THE GREAT DUTY OF Self-Resignation TO THE DIVINE WILL. By the late Pious and Learned JOHN WORTHINGTON D.D. Luke xxii 42. Nevertheless not my will but thine be done Rom. vi 13. But yield your selves unto God LONDON Printed by A. C. for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in St. Pauls Church-yard M. DC LXXV The Preface THe following Treatise contains the Substance of several Sermons which were Preached on divers Texts relating to each other and most of them at Benet Fink in London where the worthy Author was for some time Preacher till his Church and Parish were laid in Ashes and they were the last that were heard from him in that place On that Lord's-day whereon the dreadful Fire of London brake forth he was come to insist on the Exemplary Resignation of holy Iob to the Divine Will under those dismal Sufferings he was exercised with which is the Argument of the Ninth Chapter of the Second Section of this Discourse And it is to be believed that he was directed by a very special Providence to so highly useful and seasonable a Subject for the preparing his Hearers for that heavy Calamity which was so nearly approaching them Some of those Sermons I heard much commended about the time they were Preached and since the much lamented Death of the good Doctor a worthy Friend having found them all tied together among a confused company of Papers with this Inscription Self-Resignation he delivered them into my hands signifying withall that he had for the most part perused them to his great satisfaction And I quickly saw cause to believe that it would be a good work to make them publick And had it not been for multiplicity of business which forced me frequently and that for a considerable time together to lay it aside this Treatise might have been completed and seen the light above a year ago And now that it is through the goodness of God at length come abroad I hope the same allowance will be made for it that uses to be for Posthumous Pieces and also that none will expect that the Author should have written with such accuracy for the Pulpit as he would have done for the Press But yet as it is I doubt not but all understanding and ingenuous Readers will acknowledge it highly worthy a serious perusal and that it is excellently fitted for the promoting a Christian's proficiency in his Master's School As for the Subject it treats of Self-Resignation there is no Duty more evident Nothing is more apparently reasonable than that we are obliged to give up our selves to God to be used and acted by him as shall seem best to his unerring Wisdom Nor is any thing so unnatural as for the Wills of dependent Creatures to oppose themselves to the Will of their great Creator which is inseparably conjoyned with and ever founded upon the highest Reason Righteousness and Goodness There is not such a Prodigy or Monster in Nature as he that will not suffer that same Will to rule him that governs the World and refuseth to be entirely at his dispose who being the Original must needs be the absolute Lord of all things This Duty is also most comprehensive and of largest extent the whole of that which the Grace of God that bringeth Salvation teacheth is reduceable to it And 't is very obvious that there is nothing either commanded or forbidden for it self in our Saviour's Religion but is a necessary and natural expression and instance of Self-Resignation I mean there is not any thing we are required in the Gospel to perform or forbear for its own sake and not in order to the better enabling us to some other Duty and guarding us from some other Sin but it is of that nature that Self-Resignation is antecedently to the Command or Prohibition inconsistent with the not doing what is so commanded or the doing what is so forbidden And where a Resigned Temper is through the Divine Grace in some good measure acquired it will naturally draw after it most chearful Obedience and willing Submission to the good pleasure and appointments of our blessed Lord So that we shall not complain of any of those Precepts he hath given us as harsh or grievous nor of any affliction he trieth us with as over-severe Let me adde that the entire Resignation of our Wills to the Will of God must needs be a Subject than which there cannot be any one handled of more weighty importance in that the restoring Mankind to this excellent Temper was the grand and main Errand upon which God the Father sent his Son into the World This is as evident as that our Fall which brought us under the necessity of a Saviour was no other than the loss of this Temper accompanied with the necessary and immediate consequents thereof Man's affecting independence on his Maker his being impatient to be restrained within those limits which his Creator had appointed him and chusing to gratifie his senses and fond imagination without consulting with the Divine Will made known to him by the Dictates of Natural Light and External Revelation this was truly his Loss of Paradise this was his Lapse from the heavenly to the hellish state And therefore the restoring mankind to their original constitution the reducing our Wills to a perfect harmony and compliance with the Will of God was an undertaking of all other the most worthy of his onely begotten Son 's manifesting himself in our flesh and his doing and suffering what he did in the humane nature And as our Author could not have made choice of a more noble or necessary Subject so I presume his Method and way of mannaging it will not be thought unworthy of it First he presents us with the most powerful Considerations in order to our being fully convinced and affected with a great sense of our indispensable and eternal Obligation to Self-Resignation and to the exciting and awakening us to the most serious endeavours to subdue our Wills to the Will of God Secondly he directs us to the most effectual means for the rendring this Duty as easie as is possible to our frail and corrupt natures And under these two general Heads he hath taken occasion without digressing from his business to acquaint his Readers with most if not all the best and most important notions and principles I mean such as have the most apparent tendency to the promoting of true Holiness and to rectifie the most dangerous and fatal mistakes which are such as either directly strike at or in their Consequences undermine a good life The Reader will likewise observe an excellent and most Christian Spirit running through this whole Discourse and see great reason to believe that the Author was very much affected with what he hath written that his heart was powerfully touched with the Arguments he pursueth and that he had not a mere notional but experimental knowledge of the Excellency of a Self-denying Resigned temper and was acted with a great zeal
he call them to such trials as are very difficult and ungrateful Let us walk in the steps of the faith and obedience of our Father Abraham in readily sacrificing our Isaac our delight and joy that sin which is most beloved the sin of our souls as the phrase is Micah vi 7. which seems to bring us most profit and most delight and pleasure By thus doing shall we be owned as the especial Friends and Favorites of God as Abraham was and receive the reward of such as he did CHAP. IX Of the Example of JOB IX SEecondly The next Example of Self-Resignation shall be that of upright and holy Iob And he will appear to be a most memorable and eminent one by these following Particulars First He was a Great man Great for Estate and Riches We read that he had seven thousand Sheep three thousand Camels five hundred yoke of Oxen five hundred She-Asses and very great store of Servants That he was the greatest of all the men of the East that is of Arabia which lay Eastward from the Land of Canaan He was great for Wisdom and by that means for Honour and Esteem of which there is a particular account Chap. xxix The aged men when they saw him arose and stood up ver 8. The Princes refrained talking and laid their hand upon their mouth the Nobles held their peace and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth ver 9 10. Such a reverence had they for him for the greatness of his Wisdom and excellent accomplishments that the car that heard him blessed him ver 11. All gave ear to him and waited and kept silence at his counsel After his words they spake not again his speeches dropped upon them and they waited for him as for the rain and opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain ver 22. 23. They received his discourse as a welcome and most desireable rain and such especially was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter rain before Harvest for making the Corn more plump and fair Secondly He was as Good as Great and Honourable Such was his Humility that he did not despise the cause of his man-servant or maid-servant when they contended with him Chap. xxxi 13. His Sobriety and Moderation of spirit is to be seen v. 25. c. His Charity and Compassion Chap. xxix 13 15 16. Chap. xxx 25. Chap. xxxi 16 17 19 20 32. His great Chastity Chap. xxxi 1 9. So far was he from making his great Estate to serve Sensuality and Lust. His Integrity and Honesty Ch. xxix 14. Chap. xxxi 7 38 39. His readiness to employ his power and interest for the relief and not for the crushing of oppressed Innocents Ch. xxix 12. Ch. xxxi 21. And this he did boldly and resolvedly Ch. xxxi 34. His exemplary Piety in keeping himself from the Idolatries of the Arabians Ch. xxxi 26 27. His pious sollicitude for his Children in their yearly Feastings lest they might have offended God in the heat of their Banquets Chap. i. 5. And Chap. xxiii 11 12. we have him expressing the great devotion of his Soul towards God in the constancy and universality of his Obedience My foot saith he hath held his steps his way have I kept and not declined neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food And God himself gives this character of Iob Chap. ii 3. That there was none like him in the earth a perfect and an upright man one that feareth God and escheweth evil Thus was this excellent Person a great Pattern of all kinds of Vertue in his flourishing estate and he was no less a Pattern of Self-Resignation in his afflictions and trials For Thirdly This Great and Good man was sorely afflicted and tried by God There were three Messengers that brought him the tidings of sad Calamities that befell him in his Possessions his Oxen Asses Sheep and Camels with his Servants being carried away by the Sabeans and Chaldeans or consumed by fire from heaven But the fourth Messenger brings the heaviest news of all viz. That all his Sons and Daughters were crusht to pieces by the fall of the house wherein they were feasting This was dismal indeed to lose all his Children at once and that not by a natural but violent death and to have them destroyed with such a sudden destruction and that also in the midst of their feasting and mirth But besides the more to aggravate his affliction these several Messengers came immediately one after another while one was speaking another came in one wave the more to overwhelm him came upon the neck of the other so that he had no respite no time to concoct his sorrows no diversion no time of breathing to prepare himself to bear the next But after all this affliction comes nearer still and more close to him God permitted Satan to exercise his cruelty upon his Body which was stricken with sore boyls and that all over even from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot Chap. ii 7. He was full of anguish in every part There was nothing about him left whole and entire but the skin of his teeth Chap. xix 20. or the skin about his gums or lips nothing was whole about him but his mouth to complain with To have one such bile is very painful but to have such angry and noisome things all over the body how exquisitely tormenting must it needs be And in this sad plight he sate down not on an easie Couch or soft Bed but among the ashes v. 8. or upon a Dunghil without the city as the Septuagint hath it Where he had none to dress his sores but himself nor any thing that we read of to help himself with but some piece of earthen vessel cast on the Dunghill Instead of using Oyls and Salves that were proper for the mitigation of his pain and the healing his Sores he scraped them or squeezed out the raging matter of them with a potsherd He was so changed by his blains and botches and in so squalid a condition that his Friends knew him not Chap. ii 12. His Brethren went far from him and his acquaintance were estranged from him his kinsfolk failed him and his familiar friends forgot him they that dwelt in his house and his maids counted him for a stranger he was an alien in their sight He called his servant and he gave him no answer he intreated him with his mouth His breath was strange to his wife though he entreated for the Childrens sake of his body The young Children despised him and spake against him His inward friends abhorred him and those whome he loved were turned against him as he most pathetically complains Chap. xix His three Friends Eliphaz Bildad and Zophar when they first came to see him sate down upon the ground seven days and nights and could not speak for astonishment at so strange
a spectacle and what they afterwards spake was both impertinent and highly uncharitable instead of giving him any relief it added more to his grief and aggravated his torment They were Physicians of no value and miserable comforters as Iob told them And whereas he might have hoped that the Wife of his bosom she to whom he had been so true and faithful Ch. xxxi 9 might have been some comfort to him she on the contrary was not onely estranged from him but also a disheartner of his patience and assisted Satan in his designs against him Satan had touched his bones and his flesh but that speech of his Wife Dost thou still retain thine integrity Curse God and die must needs smite him to the heart And now have I not set before you a sad and most pitiable condition full of such difficult circumstances as might be apt any one of them to make the duty of quiet submission to the Will of God very hard and grievous For this rich and wealthy man to lose all his Estate and that Estate which he had done so much good with by acts of mercy and pity and together with his Estate all his ten Children by one sudden stroke For this great and honourable Person to be brought so low as to sit upon an Ash-heap to be debased to a Dunghill For this so greatly reverenced and esteemed person and that had been so humble in the heighth of his Honours and employed his power for the relief of the oppressed to be now the object of the greatest contempt and vilified by the most vile For so good a man that feared God and eschued evil to be delivered up to the malice of the Devil who would be sure not to spare him but to lay on hard enough For such a man I say to be thus lamentably afflicted both by men and devils foes and friends too and not to have so much as one comfort left him who can sufficiently set forth the pittifulness of this case The Scriptures mention Iob's Wealth Greatness and Goodness that the greatness of his sufferings and his patient submission might the more appear For one that had but little before to lose that that was low before to fall lower is not so sharp a trial as from possessing a great abundance to be deprived of all and that at once to be immediately brought out of the extream of Prosperity into the extream of Adversity Had he by a riotous course like the Prodigal in the Gospel brought himself to streights or had he by some hainous sin provoked the Almighty to inflict upon him some sore judgement he had had no such trial of patience but might thank himself for what was come upon him But for one who had always kept a conscience void of offence both towards God and men that walked in all the Commandments of God with a perfect and upright heart to be so strangely and fearfully plagued what a trial is here But Behold now Iob's Resignation and Submission to the Will of God it was great to admiration as great as his sufferings As soon as the last Messenger had delivered the heaviest tidings of all the four for they came as was said so thick one upon another that he had not time to say any thing before the latter coming while the former was yet speaking I say the last had no sooner brought him the dismal news of all his ten Children being slain at once but he put himself into the lowest and most humble posture rent his mantle or robe shaved his head and fell down on the ground and worshipped and said Naked came I out of my mothers womb and naked shall I return thither the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord. What more emphatical expression of an humble and profound submission to the Divine Will could have been uttered by the tongue of a man Naked came I out of my mothers womb and naked shall I return thither I have as much still as I brought into the world with me For we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out 1 Tim. vi 7. That which I have lost it was not mine own it was but lent me by God who might call for it again whensoever he pleased I came into the world without it and without it may I go again out of the world and be never the less happy The Lord gave I acknowledge his goodness and favour in what I once enjoyed and that I so long enjoyed it And the Lord hath taken away I acknowledge and submit to the Lord 's good pleasure in stripping me of all these comforts and enjoyments He doth not say the Lord hath given but the Sabeans and Chaldeans have taken away but he looks beyond men and all inferiour causes to God and saith The Lord hath taken away The Seventy adde here somewhat more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it pleaseth the Lord so things come to pass Blessed be the name of the Lord To bless God when he bestoweth his blessings on us is very easie It is no hard thing to say The Lord hath given blessed be the name of the Lord But to bless God even when he hath taken away and deprived us at once of all our comforts this is hard indeed this is heroick this argues an excellent spirit more than thousands of thanksgivings in a prosperous condition this is an admirable instance of Self-Resignation Not to murmur and repine at such exceedingly severe providences is a great expression of a resigned temper how great an evidence then is an heart born up in such miserable circumstances in a thankful and praising frame And that Iob should now bless God when Satan hoped and was so confident that he would curse him to his face was a great foil and defeat given to him such a disappointment as could not but vex him at the very heart Nor is that other Expression of Iob's Chap. ii 10. unlike to this namely his answer to that wretched speech of his wife's He said unto her Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh what shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil What is God bound always to be heaping his favours upon us Must we have nothing but sun-shine fair and calm days without wind or clouds or rain Must we be fed with nothing but marrow and fatness taste nothing but what is sweet and delicious must we have all smooth and flowery way in our journey And if he for a while cloud himself if he stop the streams of his comforts that flowed so abundantly upon us if he give us to tast of the sowre and bitter the waters of Marah must we therefore repine and complain and think evil of him and grow weary of his service Having received so much good from him is it not equitable and fit that we should bear some evil and
profess and more qualified with such a disposition as renders them more universally useful to mankind than other Christians And thus we have seen what a many most powerful Considerations there are that demonstrate the exceeding reasonableness of this Duty of Self-Resignation and strongly oblige and excite us to the Practice of it Concerning which there shall yet more be immediately said in the next Section SECT II. Directions for the attaining this most excellent Temper of SELF-RESIGNATION CHAP. I. That in order to the resigning our Wills intirely to the Will of God we should frequently consider such principles as are most available to the effectual subduing them thereunto And several such Principles further inlarged on ANd now hoping that what hath been discoursed may have perswaded the Readers to some desires after the attainment of this excellent temper of Self-Resignation we proceed to direct to the use of certain means and helps thereto Some of which refer more particularly to Active some to Passive Resignation and others to both alike First Let us often eonsider and labour to be fully possest with the truth and power of such Principles as are available and have a proper tendency to the effectual subduing our Wills to the Will of God This sort of Principles hath been largely spoken to but because we cannot insist over-much upon so highly useful an Argument nor indeed well speak sufficiently to it we will dwell a while longer upon it and entreat the Reader to fix deeply in his mind these following Truths also which though they are the same for substance with some of the foregoing deserve to be farther and more particularly inlarged on 1. That the Will we are to submit to is the Will of our great Creator Preserver and Benefactor It is the Will of our Creator of him who hath given us our Being and by whom we are whatsoever we are Now we have shewn that man's receiving his Being from God and his dependance upon him for the continuance of it doth speak it necessarily his duty to be ruled ordered and disposed by him so that he can never be disobliged from willing agreeably to the Will of God As God is our Creator he hath a right to be our absolute Lord and Sovereign and he being so we must needs acknowledge that we ought to will nothing nor do any thing but what God allows That we are not to take leave to do what we list but what God likes best Again 't is the Will of our great Preserver and Benefactor who hath ever since we had a Being laid new Obligations upon us in the continued care of his gracious Providence and by his renewed mercies and favours We are nothing without God we have nothing but from him and therefore we should do and will nothing but what he would have us He the overflowing Spring of Goodness hath not left himself without witness is always doing us good and filling our hearts with food and gladness doing all that is fit for him to do to please us being not at all niggardly in the comforts of this life but bestowing them in such a proportion as is able to content moderate and modest desires and being richly gracious in affording us advantages and suitable means for a better life And therefore if we have any the least sense of what is worthy and ingenuous we will acknowledge it most reasonable and becoming we should do all we can to please him who hath done so infinitly much to please us The Apostle well knew the power of this Argument when he said I beseech you by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service Rom. xii 1. Nor can there be a more powerful Argument than this to perswade to Patience to a quiet and meek submission to all the disposals of the Divine Providence seeing for one cross we have many hundred blessings Vbi mali gutta est ibi immensum mare beneficiorum Dei Where there is one drop of evil there is a large sea of divine favours and benefits And this men would be forced to confess if they were as curious and careful to consider the many mercies they enjoy as they are to consider the few evil things that they suffer If they were duly sensible that they are less than the least of the many mercies they possess but in all their sufferings God punisheth them less than their sins deserve Holy Iob thought it reasonable thus to argue as prodigious and unparallel'd as his sufferings were Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil Job ij 10. What is God bound to be always heaping favours upon us must we have nothing but Sun-shine fair and calm days must we be fed with nothing but marrow and fatness taste nothing but what is sweet and dainty If God gives us sometimes to taste of the sour and bitter to drink of the waters of Marah shall we repine and murmure and think much of it Far be it from us so to do 2. The Will we are to obey and submit to is the Will of the infinitely perfect Being that is most holy most good most wise most powerful And accordingly his Will is most holy good wise and perfect and therefore infinitely more worthy to be followed than our own Will which is vain foolish and perverse when not governed by his and hath many foolish and hurtful desires If a Child be left to his own Will it would be his ruine and it would be much more pernicious to us not to be guided governed and restrained by the Will of God And when God doth restrain and abridg us as to some things which our Will would be free and loose to we have no cause to complain as those that are come to be grown men and to have a right judgment of things do clearly see that they had no cause to be froward and complain when Children that their careful and wise Parents would not suffer them to eat green trash nor humour them in every thing they longed for God who is the great Physician of Souls seeth it fit in his infinite Wisedom to restrain us from certain things as a wise and careful Physician doth his Patient from what he knoweth would be his bane however grateful to his appetite And so for the other part of Resignation Submission to God's disposals and Patience under afflictions when it is the will of God we should be exercised with them it is to be yielded to and preferred above our own will as being the Will of a most wise and good God the great Physician of Souls who perfectly knows our frame and what affliction is necessary Physick for us God is not onely to be considered as the great King and Soveraign of the Wold and therefore his Will to be received with all regard but he is also to be considered as the wise Physician of the World that