been used purposely for God as his own O what abundance be there that in word and confident profession do give up themselves and all to God and yet in the Use of themselves and all do plainly shew that it 's no such matter but they dissembled with God and yet never knew so much by themselves How little do they use for God when they have with seeming devotion resigned all to him If a Lord or Knight or Gentleman of 4000l l or 3000l l a year or 400l l or 300l l a year were to shew the accomts of all his expences how much of all this should you find expended for God when they have acknowledged that all is his One would think by their lives that they look to be saved by robbing God and confessing the robbery by saying that all is Gods while they allow him next to nothing The devoted resigned Sanctified Soul hath the true principle of all obedience and that which will do much to repel all temptations and carry him through the greatest straits and tryals If I am not my own I need not be over solicitous for my self but may expect that he that oweth me should care for me Nor do I need to use any sinfull shifts for my own preservation If I have nothing of my own what need I to sinne for the saving of any thing What need I to venture upon unwarrantable means to preserve either credit or goods or life It is Self and Own that are the root of all sinne the heart of the old man and the seed of Hell Nothing else is pleaded against God and our Salvation If the flesh would have you abuse Gods Creatures you must remember they are not your own If the Devil would entice you to sinne against God either for the Geting or Keeping of any Creature it would easily repel the temptations were you but rightly sensible that nothing is your own For God hath no need that you should sinne to get Riches or Honours for him If you are called to let go your houses or lands or friends or lives or to deliver up you bodies to the flames did you but rightly take them as none of your own how easy would it be You can be content that another man give his goods or life it self to God when ever God requireth it but your own you cannot be content to part with and that because it is your own But if you had rightly resigned all to God and took not your selves or any thing for your own but lookt upon your selves and all as Gods the greatest works of obedience or suffering would be much more easy to you and you would have little difficulty or hindrance in your way Self denial is but Sanctification it self denominated from the wrong End and Principle which we forsake And where self is denied and dead what is there left to draw us from God or stand up against him in any part of our lives So much interest as self hath in you so much the world and the Devil hath in you And nothing is more proper to a miserable Hypocrite then deep Reserves of life or worldly things to themselves while they seem to give up all to God O happy Soul that is wrought to this sincerity by the Spirit of Grace to say unfeinedly O Lord I devote and resign my self wholly unto thee I am not my own nor desire any further to be then to be thine I have nothing that is my own nor desire to have any thing that shall not be thine Happy and truly wise is that man that keeps as constant and faithful a reckoning how he layes out himself and all that he hath for God as a faithfull Steward doth of his receivings and layings out for his Masters use Every penny that is reserved from God is the fuell of sinne and a Sacrifice to the Devil and the flesh and if it be pardoned to the truly penitent by the Sacrifice of Christ that 's no thanks to us that would else have made it the fuel of Hell God is not so careless of us or his Mercies but that he keeps an exact account of all that we have from him and will require an account of our improvement of all Not only requiring his Own againe but his own with advantage Matth. 25 27. Why else did he give us such leisure and ability to improve it I can never forget what a sinfull thought was once in my mind which I will venture to confess because it may possibly be the case of others that so they may beware I hearing of some that used to lay by the tenth part of their yearly comings in for charitable uses I purposed to do so too and thought it a fair proportion But since I have perceived what a vile and wicked thought that was to offer to cut out a scantling for God or give him a limited share of his own or say that so much he shall have and no more Though we cannot say that God must have all in any one kind of service only either only for the Church or only for the poore or only for publike uses yet must we resolve that in one way or other he must have all and the particular proportions to the poore or Church or other uses must be assigned by truly Sanctified prudence considering which way it may be most serviceable to God I must relieve my owne family or kindred if they want but not because they are my own but because God hath commanded me and so hath made it a part of my obedience But if I see where I may do more service to God by relieving a stranger and that God doth more require it I must yet preferre them before all the kindred that I have in the world When the Christian pattern was set us by the Primitive Church Acts 2. and 4. They sold all and laid down the whole price at the Apostles feet which was not distributed to their natural kindred only but to all the poor Christians that had no other relation to them even as every one had need And as it is the loving of our Spiritual Brethren in Christ that is made the sign of our translation from death to life so is it the relieving of Christ in these his Members that is the relieving them because they are his Members that is made the very matter of our Cause in the last Judgment and the ground of the sentence of life or death Matth. 25. I must provide for my own body and you must provide for your children but that is as I said before not as I am my own nor as your children are your own but as I am a Servant of Christ that must be supported in his Service or as your selves and yours are put under your care and duty by God So that I may give it to my self or others when I can truly say I do but use it principally for God and think that the principal Service I can do
yea and the current of your prayers and all the rest of your religious performances When in confession you should acknowledge and laâ—ent an unregenerate carnall state you will only confess that you have the infirmities of the Saints and that you have this or that sinne which yet you think is mortified When you should importunately beg for Renewing grace you will beg only for strengthning grace or assurance When you should be labouring to break your hearts you will be studying to heal them and will be hearkning after present comforts when you have more need of godly sorrow It will fill your mouthes in prayer with Pharisaicall thanksgivings for the mercies of Regeneration Justification Adoption Sanctification which you never received Little doth many a soul know what sanctification and the feverall graces of the Spirit are that use to give God thanks for them There 's many and many a one that must for ever be in hell that were used in their prayers to give God thanks for their hopes of glory And the common cause of all this deceit and misery is that men do run from under the hands of their Physician before he ever went to the bottom of their sore and go away with a half-conversion and so spend all the rest of their lives in a meer delusion as verily thinking they are converted when they are not How confidently will such receive the Lords Supper and thrust themselves into the communion of the Saints as if they had as good right as any to be there till the Lord of the Feast shall take them to task and say Friend how comest thou in hither not having on a wedding garment and then they will be speechless Mat. 22. 12. How many false deceiving comforts and perhaps even seeming raptures and assurance may these have in themselves as verily thinking their case is good when alas they never yet laid the foundation Yea and it is to be observed that Satan is a friend to the comforts of this kind of men and therefore will do all that he can to promote them For he would willingly keep his Garrison in peace Luk. 11. 21. And therefore he may possibly be a comforting spirit to them himself and imitate the Holy Ghost the Comforter of the Saints And it may be give them such raptures as seem higher then those which the Spirit of holiness doth give He envieth the Saints their peace and comfort because he foresees how durable they will prove But he can be content that deluded hypocrites may have joy because their comforts do not weaken but strengthen his Kingdom within them and he knows they are like to endure but for a while And thus you may perceive how hard it is to convert one of these half-converted men that have strangled the New Creature as it were in the birth and that are fortified against all the means of grace by a false conceit that they are sanctified already See therefore that you make sure work and take not up in the middle and with halves but take your present time and give up your souls to a totall change 4. Consider If you take up short of a through Conversion you lose all your labour and sufferings and hopes as to the matter of your salvation And what pitty is it that so much should be lost Alas to see many of our hearers toucht at a Sermon and come to a Minister and bewail their sinne and seem to be humbled and promise to be new men and yet all this to be lost How sad a case is this to think of To see them leave their company and former course of life and come among the professors of holiness and all men take them for reall Converts and yet all this to be lost and their souls lost after all How sad a case is this If you grow up to the greatest parts for outward duty and be able to discourse or pray or preach even to the admiration of the heaâ—ers yet if you do not ground this on a through Conversion all is but lost as to your own salvation If you keep up the highest strain of profession and get the highest esteem in the Church so that others depend upon you as Oracles yea if the Pope with all his infallibility should cannonize you for Saints it were all but loss If you should keep up the most confident perswasions of your salvation and hope to go to Heaven to the last hour of your lives it were all but lost if you build not all on a through Conversion Yea if you should be taken by persecutors for one of the party to which you joyn and should suffer for the cause of Religion among them all were but lost without a sound Conversion 1 Cor. 13 1 2 3. It is a pittifull case to see some poor unsanctified souls how they wander and change from one opinion to another and from party to party to find out that which they want within They turn to this party first and that party next and then to another and then think they are sure in the way to Heaven when they never throughly turned to God by Jesus Christ and therefore are certainly out of the way whatever party it be that they joyn with Some go to the giddy Sects that make the highest pretences to strictness And some go to Rome because they think that there they shall have more company and hear the deluding sound of Vnity Vniversality Antiquity Succession Miracles and such like And then they think they have hit the way Alas poor souls If God were but nearest and dearest to your hearts and Christ and his Righteousnes exalted within you and your soules unfeignedly turned from your sinnes you would be in the certain way to Heaven in what Countrey or company or Church soever you were supposing that you believe and do nothing there which is inconsistent with this life of Grace Though yet every Christian should choose that particular Society if he can where he may not only be saved but most certainly saved and find the greatest helpes and least hinderances or else where he may do God the greatest service But choose what company you will in all the world the strictest the most reformed the most splendid in outward pompe and glory or of whatever excellency else you can imagine you will never be saved in it your selves as long as your hearts are unconverted I know the Papists have found out many devices by Sacraments and Ceremonies and the Merits of the Saints to patch up the defect of a through Conversion but all are meer delusions that pretend to such a thing O then think of this poor sinner Hast thou gone so farre and done so much and shall all be lost because thou wilt not follow it to the end Hast thou groaned and wept and confessed and bemoaned thine own condition Hast thou prayed and read and heard and fasted and changed thy company and much of thy course of life and shall all
sinne and Judgments are most eminent sorrow must be thâ—n predominant as being a necessary means to solid Joy And therefore ordinarily a sinner that is but in the work of Conversion and newly coming to God from a rebellious state must entertain more sorrow and let out himself more to groanes and tears then afterward when he is brought to Reconciliation with God and walketh in integrity Quest. But when is it that my sorrow is too short and I should labour to increase it Answ. 1. When there is no apparent danger of the last-mentioned evils that is Of destroying your bodies distracting your brains discomomposing your minds and drowning other Graces and duties and the rest then you have little cause to be afraid of an excess 2. When you have not smart enough to cause you to value the Love of Christ and highly prise his blood and the effects of it and hunger and thirst after him and his righteousness and earnestly beg for the pardon of your sinne you have cause to desire the more sorrow If you feel no great need of Christ but pass by him as lightly as the full stomack by his food as if you could do well enough without him you may be sure then you have need to be broken more If you set not so much by the Love of God that you would part with any thing in the world to enjoy it and would think no terms too dear for Heaven You have need to lie under the sence of your sinne and misery a little longer and to beseech the Lord to save you from that heart of stone When you can hear of the Love and sufferings of your Redeemer without any warmth of Love to him again and can read or hear the promises of Grace and offers of Christ and Eternall life without any considerable Joy or Thankfullness it 's time for you then to beg of God a tender heart 3. When you make many pawses in the work of your Conversion and are sometime in a good mind and then again at a stand as if you were yet unresolved whether to turn or no When you stick at Christ terms of denying your selves and crucifying the flesh and forsaking all for the hopes of Glory and think these sayings somewhat hard and are considering of the matter whether you should yield to them or not or are secretly Reserving somewhat to your selves this certainly shews that you are not yet sufficiently humbled or else you would never stand trifling thus with God He must yet set your sinnes in order before you and hold you a while over the fire of Hell and ring your Consciences such a peal as shall make you yield and resolve your doubts and â—each you not to dally with your maker If Pharaoh himself be off and on with God and sometime he will let Israel goe and then again he will not God will follow him with plague after plague till he make him yield and glad to drive or hasten them away And even where he deals in waies of Grace he maketh so much use of sorrows as to make men yield the sooner to his terms and glad to have Mercy on such terms if they were harder 4. When you are heartless and dull under the Ordinances of God and Scripture hath little life or sweetness to you and you are almost indifferent whether you call upon God in secret or no and whether you go to the Congregation and heare the Word and joyn in Gods Praises and the Communion of the Saints and you have no great relish in holy Conference or any Ordinance but do them almost meerly for custom or to please your Consciences and not for any great need you feel of them or good you find by them this shews for certain you want some more of the rod and spurre your hearts be not wakened and broken sufficiently but God must take you in hand again 5. When you can be mindless of God and of the life to come and forget both your sinne and Saviours Blood and let out your thoughts almost continually upon worldly vanities or common things as if you were over-grown the need of Christ this shews that the stone is yet in your hearts and that God must keep you to a harder dyet to mend your appetites and make you feel you sinne and misery till it call off your thoughts from things that less concern you and teach you to mind your Everlasting state If you begin to forget your selves and him â—t's time for you to have a remembrancer 6. When you begin to tast more sweetness in the creature and be more tickled with applause and honour and pleased more with a full estate and more impatient with poverty or wants or wrongs from men and crosses in the world and when you are set upon a thriving course and are eager to grow rich and fall in love with money when you drown your selves in worldly cares and busines and are combred about many things through your own choice this shews indeed that you are dangerously unhumbled and if God have Mercy for you he will bring you low and make your riches gall and wormwood to you and abate your appetite and teach you to know that one thing is needfull and so be more eager after the food that perisheth not and hereafter to choose the better part Luke 10. 41 42. Joh. 6. 27. 7. When you can return to play with the occasions of sinne or look upon it with a reconcileable mind as if you had yet some mind on it and could almost find in your heart to be doing with it again when you begin to have a mind of your old company and courses or begin to draw as neare it as you dare and are gazing upon the bair and tasting of the forbidden thing and can scarce tell how to deny your fancies your appetites your senses their desires this shews that you want some wakening work God must yet read you another lecture in the black book and set you to spell those lines of blood which it seems you have forgotten and kindle a little of that fire in your Consciences which else you would runne into till you feel and understand whether it be good playing with sinne and the Wrath of God and the Everlasting fire 8. When you begin to be indifferent as to your Communion with God and think not much whether he accept you and manifest his love to you or not but can huddle up your prayers and look no more after them or what becomes of them and use Ordinances and seldom enquire of the success When you can spare the Spiritual Consolations of the Saints and fetch little of your comfort from Christ or Heaven but from your friends and health and prosperity and accomodations and perhaps can be as merry in carnal company when you say and do as they as if you were considering of the Love of Christ this shews that the threatnings went not deep enough Sorrow hath yet another part to
the Joyes of Heaven may be stirring and working in the minds of the unsanctified but if they take not up the Heart for Christ the person is not a true Believer As the Gospel must be Believed to be True so Christ that is offered us in the Gospel as Good must be Heartily and Thankfully accepted accordingly And the Glory the Justification Reconciliation with God and other benefits procured by him and offered with him must be valued and desired above all earthly fleshly things If you are convinced that sinne is evill as contrary to God and hurtfull to you and hereupon have some mind to let it go and some wishes that Christ would save you from it and yet still have a Love to it that is greater then your dislike and the bent of your heart is more for it then against it and your habituate desires are rather to keep then to leave it this is not Sanctification nor a saving consent to be saved by Christ. If you have some convictions that Holiness is good as being the Image of God and pleasing to him and necessary to your Salvation and so should have some mind of Holyness on these grounds yet if you have on the other side a greater aversness to it because it would deprive you of the pleasures of your sinne and the Habitual inclination of your will is more against it then for it certainly this will not stand with true Sanctification of Faith in Christ to save you from the power of sinne by his Spirit Thousands deceive themselves by misunderstanding some common passages that are spoken to comfort afflicted Consciences viz. That the least true desires after Grace do prove the Soul to be Gracious This is true if you speak of the least Desires which are Predominant in the Soul when our Desire is more habitually then our unwillingness and we thus preferre Christ before all the world the least of this is an Evidence of Saving Grace But such Desires as are subdued by the contrary Desires and such a will as is accompanyed with a greater unwillingness habitually and such a Faith as is drowned in greater unbelief these are not Evidences of a saving change nor can you justly gather any special comfort from them He that hath more unbelief then Belief is not to be called a Believer but an unbeliever And he that hath more hatred or dislike of God and Holiness then Love to them is not to be called Godly but ungodly nor a Lover of God but a hater of him I am easily perswaded that many of you that are ungodly could be contented that God be Glorified if his Glory do not cross your carnal interest and so you desire Gods Glory even for it self as that which is absolutely Good in it self But if your fleshly interest be so dear to you that you will sacrifice Gods Glory to it and had rather God were dishonoured then your fleshly interest contradicted it is your flesh then that is made your God and your chief End It is not every wish or mind of Christ no not to save you from sinne as sinne that will prove you true Belielievers Nor is it every minding of God or love to him no not as one apprehended by you to be the chiefest Good and desirable for himself as your End that will prove indeed that you savingly love him as long as the contrary mind and will is Habitually predominant in you Such as the very habit and bent of a mans heart is such indeed is the man It s possible for a man even a good man to have two contrary ends and intentions yea ultimate ends as that which is desired for it self and referred to nothing else is called Vltimaâ—e but it is not possible for him to have two principall predominant Ends. So far as we are carnal still we make the pleasing of our flesh our ultimate End For doubtless we do not sinne only by pleasing the flesh as a means to Gods Glory nor only in the mischoosing of other means But yet this is none of our Principal End so far as men are truly Sanctified And because that is called a mans mind or will which is the chiefest and highest in his mind and will therefore we use to denominate men from that only which beareth rule in them And thus we may say with Paul It is not I but sinne that dwelleth in me For a disowned act that proceedeth from us against the bent and habit of our wills and the course of our lives from the remnants of a carnal misguided will is not it that must denominate the person nor is so fully ours as the contrary act And therefore though indeed we sinfully participate of it yet when the question is whether Believing or unbeliefe sinning or obeying be my work it is not Comparatively to be called mine which I am much more against then for So on the other side if the unsanctified have some transient superficial uneffectual acts of Desire or Faith or Love to God which are contrary to the bent and habit of their hearts this is not theirs nor imputable to them so far as hence to give them their Denomination It is not they that do it but the common workings of the Spirit upon them If ever then you would be assured that your are Christians look to the Habitual bent of your hearts and see that you do not only talk of Scripture and slâ—ghtly believe it and speak well of Christ with some good wishes and meanings and purposes but as you love your Souls see that Christ be Received as your dearest Saviour with Thankfullness and greatest Love and as your Soveraign Lord with true subjection and that he have your Superlative estimation and Affections and all things in the world be put under him in your Souls This must be so if you will have the portion of Believers No Faith that is short of this will prove you Christ's Disciples indeed or Heirs of the Promises made to Believers The voice of Christ that calls to you in the Gospel is My sonne give me thy heart Prov. 23. 26. Do what thou wilt in waies of duty and think as highly as thou wilt of thy self thou art no true Believer in Christ's account till thou hast given him thy heart If he have thy tongue if he have thy good opinion nay if thy body were burnt in his Cause if he had not thy Love thy Heart it were as nothing 1 Cor. 13. 3. For thy works and sufferings are so far acceptable through Christ as they are testimonies of this that Christ hath thy heart If he have not thy heart he takes it as if he had nothing And if he have this he takes it as if he had all For this is not only preferred by him before all but also he knows that this commandeth all If Christ have thy Heart the Devil will not have thy tongue and life the Ale-house or a Harlot will not have thy body nor the world will
filial and of the right strain if Love be not its Companion Fear of punishment shews that you love your natural selves but it shews not that you love God and are true-hearted to him The Devils fear and tremble but they do not Love It is Love and and not Fear that is the Byas the Inclination and as I may say the Nature of the will of man By his Love it is that you must know what the man is The Philosopher saith Such as a man is such is his end which is all one as to say Such as a man is such is his Love You may Fear a thing at the same time when you hate it and it 's too common to have some hatred mixt with Fear You may be as much against God and his holy waies when Fear only drives you to some kind of religiousness as others are that scarce meddle with Religion at all The first thing that God looks at is what you would do and the next is what you do If you do it but had rather leave it undone you lose your reward and God will take it as if you had not done it For it was not you that did it if you did it not from Love but it was Fear that dwelleth in you God takes mens hearty Desires and Will instead of the Deed where they have not power to fulfill it But he never took the bare Deed instead of the Will A blockish kind of worship consisting in outward actions without the heart is fit to be given to a wooden god a sensless Idol but the true and living God abhorres it He is a Spirit and will be worshiped in Spirit and in Truth such worshipers he seeketh and such he will accept Joh. 4. 23 24. A begger will be glad of your Almes though you leave it with an ill will because he needeth it but God hath no need of you nor of your service and therefore think not that he will accept you on such termes That people worshipeth God in vain that draw near him with their mouth and honour him with their lips when their heart is farre from him Mat. 15. 8 9. A mans heart is where his Love is rather then where his Fear is If you should lie still upon your knees or in the holy Assembly If you should be the strictest Observer of the Ordinances on the Lords daies and yet had such hearts in you as had rather let all these alone if it were not for fear of punishment it will all be disregarded and reckoned to you according to your wills as if it had never been done by you at all It 's Love that must win Love or make you fit for Love to entertain If you give your goods to the poor or your bodies to be burned in a cause that in it self is good and yet have not Love it availeth nothing 1 Cor. 13. 1 2 3 5. You will not think your Wife hath conjugall affections that loveth another man better then you and had rather be gone from you if she could live without you It 's an unnatural Son that loves not his Father but had rather be from him then with him If God called you to a bestiall drugery or slavery he would then look but for your work and not care much whether you be willing or unwilling If your Ox draw your plow and your Horse carry his burden you care not much whether it be willingly or unwillingly Or if it be an enemy that you have to deal with you will look for no more then a forced submission or that he be disabled from doing you hurt But this is not your case It is a state of friendship that the Gospel calls you to you must be nigh to God his Children and the Members of his Sonne espoused to him in the dearest strongest bonds And do you think it is possible that this should be done without your wills and affections If you can be content with the Portion of a slave and an enemy then do your task and deny God your affections But if you look for the entertainment and Portion of a Friend a Child a Spouse you must bring the heart of a Friend and of a Child and of a Spouse Fear may do good by driving you to the use of means and taking out of your hands the things by which you would do your selves a mischief It may prepare you for saving Grace and when you are sanctified it will prove a necessary servant of Love to keep you in awe and save you from temptations But Love is the ruling affection in the sanctified and fear is therefore necessary because of the present imperfection of Love and because of the variety of temptations that here beset us Think not therefore that you are savingly renewed till God have your very hearts When you do but believe and tremble it is better then to be unbelieving and stupid and secure but you are not true Christians till you believe and Love We use to fly from that which we fear and therefore do apprehend it to be evil to us We avoid the presence and company of those that we are afraid of but we draw nigh them that we love and delight in their company We Fear an Enemy We Love a Friend We Fear the Devil naturally but we do not Love him It is Love that is that Affection of the soul that entertaineth God as God even as Good though that Love must be accompanied with a filial fear even a dread and reverence of his Majesty and greatness and a fear of displeasing him If you should toile out your selves in Religious duties with a heart that had rather forbear them if you durst you have not the hearts of Gods Children in your breasts The Magistrate can frighten men to the Congregation and outward worship You may lock a man in the Church that had rather be away And will any man think that this makes him acceptable to God You may keep a Theif from stealing by prison and irons but this makes him not accepted with God as a true man You may cure a man of cursing and swearing and railing and idle and ribbald talking even in a minute of an hour by cutting of his tongue but will God accept him ever the more as long as he hath a heart that would do it if he could There 's abundance of people at this day that are kept from abusing the Lords day and from swearing and stealing yea and from laying hands on all about them that are godly and this by the Law of man and the fear of present punishment And do you think that these are therefore innocent or acceptable with God By this account you may make the Devil a Saint when he is chained up from doing mischief You may as well say that a Lyon is become a Lamb when he is shut up in his Den Or that a mastiff Dog is become harmelss and gentle when he is muzled Believe it sirs you are
Earth and all things into nothing for he doth more in giving them their being and continuance Of such Wisdom that was never guilty of mistake and therefore will not mislead you nor draw you to any thing that is not for the best Of such Goodness as that evil cannot stand in his sight and nothing but your evil could make him displeased with you and it is from nothing but evil that he calleth you to Turn It is not to a malitious Enemy that would do you a mischief but it is to a gracious God that is Love it self Not to an implacable Justice but to a reconciled Father not to revenging Indignation but to the embracement of those Arms and the Mercy of that compassionate Lord that is enough to melt the hardest heart when you find your self as the poor returning Prodigall Luk. 25. 20. in his bosome when you deserved to have been under his feet And will the great and blessed God invite thee to his favour and wilt thou delay and demurre upon the Return The greatest of the Angels of Heaven are glad of his favour and value no Happiness but the light of his countenance Heaven and Earth are supdorted by him and nothing can stand without him How glad would those very Devils be of his favour that tempt thee to neglect his favour And wilt thou delay to turn to such a God Why man thou art every minute at his mercy If thou turn not he can throw thee into Hell when he will more easily then I can throw this Book to the ground And yet dost thou delay There are all things imaginable in him to draw thee There is nothing that is good for thee but it is perfectly in him where thou maist have it certain and perpetuated There is nothing in him to give the least discouragement Let all the Devils in Hell and all the Enemies of God on Earth say the worst they can against his Majesty and they are not able to find the smallest blemish in his absolute Holiness and Wisdom and Goodness And yet wilt thou delay to Turn 2. Consider also as to Whom so to what it is that thou must Turn Not to uncleanness but unto Holiness not to the sensual life of a Beast but to the Noble rationall life of a man and the more Noble Heavenly life of a Believer Not to an unprofitable worldly toyl but to the gainfullest Employment that ever the Sonnes of men were acquainted with Not to the deceitfull drudgery of sinne but to that Godliness which is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4. 8. Sirs Do you know what a life of Holiness is You do not know it if you turn away from it I am sure if you knew it you would never fly from it no nor endure to live without it Why a life of Holiness is nothing but a living unto God to be conversant with him as the wicked are with the world and to be devoted to his Service as sensualists are to the flesh It is to live in the Love of God and our Redeemer and in the foretasts of his Everlasting Glory and of his Love and in the sweet fore-thoughts of that blessed life that shall never end and in the honest self-denying course that leadeth to that blessedness A godly life is nothing else but a sowing the Seed of Heaven on Earth and a learning in the School of Christ the Songs of praise which we must use before the Throne of God and by suffering a learning how to Triumph and reign with Christ. And is there any thing in this life which you have cause to be afraid of The sinnes and weaknesses of the godly are contrary to Godliness and therefore Godliness is no more dishonoured by them then health and life is dishonoured by your sicknesses As health is never the worse to be liked but the better because of the painfull grievousness of sickness so Godliness is to be liked the better because the very failings of the Saints are so grievous If a true Believer do but step out of the way of God he is wounded he is out of â—oynt he is as undone till he come in again though it was but in one particular And can you endure to continue strangers to it altogether so long I know you may find faults in the godly till they are perfect but let the most malicious Enemy of Christ on Earth find any fault in Godliness if he can Can you delay to come into your Fathers Family into the Vineyard of the Lord into the Kingdom of God on Earth to be fellow Citizens of the Saints and of the Houshould of God to have the Pardon of all your sinnes and the sealed Promise of Everlasting Glory Why Sirs when you are called on to Turn you are called to the Porch of Heaven into the beginning of Salvation And will you delay to accept Everlasting life 3. Consider also from what you are called to Turn and then judg whether there be any reason of delay It is from the Devil your Enemy from the love of a deceitfull world from the seducement of corrupted bruitish flesh It is from sinne the greatest evil What is there in sinne that you should delay to part with it Is there any good in it Or what hath it ever done for you that you should love it Did it ever do you good Or did it ever do any man good It is the deadly enemy of Christ and you that caused his death and will cause yours and is working for your damnation if converting and pardoning Grace prevent it not And are you loath to leave it It is the cause of all the miseries of the world of all the sorrow that ever did befall you and the cause of the damnation of them that perish And do you delay to part with it 4. Your Delaying shews that you Love not God and that you preferre your sinne before him and that you would never part with it if you might have your will For if you loved God you would long to be restored to his favour and to be near him and employed in his service and his Family Love is quick and diligent and will not draw back And it is a sign also that you are in love with sinne For else why should you be so loath to leave it He that would not leave his sinne and turn to God till the next week or the next Moneth or year would never turn if he might have his desire For that which makes you desirous to stay a day or week longer doth indeed make you loath to turn at all And therefore it is but hypocrisie to take on you that you are willing to turn hereafter if you be not willing to do it now without delay 5. Consider but what a Case you are in while you thus delay Do you think you stand on drie ground or in a safe condition If you
upon the qualifications of sound Resolution which I before laid down to you and then take heed of the hinderances in your way and so set your selves to do your duty Remember that I before told you that it it is not a holy saving Resolution unless it be 1. Entire for the matter of it comprehending all that is Essential to Christianity 2. And unless you Resolve upon present obedience without delay 3. And also unless it be Absolute and peremptory taking Christ for better and worse without any reserve 4. And unless it be well grounded 5. And unless it be built on the strength of Christ and not only a carnal confidence of your own 6. And unless it be habitual and firm and become your ordinary frame and byas and as it were the new Nature and inclination of your Souls By this much you see already what manner of Resolution it is that you must have The next thing is to advise you of the hinderances that you may avoid them 1. The principal hinderance of Resolution is Secret Vnbelief when Everlasting life is taken but as an uncertainty or men have no more but a slight Opinion of it The Cure of this disease I have often and a little before delivered you 2. Another thing that hindereth Resolution is Inconsideratness of which also I have spoken purposely before 3. Another hinderance is a sleepy Insensibility when the heart is hardened and men are past feeling We cannot tell how to awaken these men to be sensible of the things that should move them to Resolve Of this also I have spoken by it self 4. Another great hinderance is the naturall strangness and aversness of the mind of corrupted man to these high and Spiritual things So that we drive men by all our Arguments against the byas of their sinfull habits And those habits plead against us more forcibly without a word of reason then all the reason in the world could do See therefore that you keep under changing means till your hearts be changed And the perusing of such weighty Arguments as we offer you may be of use to the changing of your hearts For God useth to work on the Will by the Understanding And therefore Light hath an aptitude to change the Will it self 5. Moreover the rooted Interest of this world doth much hinder men from Resolving to turn It 's alwaies drawing them another way or putting objections and eavils into their minds and if they will needs Resolve it is this that secretly enticeth them to reserves and to resign themselves to God but with conditions and exceptions and so makes them Hypocrites when they think themselves Converts and cheats them with a halfe deceitfull Resolution instead of one that is absolute and firm Against this impediment also I have spoken before 6. Another hinderance is The neerness of fleshly enticing objects When the Covetous man seeth his houses and lands his goods and money the very sight of them breaks the heart of all his better Resolutions The drunkard seems to be Resolved till he sees the cup and then his Resolution is broken The Whoremonger seemeth to be Resolved till the bait is brought neer him and then he goes as an Oxe to the slaughter and as a fool to the correction of the stocks Certainly if these Resolutions were sound they would either cause men to fly from the bait and not come neere it or else to refuse it when it is presented them In the course of their lives their Resolutions would govern them if they were sincere 7. And Satan himself will do all that he can to hinder you when he sees you ready to Resolve He knows that he must bestirre him now or never You never put him to it indeed till you are Resolving to forsake him One block or other he will be sure then to cast in your way Either he tels you it is but folly and melancholy to trouble your self with these matters or that you may be saved without all this ado or that God is more mercifull then to cast away all that be not Sanctified or that Godliness doth but trouble and distract people and that the professours of it are secretly no better then others and that it is but Hypocrisie for them to make such a stir with their Religion and that we must be moderate in our Godliness and take heed of being Godly over much A hundred such foolish suggestions as these the Devil hath at hand to cast in your way when he seeth you ready to Resolve If these will not serve he will set some of his wicked Disciples on railing or deriding you And perhaps some cunning fool a caveling with you to see if they can overwit you and draw you back If that will not do perhaps he will open the falls of professours to you and labour to perswade you that all are such Or he will shew you what divisions and differences are among them or he will take advantage of some difficulties in Religion or some controversies in which he sees you already engaged to a party or he will tell you of some false doctrine that some forward professours may be tainted with to make them and consequently Godliness it self more odious or at least suspected to you If all this will not do he will endeavour to set your very parents or natural kindred against you that those that should most promote your Salvation and on whom your livelyhood much dependeth shall become your enemies and hate you for offering to give up your selves to Christ If that will not do he will endeavour to entice you with the baits of fleshly pleasure or of preferments or much business or merry company or some great matters that you may hope for in the world And usually this snare is the strongest of all Or else he will tell you that if needs you wll Resolve it is time enough hereafter You may yet take more of your pleasure or commodity before you leave it Yet you may suck the brests of the world a little dryer and then turn to God and cast it off If all this will not prevail with you he will tell you it is now too late you have sinned so long or such haynous sinnes that God will not have mercy on you he will make you believe that God hath utterly forsaken you and there is no remedy and you may as well spare your thoughts of Turning now for Christ will not receive or welcome you and therefore it is even as good go on and take up the rest that the world can afford you for there is no hope of better But the most desperate temptation of all the rest is to put some blasphemous unbelieving thoughts into your mind especially if you fall into company with infidels that will draw you to question the Word of God and the Immortality of the Soul and the truth of Christianity or the life to come whether there be any such things or not Where these once take and