it Doubtless he gave it you for a higher employment then to enable you to plow and sow and follow your trades and provide for your flesh If this were all that a man did exceed a beast in what a silly wretched wight were man Yea so much more miserable then beasts as his knowledg begets more care and sorrow and fear then theirs What matter is it for having Reason at all if it be not that we may use it for the matters of God and Eternall life 5. Moreover your Soul is an Active Principle which will be working one way or other Your Thoughts will be going on one thing or other And therefore the bare Consideration is no great labour to you And if you must lay out your thoughts on some thing is it not better lay them out on these things then on any other Have you any Better matters to think on then these Have you any Greater matters or matters of greater Necessity to think of You cannot sure imagine it At least you will not say so for shame This makes your inconsiderateness an unexcusable sinne If Thinking were a toile to you it were another matter But when you must Think of something why not of God and your Eternall state and the way to Heaven as well as of other matters Will you rather throw away your Thoughts then God shall have them If a man command his servant that is lame to go on his business the refuser hath a good excuse I cannot go or not without great pain and danger But if he have a sonne or a servant that is so wanton that he cannot stand on his legs but spends his time in running up and down and dancing and leaping this person hath no excuse if he will refuse to go on his Masters or his Fathers Errand but will gadd about on his pleasure all day and will not go a few steps when he is bidden especially if it were for his own life or welfare So when you have Thoughts that will not be kept idle but will be gadding abroad through the world and yet you will not think of God and the matters of your peace what wilfullness is this If you should ask one that hath it not for meat or drink or money they might well deny you But if you ask these of one that hath abundance and knows not what to do with them but would throw them down the channell rather then you should have them what would you think of such a one Especially if it were your servant or your child that owed you much more Thus do you by God and your own Souls You have Thoughts enough and to spare you know not what to do with them and yet rather then you will spend one hour in a day or a week in serious Thoughts of the state of your Souls and the life to come you will cast them away upon news and tales and other folks business that do not concerne you yea you will cast them downe the sink of Covetousness and Malice and Lust and Wantonness and make them servants to the Devil and the flesh If you have a brooke running by your Land you will endeavor to turn it over your ground that seeing it must run it may as well run that way where it may do good as run in vaine So when your thoughts must run is it not better that you turne them to your own hearts and states to prepare for the world that you are ready to step into then to let them run in vaine If you see a man go into a wine-seller though it be his own and pull out all the spigots and let all the wine run about the seller and suffer no body to catch it or be the better for it what would you conceive of the wisdom or charity of that man Your Thoughts are a thing more precious then wine and such a thing as should not be spilt And yet is not this your everie-daies practice You are before him that knows your Thoughts Denie it if you can What hours of the day can a man come to you and find your Thoughts altogether idle What minute of an hour can a man come and ask you What are you now Thinking on and you can truly say Nothing I know as long as you are awake you are alway thinking of somewhat and perhaps when you are asleep And what is it on This body shall have a Thought and that body a Thought every word you hear and every wrong that 's done you and almost every thing you look upon shall have a Thought and God your own Salvation shall have none that is you will lose them and let them run in wast but you will do no good with them nor take in any profit by them to your selves 6. Have you any Thing that better deserves your Consideration then God and your Salvation Certainly God hath more right to your Thoughts then any thing else that you can place them on Your flesh your Friends your worldly business are neither so honourable so necessarie or so profitable Subjects as God and Heaven are As there is more profit to be got by the tillage of fruitful Land then barren Heath or by digging in a Mine of Gold then in a Clay-pit So is there more pleasure and profit to be gotten in one hours serious Thoughts of your Salvation then in thinking all your life time of the world 7. At least methinks you should Consider how disproportionably and unequally you lay out your Thoughts Cannot you spare God the Tenths no nor the hundreth-part of them Look back upon your lives and trace your Thoughts from day to day and tell me how many hours in a weeke in a month in a year you have spent in serious Thoughts of the state of your Souls and of the life to come Is it one hour of a hundred of a thousand of ten thousand with some of you that is thus spent Nay I have very great cause to fear that there are some yea that there are many yea that ther 's far the greatest number that never spent one hour since they were born in withdrawing themselves purposely from all other business and soberly and in good sadness bethinking themselves what case they are in what Evidence they have of their Title to Salvation or how they must be justified at the Barre of God no nor what business they have in the world and to what end they were made and how they have done the work that they were made for Ah Sirs doth Conscience justifie you in this Or rather will it not torment you one day to remember it What did thy Land and Livings worldly matters deserve all thy Thoughts and did not the saving of the Soul deserve some of them Did thy lusts and sports and wantoness deserve all and did not God deserve some of them Was it not worth now and then an hours time no nor one hours study in all thy life to bethink thee
in good sadness how to make sure of a life of endless Joy and Glory and how to scape the flames of Hell This is not an equall distribution of thy Thoughts As thou wilt confess at last in the horror of thy Soul 8. It is the end of your present Time and warnings that you may Consider and prepare for your Everlasting state What have you to do on Earth but to Consider how to get well to Heaven O that you did but know what a Mercy it is before you enter upon an Endless Life to have but Time to bethink you of it and to make your Election sure If you were to be called away suddenly this night and the Angel of the Lord should say to any of you Prepare for within this hour thou must die and appear before the living God Then would you not cry-out O not so suddenly Lord Let me have a little more time to Consider of my Condition Let me have one month longer to bethink me of the case of my Soul and to make sure that I am Justified from the guilt of my sins Let me have one day more at least to prepare for my Everlasting state for alas I am yet unready Would not these be your cries if God should call you presently away And yet now you have time you will not Consider of these matters and prepare 9. Moreover is it not time for you to Consider your waies when God doth Consider them If he would forget them or did not regard them you might regard them the less your selves But be sure of it he doth observe them whether you do or not and he Remembreth them though you forget them Dost thou not know that all the sins of thy life are still on record before the Lord saith Job 14. 16 17. Thou numbrest my steps dost thou not watch over my sinne My transgression is sealed up in a bag and thou sowest up mine iniquity Do you think that God forgets your sins as you forget them saith the Lord by the Prophet Hosea 7. 2. They Consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness Now their doings have beset them about they are before my face But you 'l say what if God do Consider our waies why surely then it is not for nothing but evil is near if nor prevented As the Lord saith in Deut. 32. 34 35. Is not this laid up in store with me and sealed up among my Treasures To me belongeth vengeance and recompence their foot shall slide in due time For the day of their calamity is at hand and the things that shall come upon them make hast If God be registring up thy sins thou hast cause to tremble to think what that pretends For in this hardness and impenitency of thy heart thou art treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous Judgments of God Rom. 2. 5. As Grace is the seed of Glory so sinne is the seed of shame and trouble and everlasting Torment and though it may seeme long before the Harvest you will tast the bitter fruit at last and whatsoever you have sowed that shall you reap 10. Moreover if any thing ail'd you you look that God should presently Consider you Or if you want any thing you think he should Consider your wants And yet will you not Consider of him and of your own wants When you are in trouble you 'l cry to God Have Mercy upon me O Lord Consider my Trouble Psal. 9 33. Consider and heare me O God Psal. 13. 3. When you lie in pain and sickness you 'l then cry to God Consider mine affliction and deliver me Psal. 119. 153. If you be oppressed or abused you 'l groan as the Israelites under their Task-masters and perhaps cry to God as the captived people Lam. 1. 11. See O Lord and Consider for I am become vile Remember O Lord what is come upon us Consider and behold our reproach ch 5. 1. 2. 20. And must God Consider of you that will not Consider of him or your own Souls Or may you not rather expect that dreadfull answer which he gives to such regardless sinners Prov. 1. 24 25 26 27 28 29 30. And heare your cries as you heare his Counsell and think of you as you thought of him Nay more then so even while you forget him the Lord doth daily Consider you and supply your wants and save you from dangers and should you then cast him out of your Thought If he did not think on you you would quickly feel it to your cost and sorrow 11. Moreover the Nature of the Matter is such as one would think should forâ—e a Reasonable creature to consider of it and often and earnestly to consider When all these things concurre in the matter he must be a block or a mad man that will not Consider 1. When they are the most excellent or the greatest things in all the world 2. When they are our own matters or neerly concerne us 3. When they are the most necessary and profitable and delightfull things And 4. When there is much difficulty in getting them and danger of losing them And all these go together in the matter of your Salvation 1. If you will not think of God and your Souls of Heaven and Hell what then will you think of All other things in the world are but toyes and jesting matters to these Crowns and Kingdoms Lands and Lordships are but chaff and bawbles dirt and dung to these Everlasting things The acts of renowned Kings and Conquerors are but as Popet-plaies in Comparison of the working out of your Salvation And yet will you not be drawn to the Consideration of such astonishing things as these One would think that the exceeding Greatness of the matter should force you to Consider it whether you will or no when smaller Objects affect not the Sences yet Greater will even force their way He that hath so hard a skin that he cannot feel a feather methinks should feel the weight of a mil-stone And if he feel not the prick of a pin methinks he should feel a dagger He that cannot hear one whisper methinks should hear a Cannon or a clap of Thunder if he have any such thing as hearing left him He hath bad eyes that cannot see the Sun One would think that so Glorious an Object as God should so entice the eyes of men that they should not look off him One would think that such matters as Heaven and Hell should follow thy thoughts which way ever thou goest so that thou shouldest not be able to look besides them or to think almost of any thing else unless with great neglect and disesteem O what a thing is a stony heart that can forget not only the God that he liveth by but also the place where he must live for ever Yea that will not be perswaded to the Sober Consideration of it for one hour 2. And as these are the Greatest
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
those best that are of his own Opinion though there be nothing of the special Image of God upon his Soul Or if he love a true Christian it is not so much for his Holiness and Spirituality as because he is of his mind in those matters of Opinion Hence it is that he is usually a bitter censurer of those that are not of his Opinion how upright soever they may be His very esteeme of men and love to them is partial and factious to those that are of his Mind and Sect A Papist will esteem and love men of the Popish Sect and an Anabaptist will esteem and love men of that Sect most yea a Protestant if he be an Opinionist doth esteem of men and love them as a Sect Whereas the true Christian as he is truly Catholick and of the Catholick Church which is not confined to Papists no nor Protestants so he hath truly Catholik affections and loveth a Christian as a Christian a Godly man as Godly yea if he saw more serious Godliness in one that is not of his Opinion in lesser things yet would he love him more then one that is in such matters of his Opinion that is ungodly or of more doubtfull Piety For as it is God in Christ that he principally loveth so it is Christ that he admireth in his Members and so much of Christ as he sees in any so much are his special affections towards them 9. Ordinarily the meer Opinionist will Sacrifice the very Ends of the Gospel and the honour and success of the great fundamental Truths of God to the interest of those Opinions which he hath in a singular manner to his Own He will rather hinder the propagation of the common Truths and the Conversion of the ignorant then he will silence his Opinions or suffer them to lose any advantages with the world Hence it is that we cannot prevaile with the Papists to silence a while the differences between us and them till we have taught their ignorant in Ireland and other barbarous parts the knowledg of those Truths that all are agreed in Nor can we get many Anabaptists or any such Sect that is engaged in a division to forbear their Opinions till we have endeavoured â—o lay the necessary grounds on which all must build that will be saved But though it be apparent to the world that their disputes and contentions do exceedingly harden the ignorant and ungodly against all Religion and hinder their Conversion and Salvation yet will they go on in the unseasonable intemperate bruting of their conceits and will not be perswaded to agree on those terms for the managing of differences as most tend to secure the interest of Christ and his Gospel in the maine If an Opinionist be for the Truth he is usually without much zeale for it because that Nature doth not befriend the great Spirituall Truths of the Gospel so much as it doth errours and private conceits But if he be of Erroneous Opinions he is usually very zealous for them For Corrupted Nature and Self and Satan and the world oft-times do more befriend these and furnish him with a Zeale for them and blow the coale The counterfeit Angel of Light is very ordinarily also a spirit of heat and great activity not a reviving fire nor a refining fire but a consuming fire devouring Christian Love and meekness and patience and therewith the Church and Truth of God so far as it can prevail For lesser matters that minister Questions such men can say by that which tends to Godly Edifying in Faith 1 Tim. 1. 4. Yea that Charity which is the very End of the Commandement out of a pnre Heart a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned vers 5. From these they swerve and turn aside to vain jangling oft times desiring to be Teachers of such thigs in which they understand not what they say nor whereof they speak vers 6 7. Consenting not to the wholsome Words of Christ and the Doctrine which is according to Godliness they teach otherwise being proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and strife of words whereof cometh envy strife railings evill surmisings perverse disputing of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the Truth 1 Tim. 6. 3 4 5. Yea they sometime take their Opinions or their worldly gain that they often ayme at to be instead of Godliness And think that to be Godly is to he of their mind and way They use to strive about words to no profit but to the subverting of the hearers and their vain bablings increase to more ungodliness 2 Tim. 2. 14 16. But the True Convert looks principally to the main He loves every known Truth of God but in their Order and accordingly to their worth and weight He will not for his own Opinions wilfully do that which shall hazard the main or hinder the Gospel and the saving of mens Souls Though he will not be false to any Truth yet he will avoid foolish and unlearned questions knowing that they do gender strife and the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men and meekly instruct opposers following Righteousness Faith Charity Peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart Tim. 2. 22 23 24 25. 10. Lastly True Converts are stedfast but Opinionists are usually mutable and unconstant The sound Convert receiveth the greatest Truths and receives the Goodness as well as the Truth and takes it not only into the Head but into the Heart and giveth it deep rooting He closeth with God as his only felicity and with Christ as his only Refuge and Redeemer and with Heaven as the sure everlasting Glory to which the world is but a mole-hill or a dungeon No wonder then if this man be stedfast and unmovable alwaies abounding in the Work of the Lord that knows his Labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15. 58. But the Opinionist either fasteneth on smaller matters or else holdeth these great matters but as bare Opinions and therefore they have no such interest in his heart as to stablish him against shaking tryals and temptations For two sortâ— there are of these Opinionists the onâ— sort have no Zeal for their own Opinions because they are but Opinions And these are time-servers and will change as the King or their Land-lords change and fit their Opinions to their worldly Ends. The other sort have a burning Zeale for their Opinions and these use to wander from one Opinion to another not able to resist the subtilty of seducers but are taken with fair and plausible reasonings not able to see into the heart of the cause These are as Children tâ—ssed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine by the slight and cunning craftiness of men whereby they lie in weight to deceive Eph. 4. 14. When with great confidence they have held one sort of Opinions a while and railed against those that were not of their mind ere long they
hasting away me thinks if you have your wits and sense about you you should presently turn and make sure of Heaven without any more delay 31. Consider also whether it be equal that you should delay your Conversion when you can seasonably dispatch your worldly business and when your flesh would be provided for you can hearken to it without Delay You have wit enough to sow your seed in season and will not delay it till the time of harvest You will reap your corn when it is ripe and gather your fruit when it is ripe without delay You observe the seasons in the course of your labours day by day and year by year You will not lie in bed when you should be at your work nor delay all night to go to your rest nor suffer your servants to delay your business You will know your dinner time and supper time day by day If you be sick you will seek help without delay lest your disease should grow to be uncurable And yet will you delay your Conversion and the making sure of Heaven Why Sirs shall these trifles be done without delay and shall your Salvation be put off In the Name of God Sirs what do you think of Do you imagine that you can better suffer Hell-fâ—re then hunger or nakedness Or that you can better bear the loss of Everlasting Joyes then the loss of your commodities and provisions in the world Sure if you believe the life to come you cannot think so And can you have while for every thing except that one thing which all the rest are meerly to promote and in comparison of which they are all but dreams Can you have while to work to plow and sow and reap and cannot you have while to prepare for Eternal Life Why Sirs if you cannot find time yet to search your hearts and turn to God and prepare for death give over eating and drinking and sleeping and say you cannot have time for these You may as wisely say so for these smaller matters as the greater 32. Moreover if men offer you courtesies and commodities for your bodies you will not stand Delaying and need so many perswasions to accept them If your Landlord would for nothing renew your lease if any man would give you houses or lands would you delay so long before you would accept them A beggar at your doore will not only thankfully take your almes without your intreaty and importunity but will beg for it and be importunate with you to give it And yet will you Delay to accept the blessed offers of Grace which is a greater thing 33. Ye Consider that it is God that is the Giver and you that are the miserable beggars and receivers And therefore it is fitter that you should wait on God and call on him for his Grace when he seemeth to delay and not that he should waite on you He can live without your receiving but you cannot live without his giving The beggar must be glad of an alms at any time and the condemned person of a pardon at any time but the giver may well expect that his gift be received without delay or else he may let them go without it 34. And me thinks you should not deal worse with God when he comes to you as a Physician to save your own Souls then you would do with a neighbour or a friend when it is not for your own good but for theirs If your neighbour lay a dying you would go and visit him without delay If he fell down in a swoon you would catch him up without delay If he fell into the fire or water you would pluck him out without delay Yea you would do thus much by a very beast And yet will you delay when it is not another but your selves that are sinking and drowning and within a step of death and desparation If a woman be but in travaile her neighbours will come to her without delay And yet when their own Souls are in bondage to sinne and Satan and a state of death they will let them lie there year after year and when we desire them to be Converted here 's nothing but delaies 35. If yet you perceive not how unreasonably you deale with God and your Souls I beseech you consider whether you do not deal worse with him then you do with the Devil himself If Satan or his servants perswade you to sinne you delay not so long but you are presently at it You are ready to follow every tipling companion or gamester that puts up the finger You are as ready to go as they to invite you The very sight of the cup doth presently prevaile with the drunkard and the sight of his filthy mate prevaileth with the fornicatour and sinne can be presently entertained without delay But when God comes when Christ calls when the Spirit moveth when the minister perswadeth when Conscience is convinced we can have nothing after all but wishes and purposes and promises with Delaies O what a stomack hath that man or what a brain that will snatch at poyson and swallow dung and dirt with greediness without any chewing and when you offer him meat stands sighing and looking on it and hardly will be perswaded to put it in his mouth and if he do he is chewing it so long that at last he even spits it out againe and cannot get it down Thus deal ungodly wretches between their poisonous sins and the saving means and Grace of Christ. Nay more then this so eager are they on their sinne that we are not able to intreat them to delay it When the passionate man is but provoked we cannot perswade him to delay his rayling language so long as to consider first of the issue We cannot intreat the drunkard to put off his drunkenness but for one twelve-month while he tryeth another course All the ministers in the Country cannot perswade the worldling to forbear his worldliness and the proud persons their pride and the ungodly person his ungodliness for the space of one moneth or week or day And yet when God hath a command and a request to them to Turn to him and be saved here they can Delay without our intreaty 36. Consider also that it is not possible for you to turn too soon nor will you ever have cause to repent of your speediness Delay may undoe you but speedy turning can do you no harm I wonder what hurt you think it can do you to be quickly reconciled to God And why then should there be any Delay where it is not possible to be too hasty Do you think that there is ever a Saint in Heaven yea or on Earth either that is sorry that he stayed not longer unconverted No you shall never hear of such a repentance from the mouth of any that is indeed converted 37. But I must tell you on the contrary side that if ever you be so hapy as to be Converted you will Repent it and an hundred