling Cymball O consider this and the Lord give you understanding in all things 2 Let such consider lastly that there is mercy enough revealed in the Gospel even to pardon all such Gospel-refusing as it not finall The Gospel excludes but one sin from pardon and that is because such a sinner cannot be renewed by repentance If the sinner against the holy Ghost could be penitent the sin against the holy Ghost might be pardoned for it is not therefore impardonable because its greater than the mercy of the Father or merit of the Son but because the sinner hath done despight to the holy Ghost and rendred himselfe incapable of the help of the spirit of grace I have allready taught you that Gospel mercy is a present and precious remedy against Law-transgressions but this is a step farther to consider that it s also a soveraigne remedy against Gospel-refusing which is not finall and they may be Gospel-receivers who have been of long season Gospel refusers The bloud of Christ was so savingly soveraigne that it healed those that wounded him and gave life to some of those murderers that put him to death as is evident from that plain Scripture Acts. 2.36 37 38. Peter told them God had made that Jesus whom they crucified both Lord and Christ There we see they were such as had a hand in crucifying Christ The next verse shews that they were penitent and pricked at the heart for that sin and begging directions of the Apostles what they might do to be saved they were directed to repent and incouraged with the hopes of the promise and v. 41. They gladly received the word and there were added to the Church three thousand Soules who continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breathing of bread and prayer And as the merit of Christ extended to his very persecutors so the mercy of the Gospel extends to the refusers of the Gospel That Son that said he would not go into the vinyeard and went was better accepted with the Father than he that said I go Sr. and went not So those that have long stood at a distance from God upon their unfained repentance will be better accepted than such as are forward in profession and shew but have nothing of the power and beauty and reality of Godliness and Christianity in them O what greater incouragement can Rebells have to lay down armes and submitt to mercy than a probability nay a conditionall certainty of their Princes pardon We have heard that the Kings of Israel are mercifull said the servants of Benhadad and therefore got ropes about their necks in token of submission and humbled themselves and found mercy according to their expectation you have heard againe and againe that the God of Israel the King of Kings is mercifull but how mercifull none can tell you he is able to do more exceeding abundantly than we are able to ask or think let us lie in the dust and shame our selves before him and turne from our evill wayes and turne unto the Lord and as sure as he is a God of truth we shall find him to be a God of mercy but if notwithstanding all these allurements we shall persist in our sin of setting light by the Gospel our blood will be upon our own heads and we shall be left to perish without remedy I shall shut up all with that obtestation of the Apostle to the Romans Chap. 12.1 2. Which is my intreaty to you I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your selves a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service c. THE THIRD DOCTRINE The neglect of Great Salvation brings Great Damnation DAmnation is so dreadfull a doome that the very report of it is like a thunderclap to cause a heart-quake in the hearers and speakers of it If Ministers must preach upon paine of Damnation and people must hear and attend upon pain of Damnation the believing entertainment of this truth one would think should be powerfull to work miracles even to make the dumbe to speake and the deafe to hear it s better to hear the roring of the Lion than to come into his paw and its better to hear of the dreadfullness of Damnation than to come under the sentence It s joyous to hear of Heaven but it s the fullress of joy to be invited to it wath a come ye blâ—ssed children of my Father receive the Kingarâ—â— prepared for you So its dreadfull to hear of Hell but it s the most terrible of terribles to be sentenred to it with go yee cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Divel and his Angels You have heard of the amiableness of Salvation to invite you hearken unto the dreadfullness of Damnation to affright you that either you may be drawn or driven to mind the things that belong unto your peace the rule that we proposed was ingentia beneficia ingentia flagitia great mercies abused do aggravate sin and make it sinfull with a witness And now the remainder of it is ingentia flagitia ingentia supplicia those haynous sinns do pull down punishnent with a vengance that sin with a hard heart doth call and cry for judgement with a high hand Now though this be not expressed totidem verbis in express words in the Text
confluence of choicest provisions such is God's free entertainment of his Servants and Favourites Mine Oxen and Fallings are killed and all things in a readiness come unto the Marriage Mat. 22 4. And Come yee blessed of my Father receive the Kingdome prepared for you Mat. 25 34. But when men are to prosecute their deadliest Enemies they will do it with the uttermost rigour that their possibility can reach unto Such and infinitely greater is Gods anger against his Adversaries he takes pleasure at their overthrow and laughs at their destruction Ah I will ease me of mine enemies and be avenged on mine Adversaries Isay 1.24 And as if his mercy were utterly at an end and he had forgotten to be gracious he will denounce that everlasting excommunication as the triumph of his glorious justice Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Divel and his Angels Mat. 25.41 5 Reason Because it hath a great and a long reach 1. It reacheth to the Soul 2. And it reacheth to eternity 1 It reacheth unto the Soul other sentences reach but to the body name estate family relations liberty life as was before hinted but this reacheth the Soul Fear not them which kill the body and when they have done that have no more that they can do but fear him who when he hath killed is able to cast into Hell yea I say unto you fear him Luke 12 4. How do malefactors that are arraigned for some capitall offences tremble before an earthly Judge when he is pronouncing sentence of death upon them but how will corrupt Judges themselves tremble as Faelix did when he heard Paul reasoning of judgement to come yea a more than either he or Belshazzar did when the hand was writing him a divorce from his Kingdome when this sentence of Damnation is going out how will blackness cover all faces when a World of selfe condemned sinners shall stand before the dreadfull Tribunall of the Lord Jesus which in the last Assize he is sitting upon life and death when nothing is left them but a certaine fearfull looking for of judgement and fiery indignation which shall devour the Adversaries Hebr. 10.27 'T was a sad hearing to the rich glutton Thou foole this night shall thy Soul be taken from thee Luke 12.20 The Soul is more worth than the World in his esteem that laid down his life to save Soules Mat. 16.26 And in this damnation this jewell is lost and this darling of ours must be delivered to the roring Lion The Saints do lay all at stake to save their souls Profsâ—s Pleasures Honours Friends Liberty Life it self and think all to be an easie exchange which will more than conclude the loss of the soul to be the loss of all losses 2. And that which makes this so great a loss and that we are treating of so great Damnation is because it is for ever and ever It reacheth to Eternity The sinner under convictions thinks he shall dy no other death looks upon himself as in a very hell upon earth David after deliverance out of such a deep saith O Lord thou hast delivered my Soul from the nethermost hell and Saint Augustine having in his confessions taken shame unto himself for a multitude sins in the depth of his humiliation calls out of the deep of misery to the deep of mercy Lord pitty my Soul in the lowest hell such in Scripture-sense are called lost Christ came to seeke save the lost but this loss shall- be their gain and I may say in this case as the Word in another he that loseth his life shall find it and the Apostle Paul desired to be lost in himself that he might be found in Christ this is but a seeming loss nor will it last long heaviness may indure for a night but joy cometh in the morning for a moment have I hid my face in mine anger saith the Lord but with everlasting mercy will I return and have compassion but the lose we are speaking of is reall and irreparable The soul under desertion thinks it self in a wofull case and hath much ado to distinguish betwixt it self and a cast-away as appears in Davids case Psal 77.7 8 9. Will the Lord absent himself for ever and will he be favourable no more c. and Job complained in the bitterness of his soul that God had set him up as his marke to shoot at and the venome of his arrows drank up his Spirit and Hezekiah did mourn like a Dove and chatter like a Crane and complained that from morning to night God did make an end of him But though it were now winter with them and the sap was gone down into the root yet the Suns return brought their spring again and the light of Gods countenance made all whole but in that desertion which Damnation causes the deserted soul is deserted for ever When the body loses the soul at the death naturall it s a sad loss but the Resurrection will bring them together again but where the soul and God are parted in the spirituall death and the naturall death finds them in this case eternall death presently seizes that soul and that separation wil be everlasting that soul and happiness will never meet 6. Reason The last reason to prove this Damnation to be exceeding great is Because it consists in great and dreadfull punishments We shall make use of this old and common distinction of 1. Poena Damni The punishment of loss 2. Poena Sensus The punishment of sense All evil is distinguished into 1. Malum culpae The evil of sin 2. Malum poenae The sin of punishment All evill of sin may be distinguished into 1. Inherent our own sins 2. Adherent our other mens sins All evil of punishment as afore into 1. Poenam Damni the punishment of loss 2. Poenam Sensus the punishment of sense Man is a compound creature consisting of a soul and body a Coelestiall and Terrestriall part as God is Lord both by Creation Preservation and Purchase so he requires to be honoured with both with all of both all the parts of our bodys and all the powers of our souls If the Apostles inference hold concerning one viz Gods right of purchase ye are bought with a price and therefore ought to glorifie God c. It will conclude much more strongly if we take in all ye are created with his power preserved by his providence as well as bought with a price therefore ye ought to glorifie God both with your bodies and souls which are Gods Here is the very quâ—nâ—essence of reason that God should have his own that which is so much his own by a manifold right Give unto Caesar that which is Caesars and give unto God that wich is Gods Now for such as give up themselves wholly to God in a way of grace and duty taking him to be their â—â—rtion and his Son to be their Lord preferring their interests before all others serving them in the
have run to our wits end we are but at the beginning of it if that Ever and Never though short in syllables and sound yet are so long in sense and signification that they are the savour of life and death to the saved and damned ever with the Lord and never taken out of his Hands is the savour of life to life to the one ever with the Devil and never redeem'd from hell is the savour of death unto death to the other Eternity is the very bottom of the bottomless pit though the torments were easless yet if they were not also endless they might be the better indured But when thousands and ten thousands and Millions and thousands of Millions and Millions of Millions and all the numbers in Arithmetick are added and put into one sum total when the drops and sands of the Sea and stars of the Firmament and all hairs upon all heads from the worlds creation to the day of Judgement shal be compared with the years of Eternity Nondum finis nondum medium nondum principium aeternitatis designatur they are so far from reaching to the end that they cannot reach the Middle no not the Beginning of eternity Sic parvis magna thus have I given you a Slender account of those great punishments which constitute this Great Damnation and so endeth the last of the Reasons USE The onely proper use to be made of a Sermon of Damnation that it may be the power of God through faith unto Salvation is a use of Terrour set home by a Son of thunder unto the consciences of secure sinners that are settled on their lees frozen in theis dreggs and lye soaking in their lusts As the Doctrine of Salvation may be the savour of death and aggravate the Damnation of unprofitable hearters so the Doctrine of Damnation may be the savour of life and tend to the furtherance of Salvation to such as hear in hearing that hear and understand and are converted and healed The Doctrine of Salvation like a pleasant Song may lull sinners into a Spiritually Lethargy when the Doctrine of Damnation may awake them and discover to them their danger to prevent it Oh that I could now speak with the tongue of Angels or rather that the Lord would speake unto you by the words of a man of like infirmities with your selves your fellow-creature and servant who is but dust and ashes oh that the Lord would either give me the tongue of the Learned or speake effectually by my Stammering tongue and open me a wide door of utterance and enterance Though I speake of a dreadfull Theme no less than Great Damnation yet afford me the hearing It s better to hear it than to feel it you had better hear a man coolly telling you of the greatness of the thing than to hear an angry God terribly denouncing the greatness of the sentence I may bespeake your attention as Elihu did Jobs Job 33 6 7. Behold I am according to your wish in Gods stead I also am formed out of the clay Behold my terrour shall not make you afraid neither shall my hand be heavy upon you But here I must lift up my voice and cry aloud or else I cannot wake you and he had need to have a stronger voice than mine that shall speake loud enough for the dead to hear When sinners are so supine and negligent that they can hear the wise and powerful charmes of the Gospel with Adders ears and so dead asleep that they can hear the words of the curse and bless themselves in their hearts and promise themselves peace when God proclaimes War and saith again and again no peace to the wicked I say 48.22 and 57.21 When you can come to the ordinances and sit as Gods people do as if you did delight to know his waies and enquire after the ordinances of justice and yet are no more moved with the sad or glad tidings of the law or Gospel than the Seats you sit upon or the Stones you tread upon no more moved with a discouse of judgement to come or shaken with the breath of Gods displeasure than the Walls or Pillars that you leane unto The dead under-ground are as sensible of what is spoken as the dead above ground how justly may we fear that the Lord will answer you according to your Idolls What need have the Lords servants to step into the gapp and step betwixt you and danger and seeke the Lord that he may not give a hardning commission to his word and ministry for if he once bind ther 's no loosing and if he shut none can open The proper effect of this great Damnation is to strike terrour through the spirits of such as are within reach of it And I have to do with men and women that have reasonable Souls into which God hath put the affections of fear and love and the same God hath put into his word promises and threatnings suitable to these affections that they may be drawn with the promises as with the cords of love or driven with the threats as with the rod of men you have heard of great Salvation a mighty motive to draw you and great Damnation a mighty engine to drive you I have set before you life and death blessing and cursingâ— oh that the Lord would perswade you to make Maries choise to choose life that your Souls your precious Souls may live and live for ever Since I have undertaken this expedition as David did his against Goliah not having any confidence in Sword or Spear but laying all the stress upon the Name and power of the living God I will not despair but that the Doctrine here delivered may take hold upon some hearts that may be savingly bettered by it Sinners remember that the time is at hand when the Lord Jesus must be revealed and the great Judge is even ready to take the Throne to sit upon life and death and all both quick and dead must be gathered before him and those that have made light of Salvation offered Christ will make light of their Damnation inflicted Those that take counsel against the Lord and against his Christ saying let us breake their bonds asunder and cast their cords from us He that sitteth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn the Lord shall have them in derision Then he shall speak unto them in his wrath and vexe them in his sore displeasure yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion The despisers of Christ shal be confounded and he alone shal be exalted in that day It is reported of Philip King of Macedon that he caused his Page to come every morning to his Chamber door with this good morrow Memento Philippe te esse mortalem O Philip remember that thou art a man and must dye like a man as Moses saith in Psal 82.6 7. I have said ye are Gods but ye shall dye like men and you Princes shall fall like others It s reported of
Salvation were no part of our business we are sent into this World to make provision for another and though we are not so straightly confin'd as to do nothing else yet we are under a straight command to do nothing more and thus much the Apostle teaches when he teaches us habere tanquam non habentes so to be possest of the things of this World as not to be possest by them and to use the World as though we used it not Now when instead of so doing we shall use the things of another World as though we used them not pray as if we prayed not and hear as if we heard not and take our swinge in the World as if we were sent into it as Leviathan into the Sea to take our pastime therein or to say to our souls with the rich glutton Soul take thine ease eat drink and be merry thou hast Goods enough laid up for many years to mind low things and neglect high things to have an high esteem of low things and a low esteem of high things is grossely to neglect this great Salvation and if we look about us in the places where we live do not the greatest part live after that careless rate as Jeash said of Baal let Baal care for himself Judges 6.31 when his Altar was pulled down by his Son Gideon so too many are ready to say in works though not in words let God take care for himself and for his own service If his name be dishonoured his Son and Spirit abused his Day prophaned his Embassadors vilified his Ordinances and Worship slighted and disgraced it may be said of very many that would take it ill not to be counted Christians as it was of Gallio when the Apostles were under sufferings that Gallio cared for none of those things Acts 18.17 so that men may but have their wealth and pleasure and honour let Zion sink or swim let it fare how it will with the Church and Religion that is none of their care And this carelesnesse is the more aggravated because things of far less concernment are seriously minded by them 1. Their bodies shall be cared for if in health they will pamper them though they suffer under never so much leanness of soul they will provide largly for the flesh though their spirits starves they will give themselves to chambering and wantoness ryoting and drunkeness though to the loss of Christ and everlasting happiness And if their bodies be sick and their lives in danger no care no cost no pains shall then be spared then with the woman in the Gospel that had the bloudy issue they will spend all their substance upon Phisitians and like Pharaoh in his streights they will desire the prayers of their Ministers whom in health and prosperity they scorned as the very scumme and off scouring of the World 2. Their Estates shall be cared for as riches increase they set their hearts upon them and as if nothing else deserved any part of their care they will rise early and go late to bed and fare hard and all to grow rich to joyn house to house and lay field to field till they dwell alone their barns shall be pulled down and bigger built and all their care is for the Mammon of iniquity and indeed nothing shoulders out the love of God more than this immoderate and inordinate love of the World as the Apostle observes whosoever loves the World prevailingly the love of the Father is not in him 1. Joh. 2.15 And these cares of the World and deceitfulness of riches are said to choak the World and make it utterly unfruitfull This worldly gain is the souls loss not only loss to the soul but loss of the soul and what will it profit a man though he should gain the World if he lose his own soul Matt. 16.26 Those that be rich do fall into a snare and into many noysom lusts which drown the soul in perdition 1. Tim. 6.9 Which caused the Apostle to beseech Believers as Strangers and Pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul 1. Pet. 2.11 3. Their names and reputations shall be cared for every punctilio of a Title and every complemental Ceremony appurtenant to greatnesse and honour shall be narrowly observed yea our ambitious Nimrods will make use of any ladder of the devils rearing to climb to the top of earthly greatnesse and so they may but be mounted to the pinacle of preferment they care not though they be carried thither upon the devils back and though they be afterwards tempted by him to throw down themselves headlong and break their necks They will build Babel to purchase an aerial name though the Foundation be laid in Gods displeasure and the end prove confusion How do men set their names upon their Sons and upon their Estates calling their children anâ— their lands after their own names which is but to write their names in the sand which the next generation like the next tide doth clean put out How much better were it for them to pass the pangs of the new birth to the obtaining of the new name and to be made the sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty to be engrafted into Christ and made new creatures but this is none of their care to become fools that they may be wise is altogether a Paradox to them and such counsel as that they count the foolishness of preaching The Doctrine of self-denyal to deny Wits Wills and Worth though it be the first lesson of Christianity will not down with them and therefore upon necessity they must live and die fools what ever their other names be that 's their surname who will not be perswaded to advance so far as the beginning of wisdom In a word Pleasures Profits Honours which are the Worlds Trinity and self-seeking or flesh pleasing which are the same in Unity These are the great Diana's which the multitude do adore and cry up and these they will have though they have Hell with them and this great Salvation and the eternal weight of Glory ballanced with these are in the estimation of these men lighter than vanity it self and these are notorious neglecters of this Salvation 2. The neglect of this great Salvation is express'd by taking but a little care conjunct with greater cares Many because it is too too grosse and abominable and the very badge of Reprobates to give up themselves wholly to the World Flesh and Devil and to serve sin in the lust of it they will divide themselves betwixt God and the World God and the Flesh God and the Devil They will give God and Christ their names and tongues but the World Flesh and Devil shall have their hands and hearts they will pretend to serve God but keep their sins But the word is plain that we cannot serve two Masters ther 's no serving God and Mammon O cleanse your hands ye sinners and purge your hearts ye double minded