of Application is come the making himself over to them in the consideration or notion of an elder Brother and so they really by their conjunction with him partake of it There is the second work 3. There is the work of the Holy Ghost and til that likewise be past over the Soul never is any man made the Son of God The Holy Ghost and his work is so eminent and apparent that he is called the Spirit of Adoption that when the Lord gives his Spirit unto his Children he cals it by the Spirit of Adoption because it is the great Office of the Spirit to make that great work of Adoption Quest. Now what is the Holy Spirit 's work about it Answ. I Answer It stands in three things and you wil see them all cleer in Scripture and I hope I shal have some time for the Application for I go it over as fast as I can the Holy Ghosts work in making us the Sons of God stands in three things as it is cleer in the Scripture The one is 1. When the acceptable time is come that the Lord means to make a Soul that is by nature a Child of wrath to become the Child of God He sends the Spirit of Jesus Christ into that Soul to be a band of union betwixt Christ and that soul that whereas Christ is to be applied to them as a Brother and they to be mystically united unto him the holy Spirit takes this Office upon himself to come and dwel in the heart as a band of union betwixt Christ and them that Christ and they should never more be separated and this work of the pouring out of the Spirit into the Soul to take possession of him for Christ and to give the possession of Christ unto him the Spirit being the band of it this is the first work of the Spirit as he is the Spirit of Adoption There is one The second work of the Spirit is this 2. That when the holy Spirit comes to make Christ and us one he as the elder Brother and we as his Brethren inseparably united to him whereas he findeth us enemies hateful hating that would rather be united to Harlots to the Creature to any thing the Spirit of God works a Child-like heart in them framing and molding their Spirits that for the time to come they calling God Father as they have warrant to do they likewise shall be made Sons even in the frame and bent of their spirits which is very excellently expressed in the very next words to my Text wherein it is said He gave them this Prerogative that they should become the Sons of God which were born saith he mark not of Blood nor of the wil of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God Now no longer shal flesh and blood sway them but being born of God the Spirit of God gives a new birth and a new life now they come to have the hearts of Children that as nature hath planted in the heart of a Child toward the Parent Honor and Love and Reverence and Obedience where sin hath not utterly perverted it this is the natural genius of a Child to his Father So the Spirit of God molds and frames the Soul and this the Scripture signifies when it saith Because you are Sons God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts whereby now we can cry Abba Father now the hearts of them shal stand to God and be carried to him in Faith and Prayer as the hearts of Children are naturally carried to their Parents That is the second thing And then the third and last work of the Spirit and so you have all this indeed as plain before you as I can set it out briefly the Third Work is this 3. This Holy Spirit even as it is the Spirit of Adoption doth not only unite them to Christ and frame a sutable disposition in them towards God and Christ But it abides in them upon all need to witness to their Spirits that this is their condition to give not only the Seal of it by changing their hearts but by giving them the comfort of it as they need it in their necessities which the Apostle expresseth in those words it is in Rom. 8. And the same Spirit witnesseth to our spirits that we are Gods Children it carries our hearts to God and testifies to the Soul that God is their Father There is the second Now I have been larger in that because in truth the world doth not ponder these things nay few of Gods own Children do ever consider what a strange work it is that none but the blessed Trinity can undertake and each of them have their distant work in it of bringing a poor Child of Wrath to become the Child of God That is the second You hear now what Adoption is and how it is wrought Now the third thing in the Doctrinal part and then I hasten to the Application is Wel What are the benefits of it Now what are the benefits of our Adoption That when the Lord hath took this strange course and brought about this strange work Wherein doth the worth of this Priviledg stand I answer You wil receive a great deal of light of it at least it wil help you to remember it and understand it the better if I do illustrate it by the practice that was amongst the Romans So their Adoption and the Roman Adoption had three things in it it carried three things as all learned men that have read their Stories and Laws do know The first is 1. When a man was Adopted into a Family the Family of a Caesar or the great men by his Adoption he was cut off from the Family from which he sprung by his natural birth cut off from it not simply but from whatsoever was base or unworthy in that Family that if his Father were a Slave and himself by his birth a Slave it was hereditary to him or if any blot or infamy stuck upon his family whatsoever it was the Adopting of this Person into another Family wholly cut him off from al the base ignominious slavish bondage and dangers which belonged to the Family from which he sprung by his natural birth That was the first The second was 2. That by his Adoption he was taken as belonging to the Family into which he was Adopted as much as if he had been begotten by him he was to have by the Laws of the Empire the same respect from his adopted Father the same provision the same protection the same immunities whatsoever that his own begotten Son might claim by nature from the Roman Laws the adopted Child was instituted in them all And Thirdly 3 By his Adoption he had the same right to the inheritance that the begotten Child had if there were no other begotten Children the whol Inheritance sel to the Adopted Child if there were another begotten Child though beloved the Adopted shared with him in it Look how
are of the Lords own teaching ever study that Lesson for as for others they love and like their hearts wel that when they are convinced of every thing else in the world they will boast of their heart that that is right but when a man can say as Hezekiah said to God Oh Lord remember I pray thee that I have with an upright heart sought thee as if he should have said If I could have done thee more service I would I would have prayed better and beleeved better and been more active but thou hast had my heart the Soul that can say so the Lord would answer it even as David said to the Lord in 1 Chron. 29. Oh! Lord saith he I know that thou lovest the heart when he had offered up an Oblation he and his People Oh Lord saith he I know thou regardest the heart and hast pleasuere in uprightness as for me in the uprightness of my heart I have sought thee So when thou shalt say Father my memory is weak my utterance bad my temptations strong and my corruptions great I can deny none of these but the Lord knows he hath my heart could I get it in a better frame I had rather see it in a better frame than have the estate of an Emperor Where there is a willing mind it is an excellent Speech of the Apostle in 2 Cor. 8. in the point of Alms and I wil give you an instance in that that you may make of it in a hundred other things when he would stir them up to contribute he saith where there is a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not as if he should have said The Lord hath given me a heart I like this cause so wel I would willingly give twenty shillings to this cause but I am not able to give above a penny Hast thou a willing mind to give more thou art accepted according to what thou hast The liberal gift is but the work of Gods Providence the willing mind is the work of Gods Grace The same wil run throughout all duties go to prayer one man hath such an utterance conception working fancy can speak admirably to the affecting of all but these are but gifts and parts and if he hath an humble broken heart goes with it there is Spirit too but it may be another poor Soul that joyneth in the Duty that can hardly speak a few words of sense together but God knows if they could pray if they could pour out their souls if they could wrastle with God they had rather do it than any thing else in the world that is the work of prayer the other is but the work of common gifts that is for the edification of others therefore know this all of you we poor creatures deal with men and it is almost impossible but we value men according to their parts a man whom God enableth with parts and gifts to edifie others especially if there be Grace in his Heart too he is measured by the value of his parts by all men God goes not by that value No that Soul that takes most care about his Heart give me a Woman a handmaid that wrestles more in secret that she may bring her wil to Gods wil and may love and hate nothing but what God loves and hates find such an one out they are Gods choice ones and his Jewels therfore be not discouraged for the want of any thing while you can say The great God that knows al knows my great study is about my Heart I will conclude this use with a speech I have often heard of one Mr. Banes a man that was indeed an excellent emminent Man for any thing that was good and not long before he died some friends were with him in his Library it was an excellent one and they fel a commending of it I saith he There they stand but the Lord knows that for many years last past I have studied my Heart more then my Books Oh! There was a study give me a Scholler that can say I study my Heart more then my Book I study my Heart more then my Shop-book I study my Heart more then my Counting-House I study my Heart more then a Bargain that it may be pure and Holy this Man is a blessed Man and Woman that hath but attained this and then Lastly the last Use that I would make and I wil but even name it is this USE 3. I beseech you therefore for the time to come will you all make this your study You have heard it is a dangerous Heart you bear about you whatsoever you are that think you may be most secure of your heart you are but Fools to trust it and your Conversation wil be as your heart is remember all the Arguments I gave you and let it prevail with you for the time to come to enter into this serious study how you may keep it in a good frame continually and this now would have been an Introduction to the second Question for this is sufficient to prove that it ought to be so But now the next is Quest. Wherein stands the keeping of the heart in a good frame It is true I confess it is comfortable to hear of the general endeavor of it but what are the rules and directions the Servants of God should attend to when they would keep their hearts in so good a frame that it may be such a Temple of the Holy Ghost for the Lord to delight in Answ. That is too great a Question in truth to handle in a little time only these two or three things I would say in general before I dismiss you As First 1. There is no talking it is not for any man living ever to talk of keeping his heart in a good frame until first the Lord have broken it to pieces and new molded it that is for certain while the heart is as we come into the world as we are in a state of nature the wildest Beast under Heaven will be easilier tamed than the heart of a man wil ever be ordered It is just as a Bel that hath a crack throughout al the Bel-founders in the Town Country they may hew it and chip it and scurfe it and I know not what they wil never make it sound right til it be choped a pieces and new cast So I say the heart of man is by nature so forlorn so ful of wickedness so utterly destitute of all good that if all the Teachers and Tutors under Heaven had it to work to bring a man up and make him right til God take away the heart of stone and regenerate him and give him a new heart there is no talking of ever keeping it in a good frame Therefore if you be not throughly grounded in it get your heart knocked in pieces the first thing you do pray God Almighty to break it through break it down break it up
Christianity there is nothing Christianity but the Life of Christ. 2 Aboundance of things go for this Life which are not this Life Quest. How shall we know this Life Answ. By these two Characters 1 Wheresoever the Lord gives Life to any Creature in a Natural way the life is the Preciousest thing in the world to that Creature and so among al that live the life of Christ there is nothing in this world so dear to them as their Spiritual Life is Which valuation of the said Life appears in these three things Page 22 1 In a Natural propensity and inclination and appetite towards those things that are the nourishment of this Life 2 In a most vehement declining of what they know to be destructive to this life 3 In a willingness to part with any thing to save this spiritual Life Page 24 The second Character of this Spiritual Life 2 Consists in some things that are the proper beatings of the pulse as it were of the Soul Arguments of this spiritual Life Aâ— 1 The Natural motion of this spiritual Life is to enjoy God in Jesus Christ as their chiefest good this is the great thing wherin the souls pulse beates 2 There is a Natural making out of the Heart towards holiness righteousness love kindness mercy pitty Page 27 3 The Soul that is alive unto Christ is guided by the word it is his Card his compass his Square his Meet-wand his Eye Looking to the word as his only Guide Who are strangers to the Life of Christ 1 All that know not Christ 2 All that live to their Lusts. 3 All that live to the World 4 All that live to their Pleasures Use 2. This serves to comfort those that live this life considering that 1 This is the highest noblest most excellent Life that ever any Creature did partake of 2 This is the sweetest of all Lives for in all other lives men tast but the sweetness of the Creature but in this the sweetness of God and Christ. 3 It is the greatest pledge of Gods love he gives to any 4 Christ being the fountain of this life you may be bold to rely upon him for the preservation of it Page 32 Use 3. To perswade all men to study and seek after this life SERMON II. DOCT. 2. That life of Christ which all Gods people live in this world they live it by Faith The DOCTRIN is 1 Demonstrated from scripture that it is so that the whol Life of a Christian is led by Faith 2 It is opened by shewing what the Holy Ghost means by this and what it is for a Soul to live the life of Christ by Faith Page 35 Use 1. Hence we may safely and sadly conclude that amongst the great multitudes of those that challenge the Name of Chrstians there are very few that are really Christians For 1 Many are Ignorent of Christ. 2 Many never trouble themselves at the very Doctrine of Faith 3 Many live to their lusts 4 Multitudes live to the world 5 Many live to their own wills Use 2. Real Christians ought to lament nothing so much as their unbelife Quest. Do you think that the people of God are so much guilty of it Judge by these Signs 1 Our not studying of the Word 2 Our little Valueing of the Word 3 Our unevenness in our whol course 4 Our deviations and use of unlawful means SERMON III. Use 3. This shewes what kind of Christians they must needs be who can live in the Flesh above Word and Ordinances having no use of them and as they think nothing to do with them but live in an immediate communion with God and enjoyment of him Use 4. To make this living by Faith better known to the Lords people and more exactly practised then it hath been hitherto For encouragement to study this art of living by Faith consider 1 If you wil be Christians you have no other Mistery to maintaine your lives but Faith 2 All other waies of life that any man pitches upon wil shortly appear to be but a poor thing 3 This Mystery of living by Faith is the best Life the most desirable Life that any Man or Woman can live til they come to enjoy God immediately The Excellency of this Life opened in Particulars 1 It is the life which the Lord hath chosen out to be the life of those that he loved from all Eternity 2 It is most honorable to us 3 In this world it is the easiest Life To live by Faith is the easiest Life under Heaven 4 It is the best Life because it is the surest Life Page 64 Question How shall we do to live this Life Answer 1 The Grace of Faith is the principal of his Life 2 If you would live the Life of Faith labor to be well acqainted with God especially with God in Christ. 68 3 Study to be acquainted with the word 4 Faithfully and Conscientiously serve the Lord in the use of means Page 73 Two Cautions to be taken in with these directions When it is said we must use means and thus live by Faith the meaning is 1 That when we have done we must not limit God God limits you and limits me but Faith must not limit him as to the way how or time when be shall makeâ— good Page 74 2 When you are directed thus to live the life of Faith you must take heed of some other Principles viz. your own Reason and your own sense The Premises considered it is sad to think 1 How the common People of the world live amongst us being wholly Ignorant of these things and setting their Hearts upon wealth and Pleasure and Honor and such perishing things Page 76 2 It is sad to think how many Souls that are Godly and study the Scriptures and attend upon the word yet had rather study nice controversies and things that engender strife then this great comprehensive Duty of living to Christ and living by Faith Page 77 FINIS CHRIST'S INTERCESSION OR Sins of Infirmity Opened in a Sermon at Pauls Novemb. 19. 1654 1 John 2.1 2. My little Children these things write I unto you that you sin not now follows my Text And if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous And he is the Propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whol world THe whol scope of the blessed Apostle in this Letter of his is as himself teacheth us to confirm the people of God to build them up in that great Article of their Faith and their great priviledge which is the Communion of Saints He tels you in the beginning he writes to them that they might have Communion with himself and the rest of the Apostles whose Communion is with God the Father and is Son Jesus Christ presently he proceeds to shew wherein this Communion stands which he doth express First More generally It is to walk in the light when all the world walks in darkness
have dominion over you you are not under it you are under Grace This is a clear proposition A Child of God cannot sin 2. Yet on the other side it is as clear that if any man that calls himself the Child of God say he hath no sin he is a Liar it is rather an Argument he hath no grace In many things we sin all Nothing clearer then that the people of God his dearest Children do sin Paul in the name of them all talketh of being sold under sin carrying a body of sin about him now these two must of necessity have such an interpretation as to justifie the truth of God in it Be pleased then to know thus much that when the Scripture speakes so positivly and clearly of the Children of God not sinning that they cannot commit sin the meaning is this That whereas the way of sin mark it the way of sin is the only way that al men walk in before they come to Christ as conceive it thus when men first fel from God while he stood in his integrity God was his end God was his portion God was his rule but when man fel from God the whol corruption of mans nature stood in these two things That now he was turned away from God and fallen into the Creature and there he continues til a new life be communicated let him do what he will let him pray let him read let him hear let him walk in workes of justice and righteousness and stil he is but within the compass of injoying the creature and living to the creature making himself and the good that he can find in the creature his portion which is a turning off from God and this is one way of sin and thus all the men in the world walk that although it be true yet some of their sins are greater then others and aggrauated by some circumstances yet look as it is with a man that is in prison though the prison may be very large and he may somtimes walk East West North and South and do some things more clean and some things more gross yet they are al done within that compass of the prison So take a man not in the state of Grace the end he aimes at is himself the rule he walks by is somwhat that may yeild contentment to him from the creature and beyond al this no living man goes til God give him a new life Now when the Lord vouchsafeth to cal a man home to Jesus Christ and planteth in him a new principle of a new life then the Soul returns home to God now for time to come God is his portion and the way that may lead him to the injoyment and knowledg of God is his only way to which he resignes up himself and makes it his daylie study and trade to walk in it now here is his way that as to an unconverted man the creature is his way and al things that may make him injoy the creature or setled in the creature is his way but the new man he hath no way but approaching to God aspiring up to him drawing nigher to him being made more like to him this is his way but now while he intendeth this way mark it he being converted but in part he knows his way but in part and therefore somtimes misseth it for want of light he somtimes likewise stumbles in the right way for want of strength somtimes a violent temptation takes him and turnes him a little out of the way for want of good take-heed these kind of sins Gods Children are liable to while they live in this world So that the sume of it is this no reigning sin a sin that shal have dominion over him to carry him from God and settle him upon the creature can be compatible with the state of a converted man but yet frailties and weaknesses for want of strength those are his sins and they and no other are the sins that Gods Children are liable unto So that the thing I have brought you to is to shew you that the Saints while they live in this world are compassed with infirmities and only with infirmities concerning which because it is a great Doctrine I intend the Lord assisting me to open these three things and that wil be the sume of this first Question What the sins are Three things I will open to you about the sins of infirmities wherewith Gods people are compassed while they live The first is First I wil shew you the nature of them the nature of a sin of infirmity Secondly I wil shew you the kinds of them what kinds of sins of infirmities Gods people may be overtaken with And Thirdly Thirdly I wil shew you how these may be known to be such that no man may deceive his heart about them and these must needs be opened because the latter part of our Question of Christs being a relief to them is so ful of Consolation that I would have no body have it that have not right to it and therefore I would not have them flatter themselves about it For the first First To open to you the nature of an Infirmity Take it thus To enable a Soul to walk in the waies of God as all Gods people do in measure but to enable a Soul to do it there is required a twofold strength the one is I. An habitual strength The other is II. An actual strength 1. The habitual strength that all Gods Saints have it is nothing but the inclination and disposition of their hearts to the waies of God and against the waies of sin which is wrought in them by 〈◊〉 Holy Ghost in the time of their first conversion 〈◊〉 which hour the quickning Grace communicateâ—â—o the Soul doth once for ever make the bent of the heart stand to the waies of God that now there is a complacency a delight a suitableness to them in the waies of God and a displacency and aversion in reference to the waies of sin This now is habitual strength once given to Gods people never taken away from them But now though this habitual strength do give them a good wil as the Apostle cals it a good mind to the waies of God yet 2. To enable them either to forbear any sin or to perform any duty there must be communicated an actual strength and that actual strength is nothing but the immediate assistance of the Holy Ghost who dwels in them drawing out their Graces to work and strengthening them in their working and when this actual strength is communicated to them by the Holy Ghost then if a temptation to a sin be propounded the Saint is too strong for it he overcomes the temptation if a holy Duty be propounded to be done by the help of this God if need be he can leap over a wall Give a Child of God the inward inclination of his heart wrought by Grace and the actual assistance of the Spirit of God when he is called out to
in the midst of all thy corruptions if thou didst know it it would engage thee to joy and to every thing that is Holy and Good the Lord set it home to the hearts of his people and teach them to apply it to their own Souls in secret And then Secondly USE 2. 2. I say to you all from hence All of you learn what need there is of getting an interest in Jesus Christ for that is the end of my Sermon To perswade you to see the need that you have of getting an interest in Jesus Christ. Would you know why I wil tel you Al the sins that you commit as you wil commit sins every day you live but all the sins that you commit are all writ down in Gods Book he numbers your steps though you number them not your selves he hath your iniquities in a Bag and the day is coming when he wil cal every one of you to an account and now Friends what if you have not a Daies-man or a Mediator to appear for you I remember Ely said Oh my Sons if men sin against men men shal speak for them but who shall speak betwixt the Soul and God So you have committed innumerable sins and your own hearts and Consciences tel you more than any man can charge you with How wil you do to appear before God What if you have not a Mediator the Lord Jesus that is a Propitiation for our sins What a woful case are you in Take heed you do not imbrace a Cloud but study Christ and get found Faith in him and if Christ be yours you are secure but look to it or your case is dangerous I dare not stay you any longer The Lord give us understanding in all things FINIS THE HIGH PRIVILEDG Of all True BELIEVERS To be the SONS of GOD. Opened in a Sermon at Suttons Hospital Novemb. 12. 1654. John 1.12 13. But as many as received Him to them gave he power to become the Sons of God even to them that beleeve in his Name Which were Born not of Blood Nor of the will of the Flesh Nor of the will of Man But of God THe dependance of the Words stands thus First You have in the beginning of the Chapter a most glorious Description of Jesus Christ both of his person and of his Natures and of his Office under the Name of the Light that inlighteneth every one that cometh into the World Then Secondly You have a description of his Entertainment in the World when this great Lord submitted to this work and manifested himself What was his entertainment First He came into the world and though the world were made by him Yet the world would not know him he came amongst his own that is his own nation and kinred who had been instructed about a Messiah that was to come and had long prayed for him Oh! that he would bow the Heavens and come down amongst us he came amongst them and they would none of him they would not receive him Truly this is the ordinary lot of Jesus Christ wheresoever he cometh but yet there were a remnant that did receive him and shal receive him even those that belong to the Covenant of Grace And what get they by it That Remnant that handful that do receive Christ make the best bargain that ever was made in the world As many as did receive him to them he gave this priviledg that they should become the Sons of God and so here you have the comprehension of all the happiness that Beleevers do receive by Jesus Christ they are made the Sons of God so that the Text hath two things in it First 1. Here is the Means whereby Souls are made partakers of Christ that is upon receiving of him that is the means and condition or instrument All that receive him which is interpreted in the next words even they who believed in him Believing in Christ and Receiving Christ is al one This though it be a Doctrine of wonderfull comfort I shall speak nothing of it but of the second That is 2. The benefit that they all receive who do partake of Christ what they get by him They all of them have this priviledg or Prerogative That they are made the Sons of God and so without any more preparation to the Text or explication for the Doctrine I will explain in the handling of it I say without any more preface I lay you down this Doctrine Doct. That al who believe in Jesus Christ are made the Sons of God the Children of God And that you may receive this with better attention I will to make you the better understand the Lord's scope answer a Question that is this Quest. You say it is very cleer in the Scriptures that al Beleevers are made the Children of God that is one of their Priviledges but what is the reason that no more is named but that one They are Justified they are Sanctified they have the Promises they are Reconciled they have a thousand excellencies in this world yet here is none named but only this they are made Sons Why is no other named but this Answ. I Answer plainly and it will be of great use to understand it namely that though somtimes in the holy Scriptures our Sonship is but one of our Priviledges yet very frequently in the Scripture all that Beleevers do obtain from Christ in this world and the world to come here and to eternity all is comprehended in this one That they are made the Children of God Really you wil see it as cleer as the Sun presently that God comprehends all other priviledges in this one that he that hath this one he that is made the Son of God he hath all other that can be imagined or that you can find any Speech of in al the Book of God so great is this And I wil give you a little light about it and then you wil receive the Doctrine I hope with the more attention and with the more desire to see your own Interest in it You shal see and observe it as a general that very frequently when the Lord describeth the Covenant of Grace the new Covenant what he wil be to his people in the new Covenant he is very frequent in the setting down of this I wil be their Father saith he and they shall be my Sons and Daughters I know not how often the whol Covenant of Grace is expressed in that word I wil be their Father they shal be my Children but very cleerly you shal see it if you turn to Ephes. 1.5 where the Apostle doth bless the Lord for all the abundant Grace that is manifested to us in Christ there he sets it down in this one expression having predestinated us to the adoption of Children What is al that Al the Graces al the Good that we enjoy from Christ you have it in this one Sentence God predestinated us to the adoption of Children he hath done all when he hath
had a little Oyl in the bottom of a Cruse and a handful of meal in the bottom of a Barrel and she and her Son did live upon it for as many years as the Famine lasted I warrant you that poor Woman would not have taken a hundred pound for it So that poor soul that can say I bless God he hath raised me up from my low condition and I have abundance of the world about me but I know Christ is more dear to me than all the world I know my prayers are to him for life and I hang upon him as wel as I can for life and look for it no where else and I dayly apply my heart to him in that poor measure his Spirit enables me I tel thee poor soul he hath given thee Jehoiakims portion and the richest food for manna was Angels meat this the Angels nay pardon me God never created any creature in the world to tast of this but every poor soul how wretched soever that lives upon Christ feeds upon â—t I pray meditate upon this at home and the Lord help you to ruminate upon this in secret Is it so Lord that the poor soul that casts himself upon Christ is thus made one with him Surely I wil never take care how it is in the world with me God hath provided wel for me my Lot is fallen in a very good place And Lastly USE 3. For Exhortation I shal make but one Use and that shal be in the very words of our blessed Savior when he begins this Doctrine in this John 6. ver 27. when they came and flocked after him for the Loaves saith Christ to them Labor not for the meat that perisheth but for the meat that endures to eternal life This Counsel of Christ I would a little press to you though I borrow half a quarter of an hour forgive me for it is for your good First saith Christ 1. You seek me for the loaves labor not for that Friends we are all cumbred as our Saviour said to Martha in Luke 10. the latter end Martha Martha thou art carefull and cumbred about many things So we are cumbred all of us about many things some of us are cumbred how to get more wealth some of us cumbred how to dispose of the wealth we have got we are cumbred about our places offices and these worldly things hurry us up and down we can hardly come into any place but all the peoples talk is no body is at leisure but full of business and what is it for the meat that perisheth all that thou laborest for is perishing perishing money pershing wealth perishing honor perishing profit alas Freind in a very few daies all that thou laborest for wil not be worth one penny at least to thee and but over a little time to no body else perishing things not worth your seeking the Lord knows they are not they that the world comes in most upon and all that their hearts can wish comes in with ease it is not one hours content it is but meat that perisheth but now labour saith he for the meat that endures to eternall life here is meat worth your labouring for I appeal to all your consciences that have heard the Sermon whether this meat be not worth the labouring for whether to get an interest in Christ to hunger after him to long for him to rely upon him Is not this worth the seeking Oh! seek it and to encourage you 2. I wil tel you what our Savior adds in verse 27. Labor for that meat that endures to everlasting life saith he the Son of man he gives it you that is you have no promise if you labor for the things of this world How many are those that toyl and moyl and cark and care most for the world and it wil not come upon them many a man sits up late and riseth early and manages his business discreetly and yet it wil not come but God hath engaged himself by a Promise that he that seeks the bread of life shal have it that if thou canst but pour out thy soul Lord leave me not destitute of Christ he wil not deny the Son of man to thee But lest some-body should further add Give it me Why should he give it me What is there in me that the Son of man should be given me Why should I think the Lord Christ would give me this food If I ask that he ads For him hath God the Father Sealed that is I came into the world under a sealed Office to do the wil of my Father and the work that my Father hath sealed to me made my work to do is To give eternal life to those that seek it He can as wel deny himself and deny that he is sent from God and his Office as to deny the bread of life to a soul that unfainedly labors for it Wil not this do it The Lord bless it and give you to consider what I have said and win all our hearts to study that Jesus Christ may be more in our thoughts FINIS SELF-DENIAL Opened in a SERMON At St. Mary Spittal March 26. 1649. Matth. 16 14 and so forward Then said Jesus unto his Disciples if any Man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me For whosoever will save his Life shal lose it And whosever will lose his Life for my sake shall find it For what is a Man profited if he shall gain the whole World and lose his own Soul Or what shall a Man give in Exchange for his Soul THe occasion of this speech of our Savior was this he had a little before told his Disciples what great things he was shortly to suffer at Jerusalem whereupon Simon Peter begins to rebuke his Master for admitting of such a Melancholly thought Far be it from thee to imagine that God will ever suffer thee to undergo such sad things as these are Master pitty thy self if there be any danger take a course to avoid it Our Savior therefore replies to Peter get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence to me this is nothing but the savor of the things of the world that makes thee give me this wicked counsel having rebuked Peter he turns to al his Disciples and utters this speech that I have read wherein our Lord strikes at the Root of that which made Peter give him that carnal counsel for the Lord knew it was nothing but unmortified self in Peter and he wel saw that it would bring the like bitter fruits in all in whom it was not Crucified and therupon gives them that counsel that is contained in those three verses that I have read to you wherein there are these two things First 1. Here is a Lesson necessarily to be practised by all Christs Disciples in these words If any man wil be my Disciple Let him deny himself Take up his Cross And follow me that is the Lesson Secondly 2. Here is
Take that that is reported of a famous Lady in the primitive Church I think her name was called Julida or Juletta that having a Suit before a Heathen Magistrate in somewhat that concerned her estate her cause was good and it was like to go of her side but some body whispers the Judge in the Ear and tels the Judg that she was a Christian the Judg tels her Lady your cause is good saith he and it is like to go with you but here is an information come that you are a Christian and if so you will not only lose this cause and this part of your estate but al your estate and your honor and your life all is gone Is it come to that saith she farewel my lands farewel my honor farewel my life Nay I am a Christian when these come to stand in competition with Christ once Or as Gallatius Carixialdus a famous Italian Marquess that had a Lady and delicate Children and a fair Estate but when he could not enjoy Christ and these together he left them all and went to Geneva to live with Mr. Calvin And there is a speech of Chrysostome that he said when he thought he should go to banishment or martyrdome for Christs sake he said If my Father should stand in my way I would throw him down if my Mother should meet me I would tread upon her belly meaning plainly that if any of these should be hinderances to him in Christ's cause and stand in competition he would trample them under his feet And this the Lord plainly means by a mans denying himself my Life is dear my Learning is dear my Children are dear my Credit is dear al are good I value them I love them I would keep them but if either my peace with Christ must go or these if my Conscience must go or these if the Glory of Christ must go or these all pack away they are all renounced as they stand in competition with Christ. This is the third thing in self-denial Fourthly there is another and I pray lay up these things in your hearts against I come to apply them by and by and that is 4. That the soul that doth deny it self doth totally forsake all these so far as from claiming his interest or propriety in them they do not only not make them their wealth but now they resign them all up unto Christ give them up to Christ and themselves turn Baylifs or Stewards to Christ to use them all according to the will and pleasure of Christ Jesus alone Pray understand this because though you be never called to some of the other yet for this last this is that vein of self denial that must run through the whol course of a mans life and he hath use of it every day he lives if he be a servant of Christ Pray understand my meaning thus Suppose a man had a smal Farm upon which he totally lived it was the inheritance he received from his Father and it is al that he and his Wife Children have to subsist on and he useth it according to his own will for his best advantage builds plucks down plows laies down his plowed ground turns it into pastures sels it keeps it changeth it doth what he wil it is all the wealth he hath suppose this man had a fair estate that is ten thousand times better settled upon him by some great man that gives it him freely only ties him to this condition that this Farm that was his own before he shal now surrender it up to the hands of the Lord to him that is his Lord and for time to come though he shal dwel upon it stil yet now he shal occupie it only as his Baylif shal not cut down a Tree but what he appoints not pluck down a house nor alter a room but as he orders him and all the fruits he shal lay them where he would have them and dispose of them as he commands him be but his Baylif and Steward as to that the other now is his own portion that he shal live upon Just now here is the case while we are in our natural estate all we have to live upon is our self I have so many corruptions that it may be are very pleasurable and honorable some of them I have such parts such strength of Body I have such a wit or such an estate or such a good name it is al I have to live upon and I wil improve it to the best I can and as it may best serve my turn I use it but now when I take Christ Jesus to be my portion when I come to take the Lord Christ to be my portion I surrender all these up into Christ's hands and while he is pleased to put them back again into mine I am only his Baylif his Steward my wit is his my Honour is his my Wealth is his my Lands are his and a man that hath denied himself doth occupy all these things just as the Jews were to occupy the Land of Canaan of whom you may read in Levit. 25. that the Lord told them This Land saith he is all mine and you are but sojourners with me you shal plow it thus many years and then you shal plow it no longer than such a time and of the fruits of it you shal bring the first fruits to such a place and pay the Tithes to such a place and to the poor give such a thing and gives this Reason For the land is mine and you are but sojourners with me so that all that a man hath in this world al that is comprehended under the name self when once the Soul closeth with Christ it is but a sojourner with him to use these things and to use them according to the Lords pleasure and these four do make up self-denial when a Soul in a word is come thus far that he doth abhominate all that is in it so as for making it a portion when he hates and labors to crucifie whatsoever in it is an enemy to Christ and the waies of Christ when he parts with all with any thing as they stand in competition with Christ when they labor to use all according to the rules of Christ so as to make Christ the Proprietor and themselves to be but Stewards or Tennants at wil to him This is the self-denial that the Lord saith must be in every Soul that wil be his Disciple Now before I come to the Application of this I have but one thing more and that is to shew you 3. Why it must be thus what reason there is that so the thing may be demonstrated to you that so when I come to the Application your hearts may have nothing to oppose against it and understand me the question is not why it is comely to do thus why it is requisite it should be so but why there is such an absolute necessity of it that a man cannot so much as pretend to be a
set you down any one of them may be sufficient to convince but al of them together may and I hope wil abundantly satisfie you that we have no such Duty lies upon us as to our selves in this world as the looking to our hearts The first is 1. Because the heart that heart which I have interpreted it is beyond all comparisons the best part of man it is the head quarter You know in an Army they have their Sentinel in every corner they would be loth to have the out quarters beat up but the head quarter where the General or chief Officers lie there is the strongest and watchfullest guard of all Now the heart of man the wil and the affections and the intellectual faculty that is beyond all degrees of comparison better than every thing else that is in man so much better than all the rest that our Lord saith that the man makes a very ill bargain of it that gaines all the world if he lose his soul Loose thy Heart and thy Soul is lost Now then if our Souls if the heart be ten times more worth than all things else that we have surely it should be kept more diligently than any things else we have This I think no man can question the strength of the reason of it it is the best Remember our Saviors word in a lower case when he did chide men that did take care of meat and drink and clothing and the like saith he Is not your life more than your food Is not your body more worth than your raiment I do but allude to that comparison Now I may say then Is not thy Heart better than thy Head Is not thy heart thy inward man better than thy outward man What is the body but meerly the shel It is the Heart that is the Jewel That is one I hope to have a little more time afterwards to shew what this includes in it this keeping at least to point at it but that is one ground Because the heart it is the best part of man it is the Queen it is the Prince it is the head quarter and al others are nothing when compared with it Secondly A second ground that is for the demonstration of it is this 2. Because the heart it is not only the best part of the man but it is the treasury wherein better things are laid up than it self The heart is a very rich Cabinet yea but it is a Treasury or Cabinet of the rarest the invaluablest wealth that is in Heaven or Earth Understand me aright I speak not of the heart of a wicked man of an unconverted man for Solomon tels us expresly the heart of a wicked man is nothing worth it self is a base thing and there is nothing in it but that that is worse than it self nothing in the world but the rubhish and the filth of the Devil and the World and Hell lies in the heart of a wicked man but a man that is a Child of wisdom that is Gods Child Oh! there is a rich treasury laid up in his heart You shal read our Savior speaks of a good man who out of the good treasury of his heart bringeth forth good things he hath a good treasury Now would you know what are the treasures that are laid up by God not of our own getting but of the Lords depositing Quest. What are the treasures that are in the heart of a Gratious man Answ. I Answer the Tongues of men and Angels cannot tel you what I wil name you a few The one is 1. The great God himself hath chosen to make the heart of every Godly man his own privy and Presence-Chamber himself saith it that though the Heaven be his Throne and the Earth his foot-stool yet he dwels in in an humble broken heart in the heart of one that trembleth at his word and fears his name there doth he himself dwel And then 2. Christ Jesus dwels there Emmanuel the Son of God the Savior of poor sinners the Scripture is plain That Christ may dwel in your hearts by Faith Christ dwels in our hearts Is not there a Jewel I tel you the Apostle saith of Christ In him there are hid all the treasures of God The God of Heaven is worth no more than is laid up in Christ and Christ al he is worth comes to dwel in the heart and in him saith the Apostle they are both of them in Collos. 2. the one in verse 13. and the other in verse 9. where he tels you that the fulness of the Godhead dwels in Jesus Christ essentially or bodily Now Jesus Christ dwels in the hearts of Gods people And then 3. The Holy Ghost dwels there too For the Heart of every Godly man is a Temple of the Holy Ghost and if you wil I might go on to Multiply more 4. That all the graces of Gods spirit are laid up in our Heart It is Faith in the Heart and love unfained in the Heart and all those excellent things And 5. The word that is the Rule of Life saith David I have laid up thy word in my Heart I have hid thy word in my Heart Now Brethren where there is such a treasury that God is laid up in it and Jesus Christ is laid up in it and the Holy Spirit pardon the expression is pleased to dwell in it and all Gods Graces all they that are Gods ordinances are there laid up his word and the like do not you think this should be wel watched and well barred and wel kept and wel looked to There is a second ground that thy Heart it is not only the best piece that is but it is the treasury of that that is a great deal better than it self the richest treasury and therefore Heaven hath not a richer treasury in it than the Heart of every Saint hath and therefore it should be kept above al keepings Thirdly A third ground of demonstration is 3. Because that the Lord whom we serve or pretend to serve and profess to serve and do serve if we be his The Lord looks only at the Heart in all the services that we perform to him All things that we are to do to the Lord as an homage and tribute and honor to him he regardeth nothing but the heart in them all nothing else is of any esteem with the Lord but the Heart My meaning is this plainly that in any services God liketh a thing never a whit the better for the brave accomplishment or adornment of it with any of our parts or faculties Wits Fancies Memory expression Decorum fair carriage and deportment of the Body the Lord values not this one button in any service whatsoever but so much as the heart is in it so much as the wil affections are in it so much doth the Lord value it insomuch that this one thing wil satisfie you about the truth of it read all the Scriptures over that speak of the servants of God
found in any but those that have the Life of Christ there is no man else in this world but if Christ be Twelve to him there is somthing else that is Thirteen therefore ask your souls that find you that by some operations it may be you know not whence they come nor how they come in you but there is this fixed upon you there is no good to your souls but Christ let you enjoy God in Christ for your portion and that is that good your souls aims after you may tel others and I tel you that I do this and my heart may deceive me but if I examine my soul I can never say I do this truly unless the Life of Christ be in me Secondly Another Pulse wherein this Life constantly puts out is this That the things of Holiness they are connatural to him Holiness Righteousness to be gracious to be freed from sin to be filled with love and kindness and mercy and pity and these things there is a kind of natural making out of the heart towards these because look as it is in our outward man you know that the actions of eating and drinking and of a man no man shall need to learn them he may have arts that shall make him do them mannerly but to do the things they are natural they were born with him So now to be holy with God to be righteous in our conversation with men freed from sin to walk as the Lords redeemed ones to practice these things this is your life and therefore the Apostle Peter useth this very expression That we were redeemed by Christ that we should live to righteousness live to righteousness Now as a worldly man lives to his money another man to his wrath another man to his lusts these are the things his heart runs its circle in A gracious man the things of holiness and righteousness are the things that suit his spirit And then thirdly and lastly I wil name no more but bring it a little closer to you a third thing is That the Lord having made his Will to be the Rule of our Life and revealed this Will in his Word thereupon the soul that is alive unto Christ eyes the Word looks at the Word is guided by the Word the Will of God revealed in his Word that is his Card that is his Compass that is his Square that is his Meet-wand his eye looking to the Word as his only guide No man I dare affirm it though other things may come neer it but I dare affirm it that whosoever will study it shall find in this world doth any of these three things but he that hath the Life of Christ upon a serious debate to make Christ the good of his life to make the acts of holiness the things that his soul naturally makes after and for the directing of him in all to live as the Apostle saith not to the will of man or the will of the flesh but to the will of God that is to the Word of God to make Gods Word the Rule of all our actions in our bent and purpose here is the discovery of the Life of Christ and this is now to have Christ in you Now I beseech you Brethren tell me for I shall by and by dismiss you when I have made but one Use more I will leave the third what say your souls to these things Really leave al self conceitedness and apprehensions that you may have out of the Pride of your hearts of your own conditions what say your souls to these things I have opened have you now the Life of Christ I wil tel you Brethren if I had time to press it I had here a large Field to enter in and to shew you what worlds of people that go for Christians are yet utter strangers to the Life of Christ. I will name you a few that you may enlarge your thoughts of them when you are alone All they that know not Christ it is impossible that there should be a making of Christ their chief good where there is no knowledg of him There is no valuing of an unknown thing All ignorant persons are strangers to this life as the Apostle saith the Gentiles were strangers to the Life of God because of the ignorance that was in them If you know not Christ and his Excellencies you can never live in him Then al those that live to their lusts whose life is to be wanton unclean drunken prophane these live to the Devil the Devil lives in them they may say I live not I but the Devil lives in me And so thirdly All they that live to the world whose work that the genious of their heart carries them to from morning to night his wealth purchases buying trading c. there their soul fixes on them there they rest to the world they live And again All that live to their pleasures whose vivâ—re is bibere and the rest they eat and drink and sport and play and give them these and these are the things that make a happy life to them All these and abundance of others which I fear I should presume upon your patience if I should stand to innumerate but al these are cleerly proved to be destitute of this Life of Christ think of it Brethren think of it It is an easie thing let me tel you to be Christians as we cal it they are cheap things to hear Sermons cheap things to profess Religion in our daies wherein I think a long time there have not been fewer that mind it heartily yet abundance now pretend to it but to be alive to Christ to be able to say in this Life I have other business than what I have here below I have a Trade a Wife a Husband and Children but the Lord knows my Conversation is in Heaven my life is in Heaven it is Christ that lives in me they are few can say it and the Lord help you that you are not deceived about it And then the other Use that I will make of it is That this Lesson is a most comfortable Lesson for I do not doubt but the clearer any man speaks about these things of Gods Kingdom the more will the hearts of Gods people be able to joyn with him I fear not but many of you can say it is thus with you the Lord witnesseth that with you doth he not That there is nothing you have such an appetite after as the means of Grace and Salvation that you might live and that your hearts dread at the waies of sin and that if God put you to it you beg of God to be stripped of all rather than God should not be set up and that al your prayer is let God give me Christ God in Christ for my portion and that reverently not in a ranting way as if a lewd life could honor God as some rude people pretend to now but that I might be holy in this perverse generation especially in my
it self unto the Word the Word of Promise for matters of Comfort the Word of Precept for matters of Duty the Word of Direction in matters of means and Ordinances the applying of the soul to the Word in all these things the Lord according to his goodness making these things good to the soul that thus applies it self to the Word this is to live by faith So that now to come a little neerer to the business for I have not yet explained it so far as I hope by and by I shall but I say now to live by faith First It is not only for a soul to beleeve in Jesus Christ for salvation or to beleeve all our life time that we shal be saved by Jesus Christ when we go out of the world it is not only that that is but a piece of it But To live by Faith it is in our course to enjoy the whol revealed will of Christ to us as our life thereby fetching all our consolations that are fit for our life from promises thereby fetching all our practices from the declaration of what he makes our duty and applying our selves in the use of those means which the Lord hath appointed us to attend upon for the accomplishment of these this conversation of the soul is the living by faith To live by faith it is this I am not only made partaker of the Righteousness of Christ which is imputed for my justification and is inherent for my new quickening I have not only these principles in me but by the grace of faith al the comfort of my life is fetched from a promise al the rule of my conversation is from the Precepts and all the means I use for the accomplishment of one or other they are those that are prescribed there so that be it to undergo affliction to conflict with a temptation to go through my Calling be it to comfort my heart against temptations when the soul looks to the Word of Christ and there takes the Word for its guide both for comfort and duty until the Lord of his meer grace have accomplished in us all the good that he intendeth to us which wil never be til he takes us out of this world when faith ceaseth but in the mean time this and this only is that which the Scripture cals living by faith But now because I would yet make it a little plainer to you be pleased to know That although there are acts of faith applicable to every particular condition we are in which would require a Volumn to mention yet for the present purpose you must know that there are five things faith doth in this general living by faith that every one that is said to live by faith his faith doth five things in his ordinary course which are applicable to every thing that you can think upon which I shall not need to stand to prove though I will give a touch as I go along because I would spare a little time for the Application before I break off But there are five things applicable First The grace of faith looks at the Word as that which is most sure that is it yields a firm assent to the truth of all that Jesus Christ hath revealed concerning him in his Word The Promises that are made faith assures the soul they are al true they are not whimsies nor fancies The Duties and Directions there prescribed faith assures the soul they are things the Lord looks for so that the Apostle saith in Acts 20. when he lived as a Christian he did exercise himself to beleeve al that was spoken by the Lord in his Law and David saith Thy Word Lord is from everlasting It makes not any scruple or doubt but gives a firm assent to what the Lord hath set down in his Word That is one and that indeed is the Basis and Foundation of the rest The Second It not only assents that all these are true but faith acquiesses that these are the magazine the store house the comprehension of al excellencies that the soul shall ever be made partaker of he desires to be satisfied in the goodness of them he desires no other course of Life to order him but what is set down in the Word he thinks not there are any Councels nor Directions to be regarded nor compared to those set down in the Word he rests in them there his Treasure lies in that great iron Chest and the Word is not only true but his livelihood he knows God hath declared this in his Word and there his soul is satisfied That is the Second And then the third is this The Lord laies al our happiness up in his Word the happiness of our comfort the happiness of our holy conversation therefore faith directs the soul to attend to the Word as to its only guide and comfort that look as a man that is satisfied I am to travel in a dark night and to go through a dangerous place but I am sure I have a mighty guide not a Will of the Wisp as they cal it and an Ignis fatuus to miss-lead me and therefore as I love my life and happiness I will look to the Word by the Word I am guided by the Word I am directed as the Apostle expresseth it It is a thing you do wel to take heed to as to a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawn until the day of Heaven come and you be brought to glory The soul looks to the Word as its only card and compass as the Marriner at Sea looks at his Card and Compass they are his guide so the Beleever he only looks at the Word as his guide There is the third And then the fourth thing that faith doth in al that live the life of faith is this That they make the things revealed in the Word the matters of their prayers they dare not beg a thing of God until they know it is Gods wil that they find a warrant to beg it either absolutely or conditionally they make the Word the matter of their prayers and endeavors and if they go about any thing or be under distress and affliction they labor to get rid of it by making the word their direction in that And Fiftly and lastly Doing al these things as well as it can it staies it self upon the truth and faithfulness and power and wisdom and goodness of God and the Lord Jesus who hath revealed these things to him he staies himself upon him for the accomplishment of these things in his own time and in his own way And he now that doth these five things he truly lives by faith The Lord hath turned the bent of his heart to it and he is assured his Word is true and that there lies his happiness he looks at it as his only guide he makes this the matter of his prayer and endeavors and when he hath done knows all his poor endeavors are nothing but waits upon the Lord to
yet this I must say That while these lower conditions are and as long as each form carries people to the Word holds out Christ in his Word Christ in preaching Christ in the Sacrament there is food for souls and if we could look aright it may be we would not be so angry with one another about it as we are for there is but one Truth and we pray the Lord to reveal it but stil here is carrying on the life of Comfort Duty Direction and all that faith meddles with that the Lords people may enjoy but for Gods sake and as you love the life of your souls watch against temptations that would take you off from the Word that the Scripture should be nothing this takes you off from that that your faith wholly meddles with for if you can say I beleeve God for such a thing and Christ for such a thing unless you find it promised in the Word it is presumption Therefore Pity such poor souls your own experience may tel you do but mark them generally they that live above Ordinances see whether the Spirit of God do not withdraw see whether the Lord hath any other way to convey himself to them than what he hath held out in his Word their loosness folly pride and joyning in any thing else that is naught almost plainly shews that the Lord hath withdrawn from them And secondly You wil find that such of them as have grace in them for I am far from thinking any that have grace cannot be under such a temptation but I fear not but the Lord will awaken them again though they be asleep because faith must be the navel and the string that must maintain them here But this I did not intend to be large in The great Use that I intend is To all the Lords people whose Life is Christ and in whom Christ doth live I would endeavor in the rest of this hour to give them some help out of the Word that this living by faith might be better known to the Lords People and more exactly practised than it hath been hitherto and if the Lord help me to divide it and you to receive it I will not fear but your life will be more honorable to the Lord and sweeter to your selves than it hath been and there are but two things that I intend to treat upon The one is Some serious Considerations or Motives to provoke all who have any thing of Christ in them that they would study this art of living by faith more than in time past And secondly and principally To lay out of the Word the true Directoins the easiest and the readiest way that a willing soul may take to be built up in it For encouragement to provoke you to it I pray think of these things First If you will be Christians it is our Trade and the way of our livelihood we have no other mystery for the maintainance of our lives but faith that is cleer Schollers may live by their Wits Trades-men upon their Mysteries and Gentlemen upon their Wealth But as a Christian we have no other living or way of living to God but only our faith Now because it is our Life and our Trade and our Profession it would be a horrible shame to be found Bunglers in that that is properly our own Mystery If a man should come and examine me a Minister of the Gospel and put into my hands a Merchants Book and bid me cast up such an Account and I could not this were no shame to me but if he should come and give me a Bible and bid me open a Text if I could not do it it were a shame to me So friend have you the right skil of living by faith No It is thy Trade As thou art a Member of the Common-wealth or one of the Army thou mayest have a Calling but as thou art a Christian which is thy best Life thou hast no Trade but to live by faith no other way to honor the Lord nor to manifest the Life of Christ nor to turn all things for thy good and the Lords glory it is thy living by faith must do it what a horrible disgrace will it be for thee to be found ignorant of it Secondly I tell you there is no other way of Life that any man pitches upon but it will very shortly appear to be but a poor thing If you should think that the living upon God this holy life it is a thing that is a mystery that you do not study but for the present life that you mind and you mean to follow the things that will help you to live in the world I tell you all those after a little while will prove meer delusions If any of you have the way as some of you have found it to raise up your selves to great estates of a poor servant in few yeers to become a great man in the place where you live and now you are wealthy Before our eyes God hath overturned all these things hath not God let us see how he hath pulled down great Princes and Kings hath he not let us see a thousand ten thousand a yeer a man may have and yet live to see them al buried and himself come to beggery doth not God tell us they are not al worth our study The Lord my meaning is dayly before our eyes stains the glory of all other waies of living never to the worlds end did he or wil he stain the glory of living by faith because you can no where else close with him Thirdly that which I most aim at in my Considerations is to acquaint you with this That this same Art this excellent Christian Mystery of living our life by faith it is absolutely the best life the most desirable life that any man or woman can live til they come to enjoy God immediately This I wil demonstrate and I hope I shal make it plain that if a man had the comfort of al other waies of living in any kind never would the learning or wit of man find out any life to be compared with the life of faith for the excellency of it and the excellency of the life of faith I would open to you in four or five Particulars the Lord perswade you but to study them when you are alone One is more general It is the Life which the Lord hath chosen out to be the life of those that he loved from all eternity The Lord you grant him al of you to be infinite in wisdom and therefore before his eyes al waies of living happy were apparent and out of them all he chose this same life of faith to be the life of those he loved from al eternity It is the Prophet Malachi's argument it is the best Conjugal condition for a man to have one wife and a woman to have one husband because else God could have made ten women if he would but he made but one that is Gods choyce
Riolanus Anatomy 6 Veslinguâ— Anatomy of the Body of Man 7 A Translation of the New Dispensatory made by the Colledg of Physitians of London Wherein is added The Key to Galens Method of Physick 8 The English Physitian Enlarged 9 A Directory for Midwives or a Guide for Women 10 Galens Art of Physick 11 New Method both of studying and practising Physick 12 A Treatise of the Rickets 13 Medicaments for the Poor Or Physick for the Common People 14 Health for the Rich and Poor by Diet without Physick The London Dispensatory in Folio of a large Character in Latin The London Dispensatory in twelves a smal Pocket Book in Latin To the Physical Reader THe greatest Reason that I could ever observe why the Medicines prescribed in these Books above mentioned and in many other Physick Books do not perform the Cures promised is the unskilfulness of those that make up the Medicines I therefore advise all those that have occasion to use any Medicines to go or send to Mr. Ralph Clarke Apothecary at the sign of the three Crowns on Ludgate-Hill in London where they shall be sure to have such as are skilfully and honestly made The Printer to the Reader I Have in my hands divers other works of Mr. Stephen Marshals which for their excellency and variety of matter are highly esteemed by all that heard them preach'd Or have read them in writing I intend to print them in several smal Books that they may not be above the reach of a poor man's purse The Subjects on which they treat are Chiefly these that follow VIZ. 1. Of the Covenant of Grace And the great priviledges the Saints have therby 2. Formal Professors seldom become sincere 3. Reformation and turning to God the only means to prevent Ruine 4. Christ the Prince of Peace 5. The Excellency of Christ's Kingdom 6. How Freedom come by Christ. 7. The Vnion between Christ and Beleevers 8. The Riches of the Saints through the Poverty of Christ 9. How Christ is the Head of the Church 10. Christ and his Seed have sufficient strength to destroy their Enemies 11. Christ the Bridegroom Beleevers are his Bride 12. No Participation of Christ but by Faith 13. Faith so precious a Grace that Christ is glad of any thing that may further it 14. An Humble Spirit Infinitly acceptable to God 15. Great Joy to all that Mourn in Zion 16. The double Recompence the Godly shall have after their affliction 17. The Happiness of the Saints under the Cross 18. The untimely Death of good men a Ground of Great Lamentation 19. The Magistrates Dignity Duty and Vsefulness 20. The Churches Danger Deliverance and Duty 21. The Churches praise unto God for their Deliverance 22. A great Mercy in God to prevent his Peoples ingageing one against another in Blood 23. Gods Chosen Ones are the Preventors of destruction 24. Mens Misery is only from themselves Their Deliverance is only from the Lord. 25. The Pearl of the Gospel 26. How the Gospel is the Power of God to Salvation 27. It 's impossible for true Beleevers totally and finally to fall away 28. Parents Duty to their Children 29. Provision for the Poor 30. The Great Judgment of Famine 31. Of the Sacrament The CONTENTS of the first Book of Mr. Stephen Marshals Works VIZ. Of Christs Intercession or Sins of Infirmity SERMON I. On 1 John 2.1 And if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous THe scope of the Epistle Opened Page 1 2 3. The words of the Text explained Page 3 4. Doct. That the Lord Jesus Christs Intercession in Heaven is the great dayly Relief that all the Saints diligentest their watchfulest work in the world to keep their hearts in a good frame when once the Lord in mercy hath put them into a good frame Page 132 133 Reasons of the Point Reas. 1. Because the Heart is beyond all comparisons the best part of Man it is the Head Quarter Page 142 Reas. 2. Because the Heart is not only the best part of Man but it is the Treasury wherein better things are laid up than it self Quest. What are the Treasures laid up in the heart of a gracious Man Answer 1. The great God chooses the Heart of every Godly man for his Privy and Presence Chamber 2. Christ Jesus dwels there Emmanuel dwels there in whom are bid all the Treasures of God 3. The Holy Ghost dwels there too the Heart of every Godly man is his Temple 4. All the Graces of the Spirit of God are laid up there 5. The Word that is the the rule of our life is laid up there Reas. 3. Because the Lord whom we profess to serve looks only at the Heart in al the Sacrifices we perform to him Reas. 4. The Devil makes all his Assaults and Batteries against the Heart and counts all his labor lost if he get not into the Heart Reas. 5. Because the Heart is not to be trusted but is deceitfull false cosening even the Heart of the best man in the world 139 Reas. 6. Because out of it are the Issues of Life thy whol Conversation wil be as thy Heart is kept Use 1. Serves to reprove thousands with a bitter reproof who would fain go for Children of God and yet 1 They are exact in keeping their Houses c but neglect their Hearts Page 143 144 2. Others are curious about their Bodies to Feed Physick Adorn them but neglect their Hearts Others are careful also of their manners and Conversation to avoid scandal and yet neglect their Hearts 4 Others keep indeed their Hearts but sleightly they do not keep them above all keepings Page 146 Use 2. This is a Doctrine of wonderful consolation though it carry just rebuke with it to al whose Consciences witness that their greatest care is to purge and keep their Hearts Page 147 Use 3. To exhort all men for the time to come to make this their study to keep their Hearts Before this can be done I. The Lord must break the Heart to pieces and new mold it And then you must 1. Keep it pure from Sin 2. Keep it fit for Duty The Life of Christ or the great Mystery of Spiritual Life SERMON I. THe Text Opened Page 1 2 3 Doctrine 1. Every Soul that hath Interest in Christ while he is in this world it is in Christ that lives in him Doctrine 2. The manner of their living this Life in this world it is by Faith For Explication consider that There is a twofold life 1. A Natural life which we have from Adam 2. A Spiritual Life which flows from the second Adam Quest. What is this spiritual life Answ. It is a Participation of Christs Righteousness upon the Souls union with him Use 1. Shews how necessary it is that we should all try and examin our Souls whether we are partakers of this Life or No. Page 20 Considerations to stir up to this examination 1. That in Truth this alone is
they by virtue of their fellowship should walk in the light And then Secondly Explains this more particularly in the subsequent discourse and shews that by walking in the light he mainly intends walking in holiness that is to abominate and abandon the waies of sin and to live as becomes those that are born of God in holiness and righteousness and this is the plot of the whol Epistle And then he begins with the first branch of it and that is to depart from the waies of sin and sets down this conclusion That if any man do pretend Communion with Jesus Christ and walk in sin he is a meer Dissembler he hath not one dram of Communion with God and Jesus Christ That is a certain rule no man that hath Communion with Jesus Christ can walk in a sinful life but every branch of the great things that Christ bestows upon his people the purport and intent of them all is to make them leave sinning that they wholly overthrow the very tenour of the Gospel who talk of believing in Christ and walk in a Godless life Now this first Branch the Apostle prosecutes at large both in the first Chapter in this second Chapter and begins the second Chapter thus Now all these things do I write to you that you sin not and presently at the 3d verse takes it up again saith he If any man know him he must walk as he walketh and so proves it by many Arguments Now Brethren you shal see the intent of my Text The Apostle knowing what an uncomfortable Doctrine this would be if it were not explained how uncomfortable it would be even to the best of Gods Saints and people he prevents the sad objection that every gracious heart would be ready to make for when he hath set down this for his Conclusion He that is in Christ cannot sin he cannot sin he deceives himself if he talks of Christ and sins Why A poor Soul would presently come out and say Then am I utterly undone I have then no interest in Christ for I sin I sin dayly I cannot live without it I cannot perform one Duty but my corruption is intermingling it self with it wo be to me if that Doctrine go for currant that he hath nothing to do with Christ that sins Now by way of Prolepsis the Apostle anticipates this objection and cleers the mind of God about it and then proceeds further to prosecute his Doctrine and it is laid down in these words But if any man sin let him know that we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous who is the Propitiation for all our sins and not only ours that are Jews but throughout all the world if they be Beleevers This he laies down to stay the hearts of Gods people in reference to that sadness that they would be ready to be overwhelmed with Now Brethren because there is but one main Doctrine that I intend to insist upon I wil but briefly explain the words to you and then I wil propound the Doctrine First When the Apostle saith If any man do sin he thereby plainly implies that there are certain sorts of sins that even Gods Children though they dare not commit sin nor walk in sin yet even Gods own Children for them he speaks to my little Children I write this to you I say there are sins that Gods own people are overtaken with even after they have fellowship and Communion with Jesus Christ that is the first thing that he takes for granted Then Secondly To that he adds But saith he if any man sin that is when we do thus sin when Gods people do thus sin What then We have an Advocate that you all know the meaning of one that pleadeth our cause that is the office of an Advocate to appear in behalf of another in his cause We have an Advocate with the Father above in Heaven at his right hand that is Jesus Christ our Lord who died for us and loved us and gave himself for us he appears in Heaven for us yea he is Jesus Christ the righteous that is though he be so righteous that he wil never plead an ill cause yet this is a part of his righteousness to intercede and appear in the behalf of his own people even when they sin against him Jesus Christ the righteous who is the Propitiation for our sins that is who once upon earth offered himself up a Sacrifice to satisfie for them and now in Heaven pleads the benefit and virtue of it for ever in the behalf of his people And not for ours only that is we that are Jews but for the sins of the whol world supposing stil he speaks of the same matter of those that believe in Christ that have Communion with him throughout the world Rich and Poor Yong and Old Jew and Gentile this is a truth to them all When Gods people sin Jesus Christ the righteous at Gods right hand maketh mediation for them So the words thus briefly paraphrased upon do afford us this Doctrine which is the only Lesson that I intend to handle this day namely Doct. That the Lord Jesus Christs intercession in Heaven is the great dayly relief that al the Saints have upon Earth against their dayly sins A Doctrine which at the very first propounding Promiseth not only comfort to Believers but carnal men they wil be ready to promise themselves liberty though I hope without cause by that time I have done with it but Jesus Christs mediation in Heaven is the great relief to all Gods Saints upon earth against the dayly sins that they are overtaken with Now Beloved that I may handle this Doctrine for your profit there are two questions which God willing I shal endeavor to cleer and that wil be the sum of all my work the discussing of them First Quest. 1. What sins the Lords Children and People are liable to while they are in this world what those sins are that the Children of God may be overtaken with while they live in this world Secondly Quest. 2. I wil shew you how the Intercession of Jesus Christ is the great relief to Gods Children against these sins For the first First What are those sins which the Lords people his own Children are liable to while they live in this world And to make you the more attentive to it be pleased to note that there are two Conclusions about sin laid down so cleerly in the Scripture yea in this very Epistle that they almost seem to contradict one another and therefore it is of great weight to have that cleared First 1. Nothing clearer then this That he that is born of God doth not sin nor cannot sin and if a man say he hath communion with Jesus Christ and walkes in sin he is a Liar and deceives his own Soul Nothing clearer then this in this Epistle So likewise in Romans 6. How can we that are dead to sin Live any longer therein Sin cannot
particulars then he walketh as becomes a Saint in holiness and righteousness but when at any time the Spirit of God for reasons best known to himself doth withold his immediate assistance from that Soul then their habitual inclination is never able to make them do any thing that is good If a temptation to a sin be propounded and a corruption of their nature be a little excited and Satan backing it and the Spirit of God not joyning down they tumble in every temptation and sin against God though never so fouly and if a holy Duty be to be performed pressed with all the moral Arguments in the world if the Lords spirit afford them not assistance and strength immediately they are not able they are unfit unable to do that which they are required and from hence ariseth all the infirmities of Gods people and herein you may see there is a corrupt nature in part remaining There are likwise external objects that would stir up this corrupt nature temptations from the Devil that would inflame it when these stir and Gods spirit doth not assist then are all the Lords people so weak and feeble that infallibly they sin against him and this is the nature of the sins of infirmity that is the first The second thing I would cleer is this Secondly What kinds there are of them because that will further acquaint you for indeed my aim is that all the Saints of God may see the frame of their own spirits as it were in a Glass that so afterwards you may learn how needful the Lord Jesus Christ is to us then the second question is What kinds of infirmities are the people of God subject to To that I answer They may all be brought to these two Heads they are either First Such as are not common to all the Saints No nor to any of Gods Children except upon special desertion or else Secondly They are such as all Gods people while they live in this world are dayly compassed about with For the first of them I. There are Infirmities I say which are not common to all Gods people No nor to any of them unless when very extraordinarily deserted of God and they are such as when the Servants of God do seem to pour their hearts out into wicked waies and commit those sins that are publickly to the dishonor of the Lords Gospel to the wasting of their own Consciences to the defiling of their own holy waies to the scandal of Gods people as suppose to live in Adultery in Uncleanness in wantonness Cursing Swearing Drunkenness false dealing and the like Now two things I would say about this 1. That somtimes Gods own Children for a season are left under such a condition David you know even when he was the Child of God took his neighbors Wife into his bosome and most wickedly plotted to take away her Husbands life and did take it away Peter Cursed and Banned and Swore and counterfeited himselâ— to be a prophane person that he might not be thought to be a follower of Christ So that such things many other instances I might give you that in the greatest the most flagitious way wherein a man may seem to be turned from Christ and betake himself into the Tents of his enemies to fight against him as if he would be a Ranter against him such a thing may befal a Child of God But then I adde 2. But this is not the Lot of all No nor of any but when extraordinarily deserted and that is cleer by this because throughout all the tennor of the Gospel it is sufficiently declared that these are not the spots of Gods Children these are not the waies of the Saints these are the waies in which whosoever walks cannot be saved and therefore what their condition is I shal tel you by and by God willing when I come to cleer it But that is one sort that it is possible the corruption may be so strong the assistance of Gods spirit so wholly withdrawn and the temptation so mighty as that a Child of God for want of strength may fall into the foulest mire and filth in the world That is one sort II. There are other sorts of Infirmities which all the Saints are compassed about with every day that they live and it is rare that any of them spend a day either without al of them or some of those infirmities and if you wil know what they are I answer There are three kinds of them and I think all the infirmities of the Saints wil fal under one of them and I purposely open them that you might have a Glass to see your faces in 1. Some and very many of the infirmities of the Saints of God they are meerly the infirmities of their understandings that is sins of ignorance that they do the things that are contray to God contrary to his will but do not know Gods mind about them and from this sort no man upon earth is free Who knows the errors of his life and I think verily under this head fals those sins of the Patriarchs of the holiest men that walked with God whose hearts were perfect with God they had their many Wives they had their Concubins too not knowing that this was against the Institution of God And so likwise in the sin of omission as you shal see there was from Joshuah's time to Nehemiah's time one of the great solemn Feasts that is the Feast of Tabernacles was never kept according to Gods institution for a thousand years together that they were by Gods institution to keep it not in their own houses but to go to live in Booths in the Fields for that time it is said expresly from Joshua to Nehemiah that that Feast had never been so kept that either they had forgotten it or the generations were unacquainted But now when Gods people do any of them in their speeches or actions do the things that are indeed contrary to Gods wil but especially not knowing it to be so and yet their hearts prepared that if the Lord would but discover his mind to them they would follow him in all things and yet this is one sort that all Gods people are liable to in the world But I tel you by the way that were but this one thing understood it would go a great way to make the Servants of God less harsh than they are one to another The Lord give them so much light to own it he sees such a thing as cleer as the Sun to be the institution of God or the mind of God or the way of God in this or that Duty of the first or second Table and then because he sees it he is ready to condemn all the world as rebelling against God for not being of his practice because the Lord it may be lets not them see it But that is one sort sins in the understanding when Gods wil is not known 2. Another sort of these infirmities when the
thing is known it is known that such a thing is contrary to God and I ought not to do it but yet by a sudden hurry of temptation when the violence of temptation surpriseth the Soul many times before ever it can recollect it self it is carried down with the temptation even against a cleer light yea carried against it as if a Cock-boat should be carried down a strong stream they have not so much time to cal themselves to an account to think whether these things become them or no And thus it was with Aaron that Saint of the Lord he could not but know that to make a Calf it was destructive to the Covenant of Grace that God had made with them it was a kind of implicite renouncing of God but a sudden temptation came all the people came saying make us a resemblance of God Moses is gone we wil have it he was surprised before ever he could recollect himself And so Moses that holy meek man when a sudden temptation came that the madness of the people had vexed him that he could not recollect himself he speaks so unadvisedly with his lips to Gods dishonor and this no man is free from but some in one part some in one kind and some in another all Gods people before they are aware are many times carried away and surprised before they can recollect themselves to know what their duty is But yet there is a third sort and that seems to go deeper and that is 3. When they do not only know it to be a sin but deliberatly commit it I mean that the heart is tempted to such a thing saith the soul it is abominable it is against God I will not do it but betakes it self to prayer prayes the Lord to assist and strengthen him the temptation comes again and gathers upon him that though he do resist it yet he hath not strength enough to overcome it the ground of it was because the holy Spirit who is a free agent communicates so much strength to him as to stir up his graces and to draw them out into the Field in Gods Cause and to oppose the Enemy and gives him some strength to resist it but not strength enough to overcome it but leaves him unfit and without sufficient strength against that temptation and of this I think the Apostle Paul mainly means in all his discourse in Rom. 7. where in the Person of a Regenerate man he saith The thing I would not do I do and when I would do good Evil overcomes me I would not do the Evil yet it is too strong for me then complains Wretched man that I am I am even sold under it Now I think under one of these three fal al the common infirmities of all that love Jesus Christ in sincerity they are either meer Ignorances that they know not Gods mind or they are else sudden surprises hurried away before they can cal their hearts and graces to act and have strength to assist them or else the Lord lets out a greater measure of the power of the Enemy to assault than he is pleased to communicate to the soul to resist and under one of these I say do all the infirmities of Gods people fal in their ordinary course Now the third thing which when I have briefly dispatched then I wil go to the next which is the great question is Thirdly How this may be known and I wil speak to it the rather because I find there is no man in the world that lives within the compasse of the Church I mean but is wonderous desirous to have all his lusts and corruptions to be adopted into the name of an infirmity and when they have brought them under that Burrow then they are wonderful safe in their own eyes the man that Keeps a harlot and nourisheth his wanton vain glory or whatsoever it be convince him of it I saith he God helpe me it is my infirmity no man lives without his infirmities and when they have once got them under that name of an infirmity then all that you say concerning Jesus Christ's relief against their daily sins it is all their own though God knows they are as far from it as the East is from the West And on the other side I find many a real Servant of God that if their corruption have any thing in it that carries horridness to the Conscience any strange distemper that is more than ordinary and assaults them and buffets them and treads them under foot Then they are ready to think that all the world cannot satisfie them that these are but infirmities these cannot be the spots of Gods people And so that neither the Lords own Servants may be discouraged nor wicked men get a Cloak I would a little discover how you may cleerly know what are the infirmities of the Saints and wherein they differ from the rebellions of those that are the Lords Enemies and for that I wil give you 1. One Rule that is Negative and 2. Another that is Positive 1. Negative You must take this That an infirmity must not be judged of by the matter of the sin not one whit judged of by the matter but only from the disposition and qualification of the Person that commits it my meaning plainly is this We are ready to think that those sins that are but petty and trivial they must all have the names of infirmities and those sins the matter whereof are odious those must not go for infirmities Now this is a most false Rule for a sin that is a very trifle if it be but an idle word vain thought petty oath any such thing as it may be committed may be a reigning sin and a path of the way that leads to eternal damnation according as the Person is that commits it and on the other side even a great sin for the matter of it should it be Murder and Adultery I instance in them because they both met in David possible it is that the things may so fal out that these may be but infirmities therefore remember that is a corrupt Rule and all you that please your selves with this that God keeps you from the great abhominations you are no Whoremasters you keep not a Harlot and you are no Cozeners nor Cheaters in your Trade though it may be your Oaths are Faith and Troth and prittle prattle and slighting of holy Duties you wil have these things pass for infirmities No you wil see this is no Rule That is one remember you must not judge of infirmities from the matter but only from another Rule which I wil give you and that is this 2. Whosoever can but rightly judge of an infirmity of the body hath a cleer Rule to direct him to an infirmity of the Soul Now all infirmities of the body they have all of them these three things constantly go with them The first is 1. They never are our choyce That that is our infirmity never
but commend it now to you in a few words be not you deceived about it I pray do not all of you take this for granted now I have opened so glorious a Priviledg that every one of you because you are called Christians are all made the Sons and Daughters of God take heed you be not deceived you see it is a mighty work of the whol Trinity to make it and therefore your own fancy and conceit will not give you a share in it No it is here as it is in Saintship many a man is owned as a Saint yea and ought so to be owned by them that converse visibly with him and yet God wil not own him but look upon him as a Devil as he did upon Judas So it is with Adoption there is a visible kind of Adoption that men partake of when they visibly own the Covenant and I think this is the sense the Apostle speaks of when they demand what Priviledges the Jews had above others very much to them belongs the Adoption that is visibly they were owned as Gods people in the face of the world and yet I tell you when many of them came and pleaded their adoption and said God is our Father saith Christ to them The Devil is your Father and you do the works of your Father the Devil So you may say when you come home after the Sermon here is a great priviledge indeed are wee Gods Children I you may say so but God wil say to you you are of your Father the Devil look to your hearts then and examine very much whether this be wrought in you and you shall need no other direction if you will be faithful for this I tel you is not the use I intend to insist upon therefore do but ask whether these works of the Trinity be passed upon you or no and chiefly that of the Holy Ghost Is the Holy Ghost come to dwel in you to unite you to Christ Doth the Holy Ghost work a Childs heart in you Can you honor God and reverence him and turn to him And can you walk before God as obedient Children at least in the constant bent and tenure of your Souls You had best examin that if you wil conclude all is wel Now many force themselves How came you a Child of God By my Baptism as it is in the Catechism because you were once washed Oh! beware of these things it is a hard thing to know that you are the Children of God therefore be not deceived in it but this I say I purposely wave the entring into this because I cannot speak of it in so little a time but that which I wil open to you shal be but two Instructions that flow from this but are likewise very ful of consolation to all Gods People USE 2. Is this the Lot of al the Lords People all beleevers in Christ are they all made the Sons and Daughters of God Then I pra'y be informed of these two things First 1. The infinite love of God to poor sinners Brethren were I able to speak of it though I should borrow half an hour to speak it you could not grudge the time if I could speak of it as it deserveth it would astonish you Behold what love the Father hath shewed to us that we should be called the Sons of God saith the Apostle in 1 John 3. and the beginning Oh! here is love indeed God hath shewed a kind of Phylanthropia a love to man in many things but could we consider what love the Lord shews to a poor Soul when he doth but cal Child in the Covenant of Grace I am assured it would make you all be swallowed up in admiration I wil open it in three things 1. What is the love that God the Father shews 2. The love that God the Son shews 3. The love that God the Holy Ghost shews to thee a poor sinner who beleevest when each of them have this work upon thee as to make thee his Son 1. As for God the Father Was it not a strange love that made him from al Eternity choose thee to be his Child especially this love wil swallow thee if thou wouldest but take in these three Considerations First 1. His Majesty How great and Glorious a Majesty he is that He should condescend This Glorious Majesty could condescend after this manner And Secondly 2. To whom To thee a Worm if he looked upon thee at the best as a thing made of a piece of Clay that hast a heart ful of enmity against him And Thirdly 3. If we could but take in upon what motives or considerations the Lord hath done it for if we mark it Amongst men when any mortal man hath at any time Adopted one to be his Child it was because either they had no Child or no Child that pleased them or because they would perpetuate their Name that their name might continue after them or because there was some worth or excellency in the person that might be an honor to them some such things as these have led all mortal men when they Adopted any to be theirs but why did God chuse thee Did he want a Child Had not he a Son from everlasting Is his comfort increased by it I remember the Romans said It was an imitating of Nature found out for the Solace of the Father But didst thou Solace God Did he need any No but meerly out of his good will to thee and as for the perpetuating his Name thou addest not to it so that it is meer mercy and meer Grace to thee and me and whomsoever he hath set his Heart upon that the Father would condescend after this manner And 2. Is it any less in Christ Jesus the Son of God That he would die to purchase Coheirs with him Amongst men this is not usual an Heir is seldom troubled that he hath no more Brethren and Sisters to share in his Inheritance he is rather afraid that there should be too many to get some of it away from him but that the Son of God when this was his Inheritance from all Eternity should be come in the form of a Servant die undergo the wrath of God to this end that he might purchase poor worms to be Coheirs and a Brother with himself and that he would likewise give himself to thee as a Brother that thou shouldest be one mistically with him And in the Third place 3. The Holy Ghost That he would condescend to come and dwel in thee to unite us to Christ to alter frame our cursed natures and as need shal require to be a constant supplication of comfort and refreshing to us Oh Brethren these things surpass the thoughts of man utterly surpass them but could we ponder them seriously we would say Oh Lord Who am I that thou shouldest remember me it would make us so settled upon the love of God and I the rather press it because when a Servant of God is but perswaded
choyce be made all shal goe so he may have food the strongest appetite after any thing in the world is after food insomuch as therefore the Lord uses ordinarily to expresse the highest desires of the soule that man can put out in any kind he uses to expresse them by hungering and thirsting which is nothing but the appetite that men have after food so that living men out of a desire of that which is sutable to their life have a vehementer desire after that then they have after any thing else in the world So the Lord plants in any soul to whom Christ is life for I speak not of those who are meerly dead though I shall have occasion afterwards to shew you that Christ gives life to the dead but I say to those to whom Christ is life there is nothing in the world found in them after which their desires are so mighty so vehement so constant so unsatisfied with any thing else in the world no such appetite is in the soul of a man as the party that partakes of spiritual life hath after Jesus Christ as the heart after the rivers of waters as the hungry man after his food all kind of such things are expressed in the longing desires that the soul of a man that hath an interest in Christ hath after Jesus Christ lay up these by you till I come to apply them but yet I am not come to the main things wherein the comparison holds thirdly There is a third thing which is between eating and drinking and beleeving and that is this 3. That look as it is in our bodily life our natural life that as there is no such vehement appetite after any thing as after food when we want it so there is no such satisfaction in any thing as there is to be had in sutable things that when a hungry man is satisfied with food there is the quiet of his outward life then all vehemency all pains all angers all longings till he hath more need doth cease for you know such is our life that one meales meat will not serve it but for a little while but when hunger is raised and food administred then is the desire quieted So now when the Lord Christ hath life prepared in him and raised up in the soul a desire after him when that soul findeth him when he can find that Christ owneth him or intimates to it that he accepts it it is satisfied as with marrow and fatness no joy no delight no content in the world pleaseth the Soul so as to say this one thing I have found Christ Jesus and have an interest in him All these are main but the three last are most ful to my purpose and therefore I hasten to them Fourthly then and that which I think is one of the greatest of all the rest thus it is 4. That look as it is in our food pray mark it look as it is in our food for the body let the food be never so excellent never so wel Cooked never so freely conferred we never so freely invited let al be set out that is imaginable that food never nourisheth me or any other until it come to be incorporated within me that when a man his food come to be made one one mass I wil not say transubstantiated but translated and changed into the same substance with himself never doth it become food to him til then Take a man set him before all the dainties let him smel to them put them in his mouth nay if you can imagine it he may swallow them down and they pass through him if they be not incorporated into him that the flesh of the beast he eateth turns to his flesh or to be made fit for his blood it is no food to him though all the delicates of the world be set upon a Table and say here is enough to satisfie a thousand men not one bit of them is fit for me except it be so changed that it becometh one mass with me this we all know in our natural food Now herein lies the answerableness so it is with Christ it is Jesus Christ that is prepared the Lord hath prepared and put the vertue into him that it is enough to serve all the world if the Lord be pleased to bestow it upon the world but no man ever comes to have spiritual life from Christ till Christ become one with him and he become one with Christ It is Christ in you that is the hope of Glory and this our Savior expresseth in the very Text saith he He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood I dwel in him and he dwels in me that they are made one really only with this difference it remember it indeed our food for our body we and our food are made of one substance but there the food is turned into our substance that if it were not the flesh of a Beast turned into my flesh if it were not the blood of a Bird that is turned into my blood and so it leaves its own nature and is changed into my nature but this is different in our spiritual eating for here instead of Jesus Christ being changed into our nature we by feeding upon him are changed into his nature made partakers of the divine nature and there is a mystica I spiritual union betwixt the Lord Jesus Christ and us whereby we cease to be what we were in regard of our corrupt being and now come to be changed into his spiritual being but notwithstanding a union and conjunction there must be or else the Lord Christ never profits This is so plain that I hope I need say no more about it that is the fourth Lay up these for these wil be for tryal before I dismiss you Then fifthly the fifth thing wherein the comparison lies is this 5. That look as the Lord in his infinite wisdom hath in nature given such a Power to our stomach our appetite to receive it and our stomach to digest it that all the art in the world hath not the power or skil to come and make the food that is an extraneous thing another thing from it to fit it so and prepare it so that it shal be fit to become one with me no art in the world can do it like that of the stomach the power that God hath given to nature we know if we should take our meat and boyl it upon the hottest fire it can never prepare it so as the heat of a mans stomach can do it God hath given this peculiar faculty and power to the stomach thus to make our meat sutable for us so it is with the grace of God beyond all other graces and works of all the creatures yea of the Angels he hath given that power to the souls acepting of Christ and consenting to Christ that power to unite Christ and the soul together that is not elsewhere found in all the world for all Gods creatures if they
wil is and he gave it me in commission when I came from him not to deny food to any one that cometh after me Nay saith he last of all 4. This is the Command I have from the Father That I should raise them up all at the last day Though it is true the bodily life ends and fails and they shal turn to dust as others do yet when I come to make good the life that my People must have in abundance when I come in the last day to make it good to them I must raise al up that ever did partake of me to life you see here is the benefit which is laid down in the Text I have only a little paraphrased upon it thus I have opened the Doctrinal part That whosoever would live happy Eating and Drinking of Jesus Christ is the Duty required of him and they that do it are happy abundantly Let me now a little apply this to you but three Uses I wil briefly make of it or rather the Lord makes them for it is out of mans power to do it three things I would observe First USE 1. If you be but willing you may cleerly discern whether you are partakers of Jesus Christ yea or no Oh! that the Lord that is the Father of spirits would work upon your spirits while I am speaking Friends Shall I speak a little freely and examin this great Assembly where doth your eternal happiness lie tel me in your own hearts what you would answer to it if God did examin it where doth your hope of happiness lie Would not this be your Answer Only in Jesus Christ the Son of God that became a Savior for poor sinners I disclaim all other things and I look for my happiness only in Christ Would not this be the Answer of you all It may be some Pharisaical self justifiers they can pitch presently upon their own honest and innocent life but I pitch upon that which I think every one of you would answer It is Christ you say but what Christ is it that you make account is your life What Christ is it Is it Christ the Son of Mary and the Son of God Christ that died upon the Cross that rose again and ascended into Heaven and sits at Gods right hand in the Glory of his Father and that shal come again in the end of the world to judg the quick and the dead Jesus Christ is preached to you in the several meetings in the ministry of the word Is it this Christ you look for I let me add this If there be no more for thee or me than this this Christ that sits at the right hand of God if thou canst not ad this Christ fed upon by me It is Christ in you the hope of Glory it is not Christ in Heaven the hope of Glory therefore I must needs beg of you that you would be true to your own souls for through mercy I have a little converse amongst men and a little experience of them but the want of the knowledg of this point undoeth many men they have heard so much of Christ that unless they be the arrantest sots and debauched persons they can tell you all the story of Christ but if you come to examin how I pra'y came this Christ into your hearts I know how he was prepared for Bread how the Father hath ground him and baked him pardon the expression I know how the Father hath prepared his flesh and blood to be meat and drink But how came he to be your food and how got you your interest in him if you did eat his flesh and drink his blood in a carnal way it would do you no good for though you go for Church members yet if the Lord have not done these things in thee which I have spoke of thou wilt be utterly lost when thou comest to seek for salvation Doth it not trouble thee to think how thou canst answer these four or five Questions I will but name them First 1. Hath the Lord convinced thy Soul really and cleerly that there is no salvation to such a wretch as thou art further than Christ Jesus wil vouchsafe it unto thee art thou set down under that that is wel for believe it til this work of Christ come upon our hearts we never see the necessity of that work Secondly 2. Hath he raised up in thee that amongst all the contents thou findest in other things though God maketh thy Wife comfortable or thy Husband comfortable and al things sutable yet stil thy heart is unsatisfied if I have not Christ I am undone What will my riches do me good if I have not Christ What wil all the talk of others do me good if I have not Christ Hath he raised up in thee such a desire after him What sayest thou Thirdly 3. If at any time the Lord smile upon thee though no body be by but he smiles upon thee in secret thou hast gotten some cleer Evidence that Christ is thine and he wil own thee before the Father Canst thou turn back and even laugh before the Lord and say Oh Lord is it so Is Christ mine Is this to thee 〈◊〉 the honey and the hony combe 4. Dost thou find likewise in a way that thou know'st not how it is brought about but thou findest somwhat settled upon thy heart that hath changed the frame of thy heart thou that art by nature proud lascivious and naught there is somwhat that is wrought in thee and there comes some strength that though thou canst not walk as thou should'st do yet the Lord is dear and his Children are dear and his waies are dear some strength God affords that thou art not pleased in the world but thy soul finds that God hath enabled thee to make him the end of thy life and his word the rule of thy life Hath he done this for thee then there is eating and drinking of Christs flesh and blood then in the name of God thou doest partake of Christ But good Friends be not deceived I tel you in many places not one of a hundred that hears such a Doctrine as this have any part in Christ or their feeding upon him or relying upon him therefore I pray try your selves That is the first Use I wil make of it Then in the second place USE 2. Oh! what a comfort may this be if the Lord would enable me to speak of it I could pour down even showers of Consolation upon those souls that have gone along with me in the tryal All you that the Lord hath shewed this mercy to you that you feed thus upon Christ I tel thee this Carry it home thou hast eat a meal's meat that will keep thee as a man while God lives he hath given thee one bit Oh! one mouthful of Christ to get into Christ I read of the Widows Oyl truly it was a delicate portion that God laid out for her that for a great while together shee
an Argument to perswade to the learning of this lesson the Argument is taken from the necessity of it it is so necessary that that man that wil not deny himself even to the denying of his life for Christs sake wil undo himselff by his good husbandry by his providence if he think to save himself by following more wary Counsel he wil ruine himself but if he wil resign up himself to the counsel that Christ gives him Christs counsel shal save him and Salvation any other way he shal never find Now lest some-body might object against this and say But in probability the following of thee and taking up our Cross wil be so far from saving of us that it wil ruine us and the looking a little better to our selves may save our state save our credit save our liberty save our life Wel to that saith Christ do but cast up the gain that wil be got by this way I deny not but a man may by that providence that you speak of save his estate and save his credit he may possibly gain the world a great state in it but he wil lose his soul by it and that man that should purchase al the world that should be able to say this Kingdom is mine the other Kindom is mine all the Kingdomes of the earth are mine But what did they cost you nothing but my soul I gave my soul for them that man hath made a miserable bargain of it he will gain nothing that will venture the loss of his soul for the purchasing of the whol world The worth of a soul is invaluable and besides when a soul is once lost the loss of a soul is irrecoverable what shal a man ever give in exchange for his soul Therfore set this down for your Conclusion The man that wil not follow my counsel upon the best account that can be made is certainly an undone man This is the scope of Christ in these words Now I come to the Doctrinal part which I shal only insist upon at this time and in it there are these two things First 1. Here is the Lesson that Christ teacheth and imposeth on his Disciples in these words Let him that wil be my Disciple Deny himself Take up his Cross and follow me Those are the three things that Christ imposeth upon all his Disciples Deny themselves Take up their Cross Follow him Secondly 2. Here is the Condition upon which this Duty is imposed If any man wil be my Disciple Christ wil compel no body to be his Disciple and if they have not a mind to be his Disciples he wil not impose upon them denial of themselves and taking up of their Cross and following him if they like other waies better let them take them and see what will come of them in the end but if any man wil pretend to be a follower of Christ if he be resolved to be listed amongst Christs Souldiers or admitted into Christs School or into Christs Family then this is the ABC this is the first Lesson that he must learn He must deny himself Take up his Cross and follow him and that is all that I will say to the Condition of it that it may be as a watch word to all you that hear me this day I shal by and by by the Lords assistance handle a Doctrine that I know is very hard to flesh and blood that which possibly many of you never yet learned nor have any purpose to learn but only now remember this You shal not be compelled to learn it if you have not a mind to the Doctrine that shal be opened you are at freedome to take another way provided you wil not lay claim to be the followers of Christ Run your hazards and enjoy your good things in this world and see what wil come of it but if you have a purpose as I know you have and would be glad to be thought followers of Christ then be you high or low Lords or Ladies Gentle or Simple Learned or Ignorant know you that this is injoyned to every one whom Christ will own that they must deny themselves take up their Cross and follow him It is only the first of them that I purpose to treat upon at this time Deny himself and the Doctrine which by the Lords assistance I shall handle is this the very words of the Text. DOCT. That whosoever wil be a Disciple or Follower of Christ he must deny himself And for the explication of the words there is nothing hard but this The word He shal deny himself doth signifie a total abrenunciation he must wholly deny himself as I shal make good out of the Scripture it must be a total work Now for the proof of it that it must be so it were easie to turn you to a great many Scriptures where the very same words are used and upon the like occasion you shal find it in Mark 8. and also in Luke 9. but for fear I be prevented I wil content my self with a Text that I wil turn you to and that is in Luke 14. from verse 28. to the end of the Chapter it wil abundantly demonstrate the necessity of this Doctrine If Christ may be beleeved you shal find there that there were a great many came in to Christ to be his Disciples great multitudes they were taken with his Miracles his Sermons and the Conversation of the whol world began to run after him and gave in their names as fast as they could be admitted but mark what Christ saith to them about verse 26. saith he If any man come after me and do not hate Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Lands and his own Life he cannot be my Disciple mark what he saith he cannot he doth not say I wil not own him but positively because there is an impossibility of being Christ's Disciple unless that a man do so far deny himself as to renounce and and forsake whatsoever may be called himself And lest he should not be beleeved he doth prosecute this by three parables that follow there in order and they are to this purpose in the two first parables he doth plainly tel them 1. That if any man pretend to be Christ's Disciple and do not learn this lesson of self-denial that man if ever he be put to it wil prove an Apostate if ever times of tryall come that man that enters into Christs School not having learned the Lesson of self-denial wil prove an Apostate or Secondly 2. If he be never put to it in a way of persecution then he wil live all his daies but in a meer form of Godliness and an unsavory general profession he may make he wil never have any power in it and this I say the Lord shews in three Parables the two first of them you wil find they are taken one from a man that goes about a building to errect a House before he have throughly cast whether he have mony
Disciple of Christ that will not submit to it What Reason for it I answer first 1. Because wheresoever the Lord Christ is received by any soul he wil be received as the All of that Soul mark my words Christ wil be all or he wil be nothing what the Father hath sent him to do he wil be all to do it he wil never undertake a piece of it and the Lord hath sent him to be all that a poor lost sinner can need Now I pray conceive my meaning thus Take a Maid that a Man wil be a Husband to her when she marries to this man he wil be all in the place of a Husband and she must renounce all the men in the world in matters that belong to conjugal Relations the marriage state wil admit no rivalty I but for al that though the Husband must be all in the relation of a Husband yet he is not al that the Wife needs and she may lawfully have application to other Creatures and to other men for some things wherein her Husband cannot be all to her if she be sick she must have a Physitian if she be wounded she must have a Chyrurgeon if she be sad it may be she must have another to comfort her neither can her Husband be her Bread and her Cloaths she must have another must make them and prepare them But now Christ Jesus is All that the soul needs he is their Father their Husband their Brother their Friend their Companion their Bread their Drink their Cloth their Gold their Silver their Honor he is All in All Christ Jesus is so and he wil be so or he wil be nothing and there is this natural reason for it Because every mans heart shares out both its prayers and its confidence and its love and its praises I say it shares it out according as it needs or findeth supply any where If one man be my Patron and give me a great deal of my maintenance I share out my expectations my prayers my love my service most to that man but another helps me with some of these and he hath part of my good wishes and part of my prayers and part of my praises according to the proportion of good I receive from him so is my heart shared out to him in dependance or thankfulness or love But Christ Jesus wil have no sharing he wil have all thy heart all thy prayers all thy love all thy affections all thy obedience Christ Jesus expects all which he cannot have until he be all and he never can be all til al other be renounced til I have no God but Christ til I have no Father but Christ til I have no Wisdom but Christ til I have no Righteousness but Christ I shal never share out al my prayers and confidence and love and the like to Christ for al and therefore wil Christ have al renounced that he may be all That is one Ground and the great Ground There is another which I wil briefly touch and that is this 2. Because al these things that we are to renounce even the best of them al in those notions wherein we are to renounce them they are al of them and wil be adversaries and hindrances to us in the way that Christ Jesus expects we should walk before him and therefore until our souls do totally renounce them we are in perpetual danger of being undone by them as I pray conceive my meaning thus in a familiar comparison Suppose in a Civil War wherein a Nation is divided and one Faction engaged against the other if a man that hath been engaged on the one Party do leave that Party and come over to serve that side against which he did oppose before this man must renounce all the other Party though his Brethren were there though his Estate lay in those Quarters he must renounce them all or otherwise he wil never be trusted by them to whom now he pretends to joyn or be sure which is the thing I alledg it for if he hold correspondence with them they wil ever be dropping destructive principles into him against the way that he now engageth for So al these things not only our Drunkenness and Whoredom and Lust and Lying and stealing and slandering but our Reason our Wills our Affections our Wealth our Honor our Children our Friends our Duties our Performances wil lie as blocks in the way to hinder us from some of the things that the religion of Christ wil put upon us there is nothing cleerer Saint John hath an excellent speech in 1 John 2.16 saith he All that is in the world mark his words All that is in the world the Lusts of the Flesh the Lust of the Eye and the Pride of life it is not of the Father It is not of the Father al that is in the world What means he by all that is in the world that that he had said before Little Children love not the world nor any thing in the world his meaning is love not Life love not Wife love not Children Estate Honor Wealth love them not Why They all serve but to nourish the Lusts of the Flesh the Lust of the Eye or the pride of Life and that is not of the Father they wil draw you away from God therefore take heed of them and look what John saith of the things of the world the same may be carried to al the other Love not your Duties love not your Righteousness love not your Performances love not your Honesty love none of these as you in your natural estate cleave to them they al of them tend but only to advance your self and to pul down Christ and wil be hinderances to you in the way wherein Christ wil have you walk And thus I have endeavored Beloved to make plain unto you this great Doctrine of Christianity that is the very first door that we pass through when we come into Christs School to deny our selves Now it remains that I make some Application of it and that I shal do as briefly and as cleerly as the Lord shal please to enable me and among many other things there are but two or three that I intend to insist upon The one is USE 1. Hence from all this discourse it cleerly follows that among the great multitude of those that are called Christians there are but very few who are Christians indeed for Gods sake marke this that I say to you I say If this discourse of mine be true as I hope I have made it cleer out of Gods word to you that a man cannot be Christs Disciple that hath not learned this lesson of self-denial certainly there are very few Christians to be found in Christendome and truly I have often thought and am perswaded it is true that the not understanding of this lesson or the not coming to Christ upon the tearms of this Lesson is the great cause of all the formalities and hypocrisies and the unbelief
how the time is gone nor how burdensom I may be to you and although this was all the use I intended when I prepared this Sermon for this place yet since I finished it there is brought somwhat to my hands that doth enable me to make another use of it at least of one branch of it and I beseech you give attention to it and I have done I am informed that it is one of the ends of this grave honorable and solemn meeting of the Magistracy of the City and of this holy service to promote a work of Mercy and Charity towards the poor of the several Hospitals to let the wel affected be acquainted how things are and what may be expected or desired from them and that I may do it in a few words have patience but while I read this short paper to you and then I shal spend a little more of my Theam about it and then I have done Here is a true report c Thus Beloved I have read over this paper and I think I shal not need to tell you how it fals within my Theam I told you that one special branch of Self denial is to resign up all that we have of Wealth Lands Mony Trades Parts Abilities to resign them up to Christ to serve him with them to lay them out in the way that he wil appoint Now your hearts could not wish for a way more cleer and evident for the testifying your being good Stewards for Christ than in owning the present business that hath been read to you and to make it good I wil say but these two things in a few words First 1. That of al the Services of al kind of Services that ever we can do for Christ next to the saving our souls the work of Mercy and Compassion to People is most accepted with him that that himself wil most own in the great day when there shal not a cup of cold water go unrewarded that ever hath been given for his sake I am confident you so frequently hear of the excellency of the work of mercy and bounty to the poor that I shal not need to spend any more time to commend it to you only I pray you to think of it 2. But the other thing that I would commend to you is this and I beseech you beleeve I would not willingly flatter but according to the best information that ever I could obtain There is no such Treasury in the Christian world no such Banck where a man might promise what he doth to be faithfully and wisely and most advantagiously laid out as in this Treasury of the honorable City of London and the Governors of these Hospitals I have often heard for I am but an ignorant man my self in the affairs of this City Godly men and wise men often say that had they any Hospitals to erect any sums of mony were it a hundred thousand pounds that they would promise themselves to be laid out so that it should not go into private mens purses or be given to Vagrants and Knaves but to the halt and the lame that have need of it they have professed they would put it into the hands of those that are the Governors of the Hospitals about London where things are done in such a way that setting aside such frailties as al humane affairs are suhject to in the generality they are above making personal gains but desire only to be faithful Stewards and therefore if God do put it in any of your hearts that you would shew your self-denial and would indeed make Christ beholding to you as he will be pleased to cal himself your Debtor know that such things as these are very fit objects for your thoughts And the Lord of Heaven direct you about it I dare stay you no longer FINIS THE SAINTS DUTY To keep their HEARTS In a GOOD FRAME Opened in a Sermon at Olaves Silverstreet November 9. 1654. PROVERBS 4.23 Keep thy Heart with all Dilligence or as it is chiefly read Keep thy Heart with all keepings for out of it are the Issues of Life IN most of the Chapters of this Book of the Proverbs there is no connection of one verse with another that one should give light or help to clear the other but they are as a multitude of excellent Pearls put into a large Box whereof every one singly is of a very great price and it is thought by many that they were but so many sentences that King Solomon did utter usually when he sate in judicature according as the cause or condition was that was heard before him so there was a divine sentence in the Lips of the King and the Lord in his good providence and love to his Church hath recorded them to be for instruction for his People to the end of the world and amongst them al if you go from one end of the book to the other if it be lawful to make comparisons I may freely say there is not one Pearl of greater price one sentence of more divine use than this that I have read to you and shal endeavor God willing to open as far as I can within the compass of an hour and in it there are these two things plainly laid down Here is first 1. A Duty enjoyned to all the Lords Children in these words Keep thy heart above al keeings Secondly 2. Here is an Argument to enforce to this Duty in these words for out of it are the issues of life 1. And in the Duty there are likewise two things First 1. Here is the subject matter the thing that is to be done and that is Keep thy heart Secondly 2. Here is the manner how it must be done and that is as we translate it with al diligence Keep thy heart with all diligence or above all keepings keep thy heart Now give me leave briefly to interpret the meaning of the words and then I will put it all into one instruction which I will endeavor to handle in this hour First 1. What is meant by the heart And 2. Keeping the heart And 3. Keeping it above all Keepings And so 4. Of the issues of life that flow from it Let me give you a brief interpretation of each of them 1. What doth Solomon mean by the heart here that must be kept No doubt it is not meant of the heart made of flesh that is in the midst of our bodies it is spiritually meant that no man doubts of Now take the heart spiritually and somtimes in the holy Scripture the heart is put for the whol soul somtimes it is put for the understanding faculty somtimes it is put for the memory somtimes it is put for the Conscience sometimes it is put for the Wil sometimes for one or two Affections it were endless to give you the instances of all these but here is a Key in the Text which will tel you what is meant here for without question that is meant by the Heart here that is
a Soul I have given thee a Soul and if thou beest mine Graces that one of them are more worth than all the Kingdomes of the world and what paines dost thou bestow upon the keeping them The Lord help you to ask your Souls the question whether this will not rise up sadly against you one day 2. Go to others and rise higher because the Body is higher than all these things Oh! what curiosity shal you find in many about keeping their bodies Alas I must keep my body saith one I am subject to colds and distempers and if once they be but bitten a little you shal hardly make them drink a Cup it wil hurt their Bodies yea they wil have their Cordials by them that shal cheer up their hearts O! how shal I live if I look not to it and this care I condemn not simply because it is an Utensil we should use for Gods Glory but I fear the bodies of most of you wil be a sad condemnation to the souls of most of you You shal never meet any of you in a Congregation but the body of you shal be tricked up as fine as you can which it ought to be But what have you done for your hearts Have you not left them at home Nay to go a little higher 3. How many are there that keep their very lives not only their bodies but their moral Conversations that look that they may be Sine crimine that nothing may turn as a reproach to them God forbid that my language should be otherwise than becomes a Servant of God God forbid that my Recreations should be such but what may be honorable to God and come to them and ask them seriously Are you the Servants of God Pray tel me Why can any body detect me No there is your care the issues of it shal be kept as far as thou canst keep it but what doth thy heart do Thy Tongue talketh righteouly thy Ears hear good discourse thy Eyes are in a comly deportment and so thy actions with men Justice Honesty Sobriety and other things shal not be found against thee and perhaps in the mean time thy very heart left to be a Cage for unclean Beasts and Birds The good Lord pitty us these things are very sad where did you ever read that the Lord said Keep your Shops above all keepings or your Bodies a-above all keepings or your Conversations above all keepings though I told you how far it is comely but for you to keep all these things and never look to your hearts is sad Nay there is one more that goes beyond all these 4. It is true you say true We were Wretches if we should look to our Goods and Bodies and not look to our Hearts I look to that every day I but Friend Do you look to it above all keepings And bestow more pains about it than about all things in the World besides pray deal faithfully in it for you must give an account to one that knows all things in the world but have you more studies desires and endeavors about that than about all things in the world No no Alas most of the people I converse with they do as some poor Tradesmen do wretched men that think that they have got a servant that they leave all to and now and then because they wil not let all run at randome look into the Shop and ask him Come What Do you keep your Cash right and is all right and so rest in him when all this while he is a Wretch and runs out of all and so is my heart wel is all wel there I I saith the heart and we beleeve it and put our trust in it and it is the arrantest Lyar in all the world I remember Solomon hath a notable Speech in the latter end of the Prov. Chap. 30. where he saith There are three things that are wonderful that I could never find out the way of them yea there are four of them the one is The way of the Ship in the Sea and that is hard to find for it leaves nothing that you may say here a Ship hath gone And another is The way of an Eagle in the Air and that hath many windings and turnings And another is The way of a Serpent upon a Stone and that leaves neither slime nor excrement that you cannot find which way it goes And the fourth is The way of a man with a maid which he interprets afterwards to be a lascivious maid who hath a wanton heart within that would deceive a hundred People you may add the heart of a man too for that wil tel you I have been at Prayer when it never prayed a word and I heard the word very wel and his heart was dead and asleep all the while Oh! Brethren it is hard for you to think with a few words thus to charm this deceitful wild Beast and you to have no care about it but God knows and man knows that you are real in your other keepings and slight in this I fear there is little in your heart that your self judg worth the keeping that you are so extream slight and loose about it Wel that is one I dare not stay longer upon it let it be a matter of rebuke and to help you to try and judg how things stand between God and you for if your hearts be as they ought to be you wil bestow more pains about them than about any thing in this world Secondly Another Use that I wil make of it which is a Use that Gods Children wil rejoyce in and that is USE 2. It is a Doctrine that affords abundance of Comfort I this very Doctrine though it may seem and doth carry just rebuke I beleeve to the best of all Gods Children in some degree to be humbled but withall it is a Doctrine of wonderful Consolation to all those whom God witnesseth with that their greatest care and study is to purge their hearts to have their hearts mended to have their hearts guarded and are most humbled and afflicted when it is not wel with the inward man though all other things go smooth with them yet it is not comfortable with them except they find the heart set right Godward this Doctrine speaks a world of Consolation to such poor Souls I am confident it is the Lot of the generation of Gods People that hear me at this time though it may be under a temptation they may lay all aside yet otherwise God knows their dayly work their greatest work their work of prayer and mourning is most about their hearts If you ask them How doth your Body better than my heart How do you perform your Duties wel outwardly but my heart is wretched I have a vile heart and there they make their study there they make their search there they make the matter of their mourning Now I would say to such Souls and dare affirm it with much boldness none but the Schollars that
our nourishment comes from Ordinances for though the Lord be the Fountain of it yet the Ordinances are the canales the channels wherein the Lord gives out a greater supply of himself we must receive all these by Faith The Word profits no man unless it be mingled with Faith your Prayers they must be Prayers of Faith the Sacraments they are received by Eaith All Ordinances are so far effectual to the soul as the grace of Faith puts them upon you Faith is not only the means of our Food but for Physick the overcoming of our evil al the Spiritual enemies of our spiritual life all that would destroy it it is Faith alone must do it You shall find Satan the great Enemy how do we overcome him By resisting him in Faith The World another Enemy every one that is born of God overcometh that the world cannot prevail upon them and this is that that overcometh the world even your Faith So All our Lusts it is by Faith that we put off the old man the Scripture is cleer in it nay the actings of our lives all the actions of our spiritual life all the excitings and callings out of all our graces in every relation publick and private the Spirit of God laies it al upon Faith until we come to be consumated and put into Heaven the Lord doth leave the mannagement and carrying on of our spiritual life to the grace of Faith himself is the Sum the fountain but so far as the Creature hath a hand in it that is the sanctified creature it is this faith whereby the whol life is acted Thus you see the first thing I hope sufficiently cleered That the Life of al Gods People while they live in this world it is the life of faith But now comes the greatest Question for there are so many cleer Scriptures about that you cannot doubt of it you had as good doubt of your Christianity as to doubt of this Whether a Christians life is the life of faith But now What the holy Ghost signifies by this what is it to live by faith That is a thing that may be more difficult to be understood and if it please God that I can but cleer it to you out of the Word that you may see wherein the true living by faith doth consist when I have opened this I wil not doubt but so many as are Gods People wil say this is my very condition but as for others they wil say every body talks of living by faith one man makes living by faith only to be a fancy in his own head that God wil do this and that for him without any warrant from the Word another it may be fancies that live how he lists if he hope but to go to Heaven when he goes out of the world then he lives by faith But living by faith is substantial I shal now set my self by the Lords help to clear to you what the holy Ghost signifies when he saith that the life of Gods people in this world they live it by faith and to this end I must premise these two things but to make way The first is That our Lord Jesus who is our Head our spiritual mystical Head he hath not only an Al-sufficiency for al his people for every one that beleeveth til they come to glory but he hath a full purpose in his heart never to be wanting of supply unto his called ones a full unchangeable purpose to supply them with whatsoever is needful to bring them to glory That is the first thing I lay down as a foundation to lead you to know what it is to live by faith there is an all sufficiency in Christ our Head yea a ful purpose and resolution unchangeable to supply to all his people whatsoever they can need in any condition til he hath brought them to glory That is the first thing no body wil doubt this the Scripture is so ful to it The Second thing is more immediate and closer to my purpose and it is this That Jesus Christ hath not only this determinate purpose in his heart but he hath in his Word declared and manifested al that he will do for his people and expect from his people til they come into Heaven mark that is In his Word hath he declared Promises which hold out al the good that Christ means to do for his people not only general promises for pardon of sin to bring them to Heaven but promises for every condition that can be he hath declared what he means to do and which way he wil do it He hath there likewise declared what his will is for al the duties that his people are to perform iâ— the way of obedience he wil never expect from them in al their life time any thing but what in his Word he hath set down And thirdly In the same Word he hath not only laid down Promises what he wil do and precepts what they must do but Directions that hold out both arguments to stir them up and waies that they should take al these hath he laid down in his Word al the means either to attain strength to do duties or to accomplish the benefit of any Promise in his Word he hath laid down al his mind and that is called his will concerning us that is the will of God concerning us Now these three things premised the purpose of Christ to do all that he will do and expect the declaration of all this in his Word These two taken for granted now in the third place which is my Doctrine and which wil make you understand what the living by faith is The Grace of Faith wrought in us by the Spirit of God and acted in us by the Spirit of God it immediately hath its whol application to the Word Good Friends hearken I say the grace of faith is the work of the Spirit in us and is excited and stirred up to work by the Spirit the Spirits proper and immediate work is to deal with the will of Christ revealed in his Word it looks not at Heaven immediately it looks not to Christ immediately but it looks at God and Christ and Heaven mediately through the Word In the Word there saith sees all the good things promised that in its life time it shal stand in need of in the Word it seeth the injunction of al those duties that the renewed soul should be conversant about or be exercised in in the Word and in the Word only he seeth the Methods the Counsels the arguments the Directions that are to be attended upon for the enjoyment of all that which is in Christs purpose to do for us Now mark The grace of faith stirred up by the Spirit of God to look to the Word in every thing in the right way and the Lord by his invisible and secret work making the things held out in the Word effectual to the soul by this act of faith in the whol course of our life applying
therfore that is the best matrimonial life Therefore the Lord say I who knew what learning what wisdom what friends what Phylosophy what Policy what any thing might advance men to he out of them al shews the living by faith to be the way how they should live in this world who are as dear to him as the apple of his own eye and to a sober heart more needs not be said to make him think it an excellent thing Secondly as it is excellent because of Gods choyce so It is the honorablest life that can be there is no life in this world so honorable as the life of faith First It is wonderfully honorable to God when his redeemed ones have their whol livelihood from him without hanging upon every hedg but to acknowledg the Lord I to tel every body where they come I have not one comfort in a child nor in a wife nor in a penny nor in a garment nor in a dish of meat but I receive it from the hand of God by vertue of my faith here God is lifted up in al his administrations And as it is honorable to God so It is most honorable to us for in truth if we were independent that is if we needed no dependance upon any we must be Gods our selves and no man would put his foot under another mans table as we use to say that hath one of his own To live dependantly upon another man that can live independantly of himself takes off from his nobleness but if we must live dependantly then surely it is more honorable and noble to depend upon the head than the foot He that hath not learned to live by faith upon God he lives in part upon skins of beasts upon the world upon the excrements of the world he lives I mean upon poor ragged beggerly creatures one man saith to Gold thou art my hope another man loads himself with thick clay wel this is a poor low thing in comparison of depending upon him more immediately that hath incomprehensible glory it is ignoble Thirdly In this world it is the easiest life I will speak it I humbly bless the Lord that I have any experience of it in my own soul but I dare speak it as Divine Truth to live by faith is the easiest life under Heaven Do not mistake me I mean not it is easiest learned that a man may learn it with a wet finger Oh! it is a hard trade to learn and this may be one motive it is not easily gotten but my meaning is that when once the soul hath learned it that it be but a Master of this Trade that it can say I have learned to live by faith no man under Heaven lives or can live so easie a life as a Beleever may Why Because the life of faith wil never leave any thing upon my care but to walk humbly and thankfully with my God it leaves the providing for my body and soul and posterity and for the disposing of them al and for al my affairs it leaves it at Gods doors laies it to him and to me leaves nothing but to take the Book find my duty bend the knee and for all the successes faith leaves it quietly to the Lord and is not this a sweet life We that are Parents know by reason of our carnality what a hard thing it is when we have a company of poor children to provide for in a confused World when all we have may be swept away and others to have great trading and yet our Ships miscarry how we shal pay all our engagements we know not but if once the soul have faith it directs him to leave al to the wise and gracious God and my self to acquiess in his will I repeat it again and I pray if you be not satisfied in it now study it and I wil be bound to recant it as the saying is at Pauls Cross whensoever you wil if ever man can come out and say the life of faith is an uncomfortable life no it is the sweetest life of all Oh! that God would perswade you to study it it is the easiest life Come into a family and tell me who lives the easiest life the Father or the Child the Child hath food the Father provides it the Maid cooks it he hath cloaths his Father buys him them the Taylor makes them and the child goes to school and never thinks what will become of him when his cloaths are worn out and his linnen spent he leaves all to his Father And then again I tel you It is the best life because in truth it is the surest life for that man or woman that will trust God and wil study to live according to the rule of faith I speak it with reverence they have a statute upon al that God is worth that they shal be provided for they have a statute upon his All-sufficiency I am a God all-sufficient walk before me I will be a horn of strength I will never leave thee nor forsake thee a statute upon his Wisdom Power Goodness Faithfulness what God is and hath he hath engaged to the soul that wil trust in him It is an old saying of a Poet That it is an uncertain Estate though it may be great if it cannot be built upon It is an uncertain estate to depend upon Cables and Anchors if it come home it is well but it cannot be built upon and somtimes they stand in need of an Insuring Office but how justly I dispute not But lastly This Art when once the soul hath learned it it will deliver a man from all base and unworthy means it wil deliver the soul from all base and unworthy means in any kind whatsoever because if he have God in his Word what need he shirk and shift or do any thing that is base when he hath such a rock such a livelihood for his soul as faith As now I wil give you but an instance The Apostle Paul when he was in prison at Rome he conceived he might have gone out by giving the Captain of the Guard some money but Paul scorned to give a penny when he was at Philippi put in prison in the stocks the Magistrates came and bid him come out he scorned to go out some might have said you may provoke them I care not he had God on his side Never did any one so much study to get an Office or Lordship or an encrease of his Estate that they may say there is that boy or girl provided for let them go where they wil their portion lies by me this is not so comfortable as to study this Doctrine That that life that you live in the flesh you live by the Son of God that this life of faith may be on your part your principal delight Now then the Last part of my Sermon which I come to is But how should we do this Attainable it is and in some degree all Gods people have it but what course
but what they signifie what doth a Promise signifie that God in his Gospel maketh to souls for a man may have Promises and truly from a great many able and great men good Promises signifie very little from many great men and mighty men but to know what Gods Promises are and what they signifie it would be a great comfort and I wil tel you briefly what they signifie and it may be a key to unlock all the Locks in the House that is al the Promises in the Bible First of all The Promises of God they do for the present at the instant of their making signifie That God loves us for all the Promises come from his heart his Providences come from his hands the Promises come from his heart and when the Lord makes a Gospel Promise to a soul he doth as if he should say to that soul I love thee dearly at the present before the thing be accomplished thou mayest say it signifies thus to me If the Lord make such a Promise to me he loves me And Secondly A Promise signifies thus much at present That God wil never hurt me God gives in a way of Providence those things to many men whom he wil hurt and destroy nay he will destroy them even by the things that he gives them but to the souls to whom his Promises belong they signifie not only Gods good will but nothing in the world that can betide them shal ever hurt them because they are all Branches of that Covenant of grace in which Covenant of grace there is no evil shal light upon the soul that is under it therefore God wil one day make thee to know that he intendeth thy good in it this is signified for the present And For the future A Promise is a certain infallible pledg of a seasonable performance His Covenant he wil never break he will not alter the thing that is gone out of his mouth All the Promises of the new Covenant are all backed with an Oath of him that is unchangeable Here is a Promise for my poverty for my temptation it comes from the God that first loves me and will do me no hurt and wil accomplish it Brethren Do you beleeve this As Jesus Christ said to Martha He that beleeveth in me though he were dead he shall live and if he live he shall never die Doest thou beleeve this I Lord I beleeve it So say I Do you beleeve this Do you not think you shall live comfortably And Secondly when I said in this third Direction about being acquainted with the Word I mean Be acquainted with the Duties held out in the Word as wel as the Promises for it cals to holiness as well as to comfortableness therefore in the Word learn your Duty and I the rather tell it you because many a poor soul takes a great deal of care and pains in some things that God never required and they afflict themselves and make their lives uncomfortable in things that God hath not appointed as not to tel you of many poor creatures in Popery that would thrust themselves into Monasteries God never required it but my meaning is study the Word you can never study any thing that so much concerns you therefore there learn your Duties the Duties that belong to your relations and particular places where God hath set you for to know the will of God concerning me argues an honest heart more than to know the will of God concerning others but study to know the Word in the Promises and in the Duties That is the Third Fourthly which must not be neglected When you have done all this faithfully and conscienciously serve the Lord in the use of means serve the Promises and Commandements serve them faithfully in the use of the means without distraction but out of conscience resigning up your selves For for me to go to labor for an enlarged faith and to know the all sufficiency of God and to have the Promises as familiarly as my Pater noster as they use to say for me when I have done this to neglect the means the Lord hath appointed this is not good But look as an Husband-man What rational Husband-man is there especially if he know God but he knows that the Corn upon the ground cannot yield him a Crop unless rain from Heaven water it and it cannot fall from Heaven unless God send it and notwithstanding all this unless God give the Corn a new body but because he hath likewise learned that ploughing sowing and harrowing and dungcarting c. are all duties belonging to Husbandry he serveth the Providence of God and God blesseth him accordingly Do thus with your souls God hath given you Promises for some things Commandements for other things serve him diligently in the use of the means but remember what I taught you before that by the use of the means I mean means only of his own appointment for faith dare not go out of his own line Lawful means that are agreeable to a particular calling to reason c. I have often thought and I speak it to you from the Lord that when a people walk with a Word in one hand and the use of the means in the other hand we fairly leave the business at Gods feet whatsoever the success shall be we will be his Servants when such a thing hath betided me I find this is my duty by the best Counsel I can get and so we leave it at his door and whatsoever will come fall back fall edg we may have peace and comfort These are the great Directions only with these I must put in two Cautions and when I have done them I think I may have said that which may be helpful to them that would walk by Faith The one is When I say we must use means and thus live by faith my meaning is First That when you have done you must never limit God God limits you and limits me but for himself Faith must not limit him My meaning is Do not limit him to the way how he shal make it good for he often works by contraries do not limit him for time when he shal make it good for it is good to wait patiently the Lords leisure though it be al the daies of our appointed season and we injure God and our faith doth not work up to its true height when we will come and say do it to day Lord or else I will question it to morrow no limit him not chalk him not out his way I may Lawfully expect from God that such a thing shall do me good but I may not Lawfully tell God which way it shall do me good I may Lawfully say from such a temptation God wil deliver me but I may not Lawfully say he wil deliver me from it within this week or fortnight but quietly wait upon the Lord as one that infallibly wil do what he hath spoken and is not here enough It may be some will add now
by way of Objection But what if my difficulty be such an one that I can find nothing in the Word about it What can my Faith do then Where is your circumscribing Faith within the compass of the Word It may be my difficulty is such as I find no Promise for it in all the Word I dare confidently then say it is a matter of no great consequence it may be in thy fancy some great thing as the fancy of man can blow up a Molehil to a Mountain but beleeve it if it be such a trouble as hath not a Promise it is not worth the taking notice of for all things that concern the Lords Glory and good of his People there are Promises in abundance That is my first Caution And the other Caution is When I direct you in all this to endeavor thus to live the life of Faith you must take heed of some other principles which will put the wisest of you all to the utmost of your graces and that is your own reason and your sence I mean not sanctified reason nor your holy experience but I mean carnal reason and carnal sence which in spight of our teethes will have an Oar in every Boat it will be putting in in all things that concern our whol Conversation If a Duty be propounded of a sudden I am called out to it it may be my Reason puts in twenty things against it You wil lose your Credit in it and your Labor and it will come to nothing it may be our Sence will oppose it You do but water a dead Plant a dead Stock nothing will come of it and I will tell you all the experiences that the People of God hitherto have found of our carnal Sence and Reason in all things that belong to the Waies of God they are but like a Sophister in the Schools a Sophister that hath a wrangling head will blur and blind and slur the clearest Positions in any Art in Logick Grammer Rhetorick Phylosophy or what you will when a Conclusion is made and proved a Sophister riseth up and he shal slur it all especially with weak people So it is with carnal men whereas a Promise and a Direction of the Word looked upon by Faith appears like the Sun in its strength look upon the very same with carnal Reason and carnal Sence and it looks like the Moon in Ecclipse a dark Body it hath no light at all in it Oh therefore watch against it and the rather because we are men and from our Mothers Womb we are corrupt men and therefore these things are bred in the bone and will not easily out but while we carry flesh about us they will never be subdued And therefore one handsomly expresseth it as Abraham did when God called him to that Duty it was cleer that God made it his Duty when he had called to it he never goes to call his Wife for she would have said Husband it is impossible this is but a delusion it is not possible the Child that must be the Heir of all Nations and in him they must all be blessed What! for you to kill him it is not from God never talk of it Friends I the rather desire to open these things because in truth to a great many the Life of Christ is not known and many holy souls do want plain Directions how they should order their Conversation as becometh Christians and in our uncertain daies wherein we are every day looking what new Confusions shall break out Oh! it were a sweet thing for a man to be stablished that he might possess his soul in quietness in the midst of all the Changes in the World and really it many times grieves my heart to think First How the common People of the World live amongst us they are totally ignorant of these things but they set their hearts upon Wealth and Honor and Pleasure and these perishing things these men are carried after when God knows these things are not worth the while I wil briefly shew you one instance in Dan. 8. you shal reade of a Goat that came with one Horn and he ran and killed all other Beasts that were in his way and that Goat was Alexander and this same Alexander in ten years space did conquer one of the greatest Empires I mean he brought into his own hands one of the greatest Empires that ever were in the World in all the four Quarters of the World except America had he a great part within ten years there was an end of him and not one of his posterity had one foot of it and yet he left a Son and Heir but al was carried away to others And so will al Earthly things we may struggle and strive and weary our selves in a vain shadow and when we have done no man knows for whom he have labored it may be we expose our Posterity to the greater malice envy and hatred and they wil be the sooner ruined What a pity is it that such beggerly things as these should be so looked after and Faith so little thought of I in the Second place It grieves me to think how many souls that are Godly and study the Scripture and attend upon the Word yet they rather study nice controversies and things that gender strife and help it may be to maintain a Party on this side or the other side and this great comprehensive Duty of living to Christ and living by Faith preached by many studied by few little regarded these are common Dunstable Truths that the old Puritans did preach a long time ago but we have a more Seraphick vein and Spirit and so God suffers us to be gulled of our Religion which is the sweetest Portion that can be enjoyed in the world we make it a matter of brangling and little comes of it either to the Honor of God or Comfort of our souls And upon such thoughts as these while the Lord shews me that mercy that I may preach any thing unto you I would fain acquaint Gods People with these things that they may know wherein their life lies and how they may lead it to the glory of God and comfort of their own souls I presumed upon your Patience if God please to lay these things to your hearts it wil not offend I hope FINIS Doct. 1. Doct. 2. Doct. 1. Quest. Answ. Vse 1. Quest. Answ. Vse 2. Vse 3. At Mary Magdalens Milkstreet Octob. 30. 1653. Doct. 2. Quest. Answ. Vse 1. Vse 2. Quest. Answ. At Mary le Bow Octob. 30. 1653. afternoon Vse 3. Object Answ. Vse 4. Object Answ.