Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	believe_v	faith_n	soul_n	6,006	5	5.2775	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25466	Casuistical morning-exercises the fourth volume / by several ministers in and about London, preached in October, 1689.	Annesley, Samuel, 1620?-1696.	1690 (1690)	Wing A3225; ESTC R614	480,042	449

things which we comprehend not III. That which makes believing so difficult is the seeming contradictory acts of Faith it seems not to consist with it self Here I take Faith more generally as it has for its Object the whole Word of God the Law and the Gospel the special Object of Faith as Saving is the Promise Saving Faith seeks Life which is not to be found in Commandments and Threats but in a Promise of Mercy Faith acting upon the whole Word of God seems to contradict it self for Faith believes a Sinner is to die according to the Law and that he shall live according to the Gospel Faith has the Word of God for both both for the Death and Life of a Sinner and both are true the Law must be executed and the Promise must be performed but how to reconcile this is not so obvious and easie to every one Is the Law then against the Promises of God God forbid Gal. 3.21 't is impossible both should be accomplished in the Person of a Sinner he cannot die eternally and live eternally yet both are wonderfully brought about by Jesus Christ according to the manifold Wisdom of God without any Derogation to his Law and Justice God and his Law are satisfy'd and the Promise of Salvation made good to the Sinner and so both Law and Gospel have their ends not a tittle of either falls to the ground Heaven and Earth may sooner pass away than this can be O what a mistery is Christ Flesh and blood can't reveal this to us every believer assents to the truth of the Law as well as the Gospel he knows that both must have their full course the Law is fulfilled in inflicting Death the Gospel in giving Life the Law contributes nothing to the eternal Life of a sinner but kills him and leaves him weltering in his blood is no more concerned about him for ever if God will bring this dead sinner to life again he may dispose of him as he please the Law has done its utmost against him so the Law did against Christ spared him not but killed him out-right and left him for a time under the power of Death but having slain a Man who was God as well as Man Death was too weak to hold him he swallows up Death in victory he whom the Law slew as Man rises as God by the power of his godhead the Law contributed nothing to his Resurrection the Law had the chief hand in his Death but none in his Resurrection And here begins our eternal Life in the Resurrection of him who dies no more and is the Resurrection and Life to all who believe in him IV. The reigning unbelief that is among the generality of Men even among those who are of greatest reputation for Wisdom and Learning Ay and among those who carry the vogue for Zeal and Religion are counted the Head and Pillars of the Church Some pretending to Infallibility others set up themselves and are cryed up by many as such competent Judges in all matters of Faith that their judgment is not to be questioned but readily complied with by all who would not be counted singular and Schismatical So 't was in our Saviours time the Jews who had been the only Professors of the true Religion for many ages in opposition to all Idolatry and false Worship they stumble at the Gospel the Greeks who were the more Learned sort of the Heathen World they counted it foolishness And thus was the whole World set against Christ here was the greatest outward hinderance of the belief of the Gospel that could be imagined and add to this the indefatigable pains and industry of the Devil to keep out the light of the Gospel from shining in upon us he blinds the Eyes of Men by a cursed influence upon their corrupt minds that they should not believe Is it not a hard matter under all these discouragements to embrace the Gospel and declare our belief of it Have any of the Rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him But this people who know not the Law John 7.48 49. Why should any regard what a company of poor illiterate people do Their following Christ is rather an argument why we should not follow him they are all but fools and ideots that do so A cursed sort of people This is the judgement the Men of the World have of believers There is nothing among too many self-conceited Scepticks lies under a greater imputation of folly and madness than faith in the Lord Jesus Christ O what a pass are things come too that after so many hundred years profession of Christianity we should grow weary of Christ and the Gospel V. The notorious Apostacy of many Professors this day who have made Shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience 1 Tim. 1.19 may convince you all that 't is no easie matter to believe so to believe as to persevere in the Faith VI. Believers themselves find it a difficult matter to act their Faith if their Lives lie upon it they cannot act it at their pleasure without the special aid and assistance of the Spirit 't is God must work in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure Believers are hardly put to it great is the labour and travel of their Souls in believing they meet with much opposition from flesh and blood in every act of Faith they put forth they are forced to cry out for help in the midst of an act of Faith lest they should fail in it I helieve Lord help my unbelief q. d. I am now under some light and power of Faith but I see I can't hold it if thou dost not help me I feel flesh and blood rising up against my Faith I begin to stagger already Lord help me that I may not be run down by my carnal Heart Temptations shake our Faith many times there is a perpetual conflict between Faith and Diffidence yet Faith fails not utterly there 't is still Psal 31.22 23. Psal 42.6 9. Faith upholds the Heart still Psal 116.7 Unbelievers they tremble and turn away from God but true believers in their greatest frights and fears do run to God Psal 56.3 make towards him still Were it an easie matter to believe such suddain fits of unbelief would not come so strongly upon believers themselves Secondly The Reson why many Professors count it an easie thing to Believe The main Reason is this and I will insist upon no other viz. Because they mistake a formal Profession of Faith for real believing this undo's thousands who because they are qualified as National Protestants for all worldly preferments here they rest and make no other use of their Religion as if the Articles of their Faith obliged them to nothing A formal Profession is general takes up Religion in gross but is not concerned in any one point of it But real Believing is particular brings down every Gospel Truth to our selves shews us our concernments in it Save thy self saith

Fulness in God viz. his essential self-fulness which is infinite inexhaustible undiminishable and therefore incommunicable 2. A second thing we must suppose is That there is a fulness of God with which we may and therefore ought to pray and labour that we may be filled We cannot reach the original fulness but we may a borrowed derivative fulness tho' we cannot attain the fulness of the Fountain we may receive a fulness of the Vessel from that Fountain and if we cannot partake any thing of Gods Essence we may partake of his Influence we cannot be filled with the formal holiness of God for that holiness is God yet may we derive holiness from him as an efficient cause who works all things according to the counsel of his Will Eph. 1.11 The Wisdom of God there 's Principium dirigens the Will of God there 's Principium imperans and he works according to these there 's the Principium exequens His Will commands his Wisdom guides his Power executes the Decrees and Purposes of his wise Counsel and holy Will Having thus cleared the way we proceed to the direct Solution of the Question What is that fulness of God which every true Christian ought to pray and strive to be filled with For seeing we have supposed that there is a fulness of God which we cannot be filled with we must lay aside all ambitions and vain aspirings after that fulness and seeing we have supposed that there is a fulness of God wherewith we may be filled and the very Prayer of the Apostle supposes it We therefore are to take up this holy and humble ambition to be filled with it Now this Question can be no sooner proposed but our thoughts will suggest to us these two things First What is the matter of that Fulness and what is the measure of that Fulness with what of God and with how much of God ought we to pray and strive that we may be filled And therefore of necessity we must divide the Question into these two Branches First Branch of the Question What is the matter of that Fulness of God which we are to pray and strive to be filled with When we speak of Filling we conceive immediately that under that Metaphor there must be comprized these three things A Fountain from whence that Fulness is communicated A Recipient a Vessel a Cistern into which that Fulness is derived And then of something Analogous to the matter which from that Fountain is communicated and by that Vessel received Now in the Case before us This Fountain must needs be God the Author of every good and perfect Gift Jam. 1.17 Souls are the Vessel into which the Fulness is received but what we are to conceive and understand by the matter or the quasi materia with which these Vessels from that Fountain are filled is the Subject of our present Enquiry And to this branch of the main Inquiry I shall answer First more generally Secondly more particularly 1. To speak generally That which we are to pray and strive to be filled with is the Spirit of God Eph. 5.18 Be not drunk with Wine wherein is excess but be ye filled with the Spirit where first the Apostle dehorts against Intemperance we may have too much of the best outward things It 's easie to run into excess in these matters The Psalmist assures us Psal 104.15 That Wine makes glad the heart of man And the Prophet Hos 4.11 assures us too that Wine takes away the Heart It 's no more but this the Use is good the Abuse is sinful and the danger is lest from the lawfulness of the Use we slide insensibly into the Abuse Be not therefore filled with wine wherein is excess but then he exhorts too But be ye filled with the Spirit No fear of excess or Intemperance in this case when God fills the Souls of his People with his Spirit he fills them with all the Spiritual good things that their hearts can fill their Prayers with Compare but these two places Matth. 7.11 How much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask him Luke 11.13 How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him The comparing of these two Scriptures evidently proves that in praying for the Holy Spirit we pray virtually for all good things and that when God is graciously pleased to communicate his Spirit he communicates all good things when the Father gives his Son he gives all things So the Apostle has taught us to believe and argue Rom. 8 32. He that spared not his Son but delivered him up for us All how shall he not with him freely give us all things And we have equal reason to believe that he that spared his Spirit and gave him to us will in him and with him freely give us all things But these all things are to be taken in suo genere The Gift of Christ comprehends all things that are to be done for us the gift of the Spirit includes all things to be wrought in us Christ is all things for Justification the Spirit is all things for Sanctification and Consolation I shall touch at present upon some few things 1. Do you find an emptiness of Grace and do you long to have your Souls replenisht with it You go to the God of all Grace 1 Pet. 5.10 That he would give you more Faith more Love more Patience more Self-denyal more Heavenly-mindedness c. you do well but the compendious way is to pray that God would fulfil that Promise and so fill your Souls with his Spirit Zech. 12.10 I will pour out upon the House of David and Inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of Grace and Supplication First the Spirit of Grace that we may pray and then the Spirit of Prayer that we may be filled with more Grace Can we be content with a few drops when God has promised to pour out his Spirit John 7.38 He that believes in me out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water this spake he of the Spirit Can we satifie our selves that we have so much Grace as just keeps us alive when if we would pray and strive for the Spirit we might be more lively and vigorous Christians Can we be content with a Taste when God has provided a Feast Some of the Ancients who were anointed with material Oyl were anointed with the Cruise others with the Horn O let us not be satified that we have a few drops from the Cruise when God is ready to pour out his Grace more abundantly John 10.10 2. Would you answer the glorious Title of a Child of God with a more glorious and suitable Spirit that you may pray as Children walk as dear Children come to God not as Slaves but as Children and walk before God not under the resemblance of the Spirit of Bondage but with an ingenuous Liberty and Freedom as becomes the Heirs of Salvation Pray for

Rom. 3.2 The Heathens were exceeding fond of their Oracles which were but Riddles and Cheats but many under the Christian name do disregard the lively and true Oracles of God I mean not only those who of old look'd upon the Old Testament as not endited by the Spirit Manichees Weigelians Papists or of later days as out of date under the New Testament and all of it but as a dead letter and those who forbid the reading of it to the Laity But such as sleight and do not consult these infallible Oracles which really passed Gods own hands having his Signature upon them and being able to make us wise unto Salvation 13 2 Tim. 3.15 yea are there not to be found those who tho' they professedly renounce Popery do yet droll upon the Holy Scriptures Burlesque them and make a ridicule of them and such would deal so with Monitors from the dead wherein if we would indeed exercise our Spiritual senses to discern we might see the face of God and live Alas How does the speech of many bewray them 14 Matth. 27.73 because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks to have little value for the Divine Oracles Sith they in all their talk seldom if ever discourse of them with reverence Which would indeed dispose one to fear that some under the name of Protestants have in reality no more value for the Oracles of God than the Popes of Rome who put their own Canons and Decrees not only in the same rank with the Canonical Scriptures but above them * Honoratus l. 2. Epist 16. 2. We should not any of us tempt God in hankering after new Revelations or extraordinary discoveries but adhere to God in the ordinary means he hath appointed and allow'd to us for conversion and confirmation 'T is true as a great Man † Mirand de fid ord cred hath well observ'd All Religion doth depend or is presumed to depend upon Revelations from above Flesh and blood saith Christ 15 Matth. 16.17 hath not revealed it but my Father which is in Heaven But then when this is consign'd in a sufficient and clear Canon undoubtedly attested with an exclusion of additionals under dreadful Plagues 16 Rev. 22.18 we should rest satisfied and not be reaching after novelties yea and we should heartily acknowledge our gratitude to our gracious God for his true light which doth perpetually cast out his rays and as Polybius * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Of truth it self doth by it self prevail and pulls down all the falshood that perks up its head against it Oh how thankful should we be for the Liberty we do enjoy for the good of our precious Souls to worship God as he hath prescribed in his Word of eternal Truth Heartily waiting as dependents upon him Matth. 11.25 26. that he would open our Eyes to see the wonderful things contained in his Law 17 Psal 119.18 We should be well contented with the proposals that God himself makes to us in his unerring Word and not expect to have our curiosities gratified with strange Relations from the Dead If the House of God amongst us be built upon the foundation of the true Prophets and Apostles We shall not need as a Learned Man saith * Dr. Spencer of Proph. daubing with such spurious Visions and Prophecies as the Romanists brag of Luther vext with their Impositions writes † In Gen. c. 22. Ego soleo Deum precari c. I am wont to pray God daily that He may not send any Angel to me for any cause if any should be offer'd I would not hear unless he should signifie somewhat of political necessity even as pleasant dreams and glad tidings are sometimes wont to chear us up in civil matters and yet I know not whether even in such a case I would harken to him and believe him But in Spiritual things we do not desire Angels The ordinary means of grace which I have been discoursing of as being ordain'd of God do discover what he would have us to do and what he will do for us is that which the Holy Spirit joins himself to and makes more effectual usually to a saving change of the heart than prodigious and sensible Alarms which uneasie Souls desire to pry into when as the Holy Angels desire to peep into the mysteries revealed to the Church and made known by the manifold or embroidered Wisdom of God 8 1 Pet. 1.12 Ephes 3.10 3. There should be no seeking to familiar Spirits or consulting of Conjurers and cunning Men as they would be thought to be who converse with Satan sith we are called to the Law and to the Testimonies If any pretenders to new lights or discoveries from the other World which speak not according to this Rule that is already revealed and sealed 't is because there is no light in them 19 Isa 8.20 See Engl. Annotat some expound it If they be otherwise minded than they have from God been advised and will resolve to run after Witches and Wizards there shall no day-light of prosperity befal them but all darkness of affliction and misery shall betide them God allows not a going to the Witch at Endor having written Laws by which he will Rule and Judge the World His people of old were not to hearken unto the word of those false Prophets that gave a sign or a wonder 20 Deut. 13.1 2 3. 2 Thes 2.9 tho' God permitted it to come to pass for their trial when pretended to be an attestation to that which God abhorr'd But they were to harken unto the Prophet whom God would send even Jesus Christ 21 Deut 18.15 22. Matth. 17.5 unto whom the true Prophets under the Old Testament did refer and who hath silenc'd all lying Oracles Which the true Oracles do caution us to take heed we be not deceived with 22 Mat. 10.16 24.23 24 1 Tim. 4.1 2. 2 Thes 2.9 10 Christs Apostles brought the Conjurers by the power of Gods Word to confess their delusions and bring their Books to be burned openly 23 Acts 19.18 19. which were of the same kind in effect with some Prognostications about future contingencies that there can be no true foundation for in genuine Astrology though that be pretended to the prejudice of the Divine Oracles To which who ever refuseth to give entire credit upon due deliberation he gives ground of suspicion that he hath none of the Spir●● of Christ 24 1 Cor. 12.3 neither would he ever believe Christ himself returning in the flesh and all the Angels or those from the dead Hence we may take notice how the wonderful boldness of Satan bewrays it self Beza as well as the incredulity of Men in receiving the Truth and their credulity in embracing of Fables For how many are there who account for such those things concerning eternal punishment which are declared by the Son of God And

I live than speak a word to gratifie scoffers at Religion who scornfully twit those that are better than themselves with their Hearing so many Sermons but yet I dare not sooth up those in their Hypocrisie whose Religion lies all in Hearing of Sermons as if there were no other Duties to be minded no Family Duties no Relative Duties whereas only Hearing will make at best but rickety Christians 2. They are also to be reproved that only go to See a Sermon What went ye out into the Wilderness to see What To see Fashions They can give a more exact account of every fantastical Dress than of any one savoury Truth they heard whereas 't is said of Christs hearers (f) Luk. 4.20 the Eyes of all that were in the Synagogue were fastened on him A wandering Eye is an infallible evidence of a wandring Heart But I 'll come closer to the Case in a Use of Exhortation With Directions to all sorts of Hearers that they would sorthwith set upon the practice of this great comprehensive Duty to give Christ a satisfying account why they attend upon the Ministry of the Word Every one must give an account of himself to God That you may do it with Comsort take these or such like Directions Dir●cti●n 1. Set your selves towards the removing of those Hinderances whi●h ti●l you i● good earnest set upon the removing of them you can never give a good account to your selves much less to Christ of any Soul-business I 'll name but four and with the naming of them give a word of Direction how to attempt their removal e. g. 1. The state of Vnregeneracy is a dead weight to the Soul it keeps it down from lifting up it self Heaven-ward One dead in sin blesseth himself that his Conscience is not troublesome i. e. 't is neither squeamish to boggle at sin nor inquisitive after the danger of it The only Remedy I shall name is this viz. Mind Conversion as far as 't is possible for an unconverted person to mind it How far is that Thou canst never tell till thou hast tryed Query Whether ever any pusht this forward to the utmost and missed of Conversion Not that any thing an Unconverted person can possibly do can merit Grace but the Soul 's holding on in its attempt and in some measure breaking through the Corruptions and Temptations that way-lay it is a token for good that the Spirit of Grace is hopefully at work to bring over the Soul to Christ the Spirit of God saying to that Soul what David said to his Son Solomon (g) 1 Chr. 22.16 Arise and be doing and the Lord be with thee 2. The second hinderance is love of Ease Persons don't love to meddle with that which they apprehend will be a troublesome business What To be always upon our watch To be always examining why and to what end we so much as hear a Sermon This is wearisome and intolerable For Remedy Rouze up thy Soul as thou would'st do thy Body in a Lethargy thou wouldst then be jogg'd and pull'd and shook there 's more need in thy Soul-Lethargy 'T is the voice of him that deserves to be thy Beloved that calls thee do not give an answer directly contrary to Christs Spouse (h) Cant. 5.2 I am awake but my heart is asleep 3. A third hinderance is Vnbelief As to this I speak not now of the state of Unbelief but they do not believe this to be so needful as 't is represented The truth is if we run up sins into their causes we shall find Vnbelief to be the most teeming Mother of most omissions and of more than omissions e. g. Why do you omit such a Duty I do not believe it to be necessary Why do you not reflect upon the Duties which you do not omit I do not believe God requires it For cure Consider you have more grounds and Motives for Faith in this matter than you have for any thing you practise e. g. You Pray I hope you do I would not have my supposition fail me 't is more your Duty to reflect why you Pray and how you Pray than 't is meerly to Pray you may teach a Parrot to speak words of Prayer but 't is a special exercise of Grace to Pray aright as to the manner of it So you believe 't is a Duty to attend upon the Word 't is more your Duty to propose a right End and to reflect how that end is pursued attained or lost than 't is barely to hear Pardon me if I use a nauseous Metaphor to set forth an odious sin Some of you bring your Dogs with you and they hear the sound of words lye still and depart when the Sermon is ended Upon reflection you 'l be ashamed to do no more 4. A fourth hinderance is the satisfaction that natural Conscience takes in a little tiny Devotion Natural Conscience requireth a little and but a little a little will satisfie it so it be but something Doeg (i) 1 Sam. 2.7 was detained before the Lord. It had been better for him to have been sick in 's Bed than to have been quieting his Conscience with such circumstantiated devotion For cure Do but review what thy natural Conscience takes satisfaction in and thou wilt be more dissatisfyed bring but thy Conscience with thy Duty to the Rule and then examine it To act only like (k) Gal. 4.30 a Slave that desires no more than to turn his Work off hand to do no more than he needs must this leads to rejection whereas a Conscience guided by Scripture will put you upon doing all as a Child that the Manner of it may please your heavenly Father and this will qualifie you for an heavenly Inheritance This is the first Direction remove hinderances Direct 2. Call your selves to an Account before in and after the hearing of the Word to what End thou camest and how the end is pursued or dropt 1. Before you hear Solomon adviseth thus (l) Eccles 5.1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the House of God and be more ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of Fools be more ready to receive Instruction and to accept of what God says which will be thy Wisdom than to offer Sacrifice and neglect Obedience like foolish Hypocrites And a greater than Solomon (m) Luke 14.28 31. our Lord Jesus Christ cautions us by a double Metaphor at his School-door when we come to be his Disciples viz. That spiritual Edification will be in this like worldly building cost more tha we imagine and our Spiritual warfare will be in this like the carnal more costly than at first we conceive 't will cost us more careful thoughts more waking nights more painfull days more Prayers and Tears more Self-denyal and Contempt of the World than inconsiderate persons will believe For your care before you hear I shall propose but three things 1. Renew your Repentance of the Sins of your hearing the

first Call though I have neglected to hear him so as to have any practical regard to what he said all my Life The thoughts of what you say would amaze me did I believe it But I hope to find it otherwise Answ 1. Do not flatter your selves with vain hopes but let what I have spoken fright you to your Duty not from it You may expect as much from Christ as you can reasonably desire Would you have Christ to be to you like a foolish Mother to a cocker'd Child Let the Child do what he will do but chide him or threaten him he runs to his Mother and she 'll excuse all and bear him out in all though it be to his future undoing of Soul and Body Christians never expect it Christ will never do so Christ tells us before hand that none shall be more ready than he to help us against sin provided we will be ruled by him But we shall find none will be more severe against it if they be impenitently rebellious (a) Zech. 7 1● As he cryed and they would not hear so they cryed and I would not hear saith the Lord of Hosts And 2. How absurdly disingenuous is it to be careless of our account and to expect that Christ should answer for us Christ was more ready to answer for his Disciples than they could be to ask him when through Infirmity they were Sleeping when they should have been Praying But 't is absurd to expect any thing like it when 't is not Infirmity but Wilfulness through dislike of his Service and hatred of Holiness You 'd verifie the Pharisees slander of Christ that he is a friend of Publicans and Sinners a friend to their sins not to their Souls In short therefore be Conscienciously sollicitous to give an account to Christ such as may be graciously acceptable and though there 's nothing beyond this yet there may be something over and above Let this therefore be my last Direction 4. Make it your care to give a silencing account to the Devil and all his Agents I grant that neither he nor they will ever be silent they 'll reproach and revile you they 'll mutter and whisper and secretly say and do all they can against you and they 'll never want something out of which they 'll force matter of reproach You have Christ in this very Context saying (b) Mat. 11.16.17 18. Whereunto shall I liken this Generation It is like unto Children sitting in the Markets and calling unto their fellows and saying We have piped unto you and ye have not danced we have mourned unto you and ye have not lamented for John came neither eating nor drinking and they say He hath a Devil The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say Behold a man Gluttonous and a Wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and Sinners But Wisdom is justified of her Children They do as it were say of John the Devil enables him to endure such hardship and therefore they reject his Doctrine and they reproach Christ's person as if his more free temper encouraged Licentiousness Let a Godly Mans Conversation be what it will 't will never please those that hate Holiness But yet my Brethren 't will strangely muzzle them they can but grumble out a reproach or if they speak out 't is by clamour to drown the whispers of their Consciences when they can say something like that (c) Ruth 2.15 18 19 So she gleaned in the field until even and beat out that she had gleaned And she took it up and went into the City and brought forth and gave to her that she had reserved after she was sufficed and her Mother in Law said unto her Where hast thou gleaned to day c. q. d. Such of Christs Harvest-men have been at work and I have been gleaning after them I have met with that which to me hath been a feast the Word hath been refreshing and I can shew you some of the handfuls that I have gleaned I have attended upon the Ministry of the Word and have pickt up some Knowledge who was before an ignorant wretch and never minded my Soul I have pickt up something of food for my Soul whereas I was pining away in mine iniquities My Conversation will witness where I have been gleaning and I humbly resolve there I 'll abide in the use of such means while God vouchsafes them When you thus resolve you must expect Satan will do his utmost to flatter or fright you out of your purposes But while you can approve your ends to Christ your selves may answer Satan in the hindrances he 'll throw in your way e. g. Satan Why art thou so sollicitous for thy Soul thou mayest be saved without all this adoe 't is more then needs Soul No Satan all I can do is too little did not Christ undertake for me but I will not do the less for Christs doing so much Satan All thou dost is to no purpose thou shalt be damned at last Soul Should it be so I 'll rather serve God for nothing than thee for all thy flattering lying Promises I 'll do God all the service I can for the Mercies I have received though I should never have more the very work of Religion is better than the work of Sin even without a Reward Satan Spare thy self poor Soul thou art not all Spirit thou hast Flesh and Blood as well as others why wilt thou expose thy self to Contempt and Sufferings no Man in his Wits will court a general hatred Soul Peace Satan be it known to thee and to all thy Imps I had rather have your hatred than your love all your kindness to me is to ruine me Satan Be not so conceited of thine own Wisdom look about thee in the World have not others Souls to save as well as thee and they don 't proudly pretend to be wiser than their Neighbours Soul Be gone Satan I 'll parly no longer if others neglect Salvation therefore must I Will their missing of Salvation relieve me for the loss of mine Though a Peter perswade Christ to spare himself Nay when (d) Mar. 3.21 31. his friends went out to lay hold of him thinking his Zeal had crazed him Nay when his Brethren had wheedled in his Mother to send to him to abate his work he would not yield a minute By the Grace of God though I shall come infinitely short I 'll make Christ my Pattern and therefore Satan say thy worst and do thy worst through Christ I defie thee Will not some such account in some respect I may say to the Devil himself more confound him When he shall see all his spightful insinuations work out comfortable Evidences of present Grace aye of growing Grace and future Glory If this will not silence him 't will make him roar in his Chains When he finds himself tyed up from doing what mischief he would he roars for vexation while the gracious person Thanks to Christ laughs

at him (e) Psal 8.2 Out of the mouths of very unlikely persons hast thou ordained strength that thou mightest still the Enemy and the Avenger q. d. God doth by the Spiritual Skill and Strength which he gives even to young weak Converts unfit to grapple with an Enemy God enables even such to silence confound and conquer the Enemies of God and his People and the Devil in the head of them whose Kingdom and Power is broken by this means and those that fight under his Banner against God and Christ And pray observe the Title here given him viz. the Avenger he being Sentenced by God to Eternal Torments makes it his business to revenge himself what he can upon God and Christ upon his Children and Servants Christians if you can through Grace make Satan himself against his will help you to profit by the Word this will raise your Souls beyond what is ordinary both for Grace and Comfort Or if God in his Wisdom suspend such manifestations of himself yet such exercise of Grace shall certainly tend to the multiplying of Praises in the other World And now though I have in my pitiful manner answered the Case my work is not yet done till I have answered a Complaint upon the Case and 't is the Complaint of those who have least cause of those who give Christ that Answer to his Question which satisfies him but yet can't give an Answer will satisfie themselves Their Hearts ake from the very proposing of the Question and their Hearts misgive them under all that 's said in Answer to it Complaint We have more Cause to complain than we are able to express Oh the Sermons that we have lost of which we can give no account at all and of those that are not utterly lost we have made no suitable improvement We are convinced that we should be as impartial now in examining whether we have got saving Faith by hearing of the Word We should be as strict now as if we were upon our Dying Bed We know not whether ever we shall have a Death-bed many more likely to live than our selves dye suddenly and why not we Nay rather now for we have not now wearisome Sickness to disable us We have now those helps that we can't have then Freedom of Ordinances in publick Capacities for Duties in secret We may now bring things to an issue which is then next to impossible These and a Thousand such Considerations even fright me when I sit down to think my Thoughts even overwhelm me to reflect what a sorry account I can give of all that I have heard These and more doleful Complaints are the usual entertainments of their most serious Christian Friends To all which I shall offer these Answers Answ 1. The Word of God which they apply to their Sorrow they ought as well to apply to their Comfort for those who are really grieved that they can't satisfie themselves much less as they think Christ They are mistaken for Christ is ordinarily best satisfied with that which the gracious Soul is least satisfied e. g. That Prayer which he is most ashamed of Christ most approves of (f) Cant. 2.12 The Flowers appear on the Earth the time of the Singing of Birds is come and the Voice of the Turtle is heard in our Land 'T is Spring-time in the Soul When the Groans of a contrite Heart sound harsh to others they are Musick in Christs Ears not that Christ delights in his peoples Sorrows but as they are Evidences of his Graces in them and of his Spirit 's abiding with them It is only the gracious Soul that is grieved at Heart that he can't give Christ a better account of his profiting (g) Ezr. 9.6 10. ch 10.2 O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee my God What shall I say after this There 's hope in Israel concerning this thing The Apostle expresly assures us that (h) 1 Cor. 11.31 32. those that judge themselves shall not be judged with a Judgment of Condemnation Chear up therefore poor dropping Soul and to thy comfort consider whether this be not the only thing wherein Christ and you Believers be not of the same mind Christ puts a better interpretation of his actings than he himself dares many a time Christ owns that as Grace which he condemns for Hypocrisie Christ forgives him that which he can never forgive himself Christ says Well done good and faithful Servant for that which he ever finds fault with But the complaining Soul saith I mistake him I speak to the rong person Propose comfort to those that are grieved they can't give Christ a satisfying account whereas I am not troubled enough nor grieved enough a serious reflection upon such returns as mine to Christs kindness would certainly break any Heart but mine But alas I am next to nothing affected with it 2. I therefore further answer Thy complaining for want of sensible complaining entitles thee to Comfort Darest thou own so much as this that thou art troubled thou can'st be no more troubled at the shameful account thou givest to Christ Thou art afraid that Word has overtaken thee (i) Isa 6.9 10. Hear ye indeed but understand not and see ye indeed but perceive not make the Heart of this People fat and make their Ears heavy and shut their Eyes least they see with their Eyes and hear with their Ears and understand with their Heart c. Surely thou canst not think worse of thy self than this Let me tell thee the more thou thinkest of this the less cause thou hast to apply this to thy self for those who God gives up to judicial hardness never think or speak of such things but in scorn and to make a mock of them and that thou darest not do there 's another word for thee to think of (k) Isa 66.1 2 Thus saith the Lord The Heaven is my Throne and the Earth is my Footstool where 's the place of my rest To this Man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite Spirit and that trembleth at my Word If God hath any place upon Earth for his Repose it is in that Soul that stands in awe of his Word and with due Reverence receives it What! Dost thou complain thou art not troubled enough Nor contrite enough Not humbled enough How do many Souls bring their Complaints to Ministers and bring their Bills to Congregations for brokeness of Heart and a deep sense of Sin when they are so much broken already that their other Duties are almost justled out by it Don't therefore overlook that Text (l) Rom. 14.17 The Kingdom of God is Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost We should make it our business to live in a ferious course of Holiness towards God and Righteousness towards Men in the love and practice of Peace with all and in the joyful sense of the love of God and hopes of Glory

taking pleasure in the promoting of the Graces and Comforts of others in our way to Heaven Christians forget not that the joy of the Lord is your strength (m) Neh. 8.10 The serving of God with chearfulness strengtheneth both Body and Mind whereas excess of grief damps the Spirit and infeebles the Body unfitting us for the Service of either God or Man But the complaining Soul will still complain Say what you will or can Comfort belongs not to me (n) Ps 77.3 4. I may say with Asaph My Soul refuseth to be comforted I remember God and am troubled I complain and my Spirit is overwhelmed God holds mine Eyes waking I am so troubled that I cannot speak q. d. I cannot but reject all the Consolations that my Friends suggest to me The thoughts of Gods Goodness Wisdom and Power have sometimes been refreshing to me but now they are matter of terror to me God is angry with me and I cannot bear it my trouble is so great I can't express it your speaking Comfort to me is but as the Singing of Songs to a heavy Heart 3. Notwithstanding all this and a great deal more of such Complaints yet I 'll assert and make good my assertion That Comfort belongs to them that conclude against themselves that their case is hopeless and I 'll try to make those very persons confess it We are not to take Mens own word that either the Promises or Threatnings are their portion but we must examine the grounds of their peremptory assertion e. g. If a wicked wretch shall confidently boast he doth not in the least doubt but he shall as certainly be saved as any of those that take most care about their Salvation though he ne're troubles his thoughts about it Do you think that in taking his Accounts Chist will let his Confidence pass for saving Faith and give him Heaven for his Presumption surely you can't think he will while he hath given us so plain a Rule how to judge of words by things viz. By their fruits you shall know them (o) Mat. 7.16 c. A good Tree cannot bring forth evil fruit So then as a Man shall not save his Soul for his groundless Presumption so neither shall he lose his Soul for his groundless despondency Thou complainest of thy self not of Christ he is precious (p) 1 Pet. 2.7 in thine eye therefore thy Faith is saving thou fearest that thou dost not cleave to Christ yet thou hadst rather die than offend him this is a Faith of adherence and that is saving Thou complainest but restlesly strivest to be more inwardly outwardly universally holy that is a good Evidence thy state is good though while under a Temptation or under a Cloud thou canst not see it to be so But thou still sayest I am an unprofitable Hearer and I cannot believe that Christ will pardon what is amiss and accept of any thing as good of what I can do and therefore pray quit this way of answering my complaint by telling me of Comfort If you have any thing else to offer I 'll hear it I may expect rather to hear of Christ in a clap of Thunder than in a soft and still voice 4. I 'll speak to thee no more directly of Comfort but only ask thee a Question about the Comforts of others What are thy thoughts about the Comforts and Joys of the Holy Ghost are there any such things or are they meer Fancies If there be any such things what thinkest thou of those that partake of them Is the enjoyment of them desirable Are they happy that have them Whether is more eligible to spend your Life in mourning Complaints or to spend it in the joyfull Praises of the Lord our Redeemer Are these Questions hard to be answered These Questions are out of question Oh! there are no joys like the joys of the Holy Ghost the best of carnal joys are incomparably below them Though I fear I shall never be so happy as to enjoy them yet I can't but admire them that do Do you ask which is more eligible a life of mourning Complaints or a life of Joys Ask a Man under a fit of the Stone whether that is more eligible than a state of health Well dost thou speak this heartily Ask thy Heart again that thou mayest not mistake me or go back from thine own answer Are the joys of the Holy Ghost Realities Are they unspeakably beyond all other joys Are they happy that enjoy them Wilt thou stand to thy word Then they are all thine own thou hast a title to them at present and as sure as thy Redeemer lives thou shalt be put into the possession of them Mark how I prove it Every one that hath Truth of Grace hath an indefeasible Title to Glory (q) 1 John 5.13 These things which I have written unto you that believe on the Name of the Son of God that ye may know that you have eternal life (r) 2 Cor. 1.22 They have a Seal for Assurance but an earnest which is a begun possession elsewhere called the first-fruits (Å¿) Rom. 8.23 but every one that prizeth the holy joys of the Holy Ghost hath Truth of Grace Graceless Persons make a mock of the joys of the Holy Ghost they can scarce forbear sneering at the mention of them he perfers carnal Comforts before them (t) Psal 4.6 7 Many say who will shew us any good But the gracious Soul says Lord lift thou up the light of thy Countenance Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their Corn and their Wine increased ver 3. This is the godly Man whom the Lord hath set apart for himself Not any one that is not a Saint himself hath any esteem for a Saint as a Saint (u) 1 Joh. 3.14 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren He that loveth not his brother abideth in death Now I dare appeal to your selves in the very midst of all your complaints when thou fearest thou shalt never have any of these joys yet thou hast a value for them above any other Thou preferrest thy complaints before worldly Pleasures thou dost not thou canst not but follow Christ though it be tremblingly If all these be not infallible Evidences of Grace what are Chide thy self and pray thy self out of thy complaining temper (w) Eccl. 9.7 Go thy way eat thy Bread with joy and drink thy Wine with a merry heart for God now accepteth thy works And thus you have my Answer as well to the Complaint as to the Case God make it beneficial to all that shall read it There remains some questions depending upon the Case that require some Answer I 'll attempt that also Qu. 1. When we make choice of a Minister to be under Christ the special Guide of our Souls How shall we avoid the sinfull preferring of one before another How may we escape that

nor value them Sayes the other These men are all either blinded with preferment or hunting after it their Parts are either utterly abus'd or quite blasted Thus the Ball of Contention is toss'd from one to another by the hands of Pride and Scorn Whereas Humility makes a Man think meanly of himself moderately of his own Notions and Apprehensions highly of those that deserve it and respectfully of all It was this which taught excellent Bishop Ridley when he was in Prison thus to accost honest Bishop Hooper However in some by-matters and circumstances of Religion your wisdom and my simplicity I grant hath a little jarr'd yet now c. More comfort to them if they had been on these terms in the time of their Liberty and Prosperity Humility is a great step to Unity Ephes 4.2 I beseech you that ye walk with all lowliness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Pray behold how these Graces are here link't together lowliness meekness unity and peace The humble man will not indure that his Reputation shall outweigh the Peace of the Church and therefore is more willing that Truth should be victorious than Himself Hee 'l go two miles for one to meet his Adversary in an honest way of Accommodation and when he cannot make his Judgment to bend yet his Heart shall stoop to you with all sincerity This Vertue made Aristippus come to Eschines when they were at fewd with this greeting Eschines Shall we be friends And this dictated his answer Yes Sir with all my heart But remember saith Aristippus That I being elder than you do make the first motion Yea said the other and therefore I conclude you to be the worthier man for I began the strife and you began the peace Let us all then be cloathed with Humility assume not in regard of your Learning Wit or Parts consider you are but Sharers in our Common Benefactor neither let your Riches or Dignities make you to speak or write otherwise than you would do without them and this will go a great way to prevent our biting and devouring one another 5. Apply your selves to the Practice of Real Piety By this I mean that we should imploy our chief care to procure and increase a lively Faith to exercise daily Repentance to strengthen our Hope to inflame our Love to God and to our Neighbour to grow in Humility Zeal Patience and Self-denyal To be diligent in Watchfulness over our Thoughts Words and Wayes in Mortification of our sinfull Passions and Affections in the Examination of our Spiritual Estate in Meditation in secret and fervent Prayer and in universal and steady Obedience In these things do run the vital spirits of Religion And whoso is seriously imployed in these will have but little time and less mind for unnecessary Contentions These will keep that heat about the Heart which evaporating degenerates into airy and fiery exhalations and leaves the Soul as cold as Ice to any holy desires It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace not with meats which have not profited them that have been occupied therein Hebr. 13.9 It is manifest what a sad decay of these hath followed our multiplied quarrels and how hard it is to be fervent in Spirit and withall to be fiery in Controversies He that walks with God and whose Conversation is in Heaven will be quickly weary of windy disputes with men and will be apt to conclude with one of the Ancients Lassus sum dum cum sermone atque invidia cum hostibus cum nostris pugno Which hath occasioned divers great Divines the more earnestly to long for Heaven that they might be out of the noise of endless and perverse disputations The serious Practice of Godliness hath the Promise of Divine Direction in all material points The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will shew them his Covenant Psal 25.14 If any man will do his Will he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God John 7.17 And likewise he that lives in the Spirit and walks in the Spirit dares not bite or devour his Neighbour Let not us saith the Apostle that so walk be desirous of vain-glory provoking one another envying one another Gal. 5.25 26. 6. Follow after Charity Knowedge puffeth up but Charity edifieth This is the healing Grace and if this be not applyed to our bleeding wounds they will never be cured This suffereth long and is kind Charity envieth not Charity vaunteth not it self is not puffed up Pray read on and mark all these passages Charity doth not behave it self unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evil Rejoyceth not in iniquity but rejoyceth in the Truth Beareth all things tolerable believeth all things credible hopeth all things possible indureth all things and as it follows indureth after all things 1 Corinth 13. That whole Chapter most fit to be read and often studied by all that love peace Charitas dicit aliorum bona certa meliora certa mala minora bona dubia certa dubia mala nulla An excellent Conclusion of Charity That it reckons the good parts qualities or actions that are certainly in others to be rather better than they are indeed and the ills to be less than they are indeed the doubtfull good things in them to be certain and the doubtfull evil to be none And how far would this Temper and Practice go to the promoting of Unity and Concord And how directly contrary do most of them proceed that make the greatest noise in our irreligious quarrels Not only putting the most invidious fence upon one anothers words and actions but also the most uncharitable judgment upon their persons upon their Spiritual and Eternal Estate We must know that as Faith unites us to the Head so Love unites us to all the Members and as we can have no Faith nor Hope without Charity so as any Man increaseth in Faith so he is inlarged in his Charity The more true Piety any man hath doubtless the more Charity still that man hath We that did hate one another saith J●stin Martyr of the Christians do now live most friendly and familiarly together and pray for our Enemies If we must err one way as who is infallible it is safer for you to err by too much mildness than by overmuch rigour for Almighty God though he be Wise and Just yet he is most emphatically called Love 1 John 4.8 Beloved let us love one another for Love is of God and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is Love And for you to reply That you do heartily love those that are every way Orthodox that is that agree with you in Opinion is nothing thank-worthy do not even the Publicans the same That may be nothing but Self-love but your Religion

the Spirit of God that he may be a Spirit of Adoption to you as well as of Regeneration pray in the Spirit for the Spirit that you may have the frame of a Child filled with Zeal for the Fathers Name and Interest 'T is the Spirit of Adoption that teaches us to cry Abba Father Rom. 8.15 'T is the Spirit of God that gives us an inward freedom and liberty 2 Cor. 3.17 Wh●●e the Spirit of the Lord is there 's Liberty This Spirit will not give you a liberty unto sin but from it nor from God but with him This Spirit will not break the Bonds of the Commandment but tye up your hearts to it and give you liberty and chearfulness in it We read that the Son makes us free John 8.36 If the Son shall make you free then are you free indeed We read also that the Spirit makes us free too but in different respects The Son makes us free from the Curse of the Law from the guilt of Sin from the Wrath of God but the Spirit makes us free too from the reigning power of sin from the bondage that is in the Conscience The Authority of God has made his Precepts necessary what is necessary in the precept the Spirit makes voluntary in the principle God charges the Conscience with Duty and the Spirit enlarges the heart to obedience Psal 119.32 I will run the way of thy Commandment when thou shalt enlarge my heart 3. Pray for the Spirit that he would perform his whole Office to you that you may not partake only of the work of the Spirit in some one or some few of his operations but in all that are common to Believers And especially that he that has been an anointing Spirit to you would be a sealing Spirit to you also that he that has sealed you may be a witnessing Spirit to his own work and that he would be the earnest of your inheritance a pledge of what God has further promised and purposed for you 2 Cor. 1.21 22. Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ and hath anointed you is God Who hath also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit into our hearts 2. To speak a little more particularly what the Apostle prays for his Ephesians in more general Terms he prays for the Colossians more particularly Col. 1.9 10. We do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be fill'd with the knowledge of his Will in all Wisdom and Spiritual Vnderstanding that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitful in every good work and encreasing in the knowledge of God And when I have opened the particulars of this Scripture I shall not need to seek elsewhere for an answer to this Inquiry What is the matter of the fulness of God which we ought to pray and strive to be filled with I. Let us pray and strive and strive and pray again adding endeavours § 1 to prayers and prayers to endeavours that we may be filled with the knowledge of Gods will And we have need to make this an essential part of our prayer for first We may happily do the will of God Materially when we do it not Formally not under that formal and precise consideration that what we do is the will of God and that we do it under that consideration because it is the will of God A Man may perhaps stumble upon some practices that are commanded by the Moral Law and yet in all this not do Gods will but his own that which in all our obedience we are to eye and regard is the Authority the will of God we cannot be said to observe a Commandment unless we observe Gods Authority in that Commandment nor to keep Gods Statutes unless we keep God in our eye as the great Legislator and Statute maker A blind obedience even to God is no more acceptable than a blind obedience to Men is justifiable Secondly We ought to pray that we may be filled with the knowledge of Gods will that there may be more employment for the powers and faculties of the Soul which in every heart wherein the grace of God radically is are in the general inclined to do the will of God There are some well disposed Christians of strong affections and good inclinations to do Gods will who are but slenderly furnisht with knowledge what that will of God is which he would have them do And thus those warm propensions of Spirit either lye like dead stocks upon their hands or else they laid out the zeal of their Souls upon that which is not the will of God and when they have spent their vigour and strength of Soul upon it they come to God for a reward who asks them who required this at your hand And thus even holy Davids zeal was mislaid upon this account that God had not spoken a word nor revealed his will in the Case 2 Sam. 7.7 Thirdly It s our great concern that we may know the will of God and be filled with that knowledge that the knowledge of Gods will may be an operative principle of obedience thus David prays Psal 143.10 Teach me to do thy will O God We are to pray that God would teach us to know and then teach us to do his will knowledge without obedience is lame obedience without knowledge is blind and we must never hope for acceptance if we offer the blind and the lame to God Luke 12.47 That Servant which knew his Lords will and prepared not himself neither did according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes As therefore all our practice must be guided by knowledge so must all our knowledge be referred to practice Fourthly and lastly We ought to pray that we may be filled with the knowledge of God's will that this knowledge being rooted and grounded in our Souls it may render that obedience easie and delightful which is so necessary to its acceptation when Satan had entred Judas his heart he would not stick at any of the Devils commands and when he had filled the heart of Ananias and Saphira Acts 5.3 how ready were they to lie unto God If our hearts were more filled with the knowledge of Gods will that this Divine Law were written there duty would be our delight obedience our meat and drink nor would there be room left for those corruptions which hang upon us like dead weight always incumbring us in our obedience § 2 II. Let us pray again that we be filled with all wisdom in the doing of the will of God we want knowledge much we want wisdom more we need more light into the will of God and more judgment how to perform it For first It 's one great instance of wisdom to know the seasons of duty and what every day calls for As the providence of God disposes us under various circumstances so it calls for the exercise of various duties one circumstance calls for mourning another for

the tenor of our conversations to this God whom we serve If there be not that exact and punctual walking up to what God in strict justice may expect yet there must be that accuracy and circumspection which God in mercy will accept we must be holy as the Lord our God is holy Spiritual because we walk before him that is a Spirit sincere as being always under his omniscient Eye acting our faith upon him that is faithful and true casting our care and burden upon him that has undertaken to care for us and in all things proving what is the will of God and then approving that will and practising what we have thus approved § 5 V. Let us pray and strive let 's add holy endeavours to humble Prayers and second again those endeavours with our Prayers That we may be fruitful in every good work That there may be Grace in the root Grace in the fruit Grace in the habit strengthned Grace in the exercise multiplyed Let 's pray that our Faith may not be a dead Faith for want of the Grace of obedience that our obedience be not a dead obedience for want of a living Faith and a lively active Love that our Fruit may be of the right kind new obedience from a new heart that it may be right for its proportion for herein is our Father glorified that we bring forth much fruit John 15.8 that it be rightly directed that we may bring forth fruit to God and not to our selves And to all our Prayers we must add this that we may encrease in the knowledge of God That knowing God better we may love him better and loving him more we may serve and glorifie him more and be riper every day for the enjoyment of him And thus much in answer to the first Branch of the Question I proceed to the Second Second Branch of the Question What is the measure of that fulness of God with which every true Christian ought to pray and strive that he may be filled There is Plenitudo fontis Plenitudo Vasis the Fulness of the Fountain and the Fulness of the Vessel There is again Plenitudo Solis Stellae the fulness of Light in the Sun and the fulness of Light in a Star Again there is Plenitudo Capitis Membri the Fulness of the Head and the fulness of a Member A Fountain is full a Vessel may be full but with different measures Jesus Christ as Head of the Church has the Fulness of the Spirit without measure John 3.34 A gracious Soul may be also full but it is with the residue of the Spirit which Christ can spare for the use of those that are his Mal. 2.15 God is full of all Grace with the fulness of the Fountain he is full with his own fulness but not filled from another A Believer may be full too but he is filled from the fulness of God Thus John the Baptist is said to be filled with the Holy Ghost Luke 1.15 And so Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost v. 4. So was Zechariah v. 67. And thus were the Disciples all filled with the Holy Ghost Acts 2.4 All these were full but their fulness was borrowed they were filled It was of Christs fulness that they received grace for grace John 1.16 They were filled but they could not fill others from thelr fulness they had Grace but none to spare And every Believer must answer his Brother that would borrow of him as the wise Virgins did Matth. 25.9 Not so lest there be not enough for us and you There is an All-sufficiency of Grace in Christ it s well if Believers have a sufficiency according to Christs promise to the Apostle 2 Cor. 12.19 My grace is sufficient for thee And having premised this little I shall give the direct Answer to the Question in these following particulars 1. Every gracious Soul ought to pray and strive to be filled with such a measure of the fulness of God and of his Grace as the Holy Spirit who is the proper Judge of that measure shall see fit to communicate to us The Holy Spirit has these parts in this matter 1. He is the immediate Worker of Grace 2. He is the Distributer of all Grace 3. He is the Arbitrator of that Quota and proportion of Grace which every Believer has need of 1 Cor. 12.11 All these worketh one and the self-same Spirit dividing to every one severally as he will where you may observe the several parts that the Spirit of God hath in this matter 1. He works this Grace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 't is by his Energy or powerful working that there is root or fruit habit in us or Act of Grace proceeding from us 2. He divides and distributes to every one severally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is the great Steward of the Houshold of Christ and dispenses the measure of Grace to Individuals 3. This measure is distributed by his absolute power 't is according to his will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he pleases for the Grace being his own he may do with and dispose of his own Grace according to his own will And tho' he will be faithful in the discharge of his trust yet will he be sought unto to do it for us Thus when there was a promise Ezek. 36.25 that God would sprinkle clean water upon his people and cleanse them from all their filthiness and from all their Idols And v. 26. That he would give them a new heart and a new Spirit and take away the Heart of stone and give them a Heart of Flesh and put his Spirit within them v. 27. c. Yet still v. 37. I will yet for all this be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them 2. Every gracious Soul ought to pray for such a measure of Grace as may fit his Capacity none are so full but they may receive more We have so little of Grace because we ask no more Jam. 4.2 Ye have not because ye ask not We are but poor in our selves we might be enriched from Christ and if we were more poor in Spirit we should be more enriched with Grace from him John 16.24 Ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be full We should not satisfie our selves with the present measure of Grace received but pray and strive that we may have grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ Eph. 4.7 3. We ought to pray and strive that our narrow Vessels may be widned our Capacities enlarged that we may be more capable of Grace The Vessels of Divine Grace are of different sizes as one Star differs from another in glory so one Saint differs from another in Grace And as the Spirit enlarges the Heart he will enlarge his own hand Psal 18.10 I am the Lord even thy God open thy mouth wide and I will fill it Our blessed Saviour may say to us as the Apostle to the Corinthians 2 Cor.

6.12 Ye are not straitned in me but ye are straitned in your own Bowels Our hearts are narrow towards Spiritual and Heavenly things because they are so enlarg'd towards earthly and visible things when the heart is enlarged as Hell and death that cannot be satisfied Hab. 2.5 For these perishing things no wonder if there be little room for the Graces of the Spirit This is therefore our great concern to pray that God would enlarge our desires that he may satisfie and fill them 4. We ought to pray and strive That all the Powers and Faculties of the whole man may be filled according to their measures There is much room in our Souls that is not furnish'd much waste ground there that is not cultivated and improved to its utmost We might have more light in the Understanding more tractableness in the Will more heat in our Love and a sharper edge set upon our Zeal And we have warrant to pray for this measure of the fulness of God 1 Thess 5.23 Now the God of peace sanctifie you wholly and I pray God your whole Spirit Soul and Body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 5. Every gracious Soul ought to pray and strive for such a measure of Grace that he may be qualified for any Duty and Service that God shall call him to and engage him in The Hebrew word which we render Consecration or separation to an Office is Filling the hand Exod. 29.9 Consecrate ye Aaron and his Sons in the Hebrew Fill the hand of Aaron and his Sons Where God employs the hand he will fill the hand we have ground to believe that he will send us about no Errand but he will bear our Charges where-ever he gives a Commission he will bestow a competent qualification when we go about his Work we may expect his presence and assistance in the Work And Moses seems to stand upon these terms with God Exod. 33.15 If thy presence go not with me carry us not up hence As therefore there is great variety of Duties in our Christian Calling we may in Faith expect and from that believing expectation pray that we may be furnish'd with a suitable variety of Grace for the discharge of them 6. Every true Christian ought to pray strive for such a measure of Grace as may enable him to bear patiently chearfully and creditably those afflictions and sufferings which either God's good pleasure shall lay upon us or for his Names sake we may draw upon our selves We ought to pray that either he will lay no more upon us than our present strength can bear or if he encreases our trials he will encrease our Faith There 's no danger of excess in our Prayers when we confine them to the limits of his gracious promises Now here we have encouragement from his Word 1 Cor. 10.13 God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able but will with the temptation make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it 7. Every true Christian ought to pray and strive for such a measure of Grace as may bring the Soul to a settlement and stability that he be not soon shaken by the cross and adverse evils that he shall meet with in this Life And the Apostle Peter has gone before us in this Prayer 1 Pet. 5.10 The God of all grace who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus after that ye have suffered a while make you perfect stablish strengthen settle you And herein especially let us keep an eye upon these particulars § 1. Pray that God would so stablish you in the truth that ye may not be blown away with every wind of Doctrin A sorry trivial Error many times oversets and puzzles a weak Understanding Now 't is our great Interest to pray and strive that we may reach such a clear distinct coherent Light into the Doctrin of the Gospel that every small piece of Sophistry may not perplex and stagger our Belief of it So the Apostle Paul Eph. 4.14 would have Believers be no more Children tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive § 2. Pray also that God would so stablish you in the truth of the promises that your Faith may not be shaken with every wind of Providence We are apt to have our hearts tossed by contrary Dispensations So upon a rumour Isa 7.2 The heart of Asa was moved and the heart of his people as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind It argues great weakness of Faith that we cannot maintain an equality of mind under various Providences the only remedy of which evil is to pray that God would encrease and strengthen our Faith that we may be so firmly built upon the unmoveable rock that we may not be afraid of evil tidings having our hearts fixed trusting in the Lord Psal 112.7 And this was the glory of Job's Faith Job 13.15 That tho' God should slay him yet would he trust in him § 3. Let us pray and strive that God would so settle and stablish us in Love to himself that no blast of Afflictions from his hand may cool the fire of Divine Love in our hearts We want exceedingly the Faith that God carries on a design of Love under all his various and seemingly contrary dealings with us he can love and correct why then cannot we love a correcting God Whether he wounds or heals his love is the same and why not ours Can we not love God upon the security of Faith that he will do us good as well as upon the experience that he has done us good § 4. Pray we and strive that God would so settle and stablish us in our inward peace that no wind of temptation may overthrow it 'T is a slender and ill-made peace which every assault of the Tempter dissolves The Psalmist stood upon a firmer bottom when the terrifying Onsets from without made him fly more confidently to his God Psal 56.3 What time I am afraid I will put my trust in thee And we have Gods own promise to answer our Faith Isa 26.3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is staid on thee because he trusteth in thee And thus I have return'd some Answer to the second Branch of the Question What is the measure of the fulness of God with which every true Christian ought to pray and strive to be filled There will still remain an enquiry How we may reach to such a measure of the Divine fulness as has been described To which tho' the limits of this discourse will not allow a full and just Answer yet the importance of the Question will oblige me to point at some few things upon which your own Meditations may find matter of enlargement 1. And first it is necessary that we be convinced that we are very far short

of that fulness of God which is attainable even in this life Many might have had more grace if they had not been under the delusion that they had grace enough already The dream of Perfection attained has prejudiced the perfection which is attainable As Tully observes Multi ad sapientiam pervenissent nisi eo jam se pervenisse putassent Many Men had arrived at a high degree of Wisdom had they not fondly conceited that they had already reacht the top of it The Apostle's frame was most excellent and imitable Phil. 3.12 13. Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect but I follow after it that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus He considered more what was before than what he had left behind that is he more lookt forward to what he had not yet attained than backward to what he had 2. Let us pray that we may know more of the Love of Christ to us as the proper mean to be filled more with the fulness of God in us This is the expedient of the Text and what greater encouragement can there be to love serve obey and glorifie our God than that he has so freely wonderfully loved us in Christ 3. Let us strive to keep our vessels pure and clean tho' they be small and narrow that however they are of a narrow capacity yet being pure and clean God may delight to fill us and to enlarge our hearts that we may receive more of his fulness Matth. 5.8 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God The sight of God which a pure and holy heart qualifies us for is the enjoyment of God i. e. Gods communicating his love in its sanctifying and saving effects and so we shall find if we compare John 3.3 Except a Man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God with vers 5. Except a Man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God 4. Labour to experience poverty of Spirit The way to be rich in Grace is to be poor in Spirit which poverty of Spirit does not consist in having little Grace but in a sense that whatever we have little or much it s not of or from our selves but from the fulness of God The more we empty our selves in that sense the more God will fill us Luke 3.5 Every valley shall be filled The humble valleys are often fruitful when the high hills are commonly barren self-sufficiency discharges and disobliges the all-sufficiency of God Luke 1.53 The rich he sends empty away Now as by the Rich we are here to understand such as are rich in their own conceit tho' they be really poor so by the poor in Spirit we are to understand them that are convinced of their own original indigency though by the Grace of God they are enriched and their spiritual wants supplyed Phil. 4.20 This poverty of Spirit tho' it pretend not to merit yet has a meetness for the fulness of God Jer. 31.25 I have satiated the weary Soul and I have replenished every sorrowful Soul 5. From this Spiritual poverty arises a Spiritul hunger and thirst after more of the grace of God which temper of Soul lies directly in the way of that promise Matth. 5.6 Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled for 't is upon him that is thirsty that God promises to pour out water and 't is the dry ground that God promises to satisfie with the floods Isa 44.3 6. Attend in Conscience and Faith with constancy and perseverance upon all the Ordinances of the New Testament you read Zech. 4.12 of two olive branches that through the two golden pipes empty the golden oyl out of themselves Let the two Olive branches be the Person of Christ in two Natures the golden oyl will then be his precious Grace and the golden pipes the Ordinances of Christ by which he empties out of himself that precious Grace into holy and clean tho' earthen vessels Amongst many other terms which the Ancients gave to the Lords Supper they called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The perfect or the perfection so Zonoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To come to the Perfection is to come to the holy Eucharist And indeed where do believers find their choicest derivations from God their sweetest Communion with God but in that Sacred Ordinance worthily received 7. And lastly To all these we must add and with all these we must joyn fervent and believing Prayer which as it glorifies God God will glorifie it and make it the means of conveying down to our Souls such a measure of fulness as may serve us in the time of our need we can never be poor whilst we can pray He that is the Spirit of Supplication in us will be th● Spirit of Grace to us Let us therefore pray with the Apostle Rom. 15.13 That the God of hope would fill us with joy and peace in believing Let us pray that the God of all Grace would make us perfect stablish strengthen settle us 1 Pet. 5.10 That the God of Peace would sanctifie us wholly 1 Thes 5.23 And let us pray that the same God the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ would give us to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge that we may be filled with all the fulness of God Quest How are the ordinary means of Grace more certainly successful for Conversion than if persons from Heaven or Hell should tell us what is done there SERMON VII Luke XVI 31. And he said unto him If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead WHether the Narrative of our Saviour beginning at the 19th verse of this Chapter concerning the Rich-man and Lazarus be an History relating really matter of fact or a simple Parable representing the matter by way of similitude Or an useful discourse by way of Delineation partaking of both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just Martyr viz. a Parabolical History or Historical Parable Hath been variously determined both by the Ancients and Moderns * Voss Thes Dispt 5. One † Lomierus indeed would go further and have it to be a Prophetical Parable representing by Dives Judaism and by Lazarus Gentilism This latter as he thinks from the name Lazarus imports one before Christ came that had no help forsaken of all kept out of doors amongst the Dogs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They who conceive it to be an History argue it from the proper Name of Lazarus others who judge it to be a Parable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dr. Lightfoot c. alledge that the Talmudists do frequently use Lahazar contractly for Eleazar yet here not as a proper Name but common denoting a destitute beggar indefinitely or him who of himself is bereft of help or one to whom help should be shew'd As Rachel is used Appellatively

10. Epist mox ipso tractu ut fieri solet diffundente se crimine c. Adversus gentes ipsa multitudine perturbatus the Proconsul in Bythinia employ'd by Trajan to root up Christianity which they accounted a Crime did acknowledg Tertullian and others prove the spreading of it in the Second and Third Centuries So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed 25 Acts 19.20 in the primitive times ingenerating unconquer'd Constancy of Faith and Godliness in the minds of the Hearers and always victoriously triumphing over the Kingdom of Satan and false Religions In the beginning of the Reformation said Luther * Tom. 4.282 Ubique experimur in Templo in Rep. c. We do everywhere experience in the Church in the Commonwealth in the Family certain fruits of the Word which as Leaven doth spread it self into all the parts of the Commonwealth the Offices and all the States Afterwards we find how it did diffuse it self in England Scotland and Ireland c. ‖ See the Fulfilling of Scriptures p. 401 414. Is 46.10 John 10.35 Acts 1.16 Notwithstanding they of the Antichristian state have laboured to keep up their Superstition and Idolatry by feigned Apparitions as may be seen in later Collections of Popish Miracles the History of Jetzer c. 4. The Holy Bible being the appointed Instrument wherewith the Holy Spirit will work for the sanctification of the Soul 24 John 17.17 1 Pet. 1.22 it is indeed a surer word of prophecy which the Spirit of Christ that spake in the Prophets themselves did signifie 1 1 Pet. 1.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than that which came from Heaven at the transfiguration 2 2 Pet. 1.18 19 Mat. 17.5 Not in regard of the truth for therein they were both equal but in regard that at the Transfiguration was more transient being heard but by a few this of the Scripture more firm and fixed being written for an unalterable Record just so as Holy Men had it brought to them at several times by the Holy Ghost it was not of any private Conception for it came not by the will of man but was brought into them by the will of God who hath strongly preserv'd it amongst his People notwithstanding the endeavours of Antiochus to destroy it under the Old Testament and afterwards when the Canon was compleated tho' several of the Roman Emperors used their utmost power to burn it * Euseb Eccles Hist l. 10. ch 3 4. 8.2 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For rather than they whom the Spirit of God had wrought upon by it in the communication of Spiritual Light and Life would become Traditores such Traitors to God and their own Soul as to deliver it up to Dioclesian's Officers they in great numbers suffered themselves in Egypt to be bodily destroyed in humble confidence the Author of it would take their Souls into Abraham's Bosom to be for ever happy there So successful a means is the Word of God for the work of Grace in the Soul that no marvel upon the Rich man's speaking his own conceit or odd wish for some ones prodigious return from the other World as if a Preacher thence would bring his Brethren to return to God Father Abraham discovers himself to be of another mind as it were giving him a Reprimand shews that the Written Word giving more clear evidence of its really coming from above and so manifesting it self to be from God should rather do it as being the stated means which the Spirit useth in the conversion of others And therefore the hankering after Messengers to come anew from Heaven or Hell argues those who are so dispos'd to be such as our Saviour shewed in confuting the Sadduces who really know not the Scriptures nor the power of God therein 3 Mat. 22.29 For let us suppose one who had been dead and known to be so for several years should be wonderfully raised up by God to warn his known Friends here in this World to flee from the wrath to come and to return to God What new Arguments could He use that had not been used in the Ministration of the Word before sith therein he had been acquainted with the pure Precepts of the Divine Majesty and also his sure promises of Heaven to the Obedient with the certain threatnings of Hell to the Disobedient and the never-ceasing pains under the execution of them felt by him who in this Parable here would have warning given to his Brethren What can He suppos'd to come from the other World offer more to the serious consideration of his Relatives After a little startling of them who it may be would be somewhat concern'd a little while at the surprize as the Drunkard seeing his Pot-Companion fall down dead under the Table or others struck dead on every side in a dreadful Pestilence yet the Survivers remain unchang'd in their Minds Wills and Affections of Love and Hatred Hope and Fear all this while Tho' they have often heard the Ministers of the Word even in Christs stead laying cogent Arguments before them to gain their Assent powerful Motives to work upon their Wills and Affections from the sure Word universally suited to the Cases of their several Souls when it may be they had some common motions of the Spirit which they have quenched whereupon they may now be prone to doubt whether this suppos'd new and extraordinary Messenger be indeed Commission'd from God unless he produce his Credentials and these be attested to by the Spirit 4 Gal. 3.1 2. Lavater de Spectris For upon the appearance of an Angel there might well be a suspicion sith if a good one his Message would accord with God's Word if a bad one he would endeavour to deceive by his Lies When the Angel did instruct Joseph by a Vision he forthwith adjoin'd a Testimony from the Prophetical Scripture 5 Mat. 1.23 Isa 7.14 which Christ and his Apostles had respect to tho' they could work Miracles to confirm their Doctrin 5. God out of his infinit Wisdom hath given us his Oracles and sent his Embassadors in the ministry of reconciliation 4 2 Cor 5.19 20 men like to our selves as more suitable to us in houses of Clay than Angels which live out of the Sphere of our Commerce God might think now their Testimonies to his Church here below would not be so convenient for his Government and so consequently not so successful for the beginning of Conversion He could have had the use of the Noblest Spirits for his Errand and Embodied them if he would for expedition when he chose to employ Moses notwithstanding his excuses 5 Ex. 3.11 12. when the Promise of God's Presence with him on his Embassie might answer all 6 Ex. 4.10 12. so that he found be might say with converted Paul ‖ Phil. 4.13 He could do all things through Christ enstrengthning him Man is best drawn in such a

way as is most agreeable to his Nature The Head which is the governing part in the Organical Body may move most uniformly with Members of the same nature 7 Deut. 18.15 who have the irrefregable Authority of God's Word to back them wherein they speak for God to stubborn ones and tho' the Treasure is presented in Earthen Vessels 8 2 Cor. 4.7 yet the excellency of the Power is of God 9 1 Cor. 1.17 Converse with good Angels is a Dignity which our present state in the Body cannot well bear and therefore it is rare There is indeed a Story related in Bodin * Lib. 1. de Magorum cum Satana commercio of one who had desired much the guidance and assistance of an Angel and from the thirty seventh year of his Age he said he had a Spirit that assisted and followed him to his Death He would knock and awake him early in the morning if he spake unwary words he would reprove him for it by a Dream in the night if he was reading a bad Book the Angel would strike o● the Book for him to leave it and give some pre-notice to him in a Dream when some accident was like to befall him c. This is related from the Man as matter of Fact But it concerns us to be wary and not to be wise above that which is written 10 1 Cor. 4.6 If we are not satisfy'd with the infallible Testimony of God himself how should the coming of a Creature in a strange way give us satisfaction The Father of Lies may impose on our simplicity and deceive us in the Habit of an Angel of Light 11 2 Cor. 11.14 Too many easie People have been impos'd on by the Popish Legends Luther * In Genes c. 22. being acquainted with such Impostures said Satan indeed hath often tempted me even as Augustine who deprecated that an Angel might not appear to him that I might ask a Sign of God But far be it from me that I should hearken to this temptation The Martyrs without the apparition of Angels confirm'd by the Word alone did meet Death for the name of Christ and why should not we acquiesce in the same 'T is said when once he had kept a day of Humiliation and Prayer he had a Vision of Christ when he said Away away In Cap. 37 Gen. pactum feci cum Domino Deo meo c. I know no picture of Christ but the Scripture And elsewhere I have made a Covenant with the Lord my God that he may not send me Visions or Dreams or Angels for I am content with this Gift that I have the Holy Scripture which doth abundantly teach and supply all things that are necessary both to this and a future Life Let us all then content our selves with the ordinary means of Grace which are more successful for Conversion to carry it on from first to last rather than expect persons from Heaven or Hell to acquaint us what is done there Except If some rare instance should be alledg'd of some Atheisttical Persons who having been intimate Companions in wickedness had agreed that when either of them should depart this World and find a joyful Heaven or dreadful Hell he would if possible acquaint the Survivor with it And thereupon some Spectre or Voice hath been heard or seen or fancied to be so upon such a Discovery there hath been an inclination to return to God and an amendment of Life Answ I fear such an inclination and amendment have been but some temporary emotions upon such a prodigious occurrence and have soon evanish'd like a blush or have occasion'd only some fainter Essays towards amendment of Life which have not come to a thorow change only to be an Almost Christian as Agrippa and not such an Altogether Christian as Paul himself was when Converted 10 Acts 26.27 upon the Call of Christ by whom God spake to him 11 Gal. 1.1 Heb. 1.2 having ordained to reveal himself by the Word but we do not now find the revelation by Angels or the Spirits of those who are departed this Life to be any stated Ordinance of God for man's Conversion as the Scriptures be For should we suppose Bad Angels to come to us they are Enemies to man's Conversion Good ones as God's Ministers would confirm his Word should we suppose wandring Spirits or Spectres from the Dead according to Dives his Conceit to be Monitors of the living we must reckon them to be either the Souls of Believers or Vnbelievers If of Believers they will after the example of Christ their Head send us to the Holy Scriptures as Agustine thought he heard a voice saying Take and Read Take and Read They will say with God the Father concerning his Son and our Saviour Hear ye him 15 Mat. 17.5 If the Souls of Unbelievers and wicked Miscreants Who would hearken to them or give credit to what they Say Further what these supposed ones say do either agree with the Written Word or are contrary to it If the former they are received not because they are believed by them but because contained in the Word of God which hath been found a successful means of God's own appointment for man's Conversion If the latter i. e. They be contrary to the Word they ought by no means to be receiv'd Should we suppose that which is not possible an Angel from Heaven should speak to them But I fear I am become tedious yet I beg your Patience a little longer whiles I touch upon III. Some short Appl●cation of this stated Case that The ordinary means of Grace are more certainly successful for Conversion than if some Persons from Heaven or Hell should tell us what is done there And it shall be for 1. The Reproof of those who disvalue the Sciptures and discourage such as would search them in the language they understand according to our Saviours injunction to search the Scriptures 11 John 5.39 which we find to be Authentical from God himself as hath been evidenc'd and might be further by other Arguments which have been urg'd by others * See Grotius Mornaeus Mr. Baxters Saints Rest Sir Charles Wolsey Mr. White c. The truth is if God himself were not the Author of the Bible it must be some Creature either Good or Bad. If Bad why forbids he evil so rigorously and commands good so expresly aiming at nothing but Gods glory and Mans happiness If Good why doth he challenge to himself that which is proper to God alone As to make Laws for the heart to punish and reward eternally If no Creature God himself must be the Author 'T is highly blame-worthy then to have low thoughts of Gods own Book Yet such is the corruption of faln Man that even the generality of those who make some profession of the truth are too apt to set light by Moses and the Prophets which Paul stiles the Oracles of God 12

influence the Faith of some confident Professors has upon their Lives they are not they will not be governed by the Faith which they profess the Devil allows of such a profession and 't is all the Religion he will admit of in his followers provided they don 't touch upon the power of godliness all forms are alike to him and in some cases the purest and most Scriptural serve his turn best when separated from the power of godliness then he has some Scripture on his side to perswade them that all is well then he cries The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are ye setled in a Church way according to all the Rules of Discipline laid down in the Word and is not this Religion enough to save you Thus the Devil will sometimes give the best form its due commendation from Scripture when it may serve as an Argument to perswade a formal Christian to sit down short of the power of Godliness he knows God's own form will not save us then though he would make them believe otherwise He put the Jews upon pleading this and possessed them that all was well while they held to the outward form of Worship that God had appointed which made the Lord himself so often to declare against them and the outward forms of Worship that he had appointed because he saw they rested in them and played the Hypocrites under them Let us have a care in these Gospel-times that we do not rest in Gospel-forms only placing the whole of our Religion in that which God has made but a part of it and such a part that should never be divided by us from the Power and Spirit of the Gospel We talk of damnable Heresies and there are such the Lord keep us from them but let me tell you you may pass though more silently into Hell through a formal Profession of the Truth and have your porticn with Hypocrites who profess'd what you do had the same form of Godliness that you have but deny'd the power of it I don't say as some of you do I hope otherwise of you all but let every one examine himself what powerful Influence those Gospel-truths have upon him which he has lived so long under the profession of you know this best and others may more than guess at it by your Lives and Conversations but I spare you having laid my finger upon the soar place I take it off again and leave every one to his own feeling Obj. You seem as if you would put us off from our Profession Answ It may be better off than on in some respects but my design is to bring you up to your Profession that you may be real in it and not mock the Lord nor deceive your selves I have often thought that he who makes a solemn Profession of his Faith and says I believe in God and in Christ had need consider well what he says lest he lie unto the Holy Ghost though what you profess be truth yet your Profession may be a Lie if you say you believe what you do not believe with the Mouth Confession is made but with the Heart Man believes believing is Heart-work which the Searcher of Hearts only can judge of therefore you should consult your Hearts whether you do indeed believe before you tell God and Man that you do 't is a sad thing that the frequeut repetition of our Creed and the renewed Profession we make of our Faith should be charged upon us as so many gross Lies as Psal 78.36 37. Thirdly They who count it an easie matter to believe are destistute of Saving Faith I prove it thus 1. They who have never found any Conflict in themselves about believing are destitute of saving Faith But they who count it an easie matter to believe have never found any Conflict in themselves about believing ergo If Faith did not act in opposition to carnal Reason and carry it against all the strong reasonings of the Flesh to the contrary Supernatural Truths which never enter never be admitted never find acceptance in the Soul we should never be brought over to assent to them so as to make them the sure ground of our trust and confidence in God but Faith captivates all rebellious thoughts that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God 2 Cor. 10.5 as if they could disprove all that the Gospel says but the demonstrations of the Spirit are with that power that we cannot resist them Christ teaches as one having Authority besides the instructive evidence of Truth in clear reasonings and full demonstrations of it by the Spirit there is Authority and Power to back all this so that having nothing to object that is and fully answered we dare not but obey because of his Authority lesh Power over us were it not for this Authority and Power proud F the would pertinaciously stand out against all the Reasonings of the Spirit but when the Rationale of the Gospel is made out by art Spirit beyond all contradiction from Flesh and Blood the carnal p et is nonplust and silenced cannot speak sense against the Gospel y e however 't will be muttering and kicking against the Truth her comes in the Authoritative Act and Power of the Spirit suppressing the insolence of the Flesh and commanding the Soul in the Name of God to obey and not stand it out any longer against such clear evidence resisting the Wisdom of the Holy Ghost You must know that Flesh and Blood i. e. that carnal corrupt part that is in every Man is never convinced 't is not capable of any such thing but the Power of the Spirit of God brings on a Conviction upon the Soul from a higher Light notwithstanding all that the Wisdom of the Flesh can say to the contrary Flesh is Flesh still in all chose who are born of the Spirit but 't is overpower'd and kept under by the stronger reasonings of the Spirit which is the cause of that continual Conflict that is between the Flesh and Spirit to talk of easie believing without any resistance from our own corrupt minds is to talk of that that never was nor can be in any man whatever Saints are inclined two contrary ways though one Principle be predominant yet the other is not extinct has not yet lost all its power 't will stir and fight and resist though it can't overcome and Faith it self feels the struglings of unbelief and bears up with more Courage against them 2. They who were never convinced of the sinfulness of sin and of the dreadfulness of God's Wrath against Sinners are destitute of Saving Faith but they who count it an easie matter c. ergo I don't mean that all must pass under the like terrors of Conscience some have a more easie passage from a state of Nature to Grace from Death to Life from Terror to Comfort they may sooner get over their Tears and attain to peace than others may But this I say that

Of Man's wickedness in both these thieves who had spent all their time in sin even to the last hour of their lives but especially in the impenitent thief whom neither Bonds nor Tryal nor Condemnation had humbled or mollified or brought to repentance but being still under the power of an hardned heart we find him at the last gasp railing on a Saviour instead of believing in him and belching out his blasphemies in the very mouth of Hell vers 39. If thou be Christ save thy self and us II. Of Divine grace in the penitent thief First Converting grace and that 1. In the power and efficacy of it for how powerful must that grace needs be which had wrought so great a change had suppled that heart in an instant which had been hardning in sin for so many years overcome so many stubborn inveterate lusts at once and made the Man all on a suddain commence one of the most eminent Saints the World had ever yet had and act faith to such an hight as might not only have become the chiefest of the Apostles but did really exceed any they had hitherto shewn The Disciples of Christ who had sat so long at their Masters feet yet were hardly induced to believe his Resurrection even after he was risen Luke 24.25 When this thief who hitherto had been a stranger to him and now saw him hanging on a Cross and dying yet by faith sees him in his Kingdom triumphing over his Cross and Death too 2. In the freeness of it for 1. Gods grace did not wait for his preparations good moods good dispositions these were all over if ever he had any but it takes hold of him when at the hight of sin and not only was void of grace but seemed past grace i. e. never like to come to it by any ordinary methods 2. It seised on him and passed by the other though no worse that we know of than himself Grace makes a difference where none was before of these two in the like case it takes one and leaves the other II. Pardoning grace This appears in our Lords answer and carriage to him vers 43. He doth not upbraid him with the abominations of his forepast life his Theft or Rapine or Violence his hardness of Heart or long Impenitence but easily readily gently receives him and is so far from denying him a pardon that he assures him of a present Salvation To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise The case of these two thieves doth in a good measure parallel the case of other dying sinners though dying upon their beds They were in the extremity of their lives drawing their last breath both full of pain and anguish in their Bodies and very likely full of shame and confusion in their Minds considering their death was not only cruel and grievous but reproachful in the eyes of Men and accursed by the sentence of God So that here was much to interrupt disturb and distract them in so great so close and serious a work as Repentance is And is it not so with others who live in sin all their days and pretend to Repent at last They are taking their leave of the World groaning under their Diseases racked with pains and have many things tho not the same the thieves had to discompose disquiet and divert them from or hinder them in the like work But if we look to the issue the parallel will not reach so far Here is Man for Man one of the thieves humble believing repenting and accordingly accepted the other unbroken unbelieving impenitent and dying like a reprobate This equality is not to be found among other dying sinners as hereafter we shall see However from the example of these two thieves we may safely infer this Proposition Doctrin That tho a very late even a death-bed repentance may be sincere yet it is not safe to run the hazard of it Two parts there are of this Proposition 1. That even a death-bed repeentance may be sincere this I shall speak to by way of Concession 2. That yet it is dangerous running the hazard of it by deferring repentance till such a time this I shall handle by way of Assertion I. It is possible that a death-bed repentance may be sincere In speaking to this I shall briefly 1. Premise something in general concerning the nature of Repentance 2. Lay down the reasons of this Concession First For the former Repentance may be considered either I. In the Act or exercise of it which the Scripture usually expresses by turning or returning implying that sinners are out of the way to God and their own happiness till by repentance they return into it If we speak distinctly of it we may consider 1. The Essence of repentance which is the turning mentioned a turning from sin to God i. e. from all sin both of Heart and Life as to the love and allowance of it and subjection to it and a turning to God as our Sovereign Lord from whom we had revolted to walk with him in all known ways of obedience and holiness And tho we cannot attain to a legal perfection in this Life either as to freedom from all Sin or the practice of all Duty yet there is not meerly a temporary and transient but a peremptory fixed and setled purpose for the one and against the other which is more than a promise de futuro and amounts to a present breach with all sin and an actual will to engage in every duty a respect to all Gods Comandments Psal 119.6 in the degree of our obedience to which we notwithstanding may oftentimes fail 2. The causes from which it proceeds First A right sence of sin as to the guilt defilement and dominion of it It s being offensive and odious to God Jer. 44.4 as well as hurtful to our selves in the danger to which it exposeth us the blot it leaves upon us and the tyranny it exerciseth over us Secondly An apprehension and belief of the mercy of God in Christ Jesus to them that do repent This is always the principle from which Evangelical repentance proceeds Tho the terrors of the Law may help to drive Men from sin yet there must be Gospel attractives to draw them to God either in a way of faith or repentance Who will dare to trust him from whom he expects no mercy or care for serving him from whom he looks for no acceptance Hence it is that Gods mercy is used as the grand motive to perswade Men to repentance Matth. 3.2 The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and Isa 55.7 From these proceed both that Godly sorrow for sin and that hatred of it which always accompanies Gospel repentance and in a good measure promotes it Paul seems to place Godly sorrow among the causes of repentance 2 Cor. 7.10 II. If we consider repentance in the habit I need say no more but that it is that grace of the Holy Spirit which he infuseth into the Soul as the immediate

Had he had none himself he would not have been so much concerned for the others want of it 5. He makes a publick profession of his faith in Christ and owns him to the very teeth of his Enemies and that too when Peter had denied him the other Disciples forsaken him and those that had rallied after their rout and were now come to be the Spectators of the most doleful Object had ever been presented before their eyes were so far from making any such publick confession of him that their Faith was ready to expire with him ch 24.21 II. Repentance being Gods gift and God being a Sovereign Agent he may give it where and when he pleaseth as to whom he will to one and not to another so at what time he will to one sooner to another later He may give it to one early in the morning of his days to another late and when his Sun is Setting And if the great Master of the Vineyard shall call some into it not only at the sixth or ninth hour but even at the last minute of the eleventh hour what is that to any who shall call him to an account for it 3. God being not only a Sovereign Agent but an Almighty one can by his Power and that in an instant remove all hindrances on the Creatures part and whatever might obstruct his work and so with one turn of an Omnipotent hand bring about the heart of the most obdurate Sinner work repentance in the most unlikely Subject and where there is most within to make head against him and resist his Grace suppose the most obstinate and rooted habits of sin Grace is an infused and supernatural habit and the power that works it a supernatural and creating Power and we are not to confine God in his working Grace to those methods whereby men acquire natural or moral habits In these I grant there may need time to unlearn and extirpate those vitious habits they have so long been contracting and to acquire new ones by a long series of and accustoming themselves to better actions Custom in Men may be strong and like another Nature and they may not be able presently to overcome it nor on the sudden to bring themselves to a readiness and easiness in doing those things which tho their reason approves yet their boysterous appetites strengthned too by custom hurry them against But let the habit of sin be never so deeply radicated in the Soul and the Heart of Man never so averse to holy actions yet God can soon make a change soon remove the sinful disposition and enable and encline the Soul to what it was most averse and impotent He can even in a moment overcome that love of sin and hatred of holiness which is either natural to a Man or contracted by him and both abate lessen weaken the power of sin in the Soul whereby it was wont to resist the workings of his Spirit and restrain and suspend any actual resistance it might make Let the mind of a Man be as dark as darkness it self yet he that caused light to shine out of darkness can enlighten that mind when he pleases 2 Cor. 4.6 Let the Soul be never so dead in sin and destitute of all Spiritual Life yet he that quickens the dead and calls things that are not as tho they were Rom. 4.17 can quicken it and breathe the Breath of Spiritual Life into it and whatever there be in the Soul to oppose him in his working yet the same power can at once quell the opposition and produce the Grace 4. God having infused the habit can as easily enliven it and draw it out into act in those that are capable of exercising grace wrought in them as I suppose dying sinners to be at least when they are capable of exercising their rational faculties For there is less to make opposition against God than in the former case the prevailing power of sin being broken and something in the Soul to take Gods part in the work viz. grace now begun and some habitual promptness and disposedness of the heart to spiritual good and compliance with the will of God It doth not require more power to awaken a vital principle tho dormant than to infuse it where there was none before 5. It may be for Gods honour sometimes to give Repentance to dying sinners the honour of his Sovereignty and free Grace in shewing that he hath mercy on whom he will Rom. 3.18 and that the deepest guilt even of an old hardned sinner cannot hinder the outgoings of his grace and mercy and the honour of his power when it prevails over the most setled habits of corruption Should God work only upon lesser sinners and who are not so confirmed in evil Man might be apt to think that he could not do it and that Mens lusts might be too hard for his power and so reflect on his Omnipotence or to think he could not find in his heart to do it and so reflect upon his Mercy II. By way of Position or Assertion It is a very dangerous thing to run the hazard of a death-bed Repentance or defer Repentance till the approach of death that is to neglect the doing a Mans own part in order to the obtaining this grace as was above premised viz. the seeking it of God and using all those means by which he ordinarily works it The danger of this neglect may appear by the following considerations 1. That no Man knows the time of his death any more than the manner of it or means by which it shall be brought about Our breath is in Gods hands Dan. 5.23 No Man hath a lease of his earthly Tabernacle but is Tenant at will to his great Landlord Who knows when he shall die or how Whether a natural death or a violent one To how many thousand unforeseen accidents are Men subject Not only Swords and Axes may dispatch them but God can commission Insects and Vermin to be the executioners of his justice upon them Hatto Archbishop of Mentz A great Prelate may be eaten up of Mice and a potent Prince devoured by Worms Acts 12.23 And who doth not carry the principles of his own dissolution perpetually within him Death lies in ambush in every vain in every member and none know when it may assault them It doth not always warn before it strikes If some Diseases are Cronical others are Acute and less lingring and some are as quick as lightning kill in an instant Men may be well in one moment and dead in the next God shoots his arrows at them they are suddenly wounded Psal 64.7 How many are taken away not only in the midst of their days but in the midst of their sins The lusting Israelites with the flesh between their teeth Numb 11.33 Julian if Historians speak truth with blasphemy in his mouth and how many frequently with the Wine in their heads In such cases what place what time for repentance for seeking it

sence of the believing World Believers generally know as having found it by experience that they are naturally impotent to spiritual good They find much weakness in themselves after grace is wrought in them and nothing but weakness before God work it They acknowledge they cannot work any degree of grace in themselves when some already they have much less could they work it in themselves when they really had none And how come others to have more strength than they Did not they fall in Adam Or had his Apostasie a less malignant influence upon them than upon others How come they to have such a reserve of Spiritual strength when the rest of the World hath lost it 4. If they can work repentance in themselves why do they not do it sooner Why do they defer it so long when they cannot deny but one time or other it must be wrought Is it a fit return to God for the goodness he hath shewn them all their days to live in sin all their days and turn to him when they can live no longer in it Or will it be an acceptable answer to him when he calls them to a reckoning that they had not served sin long enough nor had their fill of their lusts or else they would have turned to him sooner 5. And how many be there who to encourage themselves in their present impenitency and the enjoyments of their sinful pleasures fancy they can turn themselves when they please yet if God open their eyes and awaken their Consciences and they begin in good earnest to set themselves to labour after repentance they are soon convinced of the hardness and deadness of their Hearts and their utter disabilities to such a work and are fain in spight of all their high thoughts and conceits of themselves to look up to God and implore his assistance and depend upon him for the working of that grace in them which they fondly imagined they could work in themselves 5. God may not give them grace to repent when they come to die Admit they have time and means yet God may not give a blessing to the means Let it be considered First To how few God ever gives repentance at the last even of those who have as good means and helps as their weak and dying condition will admit of It is one of the saddest parts of a Ministers work to visit dying sinners How few do they leave any better than they find them How few give any hopes of a through change wrought in them How few can they perswade to believe in Christ when they have an hundred times before rejected him How few can they bring to repentance then when they never minded it before Ministers even the best are but Men and not God flesh and not Spirit and means instructions exhortations are but means whose whole efficacy depends on Gods co-operation with them and when he with-holds his Blessing they are altogether ineffectual When they judge of man's eternal State though their judgment is not to be rash nor peremptory yet it should be reasonable some good grounds they should have for it But alas if they keep to Scripture-rules in how few of them that never repented before do they find when dying so much as a foundation for a charitable judgment of their Spiritual state 1. If we set aside those that die in gross ignorance of the things of God of the very first Principles of Religion the nature of God the Offices of Christ the ends of his Death the necessity of satisfaction for sin the nature and use of Faith the terms of the Covenant c. Ignorant indeed of those truths some knowledge of which is necessary to the very being of saving Grace How many such do we find and what hope can we have of the truth of their Repentance and so of their Salvation How can their Hearts be holy when their Minds are so blind What Heavenly heat can their be in there affections when there is such an hellish darkness in their understandings Such may read their doom Isa 27.11 2. Set aside those that die stupid without any awakenings of Conscience any sense or concernedness about their spiritual state and so die as much like Beasts as they lived 3. Those that die despairing fill'd with horror and void of hope overwhelmed with the sense of sin the thoughts of approaching vengeance and a fearful expectation of appearing before the Tribunal of that righteous God whom they cannot escape and dare not trust They have not hearts to pray to him hope in him or commit their Souls into his hands when they die having never loved nor served nor regarded him while they lived 4. Those that die presuming Such are the ignorant before mentioned such are Formalists Moralists proud Pharisees conceited self-justifiers The Innocency of their Conversation the Profession they make or the Duties they perform are the righteousness by which they expect to be justified Nay how many after a Life of sin hope to be saved meerly by the mercy of God without respect to any righteousness at all either of Justification or Sanctification either imputed to them or inherent in them either that whereby they may have a title to glory or meetness for it Sure I am such as these are void of repentance and when the greatest part of dying Sinners may be reduced to one or other of these sorts to how few doth God give repentance at the last of those who did not before seek it of him Secondly With how many is the day of Grace past and the time of God's patience run out and then we may be sure God will not give them repentance They have so many times rejected the counsel of God against themselves Luke 7.30 refused the Offers of Grace turned a deaf ear to the calls of the Gospel stiffned their necks and refused to return that now they are past it God that waited on them so long will wait no longer They had a time of acceptation a day of salvation 2 Cor. 6.2 but that being over they are to have no more God was nigh to them and might have been found of them Isa 55.7 but is now withdrawn from them and they may seek Christ and die in their sins John 8.21 the may seek and not find call and God give them no answer Prov. 1.28 Thirdly God may have judicially hardned their Hearts when they had sinfully hardened them before And this seems to be one great cause of that stupidness and insensibleness we so often find in Sinners at the time of death True God infuseth no sin into them yet he may wholly abandon them to the power of the hardness they have contracted and give them up into the Devils hands to delude and blind to act and manage them according to his pleasure and their own corrupt inclinations They may not have so much as an heart to desire to repent or pray to God for Grace to enable them to to it all those

who is weak in the Faith who though he hath embraced the Doctrin of our Saviour yet is not of a mature concocted judgment clear enough about the abolition of Ceremonial observations things he judgeth ought to be forborn or done Now let things be never so indifferent in the general definition or Thesis yet when they come to be used and exercised in their individual circumstances they will be determinately good or determinately evil in all moral agents and actions And that which in general seemeth indifferent to one is not so to another these Gentiles could freely eat things strangled but the Jews could not Therefore it is a very strong weakness or wilfulness in some who love to turn Straws into Trees and Feathers into Birds and not to leave things as Christ hath left them and as they are in their own nature but will transpeciate as others transubstantiate by their own breath in their own Opinions and more fiercely contend for their own Laws than the commands of God as Saul was more severe on Jonathan for tasting hony than on himself for rebelling against Gods express command These heats indicate an Hectick Fever to be in the body preternatu●●●●y eating up and preying on the vital heat Love to God and our Neighbour the zeal for Mens own Chimnies eateth up the House of God II. Here is the injunction of Charity towards weak ones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 take them to you receive them into your Houses use Hospitality towards them supply their necessities Rom. 12.13 not magnificent receptions such as Levi gave our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 5.29 But when they fly for their Religion and Lives supply their wants though they be not just of your size or Opinion do not force him to practise what he cannot freely do to buy your Charity this is a dear purchase and a cruel sale Generous hospitality is a duty of another fashion receive them into your Arms into your bosoms into your Love and Converse that you may instruct them and win upon them receive them into your Society into your Communion treat this weak Brother with all humility condescention love and kindness yea with all the warm graces Christianity hath indued you with Let not these least differences cause the greatest distances as often they do if he hath so much candor as he will be received and be not sullen and angry receive him and by strength of Love bear with him and forbear him till by Love you soften and overcome him by heaping coals of fire upon his Head For if he be weak yet seriously and sincerely a lover of Christ and beloved of him the Lord hath received him vers 3. therefore do you also receive him 3. The limitation of this exception not to doubtful Disputations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some would render it discerning of thoughts and 1 Cor. 12.10 there was such an extraordinary guift as the discerning of Spirits So there may be an ordinary prying into Mens thoughts and what is Mark 9.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Luke 5.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jesus seeing their thoughts and thoughts are but Mens dialoguing and discoursing with themselves and so the sense it thus Receive him but not to the discerning or judging of his Opinion or Thoughts or that he should be hardened to judge others Thoughts to be altered because they receive him But receiving is receiving him into their Society therefore not receiving him must be not to something which was apt to be in their Society and among them which was not the discretion of the strong but their disputes which were not fit for these weak ones And the word most commonly signifies disputing with others Acts 19.9 Paul disputed dayly in the School of Tyrannus And Mark 9.34 The Disciples disputed who among them should be greatest But in Jude 9. both words are met together Michael contending with the Devil disputed about the body of Moses Doct. Christians are to receive such as are weak in the Faith into their Hearts by Love and not to trouble or heat their Heads with cramping disputes For practical Piety will sooner rectifie the judgment of the weak than fierce argumentations Lay aside this heat about Ceremonies on all Hands and attend to Reading and Hearing the Word and Exhortation Pray and Praise God together and Converse in holy Ordinances in Love to each others Souls let but this fire live upon the Altar of your Hearts and then all other strange fire and heats will die away 1. I will shew you that weak Christians cannot well judge of arguments 2. That the practice of known duties is the way to get more light 3. That Christian Love will sooner win others from error than rigid Arguments 4. The Inferences from all for Instruction and Direction First then Disputations and Arguments are not easily judged of by such as are weak in Faith and Knowledge of Christian liberty Now this is evident from the first Dispute that ever was in the World For Satan was a Disputer from the beginning and is still the Father and Author of all insnaring and contentious Disputations The first thing he disputed was Gods command The Prohibition and Threatning was absolute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Moth tamuth Gen. 2.17 but the Woman who was first in the Transgression faltreth in the recital of it with a perhaps we shall die Gen. 3.3 But by this first dispute with the Serpent our first Parents when in uprightness and strength of the image of God newly stamped on them in knowledge and holiness yet this Father or fomenter of Disputes foiled them and so all mankind being naturally and federally in them was drawn into their guilt and filth So that reason is ever since debased and deposed and no Man is able to rule himself much less another his rule and measures being broken he hath only some fragments and splinters of the Tree of Knowledge which he darts against God and himself The holy Lamp and Flame is so extinguished that now he only compasseth himself about with his own sparks till he lie down in sorrow Isa 50.11 Creatures as Creatures are fallible and failable witness Men and Angels especially by the impulse of false Arguments It is God's only Prerogative to be intrinsecally Infallible and Immutable And it is a perfection incommunicable to Men or Angels But now sinful Man is in a much more dark and doleful state For 1. He cannot form an Idea of any thing nor frame a true notion of any thing as it is in it self but he conceives by the Air of Metaphors Smilitudes and Phantasms he cannot see into things themselves nor their Essences He is hardly put to it to tell what dull Matter or Body is much more what nimble forms motion or Spirits are or what his own Soul is though so nigh to him and part of himself He is so in the dark he cannot define what light it self is If any be so confident as to think he knoweth

any thing our Apostle tells him He knoweth nothing as he ought to know 1 Cor. 8.2 He is not sufficient as of himself for one good or true thought 2 Cor. 3.5 which cuts the top sinew of Pelagianism and the Champions of the power of Nature 2. His judgment therefore must needs be dubious or wrong whereby he is to compare things that differ or agree together If God leave him or give him up to himself the Prophet is a fool and the Spiritual Man is mad Hos 9.7 so as he will put darkness for light and light for darkness bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter call good evil and evil good Isa 5.20 Conscience the Souls taster and common sense is so vitiated and defiled Tit. 1.15 that he hath no true judgment or discretion having not his senses exercised to discern between good and evil Heb. 5.14 3. His conclusions therefore must needs be distorted from these premises and the Errors in the first and second concoction are not corrected and amended by the third he who cannot make one strait step can never take three together All the Errors and Fallacies in the World are but the products of his Ratiocinations viz. I can go to the Tavern or Exchange I find therefore I can Repent and Believe when I will whereas these are actions of another Life and Nature which he was never born to unless Regenerated by the Spirit of God To Repent and Believe are God's gift Acts 5.31 His work in us John 6.65 and Ephes 2.8 Though for this very Doctrin many of his ignoranter Disciples went back and walked no more with him John 6.66 And so Men jog on in their sensuality presumptuously as if there was something in the pleasures of sin which was sweeter and dearer to them than God or Heaven and when they have no more strength to serve their Lusts nor any thing else to do but to die they can in one quarter of an hour make their peace with God as one of that herd said to me who soon after drawing Water out of his own Well and being Drunk was by the weight of the Bucket drawn into the Well and drown'd Another saith I may sin because Grace aboundeth this is a most disingenuous and unnatural argument I may hate God and my Saviour because he hath so loved me when holy Herbert said Let me not Love thee if I love thee not love being stronger than Death or Hell in the Hearts of Gods beloved ones So without holiness none shall see God therefore we must be justified by our Evangelical Obedience and Righteousness whereas this is only a concomitant for the cause for God pronounceth and declareth none to be Righteous but such as are Righteous now there is none Righteous no not one Rom. 3.10 but in the Righteousness of Christ who of God is made Wisdom Righteousness and Redemption Dav. de Just 1 Cor. 1.36 In sound Davenant's words An Alderman sits in the Court not because he is to come in his Gown but because he is an Alderman by Election c. So you must obey the Laws of the Church if that wedge will drive if not the Laws of the State both which are inconsequent if they be not according to the Law of God the establishing perversness by a Law Psal 94.20 made neither Davids nor Christs sufferings the worse but their sin the greater who twisted such a Law So that we need a new Logick from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Eternal Word as a directory to our Reasonings as well as the common Logick which teacheth us the regulation of the operations of our minds II. As we are lame in our Feet by our Naturals so even those who by the light of the Gospel and Grace are brought over to better understanding yet by vertue of the old crasiness they are not throughly illuminated and refined The very Apostles themselves Luke 18.34 were plainly told by our Saviour that he should suffer Death and rise again the third day yet they understood none of these things these sayings were hid from them until he opened their understandings to understand the Scriptures Luke 24.45 We have all a dark side and Paul says We know but in part 1 Cor. 13.12 we see but one side of the Globe we cannot view things round about they are above our Hemisphere These weak Jews were Zealous for their Ceremonies as being instituted by God the Gentiles as hot for theirs let no Man think himself infallible for these were all out and mistaken Form Custom and Education do wonderfully confirm Men in Error How hardly were People in our first Reformation drawn from their Prayers in Latin to English yet they understood not Latin as hardly would they still be weaned from little formalities though it were to entertain the most real and reasonable service in the World So great a Tyrant is tough custom over Phlegmatick Souls so apt are Men to heats for trifles by which Straw and Stubble they turn the Church into a Brick-kiln These Jews had Divine Right to plead and the usage and practice of all the seed of the Faithful enough to stagger a weak Christian Errors fairly set off may pass for Truths and if but weakly confuted may hang a doubt in Mens minds so Truths ill guarded may go for Errors objections not well cleared had better never have been started for they may puzzle a weak Head and Heart and make them both ake with fear of mistakes A Sophistical Disputant will prove there is no Motion the best way to confute him is in our Saviours words rise up and walk John 5.8 which is a real silent demonstration of it III. Nothing so convulseth Mens reason as interest as Hobs saith Though there is no Problem in Mathematicks more demonstrable than that all strait Lines drawn from the Center to the Circumference are equal yet if this did but cross any Mans interest it would be disputed Now 1 John 2.16 the Apostle reduceth the whole World to those three Elements the lust of the Flesh the lust of the Eye and the pride of Life a threefold cord strong enough to pull any Truth in pieces as easily as Sampson did his Wyths 1. The lust of the Flesh modo hic sit bene pleasing the Flesh goeth a great deal further than the Monks Bellies who yet have a lusty share in it as one of their own said They had all things so complacent that they wanted only a Vicar to go to Hell for them when they should die The Bishop of Romes Kitchin and Purgatory mutually support one another Disorders of Life hold up Celibacy in Men in Orders The lust of Idleness inviteth to Stage-plays the nurseries of Vanity and Vice to Cards and Dice in defiance of that Canon which pronounceth them unlawful Games A lusty Dinner makes the Veins so strut they can leap or fly to Heaven by their Free-will without the necessity of Free-grace so strong is Flesh and Blood without the

Spirit of God Sure he who hath an Immortal Soul within him and a Dubious State to himself as that dreadful Eternity before him should never be sick of his time that lies upon his Hand one hour whereof millions of Wolds can't redeem 2. Covetousness is a weighty Argument Thousands are enough to break the Loyns of most Mens minds too heavy for the back of the strongest Rationalist in the World the Scale of Judgment cannot turn while this beam is in the Eye nor any Argument counterpoise this dead and deadly weight but Tythe Mint and Cummin will outweigh Faith and the Love of God Luke 11.42 St. Briget prophesied Fox's Martyr The Roman Clergy would ruin the Church by their avarice for she said They had already reduced the Ten Commands to two words da pecuniam 3. Pride of Life swells Men till they break all bonds and bounds like Stum in the Cask makes all the Hoops fly off The zeal of a party and having declared for a way makes Men they cannot retreat but will spur on for honour and profit though the Angel of the Lord oppose them till they are crushed to the Wall If Christian Religion be founded in Self-denyal Mortification and bearing the Cross they who seek their own glory are not of God John 7.18 that is either no Gospel or these certainly are no Disciples of Christ We had need look to ourselves for this lust of domination and glory as Charon saith Is the very Shirt of the Soul on from the first but last put off Secondly I am to shew you that the practice of holy Duties clearly commanded is the ready way to have our minds inlightned in the knowledge of Principles Reading the Scriptures discoursing about Heaven and about their Souls everlasting welfare Reproving one another and admonishing Rom. 15.14 comforting and supporting the weak and dejected Soul 1 Thes 5.14 To exhort one another dayly lest any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3.13 Duties so much out of fashion in these days that it is not counted good manners or civility to practise them friendly reproof is esteemed want of good breeding But are they not strange Christians who are strangers to Scripture Duties 1. These Practical Duties performed would give us light He that doth the Truth cometh to the light John 3.21 not only out of boldness but discovery of knowledge Truth is nothing but goodness explained and goodness is nothing but Truth consolidated Rudiments of knowledge are prerequisite to practice but examples clear all things to us Demonstration by the Compasses maketh the Maxim evident He that doth best knoweth best for he seeth the actions as they are in themselves and circumstances he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he seeth the bottom by diving into them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal 119.130 pethac pethaiim the very entrance into the command giveth light the Door is a Window to him that hath a weak sight even those things Men have formerly ridiculed practice hath reconciled them to be their Diana and great delight As the Gnostick in Clem. Alex. who could not taste lewdness till he was in all evil as t is Prov. 5.14 If wicked practices darken the mind as all the works of darkness do than holy actions illuminate the Soul 2. The exercise of holy Duties advanceth light every step a Man takes he goeth into a new Horizon and gets a further prospect into Truth Motion is promoted by motion actions breed habits habits fortifie the powers the new life grows stronger and fuller of Spirit The yoke of Christ is easier smoother and lighter by often wearing it this anoints us with the oyl of gladness and makes the ways of Wisdom pleasantness Prov. 3.17 Life and light are nearly related John 1.4 The life was the light of Men Acts 1.1 These things Jesus first did then taught and so he was mighty in Deed and in Word Luke 24.19 very airing and motion heateth to a flame this made his light burn vers 32. and shine too Truth incarnate in action seems a lively resemblance of God in flesh the unfolding a doubt to another hath often expounded and resolved it to the proponent 3. If any be in danger of Error or got into an ill way keeping up warm Duties Meditation and Prayer will keep him in or help him out communion with the Saints is an admirable antidote against sin or Error As in a Team of Horses if one lash out of the way if the other hold their course they will draw the former to the right path 1 John 2.20 ye have an unction and ye know all things when there are Antichrists and great Apostacies keeping to Duty like keeping the Road preserveth us from by-paths I remember a Snowy night when many wandring homeward were frozen to death A Shepherd feeling himself foiled by often falling set down his Crook in one point and beat a path round and so preserved his life and kept him out of precipices and ditches And we have a promise of light if we press to the mark and prize of our high calling Phil. 3.15 carry the Goale in your Eye and it will direct you a path where there is none upon a plain Sincerely aim at Gods glory and your Souls salvation and you shall not miss your way If in any thing you should miss it and be otherwise minded God will reveal even this unto you Yea our great Lord and Master assureth us John 7.17 He that doth the will of God he shall know the Doctrin whether it be of God or I speak of my self But if Men will make bold with God and Conscience and act for their own ends and glory they rob God of his supremacy and will lose both their way and their end He that walketh uprightly hath God for his guard and guide with devout Zachary he is within the Vail and if he be in a mistake God will reveal it to him For the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will make them know his Covenant Psal 25.14 Go to thy Oracle and pray and a ray of heavenly light shall direct you as the Wise-mens Star to the holy Jesus their minds are Gods candles Prov. 20.27 and as Father of Lights he will light them when they approach him with ardent supplication Thirdly I am to shew that Christian charity and reception will sooner win weak ones to the Truth than rigid Arguments for so the Apostle adviseth them who were to deal with people weak in Faith and strongly zealous for Ceremonies dispute not with them but receive them first 1. In regard opposition breeds oppositions a Man will never believe that he Loves his Soul who cuts his purse belies his actions torments his Body Passion begets passion but love only kindles love when Men do hotly Dispute they jostle for the way and so one or both must needs leave the path of Truth and Peace The Saw of contention reciprocated with its keen teeth

the Psalmist declaring their inward sentiments The Lord shall not see neither shall the God of Jacob regard it Lastly The sinner slights the power of God This attribute renders God a dreadful Judge He has a right to punish and power to revenge every transgression of his Law His judicial power is supreme his executive is irresistible He can with one stroke dispatch the Body to the Grave and the Soul to Hell and make Men as miserable as they are sinful Yet sinners as boldly provoke him as if there were no danger We read of the infatuated Syrians that they thought that God the Protector of Israel had only power on the Hills and not in the Vallies and renewed the War to their destruction Thus sinners enter into the lists with God and range an Army of lusts against the Armies of Heaven and blindly bold run upon their own destruction They neither believe his all-seeing Eye nor all-mighty Hand They change the glory of the living God into a dead Idol that has Eyes and sees not and Hands and handles not and accordingly his threatnings make no impression upon them Thus I have presented a true view of the evil of sin consider'd in it self but as Job saith of God how little a portion of him is known May be said of the evil of sin how little of it is known For in proportion as our apprehensions are defective and below the greatness of God so are they of the evil of sin that contradicts his Sovereign will and dishonours his excellent perfections 2. Sin relatively to us is the most pernicious and destructive Evil. If we compare it with temporal Evils it preponderates all that Men are liable to in the present World Diseases in our Bodies disasters in our Estates disgrace in our Reputation are in just esteem far less evil than the evil of sin for that corrupts and destroys our more excellent and immortal part The vile Body is of no account in comparison of the precious Soul Therefore the Apostle enforces his exhortation Dearly beloved brethren abstain from fleshly lusts that war against the Soul The issue of this War is infinitely more woful than of the most cruel against our Bodies and Goods our Liberties and Lives for our Estates and Freedom if lost may be recover'd if the present Life be lost for the cause of God it shall be restor'd in greater lustre and perfection but if the Soul be lost 't is lost for ever All temporal Evils are consistent with the love of God Job on the dunghil roughcast with Ulcers was most precious in Gods sight Lazarus in the lowest poverty and wasted with loathsom Sores was dear to his affections a guard of Angels was sent to convey his departing Soul to the Divine Presence But sin separates between God and us who is the fountain of felicity and the center of rest to the Soul Other evils God who is our wise and compassionate Father and Physitian makes use of as Medicinal preparations for the cure of sin and certainly the Disease which would be the death of the Soul is worse than the Remedy tho' never so bitter and afflicting to sense Sin is an evil of that malignity that the least degree of it is fatal If it be conceiv'd in the Soul tho' not actually finisht 't is deadly One sin corrupted in an instant angelical excellencies and turn'd the glorious Spirits of Heaven into Devils 'T is a poison so strong that the first taste of it shed a deadly taint and malignity into the veins of all mankind Sin is such an exceeding Evil that 't is the severest punishment Divine Justice inflicts on sinners on this side Hell The giving Men over to the power of their lusts is the most fearful judgment not only with respect to the cause Gods unrelenting and unquenchable anger and the issue everlasting destruction but in the quality of the judgment Nay did sin appear as odious in our Eyes as it does in Gods we should account it the worst part of Hell it self the pollutions of the damned to be an evil exceeding the torments superadded to them Sin is pregnant with all kinds of Evils the seeds of it are big with Judgments The evils that are obvious to sense or that are Spiritual and Inward Temporal and Eternal Evils all proceed from sin often as the Natural cause and always as the Meritorious And many times the same punishment is produc'd by the efficiency of sin as well as inflicted for its guilt Thus uncleanness without the miraculous waters of Jealousie rots the Body and the pleasure of sin is revenged by a loathsom consuming Disease the natural consequence of it Thus intemperance and luxury shorten the lives of Men and accelerate damnation Fierce desires and wild rage are fewel for the everlasting fire in Hell The same evils considered Physically are from the efficiency of sin consider'd legally are from the guilt of sin and the justice of God This being a point of great usefulness that I may be more instructive I will consider the evils that are consequential to sin under these two Heads 1. Such as proceed immediately from it by Emanation 2. Those evils and all other as the effects of Gods justice and sentence 1. The evils that proceed immediately by emanation from it and tho' some of them are not resented with feeling apprehensions by sinners yet they are of a fearful nature Sin has deprived Man of the purity nobility and peace of his innocent state 1. It has stain'd and tainted him with an universal intimate and permanent pollution Man in his first Creation was holy and righteous a beam of beauty derived from Heaven was shed upon his Soul in comparison of which sensitive beauty is but as the clearness of Glass to the lustre of a Diamond His understanding was light in the Lord his will and affections were regular and pure the Divine Image was imprest upon all his faculties that attracted the love and complacency of God himself Sin has blotted out all his aimiable excellencies and superinduc'd the most foul deformity the original of which was fetcht from Hell Sinners are the natural Children of Satan of a near resemblance to him The Scripture borrows comparisons to represent the defiling quality of sin from pollutions that are most loathsom to our senses from pestilential Vlcers putrifying Sores filthy Vomit and defiling Mire This pollution is universal through the whole Man Spirit Soul and Body It darkens the mind our supreme faculty with a cloud of Corruption it depraves the will and vitiates the affections 'T is a pollution so deep and permanent that the Deluge that swept away a World of sinners did not wash away their sins and the fire at the last day that shall devour the dross of the visible World and renew the Heavens and the Earth shall not purge away the sins of the guilty Inhabitants This pollution hath so defil'd and disfigur'd Man who was a fair and lovely type wherein

and brought under his Government Rom. x. 14 15 17. If ye then promote the spreading of the Gospel ye enlarge the Kingdom of Christ 3. Tenderly pity and compassionate the many Millions of the Sons and Daughters of Adam who were hewn out of the same Rock and dig'd out of the same hole of the Pit with your selves who as yet lye in thraldom under Satan and are Members of his visible Kingdom It would doubtless be very grateful to you if your assistance might contribute any thing toward their deliverance out of that miserable bondage and the means to procure it is to help on as far as ye may the bringing of the Gospel among them for that is God's appointed way to effect it Luk. iv 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted to preach deliverance to the captives Acts xxvi 17 18. and from the Gentiles to whom I now send thee To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of Sins and an inheritance among them which are sanctified 4. Remember That Grace when it hath its freedom of exercise will draw you off from centering in Self and raise in you a spirit of freedom and nobleness to seek the good of others especially to advance the Glory of God in the Salvation of Souls Take heed that ye be not found in the number of those of whom the Apostle speaks Phil. ii 21. For all seek their own not the things which are Jesus Christs 5. I hope ye do not desire to be excused or excluded from bearing any part in that honourable and glorious work of being employed by Christ in your Stations and according to your Capacities in the affairs of his Kingdom but that it would grieve you at the very heart to be laid aside as a despised broken Idol when all this is recollected and maturely pondered where is that godly private Christian that will deliberately say I am not concerned to be helpful in such ways as are proper for me in promoting the Entertainment of the Gospel Secondly As for those godly private Christians whose hearts are sincerely willing to be serviceable to the Lord Jesus Christ and would exceedingly rejoyce to contribute all the assistance that they are able to afford for the Conversion and Salvation of perishing Souls but complain That the work in which this Discourse would engage them lies a great way off and is out of their reach But could they be employed about any thing of that nature within the compass of their sphere of activity they would most gladly embrace it and vigorously bestir themselves in it If that be really the Case of any Then I say to such Up and be doing and the Lord be with you to direct help and succeed you for ye will find enough to do at your own doors and probably in your own Houses Briefly and plainly then the matter stands thus There are many who have entertained the Gospel as far as a general ignorant customary Profession will go but are so far from admitting the spirit life and power of it into their hearts that they are not only utter strangers to it but are full of bitter enmity against it Will ye be helpful now to prevail with them to receive it with Faith Love and Obedience It will be as acceptable and I fear ye will find it as difficult a work to bring a wicked hard-hearted Christian to believe in Christ to the Salvation of his Soul as an open Infidel to make profession of the Gospel Ye will find many as ignorant of the very Essentials of Christianity as the very Pagans as froward perverse and opposite to all means of Instruction as Indians many that love their Lusts and hold them as fast as any in the world The Barbarians are prejudiced against our Religion because they understand it not or have had it mis-represented to them but the more plainly and truly it is set forth before prophane ones at home the more bitterly do they hate it and discover the greater aversation to it So ye see That tho' the Scene of the Question seemed to be laid afar off yet the purport and design of it reacheth us at home And I believe No godly private Christian will say that he is not concerned to seek the Conversion and Salvation of the ignorant sensual prophane and ungodly ones among whom they live If ye ask me then How may we be helpful thereunto I answer That generally the same Methods are to be made use of that have already been insisted upon As To endeavour in our several Stations and Capacities That such may be employed and encouraged to Preach the Gospel as are themselves seasoned with the Spirit and grace of it and zealously seek the Conversion and Salvation of Souls To Pray more fervently for the pouring out of the Spirit to make the Preaching of the Word successful To remove all Impediments and Obstructions as far as we can out of their way To assist them with what help we can by obliging instructing and perswading and walking exemplarily before them But I shall not proceed farther in this because it would draw out the Discourse to too great a length and I think it would be for your Edification to review over again what hath been already insisted upon and then upon second thoughts ye may discover more than fell under your notice in the first cursory reading I shall conclude all with Jam. v. 19 20. Brethren If any of you do err from the faith and one convert him Let him know that he which converteth the Sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and hide a multitude of sins Quest How Christ is to be followed as our Example SERMON XIII 1 Pet. 2.21 lat part Leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps THE Persons to whom the Apostle wrote this Epistle are in the beginning of it styled Strangers So they were because dispersed and scatter'd in several Kingdoms of the Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 3.7 and they were Pilgrims and Sojourners in the Earth it self being regenerated and born from above and minding a better Country than was to be found here below The Apostle endeavours to strengthen their Faith to enliven their Hope to fix their hearts upon the incorruptible and undefiled Inheritance and to keep them in the way that leads to it In this Chapter where my Text lies He admonishes them to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul he exhorts them to a conversation that would glorifie God convince the World and adorn the Gospel their Zeal ought to be so great of those works that are good that they should not think much to suffer for well doing Bona agere mala pati to do good and to hold on in

you shall be conquerours nay more than conquerours over them and hark what Christ promises to them that overcome Nay to every one of them Rev. 3.21 To him that overcometh will I give to sit with me in my throne even as I overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne Conformity to Christ in his Humiliation will end in a conformity to him in his Exaltation All in the next world shall resemble in glory whom grace in this world has made to resemble him Col. 3.4 When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in glory 8. One word farther I would speak to my self and my brethren in the Ministry of the Gospel We are under special obligations to follow Christs Example All the flock should be like the great Shepherd but especially the Vnder-Shepherds should resemble him that they may be able to say with the Apostle 1 Cor. 11.1 Be ye followers of us for we are followers of Christ How clear should be the light in our Heads who have special instruction from him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge Col. 2.3 With what authority should we speak who speak in his Name Who speak his words and preach his everlasting Gospel and what we bind on Earth is bound in Heaven and what we loose on Earth is loosed in heaven How should we have compassion on the ignorant and them that are out of the way How faithfully should we warn the secure to flee from wrath How earnestly should we intreat sinners to be reconciled How should we long after Souls in the bowels of Jesus Christ Phil. 1.8 And since He thought not his blood too dear to redeem them we should not think much of our Prayers Tears Study Sweat and Labour for their Salvation How self-denying should we be counting it far greater wisdom to win Souls than to seek great things for our selves How exemplary should we be in Word in Conversation in Charity in Spirit in Faith in Purity * Memento voci tuae dare vocem virtutis ut opera tua verbis concinant Cures prius facere q●àm docere Sermo quidem vivus efficax exempl●m est operis facile faciens suadibile quod dicitur dum monstrat factib●● quod suadetur Bernard Epist 201. Passione ostendit quid pro veritate sustinere Resurrectione quid in aeternitate sperare debe●mus Aug. de C. D. lib. 18. c. 49. 1 Tim. 4.12 In all things we should shew our selves patterns of good works That our Sermons being practised by our selves as well as preached may be with greater efficacy upon others And since our Lord Jesus after he had preached the Kingdom of God was himself a Sacrifice we should not be unwilling to confirm the doctrine we deliver with our blood nor refuse if called to it to be offered upon the Sacrifice and Service of the Churches Faith Phil. 2.17 This kind of Spirit made the Apostle like to Christ indeed Acts 20.24 But none of these things move me neither count I my life dear to my self that I may finish my course with joy and the Ministry I have received of the Lord Jesus Christ to testify the Gospel of the grace of God In the fourth and last place I am to conclude with some Directions how you may be able to follow the Example of our Lord Jesus 1. Let your unlikeness to Christ be matter of your great humiliation It should be your trouble that you have been so long learning and have learned Christ no better That so much of the old Man remains to be put off that no more of the new man is put on Look upon the passions and lusts of the flesh as so many foul blemishes as so many deforming wrinkles of the Old Adam the more of these there is in you they make you the more unlike to him who is altogether lovely Be humbled for your sin and hate it that 's the way to be rid of it Sin cannot stand before a perfect hatred but languishes and dies away whereas love to it is the life and strength of it 2. Study more the admirable excellency and fairness of the copy Christ has set you And how desireable it is still to be growing up more and more into him in all things The beauty of Men and Angels is black to Christ's fairness to be like Him is to have that which truly deserves the name of excellency With open face and intentive eyes behold as in a glass the glory of your Lord that you may be changed into the same image and become glorious your selves 2 Cor 3. ult 3. Being sensible of your own impotency live by Faith on the Son of God Remember 't is in Him that you have both righteousness and strength Isa 45.24 Grace to be like Christ is from him He strengthens the weak hands he confirms the feeble knees that we may work and walk after his Example If you should attempt to do this in your own might that attempt would be not only vain but an argument of your pride and ignorance Can the branch bear fruit of it self 'T is from the Vine that sap is communicated to it to make it fruitful You must be and abide in Christ and ever be deriving life and virtue from Him that you may bear fruit worthy of Him Joh. 15.4 5. Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no more can ye except ye abide in me I am the Vine ye are the branches he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me ye can do nothing 4 Give up your selves to the conduct of Christs own Spirit How often is it said He that hath an ear let him h●ar what the Spirit saith unto the Churches The Spirit glorifies the Lord Jesus represents his amiableness and anoints the eyes with eye-salve that it may be seen And where-ever the Image of Christ is 't is this Spirit that has instampt it upon the Soul Live in the Spirit and Walk in the Spirit so your feet shall not decline from the Steps of Christ you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh Gal. 5.16.25 He will cause you to look unto Jesus and enable you to follow him without turning aside or drawing back Till you come to be where he is and behold his glory and then you will be satisfied with his likeness and be for ever with the Lord. The Case Proposed Quest How may a luke-warm Temper be effectually cured I add in our selves and in one another The Resolution given SERMON XIV Heb. x. 24 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And let us consider one another to provoke to love and to good works not forsaking the assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is but exhorting one another and so much the more as ye see the day to be approaching THE inspired Author of this profound

up in manifold and mighty clusters What can we mention or fix our thoughts upon that may not kindle and increase this flame of Love and its Eruptions in Good Works The things which we might pertinently and copiously insist upon might be reduced to these Heads 1. The Objects of this Central Grace or Principle 1. Things in Heaven as God Christ the Spirit Angels the Spirits of Just Men there made perfect the glorious Furniture Laws and Orders the Visions Services Ministrations and Fruitions of that State all the Perfections Prerogatives and Employments of that blessed World above with all the accomplishments and accommodations which relate immediately thereto and all the Satisfactions and Advantages that result therefrom 2. Things from Heaven God manifest in the flesh i Tim. iii. 16. the Spirit Works and Word of God the great Provisions and Engagements of Divine Providence for us all that we are or have or meet with express of God's merciful regards to us and his compassionate concernedness for our universal welfare 3. Things for Heaven The Spirit of Grace the Word of Grace all the Ministers and means of Grace with all the Discipline and Encouragements which Providence sensibly affords us the Good and Evil things of time as ordered by God to fit us for and help us to the Glory which we look for The very Sons of men themselves considered in the relations which they bear to God and their expressiveness of his indearing Name and all those marks and notices which they bear and give us in the frame capacity and management of humane Nature of God's incomprehensible Wisdom Power Goodness c. O who can think hereon and yet be unprovoked to Love and to Good Works when as God is so eminently and endearingly discernible in all for God by all this courts our love And should I speak of the Sons of God and Heirs of Glory that Divine Workmanship which is in them and upon them the Impressions Reflections and Refractions of the Divine Nature and Life their capacity of growing up to all the fulness of God and to be eternally the beautiful and delightsome Temple of the Holy Ghost all their relations to the Holy Trinity with all their obligations to him their interest in him their business with him and for him and all their imitations and resemblances of him in their actual and possible motions and advances towards him and their Great Expectations from him Should I insist upon their membership with all the duties and advantages and pleasures which arise there from and pertinently illustrate and apply as I could easily and quickly do what doth so copiously occur in Eph. iv 4. 6. as the Central articles and holding bonds of Union and Endearments would you and I consider all these things and all the loveliness that would then be communicable or observable could our love want its provocation 2. The formal nature of this love 't is fit to be a provocation to itself i Joh. iv 16-21 7-12 This is the beauty health strength pleasure safety and renown of humane nature love is the aim and scope Knowledge the end of faith the Spirit of hope the life of practice and devotion and the bond of perfectness and the true transformation of the Soul into the image of its God No pleasing thoughts of God Christ Heaven or heavenly things no chearful motions towards eternity no foretasts of the highest bliss no warrantable claims thereto nor confident expectations of unseen realities No true and lasting bonds of friendliness in service and affections without this Spirit and state of love this only faces God in his own beautiful and delightful image this only turns the notions of divinity into substantial realities and so exalts the man above the pageantries of meer formal outside service and devotions and the truth is all that we say and do for God or with him and all our expectations from him are but the tricks and forgeries of deceitful and deceived fools and the most provoking Prophanation of the tremendous holy name of God and an abuse of holy things 3. The services which love must do and the fruits it must produce to God to Christ unto the Spirit unto our selves and others God himself must be reverenced addrest unto served and entertained like himself and walked with in all required and fit imitations of himself And all these cannot be without just valuings of and complacency in his eminent perfections near relations and the admirable constitutions and administrations of his Kingdom Christ must be duly thought on heartily entertained gratefully acknowledged and cheerfully obeyed submitted and improved unto the great and gracious purposes of his appearances performances and Kingdom and minded most delightfully in all the Grandeurs of his Grace and Throne the Holy Spirit must possess his Temple to his full Satisfaction and have the pure incense of his graces in their fragrant liberal and continual ascents Praying in the Holy Ghost Jude 20. And be feasted with the growthful and constant productions of his graces both in their blossoms and full fruits and we must be continually sowing to him if we hope to reap eternal life of him in Gal. vi 8. We must possess our selves in God and for him in our full devotedness and resignations of our entire selves to him pleasing our selves in this that we are not by far so much and so delightfully our own as his and that we cannot love our selves so well as when we find God infinitely dearer to us than we are to our selves And as for others much must we chearfully do and bear and be to bring poor Renegadoes back again to God to testify our great respects unto and pleasure in the grace of God in our fellow Christians to accommodate our selves to their edification concerns and to make our best advantage of every thing discernible in them Helping our selves and them in spirit speech and practice And can these things be brought to pass or our selves reconciled suited to all our Christian duties and interests without provoked love And for the solemnities transactions and results of the approaching day what is that day to those who have no love or very great declensions of it For all that come with Christ from Heaven come in the flames of love to God to godliness and Godly Ones and a Cold Heart will no way be endured there And as to fellow Christians the Duties and Counsels of the Text consideration adhering to the Assembling of our selves together mutual exhortations in the encouraging and quickning Prospect of this day can these things be without love III. The management of these provoking things And here let us follow the method of the Text it self Where we have these Topicks to insist upon 1. Persons must be considered each other and our selves 2. We are not to desert the Assemblings of our selves together as the manner of some is 3. We must exhort each other And so what one proposes the other must Consider

Entertain Accommodate and Improve to the great ends and benefit of the exhortation given 4. And the actuated knowledge of the approaching day must quicken us to and in the more serious and intense performance of these duties Exhorting by so much the more by how much the more as ye see the day approaching Let me but touch a little upon these things 1. Let us consider one another for this provoking work or in order to this Provocation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word here in the Text imports strict observation of and great sollicitousness of thoughts about each other as to great matters for their Good So that we have 1. The Objects each other 2. The Act or Duty towards them Let us Consider 3. The end and scope To a provocation unto love and to Good works 1. The Objects One another 1. As to the great and Stated ends of our Creation and Redemption Such as the Divine nature and Life and Joy Gods image in us service from us and the delightful blissful and that eternal presence with us in the glorious discoveries and Communications of himself to us in heaven And as we are recovered redeemed by Jesus Christ So our loyalty gratitude and fruitfulness to him in all acknowledgements and improvements of his kind Conduct Government Providence and Grace unto the Fathers Glory through him As we are related to the Holy Ghost it is our correspondent Temper and Practice with Improvement of and our fit returns unto the Offered Accepted and Profest relations of the Spirit and his Communications to us his Operations in us and his Effects upon our Spirits that he might thereby suit us to the Concerns Priviledges of our Christian state and that we might be built up furnisht and possest as the Eternal Temple of the living God Linked and laid together and so related and obliged to each other dependant each on other and consequently useful and delightful in being heartily and practically faithful each to other unto the Edification of the whole in love that so God three in One may be eternally and evidently All to Universal Satisfaction For we were made and bought and are committed to the care of Christ and of the Spirit and we are accordingly entrusted with Gospel helps and means that we might hereby be the Mirrours of Divine Communicable excellencies and perfections the Monuments of prosperous and rich Grace and Instruments of special Service For these ends God Created and Redeemed us and in respect hereto are we to be considered each by other 2. As to our capacity of serving and reaching such Great Ends and Purposes The powers of our Souls the members of our Bodies and all our natural accommodations for these Ends. For we are men and so have faculties and powers naturally capable of and formed to a propenseness and appetite to the Supream Good and thereupon receptive of all the attractive influences of the first cause and were it not for our moral depravations and Corruptions and alienations of heart herefrom which we have sinfully contracted espoused and indulged considering Divine Discoveries Assistances and Encouragements procured for us and dispensed to us by Jesus Christ what hinders our return to God and unto those reciprocations of Endearments betwixt him and us to which by our rational Frame and Constitution we are so admirably suited Are we not capable of discerning what may excite enflame preserve and regulate our love and of the fixing and managing it accordingly We are capable of judgment choice and motion and reposes right objects being set before us in their apt illustrations and addresses So that we cannot speak to bruits and stones as we may do to men For nothing but sinful ignorance prejudice negligence and malignity or sad delusions and mistakes through inconsiderateness and unreasonable avocations and diversions can prevent the return of our first love and all these things may be redrest by our judicious well advised and warm discourses about these things duly attended to impartially considered and prudently and pertinently applied unto our selves Thus mistakes may be Rectified known Truths and Notions actuated Hearts affected Lives reformed and Love restored to its regular Fervours and Productions of Good works He that is capable of knowing what he is to do and why and of doing and being what most concerns and best becomes him deserves to be accordingly considered by us 3. As to our obligations and advantages as we are Creatures Subjects Favourites As we are redeemed to God by Christ so our obligations to the returns of Gratitude should be considered by us ii Cor. v. 14 15. We are Christs and Gods by him and so he must be glorified in the whole man i Cor. vi 20. And all the vast advantages of our Gospel day as they are talents and encouraging advantages put into our hands must be considered by us too and our selves and one another as Steward 's entrusted and accountable ii Pet. i. 3 4. i 4.11 So that we must regard each other as under ties and bonds to God and Christ and as greatly helped and furnished to be provoked thus if well considered and managed accordingly 4. As to our Spirits and behaviour according to our Christian Claims and Helps Relations Obligations and Professions Whether we foot it right or not Gal. ii 14. Whether professours value their Souls to their just worth or not in keeping them intent upon their great concern whether their furniture discipline temper and behaviour bear evidently their fit and full proportion hereunto How Gospel transforming and reforming work goes on with them Whether the Christian name and interest the Gospel and its Patron be credited and promoted or disgraced and hindred by us and whether our proficiency and improvements be answerable indeed to our advantages obligations and professions 5. Wherein our helps and hopefulness or our dangers mainly lye their Gifts and Graces and Encouragements and Advantages on the one hand Their Constitutions Customs Callings Company Temptations and secular Concerns and Hindrances on the other hand are all to be considered 2. The Act or Duty towards these Objects 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us Consider 1. Bend your minds to observation of one another that ye may understand how matters are with one another concern your selves about the right knowledge of the principles tempers actions circumstances and concerns of persons so far as your duty towards them calls you to it For this injunction doth not countenance what we find elsewhere forbidden ii Thes iii. 11 12. i Tim. v. 13. i Pet. iv 15. So far as you may do or get Good prevent redress or allay evil under such circumstances relations and advantages as may notify that God then calls you to it and so encourages your expectations and endeavours of doing Good or preventing the sin and mischief which God would have prevented by you So far may others be inspected enquired after and observed by you But when it is and evidently appears to be to

The Vsefulness of the worshipping Assemblies of Saints and Christians to this great and needful provocation must quicken us unto and keep us in these Courts of God Psal .xcii. 13. 15. Exod. xx 24. There God commands the blessing even Life for evermore Psal cxxxiii 3. There you have the openings of the Gospel Teasury there are these golden Candlesticks which bear the burning shining Tapers whose light and heat diffuse themselves through all within their reach who are receptive of them The Gifts and Graces the Affections and Experiences of Gospel Ministers are in their Communicative Exercises there God the Father sets and keeps his Heart and Eye there the Lord Redeemer walks by and amongst his Commissionated Officers and Representatives dispensing warmth and vigour through their Ministry to Hearts presented to him at his Altar There doth the Holy Spirit fill Heads with Knowledge Hearts with Grace and all our Faculties and Christian Principles with Vigour There Mysteries are unfolded Precepts explained and enforced Promises fulfilled in Soul improvements Incense is offered up in golden Censers and foederal concernments are solemnly transacted and confirmed in open Court And there through the Angel of the Covenant his moving upon the Waters of the Sanctuary are Soul distempers and Consumptions healed And there you are informed acquainted with and confirmed in what may instruct you in and encourage you unto this Provocation to Love and to good works And there Prayer gets fuel and gives vent to Love drawing forth all the Energies of Souls and Thoughts towards God And thus fervent Prayers and love quickning returns thereto are like the Angels of God ascending and descending from and upon the Heart while the deserters hereof grow cold thereto and starve their Love and practical Godliness thereby All there is known obtained and exercised There you may fill your Heads with Knowledge your Hearts with Grace your Mouths with Arguments your Lives with Fruitfulness your Consciences with Consolations and your whole selves with those experiences of Divine regards to Soul concerns which may inflame your Hearts with Love to God and Christ to Holiness and Heaven and fit you both to kindle and increase this holy flame both in your selves and in each other And indeed what greater advantages can be derived into our Souls to make our Altars burn than what our Christian Assemblies duly managed will entertain us with What understanding do the Inspirations of the Almighty here afford Such curious Explications of the Name and Counsels of your God Such large and full accounts of all the endearing Grace of Christ Such Critical dissections and anatomizings of the state of Souls Such over-sh●dowings of the Spirit of God Such clear and full descriptions and accounts of the Divine Life and Nature in all their Strength and Glory How are desires invigorated and twisted to make them more effectual to our selves and others This Sanctuary Love is like the best wine going down sweetly and causing the Lips even of those that are asleep to speak Keep then to these Assemblies that you may duly know whom what how and why to Love and how to suit your selves in spirit speech and practice towards God your selves and towards each other unto this generous and noble Principle Thus will you grow exceedingly both in the knowledge and savour of what is most considerable and most deservingly affecting both as to Things and Persons for Christianity is contrived for Love and Godliness in all its Doctrines Laws and Ordinances and in assemblies you have the Explications and Enforcements of those Truths which will compleat the Man of God as to his Principles Disposition and Behaviour Here you may know your most holy Faith as to it's matter evidences and designs upon you and it 's improvableness by you to it 's determined and declared ends and services That Faith which is to illuminate your Eyes to exercise your thoughts to fix your holy purposes to form and cherish expectations to raise desires to embolden prayer to fire your affections and regulate them as to their Objects Ends and Measures and Expressions And when you there attend you are in the way of Blessings How oft and evidently are Divine Truths there sensibly sharpened and succeeded by the God of Truth Rom. i. 16. Paul and Barnabas so spake as that a Multitude believed of Jews and Gentiles Act. xiv 1. And thither must you and I resort and there attend for Doctrine Exhortation and Instruction in Righteousness The Priests Lips must preserve Knowledge how to speak of God with him and for him there Gospel luminaries are to diffuse their Light and there must we receive it and know what is considerable eligible practicable and encouraging to love and to good Works Why then should we forsake that 3. But let us exhort each other ●or consideration and attendance on Assemblies are for our own and others good for personal and mutual quickenings to Love to good works I know that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and thence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sometimes used more largely for any pleading of and pressing home a thing pursuant to it's import and design whether by Counsel Comfort or sometimes it imports Consolation or Encouragement This is too well seen and known to need its Scriptural Instances and Quotations That which is here intended I offer in this Paraphrase Draw forth all the Spirit and Strength of what you know and have advisedly considered as to your selves and others of what you have seen and heard in your Assembling of your selves together concerning your obligations to attend them their fitness to advantage you and all the benefit derived or deriveable therefrom Draw forth the vigour of all your received Discoveries Directions Assistances and Inducements to do and be what is required and expected from you professed by you and of eternal Consequence and Concernment to you Plead this throughly with your selves and one another that so your Christian love be not extinguisht or abated but wrought and kept up to its genuine and just pitch of fervour and effectual Operations and Eruptions in Good works Drive home upon your selves by deep and serious thoughts and pertinent applications of them to your selves and warm debates about them with your selves the things which God hath manifested and proposed to you as credible acceptable and practically Improveable He that expects this flame upon his heart must be a thoughtful man severely contemplative and sollicitous about the things of the Kingdom of God and the Name and Interest and Servants of the Lord Redeemer How can that man be warm and active or zealous of Good works whose knowledge is not actuated by self-awakening Meditations and whose furniture Principles and Spirit are commonly neglected by himself What! are divine Truths Laws Promises and Institutions only to be with us or in us as empty Speculations or thin Notions Have Divine Revelations and Endearings no Errand to our Hearts and Consciences and no business there and no practical Vigours to

and Provisions to bring and keep our God and us together in order to all the Solaces and Satisfactions of Steady Full Eternal Friendship the eminent importance of his Gospel Interest and Kingdom in and to the world the Church and us the loveliness and vigours of his Interest and Image in us as formed fixt and actuated and possessed by his eternal Spirit to his eternal praise by Jesus Christ the solid pleasures peace and usefulness of regular zeal for God Christ Christianity and all that are near and dear to God with all the comforts and renown which this well fixt and ordered zeal prepares us for All that we are saved from by to through the effectual cure of this disease All the solemnities of Christs approaching day and our great concerns therein All the good that is in that attends upon and that issues from the prosperous Successes of the Gospel the holiness and and peace of the Church and the health the usefulness the possession the Conflicts and Conquests of a well cured Soul and all the Honours Ease and Blessings that attend our glorious Gospel All this and much more deserves deep thoughts and all the fervours and acknowledgments and Services of love And the plain truth is this We are both constituted of and surrounded with enflaming objects of this love And the great object and attractive shines even most gloriously in all Nature in all its Harmonies Stores and Beauties Providence in all its illustrations of its excellencies and exactness suiting it self in all the Articles thereof to every thing and being and concern in Heaven and Earth The sacred Scriptures every way entertaining us with what may exercise and enrich the mind of man heal and compose his Conscience enthroning it as Gods vicegerent to inspect the principles designs and practices and State of men to make and keep them orderly safe and easy and so to affect the heart and life as that we may be lovely in the sight of God the blessings of our Stations in our generations and a most comfortable entertainment to our selves Our very selves are most provoking objects unto love So many faculties in our Souls So many passions and affections to be ordered and exercised aright So many sences for reception So many Organs and Instruments for the commodious promoting and securing of our own Good So many Objects Employments and Acquests to be engaged vigorously about and orderly conversant with all continually And God in all this eminently beaming forth those perfections which are so fit and worthy to take endearingly with us How inexcuseable is cold heartedness whenas it may so easily be cured by serious Contemplations of these objects Light and Colours and beautiful proportions to the eye Words and Melodies to the Ears Food to the tast and all the objects exercises and entertainments of every sense afford our very minds and hearts their delicacies to feed on and urge us to love God and Man And let me add this also the beauties and delightfulness of holiness and practical Religion as exemplified in holy persons those excellent ones in whom is my delight saith David Psal xvi 3. O to observe them in all their curious imitations and resemblances of their God in the Wisdom of their Conduct the fervours of their Spirits the steadiness of their purposes the evenness of their tempers the usefulness and blamelessness of their lives the loftiness of their aims the placed gravity of their Looks the savour and obligingness of their Speeches the generous largeness of their Hearts the openness of their Hands the impartiality of their Thoughts the tenderness of their Bowels and all the sweetnesses of their Deportments towards all Such things are really where Christian Godliness obtains indeed Tho meer pretenders or real Christians in their decays and swoons may represent Religion under its eclipses to it's great disadvantage and reproach When therefore we contemplate all these excellencies and many more not mentioned will not our Hearts take fire and burn with love of Complacency where these things are visible and with the Love of benevolence and beneficence to that degree towards those that are receptive of but want them which shall enrage Desires and Prayers and quicken us to diligent endeavours after what by such may be attained unto were they but closely and warmly followed by us and brought to the diligent pursuits thereof Thus you see deep thoughts about lovely Objects will get up love and cure luke-warmness in us to the purpose Let this then be done 3. Heart-awakening and Love-quickning Truths are to be duly and intimately considered And this is indeed in part to truthifie in Love if I may make an English Word to express the valor of the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. iv 15. The existence and excellence of the great Jehovah the Trine-Vne Holy one the care which he hath taken and the expensive cost he hath been at to cure this Malady by the fore-mentioned means and helps The critical Inspections of his Eye into the Heart of Man and his making this the test and balance of the Sanctuary to try us by counting and judging us more or less fit for Mercies and Judgments Heaven or Hell Service or to be thrown aside as refuse as our Hearts stand affected No exact soundness in our Spirits no safety in our State no real ease and chearfulness in our Souls no evidence of our acceptance with our God no Duty well performed towards God or Man no Sins subdued no Trial bravely managed and resulted no Talents used fully to the Masters Satisfaction and Advantage nothing profest performed endured or obtained without this Love And according to it's Ebbs and Flows it's Inflammations and Abatements so doth it fare and go with all our Christianity and Concerns The Truth is all the concerns of Souls and Persons in Life Death Judgment Heaven and Hell are hereupon depending These Articles of Truth considered well will make us serious fervent resolute and industrious in the things of God 4. Heart-warming Duties are to be performed throughly in Publick Private and in Secret Eccl. ix 10. Rom. xii 11 12. Pray hard read frequently and seriously hear diligently and impartially meditate closely and concernedly upon all you read or hear relating to the great concern Be much in Christian conference in the due Spirit and to the genuine design and purposes thereof be much in Praise Thanks Self-observation Government and Discipline Look up to Heaven for help and improve faithfully what you thence obtain And I do take the Supreme Essentially Infinite Good to be dishonoured and degraded by us in our Thoughts and Walk if any Creature Interests or Excellencies do ultimately terminate our Affections and Intentions For my part I take converses Employments Ingenious Recreations and even sensitive Entertainments to be most delicious and grateful when they occasion or provoke me to those Observations of God in all which carry up my thoughts through and from them to him with

what there is in that prophaneness and numberless number of God-daring abominations which are to be found in the midst of us In short this is that which I propound and desire of you judge of sin by its utter contrariety to the great holy and ever blessed God and by the sufferings of Christ who was his peoples surety and died a Sacrifice the iniquities of them all being laid upon him and by the fatal consequences of sin upon men and Devils yea upon the whole world upon the face whereof it hath thrown dirt and deformity and in the bowels whereof it hath caused Afflictive Painful Agonies and Convulsions Secondly Be sure that all of you get your hearts filled and awed with the true fear of God In which you ought and are commanded to be all the day Prov. 23.17 Lye down at night in it awake and rise in the morning in it and so walk up and down in all Places and Companies and about all your businesses and affairs No persons in the world are so audaciously and impudently vile as those who have their hearts hardned from this fear That passage is very observable which you find in Psal 36.1 The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart there is no fear of God before his Eyes Sin hath a voice it cries aloud in the Ears of God and it speaks loud to men to the hearts of good men It speaks that which grieves and saddens them it speaks that which informs them So here The transgression of the wicked his visible and open transgression the life he leads which is flagitious the course he takes which is Leud the Villanies he commits these speak within my heart saith David they speak to my mind and understanding but what do they say Enough so much as amounts to a plain and full evidence so much as is to me a sufficient and firm foundation to build this conclusion upon that there is no fear of God before his Eyes Either he doth not believe that there is a God or else he believes that he is not a terrible God a Consuming Fire and Everlasting Burnings but such an one as himself Psal 50.21 A God not to be trembled before but to be trifled and plaid with One that did not mind what is done here below or that hath pleasure in wickedness as he hath himself What was the reason that Abraham though a good man eminently good and strong in faith yet was not willing to have it publickly known that Sarah was his Wife when he sojourned in Gerar You have the account thereof given in Gen. 20.12 I thought surely the fear of God is not in this place Here is not the worship of God therefore here is not the fear of God but what did he gather from thence What if there be not the fear of God Then there is the fear of nothing they will stick at nothing they will have their will they will stay me for my Wifes sake This is indeed a sweet Place a lovely and pleasant Countrey it wants for no earthly accommodations but as I Conjecture and that not without reason the best and principal thing is wanting here is none of the fear of God and where there is not that curb to restrain men they will certainly run wild and their impetuous lusts will hurry them into the vilest and most monstrous practices Vbi non est timor Dei ibi regnant omnia vitia All vices reign and rage in those places where the fear of God hath not a commanding power Whereas on the other side no persons do hate and oppose sin so much as those who do fear God most for this is that which doth teach men and that effectually to depart from evil Former Governours did so and so but said good Nehemiah so did not I because of the fear of God There was none like Job in all earth and it is said of him by the Lord himself that he feared God and eschewed evil He avoided and resisted it This fear will set the heart of a man against sin and constrain him to lift up his hand against it or his voice at least when there is not any power in his hand Wheresoever there is the fear of God as the greatest and best good there will inseparably accompany it the fear of sin as the basest and worst of evils and that person will be sure to make an universal opposition to it wheresoever it is to be found both in himself and in others at home and abroad in enemies and in Friends too yea in them most As a man that hath a natural antipathy to a Viper cannot endure it lying in his bosom nor lurking in his Chamber no nor creeping in the high-way Thirdly Pray that your Souls may be fill'd and fix'd with an holy zeal for God A zeal for his name and honour for his Law and Interest Cold Lukewarm and basely indifferent persons will never be famous and renowned upon the account of any vigorous appearings for God or against sin A sordid Spirit of indifferency greatly unworthy of every one that is honoured with the Christian name doth evermore carry along with it a Spirit of Slothfulness and Inactivity let the matter be never so important the concern never so great In Acts 18. you read that the blind and hardned Jews with one accord made insurrection against Paul and the Greeks took Sosthenes the Apostles Friend and Companion and beat him before the Judgment Seat but Gallio appear'd neither against the one nor the other He cared for none of those things He thought what were those things to him I believe this wretched Spirit influenceth and acts many a great many among us God is greatly dishonoured his name is taken in vain his precious Sabbaths are openly and wickedly prophaned Religion suffers in its honour and interest the Nation is indanger'd and exposed to the dismal effects of divine indignation young ones are corrupted perverted and drawn aside to their destruction and wrath is pulling down apace and who can tell how soon a holy jealous provoked God may unstop his vials and distribute sorrows in his anger But what is all this to them so long as they can follow their callings and enjoy themselves and gratify their proud vain wanton humours and go fine and fare well and lay up money and live in quiet and mirth and plenty But let me be believed by you whilest I tell you that if there were in you a zeal for the honour and interest of God you would judge and conclude that this is something to you and this concerns you and accordingly it would go to your very hearts and be as a Sword in your bones as it was in the holy Prophet's which extorted from him that passionate exclamation Is it not enough for you to weary men but you will weary my God a●so It was this holy zeal that put Eleazar upon that Heroick act of taking such speedy revenge as he did upon