us and the cause of all our sinne and misery And this is the Revenge that is warrantable in the Penitent and some think is meant 2 Cor. 7. 11. 5o. As the Humbled Soul hath base thoughts of himself so he is willing that others should esteem and think of him accordingly even as a vile unworthy sinner so far as his disgrace may be no wrong to the Gospel or to others or dishonour to God His Pride is so far taken down that he can endure to be vilified with some Consent not approving of the sinne of any man that doth it maliciously but consenting to the Judgment and Rebukes of those that do it truly and to the Judgment of God even by them that do it maliciously The Humbled Soul doth not stand defending and unjustly extenuating his sinne and excusing himself and swelling against the Reprover Whatever he may do in a temptation if this temper were predominant his Pride and not Humility must be predominant But he judgeth himself as much as others can justly judg him and humbly confesseth to be Base in mens eyes till God shall think it meet to raise him and recover his esteem And the Root of all this in the will is 1o. A Love to God whom we have offended 2o. A hatred of sinne that hath offended him and that hath made us vile and 3o. A believing sense of the Love and Sufferings of Christ that in his flesh hath condemned sinne Rom. 8. 2 3. And thus you see what Humiliation is in the Will which is the very Life and Soul of true Humiliation 3o. Humiliation also consisteth in the Affections In an unfeigned sorrow for the sinne which we have committed and the corruption that is in us and a shame for these sinnes and a holy feare of God whom we have offended and of his Judgments which we have deserved and a hatred of our sinnes by which we have deserved them But as I must further shew you anon it is not the Measure but the sincerity of these Passions by which you must make a Judgment of your state And that will be hardly discerned by the Passions themselves but only by so much of the Will as is in them and therefore the Will is the safest to Judg by 4o. Humiliation also consisteth expressively in the outward actions when opportunity is offered And it is not true in the Heart if it refuse to appeare without when God requireth it in your ordinary course The outward acts of Humiliation are these 1o. A voluntary Confession of sinne to God and to men when God requireth it and that is when it is necessary to his Honour to the healing of them that we have endangered and satisfying the offended At least in the hearing of men in such cases as these to Confess them openly to God An unhumbled Soul will refuse this for the shame but the Humble will freely take shame to themselves and warne their brethren and justifie God and give him the Glory 1. Joh. 1. 9. If we confess our sinnes he is faithfull and just to forgive us Read Mark 3. 6. Levit. 5. 5. 16. 21 26. 40. Num. 5. 6 7. Jam 5. 16. Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that yee may be healed Prov. 28. 13. He that hideth his sinnes shall not prosper but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Not that any man is to confess his secret sinnes to others except in case that he cannot otherwise find relief Nor that a man is to publish those offences of his owne by which he may further dishonour God and hinder the Gospel But when the sinne is open already and specially when the offence of others the hardening of the wicked the satisfaction of the Church concerning our Repentance do require our Confession and open Lamentation the Humble Soul both must and will submit to it But the rotten hearted unhumbled Hypocrite will Confess but in these cases 1o. When the secrecy of the Confession or the smalness of the fault or the Customariness of such Confessing doth make it to be a matter of no great disgrace 2o. Or when it is so open that it is in vain to attempt to hide it and his Confession will do nothing to increase the disgrace 3o. Or when Conscience is awakened or they see they must die or are forced by some terrible Judgment of God In all these cases the wicked may Confess And so Judas will Confess I have sinned in bâ—traying the innocent blood And Pharaoh will Confess I and my people have sinned And a Thief on the Gallows will Confess and the vilest wretches on their death bed will Confess But we have more death-bed Confessions then voluntary Confessions before the Church Nay so far hath Pride and Hypocrisie prevailed and the ancient discipline of the Church been neglected that I think in most Countries in England there are many more that make Confessions on the Gallows then personally in the Congregation 2o. Humiliation must be also expressed by all those external means and signes which God by Scripture or Nature calleth us to As by tears and groans so far as we can seasonably procure them And by Fasting and laying by our worldly pomp and bravery and using meane though decent attire and by condescending to men of the lower sort and stooping to the meanest By humble Language and Carriage and by forgiving others on this account that we are sensible of the greatness of our Debts to God And thus I have briefly shewed you the true Nature of Humiliation that you may know what it is that I am perswading you to and which you must submit your hearts unto II. When I have told you the Use and Ends of Humiliation you will see more of the Reason of it's Necessity to your selves And first it is one Use of Humiliation to help on the Mortification of the flesh or Carnal self and to annihilate it as it is the Idol of the Soul The nature of mans sinfull and miserable estate is that he is fallen from God to Himself and liveth now to Himself studying and loving and pleasing Himself his Natural self above God And a sinner will let go many outward sinnes and be driven from the out-works before he will let go Carnal self and be driven from the Castle and strength of sinne There is no part of Mortification so Necessary and so Hard as Self-denial Indeed this doth virtually comprehend all the rest and if this be done all 's done If it were but his Friend his Superfluities his House his Lands perhaps a Carnal heart might part with it But to part with his life his All his Self this is a hard saying to him and enough to make him go away sorrowfull as Luke 18. 22 23 24. And therefore here appeareth the Necessity of Humiliation This layeth all the Load on Self and breaketh the heart of the old man and maketh a man loath himself that formerly doted on himself
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 encouragment of a promise and recommend our Souls into his hand as to a faithfull Creator and our surest deerest friend this is a Mercy that no man can well value till they come to use it To know every day that as oft as ever we come to God we are alwaies welcome and that our persons and prayers are pleasing to him through his Sonne what a Mercy is it One would think we should live joyfully if we had but one such promise as this for Faith to live upon Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me Psal. 50. 15. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the Sonne Joh. 14. 13 14. No wonder if they be rich that have so free access to such a treasure and if they be safe that have access to so sure a help For God is a very present help in trouble Psal. 46. 1. 9 Another precious benefit is that we have Peace of Conscience or ground for it at the least in our Peace with God and so may come to assurance of Salvation and may partake of the Joy in the Holy Ghost For in this Peace and Joy the Kingdom of God doth much consist When the chief cause of all our fear and sorrow is done away what then is left to break our Peace When we have no cause to fear the flames of Hell nor the sting of death or the appearance of our Judge any further then to move us to make ready what then should greatly trouble the Soul If God and Heaven be not matter of comfort I know not what is If we saw a man that had got many Kingdoms to be still sad and dumpish because he had no more we would say he were very ambitious or covetuous And yet he might have reason for it But if you have the Love of God and a title by promise to the Heavenly Inheritance and yet you are discontented and God and Glory is not enough for you this is most unreasonable 10. Another of our precious benefits by Christ is Our Spiritual Communion with his Church and holy members We do not only joyne with them in outward Communion but we unite our desires and there is an harmony of affections We are in the maine of one Mind and Will and Way and we joyntly constitute the Body of our Lord We are come unto Mount Zion and unto the City of the Living God the Heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Câ—venant Heb. 12. 22 23 24. We are joyned to that Body and have Communion with it which consisteth both of militant and triumphant Saints and of the Angels also We are no more strangers and forreiners but fellow Citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God and are built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the cheif corner-stone in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an Holy Temple in the Lord in whom we also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit Ephes. 2. 19 20 21 22. And as in holy concord we serve the Lord having one God one Christ one Spirit one Faith one Baptism one Rule the Word of God one mind one heart one work of Holines and Righteousness in the main one hope one Heaven the place of our expectations so have we the fruit of the Prayers of each other and of all the Church and have the honour the safety and other benefits of being members of so blessed a Society Yea we have in this Communion the whole Church obliged and disposed according to their capacity to endeavour the good of every member So that Ministers and Magistrates yea though they were Apostles and Prophets Paul or Apollos all are ours 1 Cor. 3. 22. Kings have their Power for us Ministers have their Gifts for us and for us they must use them If we suffer every member must be as forward to assist us and if we want to relieve us according to their power as if they suffered with us 1 Cor. 12. 25 26. Yea the Angels are our Brethren Rev. 22. 9. and fellow servants yea ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them that shall be Heirs of Salvation Heb. 1. 14. To encamp about them and to bear them in their arms rejoycing to behold their graces and prosperity as was shewed before 11. Another of our precious benefits by Christ is that All things shall work together for our good Rom. 8. 28. When we are Sanctified to God all things are Sanctified to us to serve us for God and help us to him Every Creature that we have to do with is as it were another thing to the Saints then to other men They are all wheels in that universal Engine of Grace to carry us to Salvation The same things that are common Mercies to others are special to us as proceeding from a special Love and being designed to a special use As flesh-pleasing is the ultimate end of the ungodly and all things are thereby debased to be but means to that ignoble end So the Pleasing and fruition of God is the End of all the Saints and thereby all things that they have to do with are advanced to the honour of being Sanctified means to this most high and noble End And as they are engaged to use them to this End and consequently to their own greatest advantage so God hath engaged himself to bless them in that holy use and to cause them all by his gracious providence to cooperate to their good The greatest afflictions the cruellest persecutions from the most violent enemies our wants our weaknesses and death it self all must concurre to carry on this work What then should a Christian fear but sinne How honourable and how safe and how happy a life may he live that hath all these assured for his service And what causeless fears are they that use to afflict the Servants of God concerning their outward troubles and necessities What do we fear and groan under and complaine of but our Fathers physick and the means of our Salvation If this one Truth were but believed and received and used according to its worth O what a life would Christians live 12. The last and greatest of our benefits by Christ is Our Resurrection and our Justification at the barre of God and our reception into Glory This is the end of all and therefore containeth all For this Christ died for this we are Christians for this we believe hope and labour for this we suffer and deny our selves and renounce this world Our bodies shall then be spiritual and glorious no more troubled with infirmities diseases or necessities Our Souls shall be
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
mistakes about it that you must avoid and 4o. I shall press on the Substance of the Direction and shew you the necessity of it I. There is a Preparatory Humiliation that goes before a saving change which yet is not to be despised because it is a drawing somewhat neerer unto God though it be not a faithfull closure with him This Preparatory Humiliation which many have that perish doth chiefly consist in these things following 1º It lieth most in the Fear of being damned As it is most in the Passions so most in this of Feare 2o. It consisteth also in some apprehension of the greatness of our sinnes and the wrath of God that hangs over our heads and the danger that we are in of being damned for ever 3o. It consisteth also in some apprehensions of the folly that we are guilty of in sinning and of some Repentings that ever we did it and some remorse of Conscience for it 4o. Hereto may be joyned some Passions of Sorrow and this expressed by groans and tears 5o. And all this may be accompanyed with Confessions of sinne to God and man and Lamentations for our misery and in some it preceedeth to desperation it self 6o. And lastly it may proceed to an indignation against our selves and to the taking of a severe revenge on our selves yea more then God would have men take as Judas did by self-destroying This desparation and self-execution are no parts of the Preparatory Humiliation but the excess and error of it and the entrance upon Hell 2. But there is also a Humiliation that is proper to the Converted and which accompanieth Salvation and this conâ—eineth in it all that is in the former and much more Even as the Rational Soul conteineth the sensitive and vegetative and much more And this Saving Humilation consisteth in these following particulars 1. It beginneth in the Understanding 2º It is rooted in the Will 3º It worketh in the Affections and 4o. When there is opportunity it sheweth it self in outward expressions and actions 1. Humiliation in the Understanding consisteth in a low esteem of our selves and in a self-abasing self-condemning Judgment on our selves And that in these Particulars 1o. It consisteth in a deep and solid apprehension of the odiousness of our own sinnes habitual and actual and of our selves for our sinnes and that because they are contrary to the blessed Nature and Law of God and so contrary to our own perfection and chief Good 2o. It consisteth also in a solid and fixed apprehension of our own ill-deserving because of these sinnes So that our Judgments do subscribe to the equity of the condemning sentence of the Law and we Judge our selves unworthy of the smalest mercy â— and worthy of Hell fire 3o. It consisteth in an apprehension of our undone and miserable Condition in our selves not only as we are the Heirs of Torment but as we are void of the Image and Spirit of God and have lost his favour and are under his displeasure and enmity by our sinne and have forfeited our part in Everlasting Glory and how unable we are to help our selves And 1o. This is in such a measure that we truly judge our sinne and our selves for sinne to be more odious then any thing else could have made us and our misery by sinne in the foresaid particulars to be greater then any outward Calamity in the flesh and then any worldly loss could have procured us And this we apprehend by a Practical Judgment and not only by a bare uneffectual speculation 2o. And the spring of this is some Knowledge of God himself whose Majesty is so Glorious and whose Wisdom is so Infinite who is so Good in himself and unto us and whose Holy Nature is contrary to sinne and who hath an absolute Propriety in us and Soveraignty over us 3o. And also it proceedeth from a Knowledge of the true state of mans felicity which by sin he hath cast away that it consisteth in the Pleasing and Glorifying and Enjoying of God in Loving and Delighting in him and Praising him for ever and having a Nature Perfectedly Holy and sitted hereunto To see that sinne is contrary to this felicity and hath deprived us of it is one of the springs of true Humiliation And 4º It proceedeth also from a believing Knowledg of Christ Crucified whom our sinnes did put to death who hath declared in the most lively manner to the world by his Cross and sufferings what sinne is and what it had done and what a case we had brought our selves into Thus much of saving Humiliation consisteth in the Understanding 2o. The Principal seat of this Humiliation is in the Will and there it consisteth in these following Acts. 1o. As we think basely of our selves so the Will hath a fixed Displacency against our selves for our sinnes and a kind of Loathing of our selves for all our abominations as you may read Ezek. 36. 31. 20. 43. 6. 9. A humble sinner is allen out with himself and as he is Evill his heart is against himself 2o. There is also in the will a deepe Repenting that ever we sinned and wronged God and abused Graceâ— and have brought our selves to this as we have done so that the humbled Soul could wish that he had spent his daies in prison in beggery or in bodily misery so that he had not spent them in sinne and if it were to do againe he would rather choose such a life of shame and calamity in the world then a life of sinne and would be glad of the exchange 3o. A humbled Soul is truly willing to grieve for the sinnes which he hath committed and to be as deeply sensible of them and afflicted for them as God would have him Even when he cannot shed a tear yet his will is to shed them When he cannot feel any deep afflicting of his Soul for sinne his hearty Desire is that he might feel it He doth an hundred times weep in Desire when he doth it not in Act. 4o. A humbled Soul is truly willing to Humble the flesh it self by the use of those appointed means by which God would have him bring it in subjection As by fasting or abstinence or mean attire hard labour and denying it unnecessary delights It 's a Doubt worth the Considering whether any such Humbling act must be used purposely in Revenge on our selves for sinne To which I answer that we may do nothing in such Revenge that God doth not allow or that makes our body less fit for his service for that were to be Revenged of God and our Souls But those Humbling means which are needfull to Tame the body may well be used with this double intention First and Chiefly as a Means for our safety and duty for the time to come that the flesh may not prevail and then Collaterally we should be the more content that the flesh is put to so much suffering because it hath been and still is so great an Enemy to God and