they follow the best guidance of the understanding when they are hottest about the greatest matters and not about the smaller or more doubtful things When they are obedient and yielding to Faith and holy Reason and not too ready to hearken to sense and be moved about fleshly sensible things In these things lyeth the growth of your affections IV. And then lastly for your Conversations your stability and growth consisteth 1. In the Readiness of your obedience 2. In the fulness and universal exactness of it 3. In the Resolved conquest of all temptations that would pervert you 4. In the diligent use of all those means that may farther confirm and strengthen you 5. In the Evenness of it that it be constant and not mixt with scandals and stops in the way or stepping out into by paths 6. In your fruitfulness and profitableness to others according to the proportion of your Talents that you study to do good and do it with all the care and Wisdom and diligence you can 7. In the Spirituality of it that God be the principle and the end of all and that all be animated from the believing consideration of his attributes and the views of everlasting blessedness So that you have such lively fixed intentions of God that you can perceive that you do all even common things of purpose for his pleasure will and glory and that the love of God doth carry you about from duty to duty and constrain you to it 8. And lastly in the measure of your present attainments of the End and fruits of your obedience For a tast of these ends are here to be attained When your inward Graces are more confirmed and increased and your Talents are doubled and when you bring God a great deal of honour in the World so that by his Graces shining in your works your Father is gloryfied and when your selves are readier to go to God and meet your Redeemer and long more for his appearing In all these consisteth the stability growth and excellency of your conversations And now by all that I have said you may see wherein your stability strength and growth doth not consist 1. It doth not most or much consist in speculations or less useful Truths 2. It doth not consist in the meer heat of Affections For Zeal may be misguided and do hurt and may prove somtime but a meer natural or distempered sinful passion 3. It consisteth not in meer Fears or Purposes that you are frightned into against your Wills 4. Nor doth it consist in the common gifts of Grace or Nature 5. Nor yet in running into groundless singularities and unusual strains But in a word it consisteth in holy Love kindled by effectual faith When a firmly believing Soul is fullest of Love to God and Christ and Holiness this is the most Confirmed state of the Soul and in this your chiefest growth consisteth DIRECT IV. My next advice to all young Christians for their Confirmation and Growth in Grace is this Grow downwards in Humility be low and small in your own eyes and affect not to be high or great in the eyes of others and still keep a deep apprehension of the greatness and danger of the sin of Pride but specially of that called spiritual Pride IT is the Tree that hath the shallowest weakest rooting that most shaketh and is soonest overthrown The deeper roots the higher growth for the most part The building that hath not a deep foundation is soonest shaken and overthrown Christ is our Foundation and Humiliation digs deep and lets him into the heart Pride is commonly thought to be the Devils first or chiefest sin Sure I am it is the Proud that fall into his condemnation 1 Tim. 3.6 The Pride of our first Parents affecting to be as Gods in knowledg was the inlet of all our sin and misery And the tempter still followeth the way that he hath found to be so successful It is Pride that like a storm or tempest doth set all the World in the rage and contention and differences and confusion that we see them in It is Pride that hath filled the Church with Divisions and it 's Pride that causeth the Apostacy of most that fall away And the more men have of it the less do they usually discern it in themselves I am sure the less do they hate it and lament it And though one would think that young beginners and weak Christians that have little to be proud of should be out of the danger of this temptation yet experience tells us that it 's they that fall by it more than the wiser and stronger Christians that have more to glory in For the more men increase in Wisdom the more do they know their own unworthiness their emptiness and ignorance and manifold sins And the more do they know of the Holiness and jealousie of God and the more do they know of the evil of sin and see what abundance of knowledg and Grace they yet want So that the more holy Wisdom and experience the less pride But folly is the Parent and Nurse of Pride Children will be proud of toyes and things of no value There are two or three things that make young Christians in greater danger of spiritual pride than others 1. Because they come so lately out of darkness and so great a change is made upon their Souls that it makes them the more sensible of it and therefore the readier to have high thoughts of themselves Though one would think that the remembrance of former folly and late dejectedness should keep them low yet with too many that 's quickly gone and they know not how to receive a comforting message but they make it an occasion of lifting up 2. The ignorance of these novices or young Christians is such that they little know what abundance of things they are yet ignorant of Little do they know what knowledg they yet want They think there is little more to be reacht to than is in their sight and therefore suppose themselves some body in the School of Christ because they have learnt the first Lesson 3. And by reason of this ignorance they know not how to value the higher attainments and understandings of others but look on the wisest as little wiser than themselves because they are unacquainted with the matter of their Wisdom and therefore overlook it as if it were none and consequently think too highly of themselves 4. And withal they have not that experience of their own hearts that should make them jealous of them as antient Christians have The Humble Soul is still in an empty craving temper He hungreth and thirsteth after Righteousness and therefore shall be satisfied Mat. 5.6 No man setteth so high a price on Christ and Grace and all the means of Grace Even the crums are welcome to him which the proud despise The full foul loaths the hony-comb but to the hungry every bitter thing is sweet Prov. 27.7 Therefore such beggars are welcomest
affability and what not did think with himself How happy a man were I if I could but dwell in this mans house which at last he procured but ere long went away His friend meeting him asked him how he came so quickly to forsake his happiness Did not his Master prove as was reported He answered Yes and better than report could make him or I could ever have believed But though my Master was so good my Mistris was so unreasonable and clamorous and cruel that she would beat us and pull us by the hair and throw scalding water upon us and there was no living with her So Faith I hope is the Master in your hearts And that is as good as can be well believed But the Flesh is Mistris which should be but a servant And that maketh such troublesome work with some of you that some quiet natured Infidels are less vexatious companions than you Nay and I wonder if you can be very confident of your own sincerity as long as such fleshly vices and headstrong passions do keep up the power of a Mistris in you I wonder if you do not fear lest as a woman said I will call my Husband Lord with Sarah if I may have my will fulfilled so Grace and Faith should have no more than the Regent Titles while your flesh hath so much of its will fulfilled I know too many cheat themselves into comfort with the false opinion that because they have a party in them that striveth against their sins it is a certain sign that they have the Spirit and are sanctified though the flesh even in the main doth get the Victory And I know that many have sincerity indeed who yet have many a foil by boisterous passions and fleshly inclinations But I am sure till you know which party is predominant and truly beareth the governing sway you can never know whether you are sincere As once a servant when his Master and Mistris were fighting answered one at the door who desired to speak with the Master of the house You must stay till I see who gets the better before I can tell you who is Master of the house So truly I fear the conflict is so hard with many Christians between the Spirit and the Flesh and holdeth so long in a doubtful state and sense and passion and unbelief and pride and worldliness and selfishness prevail so much that they may stay themselves a great while before they can be well resolved which is Master For to prosecute my similitude in Innocent man spiritual Reason was absolutely Master and Fleshly sense was an obsequious Servant though yet it had an appetite which needed Government and restraint In Wicked men the Fleshly sense and appetite is Master and Reason is a Servant Though Reason and the motions of the Spirit may make some resistance In Strong Christians Spiritual Reason is Master and the Fleshly sense and appetite is a Servant but a boisterous and rebellious Servant tamed according to the degrees of Grace and spiritual Victory Like a Horse that is broken and well ridden but oft needeth the spur and oft the Reins So that a Paul may cry out O wretched man c. In a weak Christian the Spirit is Master but the Flesh is Mistris and is not kept in the servitude which it was made for as it ought And therefore his life is blemished with scandals and his Soul with many foul corruptions He is a trouble to himself and others The good which he doth is done with much reluctancy and weakness and the evil which he forbeareth is oftentimes very hardly forborn His Flesh hath so much power left that he is usually uncertain of his own sincerity and yet too patient both with his sin and his uncertainty And he is many times a greater troubler of the Church than many moderate unbelievers The Hypocrite or all-most-Christian hath the Flesh for his Master as other wicked men but Reason and the commoner Grace of the Spirit may be as Mistris with him And may have so much power and respect above a state of utter servitude as may delude him into a confident conceit that Grace hath the Victory and that he is truly spiritual When yet the Supremacy is exercised by the Flesh. He that hath an ear to hear let him hear To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life He shall not be hurt of the second death He shall eat of the hidden Manna He shall have power over the Nations I will give him the Morning-Star I will confess him before my Father and the Angels He shà ll be à Pillar in the Temple of God and go out no more I will grant to him to sit with me in my Throne Rev. 2.7 11 17 26 28. and 3.5 12 21. 1665. THE CONTENTS THe Text opened What it is to Receive Christ. The nature of Justifying Faith in its three essential acts How to know that we have received Christ. What it is to walk in him What to be Rooted to be grounded and built up c. The Doctrine of the necessity of weak Christians seeking stability Confirmation and increase of Grace What Confirmation is in the Understanding Will Affections and in the Life Twenty Motives to convince weak Christians of the great need of growth and Confirmation A Lamentation for the Weaknesses of Christians in their Knowledg in their Practice in publick Worship in inward Grace in outward obedience about known Duties Confession Reproof c. their uncharitableness backbiting pride c. Ten more Considerations to convince them that it is not trifling but Great things which God requireth at their hands Twenty Directions for Confirmation and increase of Grace DIRECTIONS TO THE CONVERTED For their establishment growth and perseverance Col. 2.6 7. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk ye in him rooted and built up in him and stablished in the Faith as ye have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving AS Ministers are called in Gods Word the Fathers of those that are converted by their Ministry 1 Cor. 4.14 15. so are they likened thus far to the Mothers that they travail as in birth of their peoples Souls till Christ be formed in them Gal. 4.19 And as Christ saith John 16.21 A Woman when she is in travail hath sorrow because her hour is come but as soon as she is delivered of the Child she remembreth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the World So while we are seeking and hoping for your Conversion and are as in travail of you till you are born again not only our labour but much more our fears of you and cares for you and compassion of you in your danger and misery doth make the time seem very long to us and O what happy men should we think our selves if all or the most of our people were converted And when we see but now and then one come home we remember no more the
Physical passive Reception as Wood receiveth the Fire and as our Souls receive the Graces of the Spirit but it is a Moral Reception or Reputative which is Active and Metaphorical This will be better understood when the object is considered which is Christ Jesus the Lord To receive Christ as Christ or the Anointed Messias and as the Saviour and our Lord is to believe that he is such and to consent that he be such to us and to trust in him and resign our selves to him as such The Relation we do indeed Receive by a proper passive Reception I mean our Relation of being the Redeemed Members Subjects Disciples of this Christ. But the person of Christ we only Receive by such an active moral reputative Reception as a Servant by consent Receives a Master a Patient by Consent receives a Physitian a Wife by consent receives a Husband and a Schollar or Pupil by Consent receives a Teacher or Tutor or the Subjects by Consent receive a Sovereign So that it is the same thing that is called Receiving Jesus the Lord and believing in him as it is expounded Joh. 1.12 There are three great observable acts of Faith essential to it the first is Assent to the truth of the Gospel the second is Consent or Acceptance of Christ and Life as the offered good the third is Affiance in Christ for the accomplishing of the ends of his Office Now the word Faith doth most properly express the first act and the last and the word Receiving doth most properly express the middlemost but which ever term is used when it is Justifying Faith that is spoken of all three are intended or included By what hath been said you may discern whether you have Received Christ or not For your Faith may be known by these acts which are its parts 1. If you sincerely believe the Gospel to be true which must be with a belief so strong at least as that you are resolved to venture your happiness upon this belief and let go all for the hope that is set before you 2. If an offered Christ in his Relation as a full and perfect Saviour be heartily welcom to you If you consent to the Gospel offer and are but truly willing to be his and that he be yours in that Relation Faith is not only called a Receiving of Christ but is oft exprest by this term of Willing him And therefore the Promise is to Whosoever will Rev. 22.17 and the wicked are denyed a part in Christ because they will not have him reign over them Luke 19.27 or Will not come to him that they may have life Joh. 6.40 even because they would none of him Psal. 81.11 12. which is because they are not true Believers or Disciples of Christ. 3. If you thus by consent take Christ for your Saviour Teacher and Lord it must needs follow that you fiducially rely upon him or trust him to accomplish the ends of his Relations that you trust to him for deliverance from the guilt and power and punishment of sin and for quickning strengthening and preserving Grace and for everlasting life that you resign your selves up to him as his Disciples to learn of him with a confidence or trust that he will infallibly teach you the way to happiness And that you also give up your selves to him as his Subjects with a Trust that he will govern you in truth and Righteousness in order to your Salvation and will defend you from destroying enemies This much is of the very Being of Faith or the Receiving Christ Jesus the Lord And these parts are inseparable he that hath one in truth hath all Whenever we find in Scripture the Promise of Justification or Salvation made to us if we believe it is this believing and none but this that is intended It is not only believing in Christ as a Sacrifice or Priest that is the Faith which Justifyeth and believing in him as a Teacher or Lord that sanctifyeth the effects are not thus parcelled out to several essential parts of this same Faith but it is this one entire Faith in all these essential parts that is the undivided condition of all these benefits and in that way of a Condition of the free Promise it doth procure them So much for the meaning of the first words Receiving Christ Jesus the Lord I will be briefer about the next The second is walking in him which is no more but the living as Christians when once we are become Christians and using that Christ to the ends which we received him for when once we have received him Two things are necessary to such as we that have lost our way the first is to get into the right way and that is to get into Christ who is the way the other is to travel on when we are in it For it is not enough to bring us to our Journeyes end that we have found out the right way The next word to be explained is rooted Which doth not intimate that any are really planted into Christ without any rooting in him at all but by rooted is meant deeply rooted For the Roots increase under ground as well as the Tree above ground Rooting hath two ends and both are here implyed The first is for the Firmness of the Tree that blustring winds may not overturn it The second is for nutriment that it may receive that nourishment from the earth which may cause its preservation growth and fruitfulness This is the Rootedness of Christians in Christ that they may be confirmed in him against all assaults and may draw from him that nutriment that is necessary to their growth and fruit The next term is built up in him No house consisteth of a bare Foundation Five things are expresly contained in our being built up in him The first is that we are united or conjoyned to him as the building is on the Foundation The second is that we rest wholly on him as our support as the building doth on the Foundation The third is that we are also conjoyned one unto another and are become one spiritual building in the Lord. The fourth is that the Fabrick doth increase in bigness as the house doth by being built up so that it importeth our increase in Grace and the increase of the Church by us The fifth is the fitness of the building to its intended ends and use Till it be built up it is not fit for habitation And till Christians are built up God hath not that use of them to which he doth intend them The next term is stablished or confirmed in the Faith which signifyeth but that strengthening and fixing of us that may prevent our fall or shaking And it compriseth these two things First that we be soundly bottomed on Christ who is our Foundation And secondly that we be cemented and firmly joyned to each other And this comprehendeth their stability in the doctrine of Faith And therefore he addeth as ye have been taught to fortify
way and went far and by going further might have attained to Salvation The heart of many a Minister hath been glad to see their Hearers humbled and bewailing sin and changing their minds and lives and becoming forward Professors of Godliness when a few years time hath turned all this joy into sorrow and one of our hopeful seeming Converts doth grow cold and lose his former forwardness another falls to desperate sensuality and turns Drunkard or Fornicator or Gamester another turns worldling and drowneth all his seeming zeal in the love of Riches and the cares of this life and another if not many to one is deluded by some deceiver and infected with some deadly errors and casts off duty and sets himself like a hired instrument of Hell to divide the Church oppose the Gospel and reproach and slander and rail at the Ministers and Professors of it and to weaken the hands of the Builders and strengthen the ungodly and serve the secret enemies of the truth Those that once comforted our hearts in the hopes of their Conversion do break our hearts by their Apostacy and subversion and become greater hinderances to the work of Christ and greater Plagues to the Church of God that those that never professed to be Religious Those that were wont to joyn with us in holy worship and went up with us to the house of God as our companions do afterwards despise both Worshippers and Worship Whereas if these men had been rooted and confirmed you should never have seen them fall into this misery O how many Prayers and Confessions and Duties do these men lose How many years have some of them seemed to be Religious and after all have proved Apostate miscreants and the World and the Flesh and Pride and Error swallow up all See then what need you have to be rooted confirmed and built up in Christ. 4. Consider also How much of the Work of your Salvation is yet to do when you are Converted You have happily begun but you have not finished You have hit of the right way but you have your Journey yet to go you have chosen the best Commander and fellow Souldiers but you have many a Battle yet to fight If you are Christians indeed you know your selves that you have many a corruption to resist and conquer and many a temptation yet to overcome and many a necessary work to do And there is a necessity of these after-works as well as of the first For these are the use and end of your conversion that you may live soberly righteously and godly in this present World denying ungodliness and wordly lusts Tit. 2.11 12. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God hath ordained that we should walk in them Eph. 2.10 And how can Infants go through all these works Which of you would desire an Infant or Criple to be your servant But though God be in this more merciful than man yet he may well expect that you should not be still Infants What work are you like to make him in this decrepit and weak condition O pittiful blindness that any man that knows that he hath a Soul to save should think an Infant-strength proportionable to those works and difficulties that stand between him and everlasting Life In the matters of this Life you feel the need and worth of strength you will not think an Infant fit to Plow or Sow or Reap or Mow or Travel or play the Souldier and yet will you rest satisfied with an Infant-strength to do those great and matchless works which your Salvation lyeth on 5. Moreover the weak unconfirmed Souls are usually full of trouble and live without that assurance of Gods love and that spiritual peace and comfort which others do possess One would think no other Argument should be necessary to make men weary of their spiritual weaknesses and Diseases than the pain and trouble that alwayes attendeth them It s more pain to a sick man to travel a mile than to a sound man to go ten To the lame or feeble every step hath pain and all that they do is grievous to them when far more would be a recreation to one that is in health O therefore delight not in your own languishings Choose not to live in pain and sorrow But strive after Confirmation and growth in Grace that overgrowing your infirmities you may overcome your sad complaints and groans and may be acquainted with the comfortable life of the Confirmed O how roundly and cheerfully would you go through your work how easy and sweet and profitable would it prove to you if once you were strong confirmed Christians Alas the Souls of those that are not confirmed lye open to every temptation of the malicious enemy of their peace and how small a matter will disquiet and unsettle them every passage in Scripture which they understand not and which seems to make against them will disturb them A Minister cannot Preach so plainly or so cautelously but somewhat which they understand not will be matter of their disquiet Providences will trouble them because they understand them not Afflictions will be bitter to the mind as well as the body and will immoderately perplex them because they understand them not or have not strength to bear them and improve them The sweeter mercies of prosperity will much lose their sweetness for want of holy Wisdom and strength to digest them And what man would choose such a weak and languishing state as this before a confirmed healthful state Will you run up and down for Physick when you are sick and will you no more regard the health and stability and spiritual peace and vigour of your souls 6. Moreover it is the strong confirmed Christian that hath the true use and benefit of all Gods ordinances Meat is digested by the healthful stomack and it s seen upon them and we use to say It is not lost It is sweet to them and doth them good and they are strengthened more by it And so is the confirmed Christian by Gods Ordinances But to the weak unconfirmed Soul how much of the means of Grace is even as lost How little sweetness do they find in means and how little good can they say they get by them I deny not but some good they get and that they must use them still for though the sick have little relish of his meat yet he cannot long live without it and though it breed not strength or health yet it maintaineth that languishing life but this is all or almost all What a sad thing is this to your selves and unto us when Ministers that are as the Nurses of the Church or Stewards of the Houshold to give them all their meat in due season must see that all that ever they can do for you will do no more than keep you alive Yea how often are you quarrelling with your food and you do not like it or you cannot get it down somthing still ails
the Souls of the ungodly to win by your lives You should all be Preachers and even Preach as you go up and down in the World as a Candle lighteth which way ever it goeth As we are sent to save sinners as Ambassadors of Christ by publick Proclamation of his Will so are you sent to save them as his Servants and our helpers and must Preach by your lives and familiar exhortations as we must do by authoritative instruction A good life is a good Sermon yea those may be won by your Sermons that will not come to ours or will not obey the Doctrine which they hear Even to women that must keep silence in the Church doth Peter command this way of Preaching I Pet. 3.1 2. That if any of them have Husbands that obey not the Word they may without the Word be won by the conversation of the Wives Thousands can understand the meaning of a good life that cannot understand the meaning of a good Sermon By this way you may Preach to men of all Languages though your tongues had never learnt but one For a holy harmless humble life doth speak in all the Languages of the World to men that have eyes to read it This is the Universal Character and Language in which all sorts may perceive you speak the wondrous works of the Holy Ghost I charge you therefore Christians deprive not God of the honour you owe him nor the Church or Souls of wicked men of this excellent powerful help which you owe them by continuing in your weakness and unsetled minds and spotted lives but grow up to that measure that may be fit for such a work As you durst not silence the Preachers of the Gospel so do not dare to silence your selves from Preaching by your holy exemplary lives And alas do you think that feeble giddy scandalous Professors are like to do any great matters by their Lives Would you wish the poor World to write after such a crooked and bloted Copy Will it win mens hearts to a love of Holiness to talk with a Christian that can scarce speak a word of sense for his Religion or to see a Professor as greedy for a little gain as the veryest worldling that hath no other hope or to hear them rail or lye or slander Or to see them turn up and down like a Weather-cock according as the Wind of temptation sits and to follow every new Opinion that is but put off with a plausible fervency Do you think that men are like to be won by such lives as these 14. Do you consider what great things you must make account to suffer for Christ You must forsake all that you have Luke 14.33 You must not save your lives if he bid you lose them Matth. 16.25 You must suffer with him if you will be glorified with him Rom. 8 17. You may be called to confess Christ before the Kings or Judges of the earth and then if you deny him he will deny you and if you be ashamed of him he will be ashamed of you unless you be brought to a better state Luk. 9.26 Mark 8.38 You may be called to the fiery tryal and to suffer also the spoiling of your goods and in a word the loss of all And do you think that you shall not find use for the strongest Graces then Have you not need to be confirmed rooted Christians that must expect such storms Are Infants meet for such encounters Have you not seen how many that seemed strong have been overthrown in a time of tryal And yet will you stop in a weak estate Perhaps you 'l say We cannot stand by our own strength and therefore Christ may uphold the weakest when the strongest may fall To which I answer It s true but it is Gods common way to work by means and to imitate nature in his works of Grace and therefore he useth to root and strengthen those that he will have to stand and conquer yea and to arm them as well as strengthen them and then to teach them to use their arms Eph. 6.10 11 12 13. Finally my brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might put on the whole armour of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil For we wrestle not against Flesh and Blood but against Principalities against Powers against the Rulers of the darkness of this World against spiritual wickedness in high places Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand You must look when you are illuminated to endure a great fight of afflictions to be made a gazing stock both by reproaches and afflictions and to be companions of them that are so used and therefore you have need of patience that after ye have done the will of God you may receive the Promise Heb. 10.32 33 36. If you will endure in the time of persecution the Word must take deep rooting in your hearts Matth. 13.5 20 21. and you must be founded on a Rock if you look to stand in time of storms Matth. 7.24 25. In the mean time it is a fearful thing to see in what a wavering condition you seem to stand like a Tree that shakes as if it were even falling or like a cowardly Army that are ready to run before they fight and like cowardly Souldiers you are still looking behind you and a small matter troubleth and perplexeth and staggereth you as if you were ready to repent of your repentings And must God have such servants as these that upon every rumour or word or trouble are wavering and looking back and ready to forsake him 15. Consider also that the same Reasons that moved you at first to be Christians should now move you to be confirmed thriving Christians For they are of force as well for this as for that You would not have mist your part in Christ for all the World if indeed you have the least degree of Grace And if the beginning be good and necessary the increase is neither bad or needless If a little Grace be desireable sure more is more desirable If it was then but a reasonable thing that you should forsake all for Christ and follow him it is sure as reasonable that you should follow him to the end till you reach that blessedness which was the end for which at first you followed him What Christian hast thou found God a hard Master a barren Wilderness to thee or his service an unprofitable thing say so and I dare say thou art a bastard to use the Apostles phrase Heb. 12.8 and not a Christian Some tryal thou hast made of him What evil hast thou found in him or what wrong hath he ever done thee that thou shouldest now begin to make a stand as if thou were in doubt whether it be best to go further If ever Christ were needful he is needful still and if
especially that differ from them in lesser things and how unapt to judg themselves O how few are the Christians that are eminent in humility meekness and self-denyal that are content to be accounted nothing so that Christ may be all and his honour may be secured that live as men devoted to God and honour him with their substance and freely expend yea study for advantages to improve all their riches and interest to his service How few are they that live as in heaven upon earth with the World under their feet and their hearts above with God their happiness that feel themselves to live in the workings and warmth of love to God and make him their delight and are content with his approbation whoever disapproveth them that are still groaning or reaching and seeking after him and long to be with him to be rid of sin and see his blessed face and live in his perfect love and praises that love and long for the appearance of Jesus Christ and can heartily say Come Lord Jesus come quickly How few are they that stand in a day of tryal If they are tryed but with a foul word if tryed but with any thing that toucheth their commodity if tryed but with the emptyest reasonings of deceivers much more if they beâ—â—yed with the honours and greatness of the World how few of them stand in tryal and do not fall and forget themselves as if they were not the men that they seemed to be before What then would they prove if they were tryed by the flames Mistake me not in all this sad complaint as I intend not the dishonour of Godliness by this but of ungodliness for it is not because men are godly that they have these faults but because they are not godly more So here is no encouragement to the unsanctifyed to think themselves as good as the more Religious because they are charged with so many faults Nor do I affirm all these things to be consistent with true Grace that I have here expressed But only this that Professors that seem godly to others are thus too many of them guilty and those that have true grace may have any of these faults in a mortified degree though not in a reigning predominant measure But methinks Sirs you should by this time be convinced and sensible how much we dishonour God by our infirmities and what a lamentable case it is that the Church should consist of so many infants and so many should be so little serviceable to God or the common good but rather be troublers of all about them Alas that we should reach no higher that yet no greater things should be attained O what an honour would you be to your Profession and what a blessing to the Church if you did but answer the cost and pains of God and man and answer the high things that you have been acquainted with and profess That we could but boast of you as God did of Job and could say to Satan or any of his instruments Here be Christians rooted and stablished in the Faith try whether you can shake them or make them stagger and do your worst Here is a man eminent in meekness and humility and patience and self-denial discompose and disturb his mind if you can draw him to pride or immoderate passion or censoriousness or uncharitableness if you can Here are a people that are in unity and knit together in Faith and Love of one heart and one soul and one lip do your worst to divide them or break them into parties or draw them into several minds and wayes or exasperate them against each other Here are a people established in Mortification and that have Crucified the Flesh with its affections and lusts Do your worst to draw them to intemperance in eating or drinking or recreations or any of the delights of the Flesh or to puff them up by greatness and prosperity and make them forget themselves or God Try them with Riches or beauty or vain-glory or other sensual delights and see whether they will turn aside and be ever the less in communion with God and enticed to forget the joy that is set before them or will not rather despise your baits and run away from assuring objects as their greatest dangers Daunt them if you can by threatnings Try them by Persecution by Fire and Sword and see whether they are not past your shaking even Rooted Confirmed and built up in Christ. O what a glory would you be to your Profession if you could attain to this degree Could we but truly thus boast of you we might say our people are Christians of the right strain But when we must come about you like men in a swoon and can hardly perceive whether you are alive or dead and can scarce discern whether you have any Grace or none what a grief is this to our hearts what a perplexity to us in our administrations not knowing whether comfort or terror be your due and what a languishing uncomfortable life is this to your selves in comparison of what you might attain to Rouze up your selves Christians and look after higher and greater things and think it not enough that you are barely alive It is an exceeding Righteousness that you must have if you will be saved even exceeding all that the unsanctifyed do attain For Except your Righteousness exceed even the Righteousness of Scribes and Pharises you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Matth. 5.20 But it is yet a more exceeding Righteousness that you must have if you will be Confirmed built up and abound and would honour your Profession and cheerfully successfully and constantly go on in the Journey the race the warfare that you have begun You must then exceed your selves and exceed all the feeble unstable wavering infant-Christians that are about you And to perswade you yet further to look after this I shall here annex a few Motives more 1. Consider Christian That it is a God of exceeding infinite greatness and goodness that thou hast to do with and therefore it is not small and low matters that are suitable to his service O if thou hadst but a glimpse of his Glory thou wouldst say that it is not common things that are meet for such a dreadful Majesty Hadst thou but a fuller taste of his Goodness thy heart would say This pittance of Love and Service is unworthy of him You will not offer the basest things to a King much less to the highest King of Kings If ye offer the blind for Sacrifice is it not evil and if ye offer the lame and sick is it not evil offer it now to thy Governour Will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person saith the Lord of Hosts Mal. 1.8 And verse 12 13 14. But ye have profaned it his great name in that ye say The Table of the Lord is polluted and the fruit thereof his meat is contemptible Ye have said also What a weariness is it
your wills and affections and your conversations I. As holiness is in the understanding it is commonly in Scripture called light and knowledg as comprehending the several parts And the confirmation and growth of this must consist in these seven following parts 1. It is ordinary with new Converted Christians to see the great essential truths of the Christian profession with a great imperfection as to the evidences that discover them Either they see but some of the solid evidence overlooking much more than they see or more usually they receive the truth it self upon some low insufficient evidence at first and then proceed to a kind of mixture taking it upon some evidences that are valid and sufficient and joyning some that are invalid with them But you must grow beyond this infancy of understanding when you see greater and sounder evidences for the truth than you did before and when you see more of these solid evidences and leave not out so many as you did and when you lay smaller stress upon the smaller evidences and none upon those that are invalid and indeed no evidences then are your understandings more confirmed in the truth and this is a principal part of their growth So we find the Samaritans of Sychar Joh. 4.39 40 41 42. Many of them believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified He told me all that ever I did This was the first faith upon a weaker evidence And many more believed because of his own words and said unto the woman Now we believe not because of thy saying for we have heard him our selves and know that this is indeed the Christ the Saviour of the world Here is a notable confirmation and growth by believing and knowing the same thing which they believed before it was before believed on weaker evidence and now upon stronger Thus Nathaniel by Philips perswasion was drawn to Christ but when he perceived his omniscience that he knew the heart and things that were distant and out of the reach of common knowledge he is confirmed and saith Rabbi thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel And yet Christ telleth him that there were far greater evidences yet to be revealed which might beget a more confirmed stronger faith Because I said unto thee I saw thee under the figtree believest thou Thou shalt see greater things than these verily verily I say unto you hereafter ye shall see heaven open and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man Joh. 1.45 49 50 51. There is not one Christian of many thousand that at first hath a full sight of the solid evidences of the Christian doctrine but must grow more and more in discerning those Reasons for the truth which he believeth which in the beginning he did not well discern It is not the most confident belief that is alwayes the strongest confirmed belief but there must be sound grounds and evidence to support that confidence or else the confidence may soon be shaken and is not sound even while it seems unshaken And here young beginners must be forewarned of a most dangerous snare of the deceiver because at first the truth it self is commonly received upon feeble and defective grounds or evidence It is the custom of the Devil and his deceiving instruments to shew the young Christian the weakness of those grounds and thence to conclude that his cause is naught For it 's too easie to perswade such that the cause hath no better grounds than they have seen For having not seen any better they can have no particular knowledge of them And they are too apt to think over highly of their knowledge as if there were no more reasons for the truth than they themselves have reacht to and other men did see no more than they And thus poor souls forsake the truth which they should be built up and confirmed in and take that for a reason against the truth which is but a proof of their own infirmity I meet with very few that turn to any Heresie or Sect but this is the cause They were at first of the right mind but not upon sound and well-laid grounds but held the truth upon insufficient reasons And then comes some deceiver and beats them out of their former grounds and so having no better they let go the truth and conclude that they were all this while mistaken Just as if in my infancy I should know my own father only by his cloaths and when I grow a little bigger one should tel me that I was deceived this is not my father and to convince me should put his cloaths upon another or tell me that another may have such cloaths and hereupon I should be so foolish as to yield that I was mistaken and that this man is not my father As if the thing were false because my reasons were insufficient Or as if you should ask the right way in your travel and one should tell you that by such and such marks you may know your way and you think you have found those marks a mile or two short of the place where they are but when you understand that those are not the marks that you were told of you turn back again before you come at them and conclude that you have mist the way So is it with these poor deluded souls that think all discoveries of their own imperfections and every confutation of their own silly arguments to be a confutation of the truths of God which they did hold when alas a strong well-grounded Christian would make nothing of defending the cause which they give up against more strong and subtile enemies or at least would hold it fast themselves Well! this is the first part of your growth in knowledge when you can see more or better evidences for the great truths of Christianity than you saw before 2. Moreover you must grow to a clearer apprehension of the very same reasons and evidences of the truth which you saw before For when a weak Christian hath the best arguments and grounds in the world yet he hath so dim a sight of them that makes them find the slighter entertainment in his affections The best reason in the world can work but little on him that hath but a little understanding of it There are various degrees of knowledge not only of one and the same truth because of the diversity of evidence but of one and the same evidence and reason of that truth I can well remember my self that I have many a year had a common argument for some weighty truth and I have made use of it and thought it good but yet had but little apprehension of the force of it and many years after a sudden light hath given me in my studies so clear an apprehension of the force of that same argument which I knew so long as that it hath exceedingly confirmed and satisfied me more than ever I was before I beseech you Christians
about you and the living and dying comforts of your selves O do not sluggishly rest in an Infant state of Grace Did you but know how a weak and strong Faith differ and how a weak and a found Confirmed Christian differ as to the honour of God and the good of others and especially to themselves both in life and death it would quickly awaken you to a cheerful diligence for so high and excellent an end Did you but well understand the wrong that Christ and the Gospel have sustained in the World yea in England by weak diseased distempered Christians your hearts would bleed and with shame and grief it would be your secret and open lamentation Stir up then the Grace that is given you and use Christs means and do your best and you will find that Christ is not an insufficient Physician nor an uneffectual Saviour or an empty Fountain but that he is filled with all the fulness of God and hath Spirit and life to communicate to his Members Zech. 12.8 and that there is no want which he cannot supply and no corruption or temptation which his Grace is not sufficient to overcome John 4.14 2 Cor. 12.9 Rom. 6.4 6. Col. 3.1 3 4. FINIS THE CHARACTER Of a Sound Confumed CHRISTIAN As also 2. Of a Weak Christian And 3. Of a Seeming Christian. Written to imprint upon mens minds the true Idea or conception OF Godliness and Christianity By Richard Baxter The Second Part of the Directions for Weak Christians LONDON Printed by R. White for Nevill Simmons at the Three Crowns near Holborn Conduit 1669. THE PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART Directed to my worthy Friend Henry Ashurst Esquire Citizen of London Dear and faithful Friend WHen this Book was Printed and passing into the World without the ordinary ornament of a prefixed honoured Name my thoughts reduced me into the common way though not upon the common reasons assuring me that your name would be more than an accident or ceremony to such a discourse as this even a part more substantial than a Map is in a Treatise of Geography or the well-cut Figures in Tractates of Anatomy Discourses of Navigation Architecture Musick c. may almost as hopefully instruct the Learners without any visible operations or effects as the Characters of well-tempered Christians can duly inform the minds of ignorant ungodly men of so Divine a thing as Christianity and Godliness without acquaintance with some such Persons in whom these Characters are manifestly exemplified Wise and holy precepts are to make wise and holy persons It is such Persons as well as such Precepts which bear the image of God which indeed is most perfect in exactness and integrity in the precepts for in them is no imperfection or errour as they are of God But it is of greater final Excellency in activity and usefulness as it is in men And therefore as God delighteth in his servants and is Glorified in and by them in the world so Satan usually chooseth such Persons to reproach and make odious to the ignorant rather than the holy Precepts immediately by which they are directed both because their Holiness is most exasperating by activity and also most lyable to calumny and contempt through imperfection and mixture of that which indeed is worthy of dislike Till Godliness and Christianity be visible in full perfection and elevated above the contradiction of folly and the contempt of pride the blind distracted minds of hardened forsaken sinners will not acknowledge its divine celestial nature and worth But then it will be too late to become partakers of it They must both know and possess it in its infancy and minority who will ever enjoy it in its heavenly dignity and glory If seasonable illumination and conversion confute not the deceits and standers which pride and ignorance have entertained the too-late confutation of them by death and their following experience will make them wish that they had been wise at cheaper rates when it will be in vain to cry Give us of your Oyle for our Lamps are out Mat. 25.8 But while I offer your name to the malicious world as an instance of the temper which I here describe I intend it not as a singular though an eminent instance For through the great mercy of God there are thousands of examples of confirmed Christians among us in this Land even before those eyes which will not see them But it is not Catalogues but single names which Writers have used in this way And why may I not take the advantage of Custome to leave to the World the testimony of my estimation and great respects to so deserving a person of the primitive Christian Catholick temper And to let them know what sort of men were my most dear and faithful friends And also thus to express my love by telling you closely what you must be as well as by telling the World for their example what you are Upon these accounts without your knowledge or consent I presume thus to prefix your name to this Treatise written long ago but now published by Your faithful Friend Rich. Baxter From my Lodging in New-Prison June 14. 1669. ERRATA Reader When I had gathered the Errata I was separated by a Prison from those Collections and having but two of the Sheets now at hand I shall give you the Errata of them only IN the Contents n. 15. for Lovers of God read Love of God Pag. 163. l. 5. for to six 1. and six pag 163. l. 18. blot out that p. 164. l. 5. for that 1. than p. 169. l. 10. for of 1. for p. 170. l. 1. for câ—re 1. cure All the rest I have forgotten save that some where I remember filthy for slâ—shly TO THE READER Readers IT is a matter of greater moment than I can express what Idea or Image of the nature of GODLINESS and CHRISTIANITY is imprinted upon mens minds The description which is expressed in the sacred Scriptures is true and full The thing described is rational pure perfect unblameable and amiable That which is expressed in the Lives of the most is nothing so but is purblind defiled maimed imperfect culpable and mixt with so much of the contrary quality that to them that cannot distinguish the Chaff from the Wheat the Sickness from the Life it seemeth an unreasonable fancifull loathsome and vexatious thing and so far from being worthy to be preferred before all the Riches Honours and Pleasures of the world that it seemeth worthy to be kept under as a troubler of Kingdoms Societies and Souls And doubtless this monstrous Expression of it in mens Lives is because the perfect expression of it in Gods Word hath not made 〈…〉 impression upon the Mind and consequently upon the Heart For as it is sound doctrine which must make sound Christians so Doctrine worketh on the will and affections not as it is in it self and as delivered but as it is understood believed remembered considered even as it is imprinted on the
is a high esteemer of the Unity of Christians and abhorreth the principles spirit and practises of Division 128 53. He seeketh the Churches unity and concord not upon partial unrighteous or impossible but upon the possible righteous terms here mentioned 139 54. He is of a mellow peaceable spirit not masterly domineering hurtfull unquiet or contentious 146 55. He highliest regardeth the interest of God and mens salvation in the world and regardeth no secular interest of his own or any mans but in subserviency thereto 152 56. He is usually hated for his Holiness by the wicked and censured for his Charity and Peaceableness by the factious and the weak and is moved by neither from the way of Truth 157 57. Though he abhor ungodly soul-destroying Ministers yet he reverenceth the Office as necessary to the Church and world and highly valueth the holy faithfull Labourers 159 58. He hath great Experience of the Providence Truth and Justice of God to fortifie him against temptations to Unbelief 161 59. Though he greatly desireth lively Affections and gifts yet he much more valueth the three Essential parts of holiness 1. A high estimation in the Understanding of God Christ Holiness and Heaven above all that be set in any competition 2. A resolved choice and adhesion of the Will to these above and against all competitors 3. The seeking them first in the endeavours of the life And by these be judgeth of the sincerity of his heart 162 60. He is all his life seriously preparing for his death as if it were at hand and is ready to receive the sentence with joy but especially he longeth for the blessed day of Christs appearing as the answer of all his desires and hopes 164 Six Uses of these Characters 170 THE CHARACTER OF 1 A Sound Confirmed Christian 2 And of the Weak Christian 3 And of the Seeming Christian. IN the Explication of the Text which I made the ground of the foregoing discourse I have shewed you that there is a Degree of Grace to be expected and sought after by all true Christians which putteth the Soul into a sound confirmed radicated state in comparison of that weak diseased tottering condition which most Christians now continue in And I have shewed you how desireable a state that is and what calamities follow the languishing unhealthfull state even of such as may be saved And indeed did we but rightly understand how deeply the errors and sins of many well-meaning Christians have wounded the interest of Religion in this age and how heynously they have dishonoured God and caused the enemies of holyness to blaspheme and hardened thousands in Popery and Ungodliness in probability to their perdition Had we well observed when Gods Judgements have begun and understood what sins have caused our Warres and Plagues and Flames and worse than all these our great heart-divisions and Church-distractions and convulsions we should ere this have given over the flattering of our selves and one another in such a Heaven-provoking state and the ostentation of that little goodness which hath been eclipsed by such lamentable evils And instead of these we should have betaken our selves to the exercise of such a serious deep Repentance as the quality of our sins and the greatness of Gods Chastisements do require It is a dolefull case to see how light many make of all the rest of their distempers when once they think that they have so much Grace and Mortification as is absolutely necessary to save their souls And expect that Preachers should say little to weak Christians but words of comfort setting forth their happiness And yet if one of them when he hath the Gout or Stone or Collick or Dropsie doth send for a Physitian he would think himself derided or abused if his Physitian instead of curing his disease should only comfort him by telling him that he is not dead What excellent disputations have Cicero and Seneca the Platonists and Stoicks to prove that Virtue is of it self sufficient to make Man happy And yet many Christians live as if Holiness were but the way and means to their felicity or at best but a small part of their felicity it self or as if felicity it self grew burdensome or were not desireable in this life or a small degree of it were as good as a greater And too many mistake the will of God and the nature of Sanctification and place their Religion in the hot prosecution of those mistakes They make a composition of error and passion and an unyielding stiffness in them and siding with the Church or party which maintaineth them and an uncharitable censuring those that are against them and an unpeaceable contending for them And this composition they mistake for Godliness especially if there be but a few drams of Godliness and Truth in the composition though corrupted and over-powered by the rest For these miscarriages of many well-meaning zealous persons the Land mourneth the Churches groan Kingdoms are disturbed by them Families are disquieted by them Godliness is hindered and much dishonoured by them the Wicked are hardened by them and encouraged to hate and blaspheme and oppose Religion the glory of the Christian Faith is obscured by them and the Infidel Mahometan and Heathen World are kept from Faith in Jesus Christ and many millions of Souls destroyed by them I mean by the miscarriages of the weaker sort of Christians and by the wicked lives of those carnal Hypocrites who for custome or worldly interest do profess that Christianity which was never received by their hearts And all this is much promoted by their indiscretion who are so intent upon the consolatory opening of the safety and happiness of Believers that they omit the due explication of their Description their Dangers and their Duties One part of this too much neglected work I have endeavoured to perform in the foregoing Treatise Another I shall attempt in this second Part There are five Degrees or ranks of true Christians observable 1. The Weakest Christians who have only the Essentials of Christianity or very little more As Infants that are alive but of little strength or use to others 2. Those that are lapsed into some wounding sin though not into a state of damnation Like men at age who have lost the use of some one member for the present though they are strong in other parts 3. Those that having the Integral parts of Christianity in a considerable measure are in a sound and healthfull state though neither perfect nor of the highest form or rank of Christians in this life nor without such infirmities as are the matter of their daily Watchfulness and Humiliation 4. Those that are so strong as to attain extraordinary degrees of grace who are therefore comparatively called Perfect as Mat. 5.45.5 Those that have an absolute Perfection without sin that is The Heavenly Inhabitants Among all these it is the third sort or degree which I have here characterized and upon the by the first sort and the Hypocrite
irrational creatures but at least it much imitateth Nature as it is found in Rational creatures where the Inclination is necessary but the Operations free and subject to Reason It is a spiritual appetite in the Rational appetite even the will and a spiritual visive disposition in the understanding Not a faculty in a faculty but the right disposition of the faculties to their highest objects to which they are by corruption made unsuitable So that it is neither a proper power in the Natural sense nor a meer act but neerest to the nature of a seminal disposition or habit It is the health and rectitude of the faculties of the Soul Even as Nature hath made the understanding disposed to Truth in generall and the will disposed or inclined to Good in generall and to self-preservation and felicity in particular so the Spirit of Christ doth dispose the understanding to spiritual truth to know God and the matters of salvation and doth incline the will to God and Holiness not blindly as they are unknown but to love and serve a known God So that whether this be properly or only analogically called A Nature or rather should be called a Habit I determine not but certainly it is a fixed Disposition and Inclination which Scripture calleth the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 and the seed of God abiding in us 1 Joh. 3.9 But most usually it is called the Spirit of God or of Christ in us Rom. 8.9 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his 1 Cor. 12.13 By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body Therefore we are said to be in the Spirit and walk after the Spirit and by the Spirit to mortifie the deeds of the Body Rom. 8.1.9 13. And it is called the Spirit of the Son and the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father or are inclined to God as Children to their Father and the Spirit of grace and supplication Rom. 8.15.23.26 Gal. 4.6 5.17 18. Eph. 2.18 22. 4.3 4. Phil. 1.27 2.1 Zech. 12.10 From this Spirit and the fruits of it we are called New Creatures and quickened and made alive to God 2 Cor. 5.17 Eph. 2.15 Rom. 6.11 13. It is a great controversie whether this Holy disposition and inclination was Natural to Adam or not and consequently whether it be a restored nature in us or not It was so natural to him as Health is natural to the body but not so natural as to be a Necessitating Principle nor so as to be inseparable and unlosable 2. This same Spirit and holy inclination is in the weakest Christian also but in a small degree and remisly operating so as that the fleshly inclination oft seemeth to be the stronger when he judgeth by its passionate struglings within him Though indeed the Spirit of life doth not only strive but conquer in the main even in the weakest Christians Rom. 8 9. Gal. 5.17 18 19 20 21. 3. The seeming Christian hath only the uneffectual motions of the Spirit to a Holy Life and effectual motions and inward dispositions to some common duties of Religion And from these with the natural principles of self-love and common honesty with the outward perswasions of company and advantages his Religion is maintained without the Regeneration of the Spirit Joh. 3.6 V. From hence it followeth 1. That a Christian indeed doth not serve God for fear only but for love even for love both of himself and of his holy work and service Yea the strong Christians Love to God and Holiness is not only greater than his Love to Creatures but greater than his fear of wrath and punishment The Love of God constraineth him to duty 2 Cor. 5.14 Love is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 therefore the Gospel cannot be obeyed without it He saith not O that this were no duty and O that this forbidden thing were lawfull Though his Flesh say so the Spirit which is the predominant part doth not But he saith O how I love thy Law O that my wayes were so directed that I might keep thy statutes Psal. 119.5 For the spirit is willing even when the flesh is weak He serveth not God against his will but his will is to serve him more and better than he doth He longeth to be perfect and perfectly to do the will of God and taketh the remnant of his sinfull infirmities to be a kind of bondage to him which he groaneth to be delivered from To will even perfection is present with him though not perfectly and though he do not all that he willeth And this is the true meaning of Pauls complaints Rom. 7. Because the flesh warreth against the Spirit he cannot do the good that he would that is he cannot be perfect for so he would be Gal. 5.17 His love and will excells his practice 2. The weak Christian also hath more love to God and holiness than to the world and fleshly pleasure But yet his fear of punishment is greater than his Love to God and Holiness To have no Love to God is inconsistent with a state of Grace and so it is to have less love to God than to the world and less love to holiness than to sin But to have more Fear than Love is consistent with sincerity of Grace Yea the weak Christians love to God and Holiness is joyned with so much backwardness and aversness and interrupted with weariness and with the carnall allurements and diversions of the Creature that he cannot certainly perceive whether his love and willingness be sincere or not He goeth on in a course of duty but so heavily that he scarce knoweth whether his love or loathing of it be the greater He goeth to it as a sick man to his meat or labour All that he doth is with so much pain or undisposedness that to his feeling his aversness seemeth greater than his willingness were it not that necessity maketh him willing For the habitual love and complacency which he hath towards God and Duty is so oppressed by fear and by aversness that it is not so much felt in act as they 3. A seeming Christian hath no true Love of God and Holiness at all but some uneffectual liking and wishes which are overborn by a greater backwardness and by a greater love to earthly things so that Fear alone without any true effectual Love is the spring and principle of his Religion and obedience God hath not his heart when he draweth near him with his lips He doth more than he would do if he were not forced by Necessity and Fear and had rather be excused and lead another kind of life Mat. 15.8 Isa. 29.13 Though Necessity and fear are very helpfull to the most sincere yet Fear alone without Love or Willingness is a graceless state VI. 1. A Christian indeed doth love God in these three gradations He loveth him much for his mercy to himself and for that Goodness which consisteth in benignity to himself But he
friend who dealeth freely with him and is the greatest enemy to his faults And a flatterer he taketh but for the most dangerous insinuating kind of foe 2. But the weak Christian though he hate his sin and love reformation and loveth the most searching Books and Preachers and loveth a gentle kind of reproof yet hath so much pride and selfishness remaining that any reproof that seemeth disgracefull to him goeth very hardly down with him like a bitter medicine to a queasie stomack If you reprove him before others or if your reproof be not very carefully sugured and minced so that it rather extenuate than aggravate his fault he will be ready to cast it up into your face and with retortions to tell you of some faults of your own or some way shew you how little he loveth it and how little thanks he giveth you for it If you will not let him alone with his infirmities he will distaste you if not fall out with you and let you know by his smart and impatience that you have touched him in the sore and galled place He must be a man of very great skill in managing a Reproof that shall not somewhat provoke him to distaste 3. And for the seeming Christian this is his condemnation that Light is come into the world and he loveth darkness rather than light because his deeds are evil He cometh not to the light lest his deeds should be discovered and reproved Joh. 3.19 20 21. He liketh a searching Preacher for others and loveth to hear their sins laid open if it no way reflect upon himself But for himself he liketh best a General or a smoothing Preacher and he flyeth from a quick and searching ministry lest he should be proved and convinced to be in a state of sin and misery Guilt maketh him fear or hate a lively searching Preacher even as the guilty prisoner hateth the Judge He loveth no company so well as that which thinketh highly of him and applaudeth and commendeth him and neither by their reproofes nor stricter lives will trouble his conscience with the remembrance of his sin or the knowledge of his misery He will take you for his enemy for telling him the truth if you go about to convince him of his undone condition and tell him of his beloved sin Sin is taken to be as himself It is He that doth evil and not only sin that dwelleth in him And therefore all that you say against his sin he taketh it as spoken against himself and he will defend his sin as he would defend himself He will hear you till you come to touch himself as the Jews did by Stephen Act. 7.51 54. when they heard him call them stiffnecked resisters of God and persecutors then they were cut to the heart and grind their teeth at him And as they did by Paul Act. 22.22 They gave audience to this word and then lift up their voices and said away with such a fellow from the earth for it is not fit that he should live Gal. 4.16 Joh 9.40 Mat. 21.45 The priests and pharisees would have laid hands on Christ when they perceived that he spake of them And Ahab hated Michaiah because he did not prophesie good of him but evil 1 King 22.8 Deservedly do they perish in their sin and misery that hate him that would deliver them and refuse the remedy Prov. 12.1 Whose loveth instruction loveth knowledge but he that hateth reproof is bruitish Prov. 29.1 He that being often reproved hardneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy XII 1. A Christian indeed is one that unfeignedly desireth to attain to the highest degree of holiness and to be perfectly freed from every thing that is sin He desireth perfection though not with a perfect desire He sitteth not down contentedly in any low degree of grace He looketh on the holiest how poor soever with much more reverence and esteem than on the most rich and honourable in the world And he had far rather be one of the most holy than one of the most prosperous and great He had rather be a Paul or Timothy than a Caesar or an Alexander He complaineth of nothing with so much sorrow as that he can Know and Love his God no more How happy an exchange would he count it if he had more of the Knowledge and Love of God though he lost all his wealth and honour in the world His smallest sins are a greater burden to him than his greatest corporal wants and sufferings As Paul who because he could not perfectly fulfill Gods Law and be as good as he would be crieth out as in bondage O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death Rom. 7.27 2. And for the weak Christian though he is habitually and resolvedly of the same mind yet alas his desires after perfection are much more languid in him And he hath too much patience and reconciledness to some of his sins and sometimes taketh them to be sweet So that his enmity to his Pride or Coveteousness or passion is much abated and suffereth his sin to wast his grace and wound his conscience and hinder much of his communion with God He seeth not the odiousness of sin nor the beauty of Holiness with so clear a fight as the confirmed Christian doth He hateth sin more for the ill effects of it than for its malignant hateful nature He seeth not clearly the intrinsick evil that is in sin which maketh it deserve the pains of hell Nor doth he discern the difference between a holy and an unholy soul so clearly as the stronger Christian doth 1 Cor. 3.2 3. Heb. 12.1 3. And as for the seeming Christian though he may approve of perfect holiness in another and may wish for it himself when he thinketh of it but in the general and not as it is exclusive and destructive of his beloved sin yet when it cometh to particulars he cannot away with it He is so far from desiring it that he will not endure it The name of holiness he liketh and that preservation from Hell which is the consequent of it But when he understandeth what it is he hath no mind of it That holiness which should cure his ambition and pride and make him contented with a low condition he doth not like He loveth not that holiness which would deprive him of his coveteousness his intemperance in pleasant meats and drinks his fleshly lusts and inordinate pleasures Nor doth he desire that holiness should employ his soul in the Love of God and in daily prayer and meditating on his word and raise him to a heavenly life on earth XIII 1. A Christian indeed is one that maketh God and Heaven the End Reward and Motive of his Life And liveth not in the world for any thing in the world but for that endless happiness which the next world only can afford The Reasons which actuate his thoughts and choice and all his life are
care for your state for all seek their own not the things which are Jesus Christs that is They too much seek their own and not entirely enough the things that are Christs which Timothy did naturally as if he had been born to it and Grace had made the Love of Christ and the souls of men and the good of others as naturall to him as the Love of himself Alas how lowdly do their own distempers and soul miscarriages and the divisions and calamities of the Church proclaim that the weaker sort of Christians have yet too much selfishness and that selfdenial is lamentably imperfect in them 3. But in the seeming Christian selfishness is still the predominant principle he loveth God but for himself and he never had any higher end than self All his Religion his opinions his practice is animated by self-love and governed by it even by the Love of carnal self self-esteem self-conceitedness self-love self-willedness self-seeking and self-saving are the constitution of his heart and life He will be of that opinion and way and party in Religion which selfishness directeth him to choose He will go no farther in Religion than self-interest and safety will allow him to go He can change his friend and turn his love into hatred and his praises into reproach when ever self-interest shall require it He can make himself believe and labour to make others believe that the wisest and holiest servants of God are erroneous homorous hypocrites and unsufferable if they do but stand cross to his opinions and interest For he judgeth of them and loveth or hateth them principally as they conform to his will and interest or as they are against it As the godly measure all persons and things by the will and interest of God so do all ungodly men esteem them as they stand in reference to themselves When their factious interest required it the Jews and specially the Pharisees could make themselves and others believe that the Son of God himself was a breaker of the Law and an enemy to Caesar and a blasphemer and unworthy to live on the earth And that Paul was a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among the people and a ringleader of a sect and a prophaner of the Temple Act. 24.5 6. and which of the Prophets and Apostles did they not persecute Because Christs doctrine doth cross the interest of selfish men therefore the world doth so generally rise up against it with indignation even as a Country will rise against an invading enemy For he cometh to take away that which is dearest to them As it is said of Luther that he medled with the Popes crown and the Fryars bellies and therefore no wonder if they swarmed all about his ears Selfishness is so generall and deeply rooted that except with a few self-denying Saints self-love and self-interest ruleth the world And if you would know how to please a graceless man serve but his carnal interest and you have done it Be of his opinion or take on you to be so applaud him admire him flatter him obey him promote his preferment honour and wealth be against his enemies in a word make him your God and sell your soul to gain his favour and so it 's possible you may gain it XVI 1. A Christian indeed hath so far mortified the flesh and brought all his senses and appetite into subjection to sanctified Reason as that there is no great rebellion or perturbation in his mind but a little matter a holy thought or a word from God doth presently rebuke and quiet his inordinate desires The flesh is as a well-broken and well-ridden horse that goeth on his journey obediently and quietly and not with striving and chasing and vexatious resisting Though still flesh will be flesh and will be weak and will fight against the spirit so that we cannot do all the good we would Isa. 5.17 Rom. 7.16 17 c. yet in the confirmed Christian it is so far tamed and subdued that its rebellion is much less and its resistance weaker and more easily overcome It causeth not any notable unevenness in his obedience nor blemishes in his life it is no other than consisteth with a readiness to obey the will of God Gal. 5.24 25. 1 Cor. 9.26 27. They that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof They run not as uncertainly they fight not as one that beateth the air but they keep under their bodies and bring them into subjection lest by any means they should be castawaies They put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof Rom. 13.13 14. As we see to a temperate man how sweet and easie temperance is when to a glutton or drunkard or riotous liver it is exceeding hard so it is in all other points with a confirmed Christian. He hath so far crucified the flesh that it is as dead to its former lusts and so far mastered it that it doth easily and quickly yield And this maketh the life of such a Christian not only pure but very easie to him in comparison of other mens Nay more than this he can use his sense as he can use the world the objects of sense in subserviency to faith and his salvation His eye doth but open a window to his mind to hold and admire the Creator in his work His tast of the sweetness of the creatures is but a means by which the sweeter Love of God doth pass directly to his heart His sense of pleasure is but the passage of spiritual holy pleasure to his mind His sense of bitterness and pain is but the messenger to tell his heart of the bitterness and vexatiousness of sin As God in the creation of us made our senses but as the inlet and passage for himself into our minds even as he made all the creatures to represent him to us by this passage so grace doth restore our very senses with the creature to this their holy original use that the goodness of God through the goodness of the creature may pass to our hearts and be the effect and end of all 2. But for the weak Christian though he have mortified the deeds of the body by the spirit and live not after the flesh but be freed from its captivity or reign Gal. 5.24 Rom. 8.1 7 8 9 10 11 12 13. yet hath he such remnants of concupiscence and sensuality as make it a far harder matter to him to live in temperance and deny his appetite and govern his senses and restrain them from rebellion and excess He is like a weak man upon an ill-ridden headstrong horse who hath much ado to keep his saddle and keep his way He is stronglier inclined to fleshly lusts or excess in meat or drink or sleep or sports or some such fleshly pleasure than the mortified temperate person is and therefore is ofter guilty of some excess so that his life is a very tiresome
yet to manage assurance well and therefore it is that it is not given him Graces must grow proportionably together If he be but confidently perswaded that he is justified and shall be saved he is very apt to gather some consequence from it that tendeth to security and to the remitting of his watchfulness and care He is ready to be the bolder with sin and stretch his conscience and omit some duties and take more fleshly liberty and ease and think Now I am a child of God I am out of danger I am sure I cannot totally fall away And though his judgement conclude not therefore I may venture further upon worldly fleshly pleasures and need not be so strict and diligent as I was yet his heart and practice thus conclude And he is most obedient when he is most in fear of hell and he is worst in his heart and life when he is most confident that all his danger is past Heb. 4.1 2. 3.14 15.16 3. But the seeming Christian though he have no assurance is hardned in his carnal state by his presumption Had he but assurance to be saved without a holy life he would cast off that very image of godliness which he yet retaineth The conceit of his own sincerity and salvation is that which deludeth and undoeth him What sin would not gain or pleasure draw him to commit if he were but sure to be forgiven It is fear of hell that causeth that seeming religion which he hath And therefore if that fear be gone all is gone and all his piety and diligence and righteousness is come to nought Gal. 6.3 Joh. 8.39 42 44. XXVI 1. For all his assurance a confirmed Christian is so well acquainted with his manifold imperfections and daily failings and great unworthiness that he is very low and vile in his owne eyes and therefore can easily endure to be low and vile in the eyes of others He hath a constant sense of the burden of his remaining sin Especially he doth even abhor himself when he findeth the averseness of his heart to God and how little he knoweth of him and how little he loveth him in comparison of what he ought and how little of Heaven is upon his heart and how strange and backward his thoughts are to the life to come These are as fetters upon his soul He daily groaneth under them as a captive that he should be yet so carnal and unable to shake off the remnant of his infimities as if he were sold under sin that is in bondage to it Rom. 7.14 He hateth himself more for the imperfections of his love and obedience to God than hypocrites do for their reigning sin And O how he longeth for the day of his deliverance Rom. 7.24 He thinketh it no great injury for another to judge of him as he judgeth of himself even to be less than the least of all Gods mercies He is more troubled for being over praised and overvalued than for being dispraised and vilified as thinking those that praise him are more mistaken and lay the more dangerous snare for his soul. For he hath a special antipathy to pride and wondreth that any rational man can be so blind as not to see enough to humble him For his own part in the midst of all Gods graces he seeth in himself so much darkness imperfection corruption and want of further grace that he is loathsom and burdensom continually to himself If you see him sad or troubled and ask him the cause it is ten to one but it is himself that he complaineth of The frowardest wife the most undutiful child the most disobedient servant the most injurious neighbour the most malicious enemy is not half so great a trouble to him as he is to himself He prayeth abundantly more against his own corruption than against any of these O could he but know and love God more and be more in heaven and willinger to die and freer from his own distempers how easily could he bear all crosses or injuries from others He came to Christs school as a little child Mat. 18.3 And still he is little in his own esteem And therefore disesteem and contempt from others is no great matter with him He thinks it can be no great wrong that is done against so poor a worm and so unworthy a sinner as himself except as God or the souls of men may be interested in the cause He heartily approveth of the justice of God in abhorring the proud and hath learned that Rom. 12.10 in honour preferring one another and Gal. 5.26 Let us not be desirous of vain glory provoking one another envying one another 2. But the remnant of Pride is usually the most notable sin of the weak Christian Though it reigneth not it souly blemisheth him He would fain be taken for some body in the Church He is ready to step up into a higher room and to think himself wiser and better than he is If he can but speak confidently of the principles of Religion and some few controversies which he hath made himself sick with he is ready to think himself fit to be a preacher He looketh through a magnifying glass upon all his own performances and gifts He loveth to be valued and praised He can hardly bear to be slighted and dispraised but is ready to think hardly of those that do it if not to hate them in some degree He loveth not to be found fault with though it be necessary to his amendment And though all this vice of pride be not so predominant in him as to conquer his humility yet doth it much obscure and interrupt it And though he hate this his pride and strive against it and lamenteth it before God yet still it is the forest ulcer in his soul And should it prevail and overcome him he would be abhorred of God and it would be his ruine 2 Chro. 16.10 12. Luk. 22.24 25 26. 3. But in the Hypocrite Pride is the reigning sin The praise of men is the aire which he liveth in He was never well acquainted with himself and never felt aright the burden of his sins and wants and therefore cannot bear contempt from others Indeed if his corrupt disposition turn most to the way of coveteousness tyranny or lust he can the easier bear contempt from others as long as he hath his will at home and he can spare their love if he can be but feared and domineer But still his Pride is predominant and when it affecteth not much the reputation of goodness it affecteth the name of being rich or great Sin may make him sordid but grace doth not make him humble Pride is the vital spirit of the corrupted state of man XXVII 1. A confirmed Christian is acquainted with the deceitfulness of mans heart and the particular corrupt inclinations that are in it and especially with his own and he is acquainted with the wiles and methods of the tempter and what are the materials which he maketh his
Earth or Hell can undo him He is more carefull of his duty to his Prince his Parents his Pastor or his Master than of theirs to him he is much more unwilling to be disobedient to them in any lawfull thing or to dishonour them than to be oppressed or unjustly afflicted or abused by them And all this is because he knoweth that sin is worse than present suffering and that he is not to answer for other mens sins but for his own nor shall he be condemned for the sins of any but himself And that many millions are condemned for wronging others but no one for being wronged by others 1 Pet. 4 12 13 14 15 16. Matth. 5.10 11 12. 1 Pet. 2.13 15 16 17. 2. And the weak Christian is of the same mind in the main but with so much imperfection that he is much more frequent in censuring others and complaining of their wrongs and finding fault with them and aggravating all that is said or done against himself when he is hardly made so sensible of as great miscarriages in himself as having much more uncharitableness partiality and selfishness than a confirmed Christian hath There are few things which weakness of Grace doth more ordinarily appear in than this partiality and selfishness in judging of the faults or duties of others and of his own How apt are not only Hypocrites but weak Christians to aggravate all that is done against them and to extenuate or justifie all that they do against another O what a noyse they make of it if they think that any one hath wronged them defamed them disparaged them or incroached on their right If God himself be blasphemed or abused they can more patiently bear it and make not so great a matter of it Who heareth of such angry complaints on Gods behalf as on mens own Of such passionate invectives such sharp prosecutions against those that wrong both God and mens Souls as against those that wrong a selfish person And usually every man seemeth to wrong him who keepeth from him any thing which he would have or saith any thing of him which is displeasing to him Go to the Assizes and Courts of Justice look into the Prisons and enquire whether it be Zeal for God or for mens selves which is the Plaintiff and Prosecutor and whether it be for wronging God or them that all the stirre is made Men are ready to say God is sufficient to right himself As if he were not the Original and the End of Laws and Government and Magistrates were not his Officers to promote obedience to Him in the World At this time how universal is mens complaint against their Governors how common are the cryes of the poor and sufferers of the greatness of their burdens miseries and wants But how few lament the sins against Government which this Land hath been sadly guilty of The Pastors complain of the Peoples contempt The People complain of the Pastors insufficiency and lives The Master complaineth how hard it is to get good Servants that will mind their business and profit as if it were their own Servants complain of their Masters for over-labouring them or using them too hardly Landlords say that their Tenants cheat them And Tenants say that their Landlords oppress and grind them But if you were Christians indeed the commonest and saddest complaints would be against your selves I am not so good a Ruler so peaceable a Subject so good a Landlord so good a Tenant so good a Master so good a Servant as I ought to be Your Rulers sin your Subjects sin your Landlords sin your Tenants sin your Masters sin your Servants sin shall not be charged upon you in Judgement nor condemn you but your own sin How much more therefore should you fear and feel and complain of your own than of theirs 3. As for the seeming Christian I have told you already that selfishness is his nature and predominant constitution And according to self-interest he judgeth of almost all things of the faults and duties of others and himself And therefore no man seemeth honest or innocent to him who displeaseth him and is against his wordly interest Cross him about Mine and Thine and he will beknave the honestest man alive and call his ancient friend his enemy But of his dealings with them he is not so scrupulous nor so censorious of himself XXXV 1. A Christian indeed is much taken up in the Government of his Thoughts and hath them so much ordinarily in obedience that God and his service and the matters of his salvation have that precedency in them and his eye is fixed on his end and duty And his thoughts refuse not to serve him for any work of God to which he calleth them He suffereth them not to be the in-lets or agents for Pride or Lust or Envy or Voluptuousness or to contrive iniquity But if any such sparks from Hell are cast into his thoughts he presently laboureth to extinguish them If they intrude he letteth them not lodge or dwell there And though he cannot keep out all disorder or vanity or inordinate delights yet is it his endeavour and he leaveth not his heart in any thing to it self 2. The weak Christian also maketh conscience of his thoughts and alloweth them not to be the in-lets or servants of any reigning sin But alas how imperfectly doth he govern them what a deal of vanity and confusion is in them how carelesly doth he watch them how remisly doth he rebuke them excite them and command them how oft are they defiled with impurity and uncharitableness And how little doth he repent of this or endeavour to reform it And little serviceable are his thoughts to any high and heavenly work in comparison of the confirmed Christian 3. And the seeming Christian is very little employed about his Thoughts but leaveth them to be the servants of his pride and worldlyness or sensuality or some reigning sin Psal. 10.4 Matth. 15.19 1 Cor. 3.20 Isa. 55.7 Jer. 4.14 and 6.19 XXXVI 1. A Christian indeed is much employed in the Government of his passions and hath so far mastered them as that they prevail not to pervert his Judgement nor to discompose his heart so farre as to interrupt much his communion with God nor to ensnare his heart to any Creature nor to breed any fixed uncharitableness or malice in him nor to cause his tongue to speak things injurious to God or Man to curse or swear or rail or lie nor yet to cause him to hurt and injure any in his heart But when passion would be inordinate either in delights or desires or anger or grief or fear or hope he flyeth to his helps to suppress and govern them Though fear is more out of mans power than the rest and therefore ordinarily hath less of sin He knoweth that Christ hath blessed the meek Matth. 5.5 and bid us learn of him to be meek and lowly Matth. 11.28 29. And that a meek and quiet spirit is
in the sight of God of great price 1 Pet. 3.4 It is therefore his care and course to give place to wrath when others are angry Rom. 12.18 19. and if it be possible as much as in him lyeth to live peaceably with all men Yea to follow peace when it flyeth from him Heb. 12.14 And not when he is reviled to revile again nor to threaten or revenge himself on them that injure him 1 Pet. 2.21 22 23 24. Reason and Charity hold the reins and passion is kept under Yea it is used holily for God Eph. 4.26 Slow to anger he is in his own cause and watchfull over his anger even in Gods cause Prov. 15.18 and 16.32 Eph. 4.31 Col. 3.8 2. But the weak Christian doth greatly shew his weakness in his unruly passions if he have a temper of body disposed to passion They are oft rising and not easily kept under Yea and too often prevail for such unseemly words as maketh him become a dishonour to his profession Oft he resolveth and promiseth and prayeth for help and yet the next provocation sheweth how little Grace he hath to hold the reins And his passionate Desires and Delights and Love and Sorrows are oft as unruly as his anger to the further weakning of his Soul They are like Ague fits that leave the health impaired 3. And the seeming Christian hath much less power over those Passions which must subserve his carnal minde For Anger it dependeth much upon the temperature of the body and if that incline him not strongly to it his credit or common discretion may suppress it Unless you touch his chiefest carnal interest and then he will not only be angry but cruel malicious and revengefull But his carnal Love and Desire and Delight which are placed upon that pleasure or profit or honour which is his Idol are indeed the reigning passions in him and his grief and fear and anger are but the servants unto these Act. 24.26 27. XXXVII 1. A Christian indeed is one that keepeth a constant Government of his Tongue He knoweth how much duty or sin it will be the instrument of According to his ability and opportunity he useth it to the service and honour of his Creator In speaking of his Excellencies his Works and Word inquiring after the knowledge of him and his will instructing others and pleading for the Truth and wayes of God and rebuking the impiety and inquities of the world as his place and calling doth allow him He bridleth his Tongue from uttering vanity filthiness ribbaldry foolish and uncomely talk and jests from rash and unreverent talk of God and taking of his Name in vain from the venting of undigested and uncertain doctrines which may prove erroneous and perillous to mens souls from speaking imprudently unhandsomly or unseasonably about holy things so as to expose them to contempt and scorn from lying censuring others without a warrantable ground and call from backbiting slandering false accusing railing and reviling malicious envyous injurious speech which tendeth to extinguish the love of the hearers to those he speaketh of from proud and boasting speeches of himself much more from swearing cursing and blasphemous speech and opposition to the Truths and holy wayes of God or opprobrious speeches or derision of his servants And in the Government of his Tongue he alwayes beginneth with his heart that he may understand and love the good which he speaketh of and may hate the evil which his tongue forbeareth and not hypocritically to force his tongue against or without his heart His tongue doth not run before his heart but is ruled by it Eph. 4.15.31.29 and 5.3.4.6 Psal. 37.30 15.2 3. Prov. 16.13 and 10.20 21.23 18.21 15.2.4 Psal. 34.13 Prov. 25.15 23. 28.23 Matth. 12.31 32 34. 2. But the weak Christian though his tongue be sincerely subject to the Laws of God yet frequently miscarryeth and blemisheth his Soul by the words of his lips being much ofter than the confirmed Christian overtaken with words of vanity medling folly imprudence uncharitableness wrath boasting venting uncertain or erroneous opinions c. so that the unruliness of his tongue is the trouble of his heart if not also of the Family and all about him 3. The seeming Christian useth his tongue in the service of his carnal ends and therefore alloweth it so much unjustice uncharitableness falshood and other sins as his carnal interest and designs require But the rest perhaps he may suppress especially if natural sobriety good education and prudence do assist him And his tongue is alwayes better than his heart Pro. 10.32 19.5.9 Ps. 50.20 12.3 144.8 120.2 3. Prov. 21.6.23 XXXVIII 1. The Religious discourse of a confirmed Christian is most about the greatest and most necessary matters Heart-work and heaven-work are the usual employment of his Tongue and Thoughts unprofitable Controversies and hurtfull wranglings he abhorreth And profitable Controversies he manageth sparingly seasonably charitably peaceably and with caution and sobriety as knowing that the servant of the Lord must not strive and that strife of words perverteth the hearers and hindereth edifying 1 Tim. 6.4 5 6. and 4.7 8. 2 Tim. 2.14 15 16 17 24 25. His ordinary discourse is about the Glorious Excellencies Attributes Relations and works of God and the Mysterie of Redemption the Person Office Covenant and Grace of Christ the renewing illuminating sanctifying works of the Holy Ghost the Mercies of this life and that to come the Duty of Man to God as his Creator Redeemer and Regenerater the corruption and deceitfulness of the Heart the methods of the Tempter the danger of particular Temptations and the means of our escape and of our growth in Grace and how to be profitable to others and especially to the Church And if he be called to open any Truth which others understand not he doth it not proudly to set up himself as the Master of a Sect or to draw Disciples after him nor make divisions about it in the Church but soberly to the edification of the weak And though he be ready to defend the Truth against perverse gainsayers in due season yet doth he not turn his ordinary edifying discourse into Disputes or talk of Controversies nor hath such a proud pugnacious Soul as to assault every one that he thinks erroneous as a man that taketh himself for the great champion of the truth 2. But the weak Christian hath a more unfruitful wandring tongue And his religious discourse is most about his opinions or party or some external thing As which is the best preacher or person or book or if he talk of any text of scripture or doctrine of Religion it is much of the outside of it and his discourse is less feeling lively and experimental yea many a time he hindereth the more edifying savoury discourse of others by such religious discourse as is imprudent impertinent or turneth them away from the heart and life of the matter in hand But
especially his opinions and distinct manner of worship are the chief of his discourse 3. And for the seeming Christian though he can affectedly force his tongue to talk of any subject in religion especially that which he thinks will most honour him in the esteem of the hearers yet when he speaketh according to the inclination of his heart his discourse is first about his fleshly interest and concernments and next to that of the meer externals of religion as controversies parties and the severall modes of worship XXXIX 1. A Christian indeed is one that so liveth upon the great sustantial matters of Religion as yet not willingly to commit the smallest sin nor to own the smallest falsehood nor to renounce or betray the smallest holy truth or duty for any price that man can offer him The works of Repentance Faith and Love are his daily business which take up his greatest care and diligence Whatever opinions or controversies are a foot his work is still the same whatever changes come his Religion changeth not He placeth not the Kingdom of God in meats and drinks and circumstances and ceremonies either being for them or against them but in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost and he that in these things serveth Christ as he is acceptable to God so is he approved by such a Christian as this however factious persons may revile him Rom. 14.17 18 1 2 3 4 5 10. The strong Christian can bear the infirmities of the weak and not take the course that most pleaseth himself but that which pleaseth his neighbour for his good to edification Rom. 15.1 2 3. The essentials of Religion Faith and Love and obedience are as Bread and drink the substance of his food These he meditateth on and these he practiseth and according to these he esteemeth of others But yet no price can seem sufficient to him to buy his innocency Nor will he willfully sin and say it is a little one nor do evil that good may come by it nor offer to God the sacrifice of disobedient fools and then say I knew not that I did evil For he knoweth that God will rather have obedience than sacrifice and that disobedience is as the sin of witchcraft And he that breaketh one of the least commands and teacheth men so shall be called Least in the Kingdom of God And he that teacheth men to sin by the example of his own practice can little expect to turn them from sin by his better instructions and exhortations He that will deliberately sin in a small matter doth set but a small price on the favour of God and his salvation Willfull disobedience is odious to God how small soever the matter be about which it is committed Who can expect that he should stick at any sin when his temptation is great who will considerately commit the least especially if he will approve and justifie it Therefore the sound Christian will rather forsake his riches his liberty his reputation his friends and his country than his conscience and rather lay down libertie and life it self than choose to sin against his God as knowing that never man gained by his sin Rom. 3.8 Eccl. 5.2 1 Sam. 15.15 21 22 23. Mat. 5.19 The sin that Saul was rejected for seemed but a little thing nor the sin that Vzzah was slain for and the service of God even his sacrifice and his ark were the pretence for both The sin of the Bethshemites of Achan of Gebezi of Ananias and Saphira which had grievous punishments would seem but little things to us And it is a great aggravation of our sin to be chosen deliberate justified and fathered upon God and to pretend that we do it for his service for the worshiping of him or the doing good to others as if God would own and bless sinful means or needed a lie to his service or glory When he hateth all the workers of iniquity Psal. 5.5 and requireth only the sacrifices of righteousness Psal. 4.5 He abhorreth sacrifice from polluted hands they are to him as the offering a dog and he will ask who hath required this at your hand see Psal. 50.8.4 Isa. 1.9 10 11 12. c. 58.1 2 3 4. c. Jer. 6.19.20 The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to the Lord Prov. 15.8 21.27 It is not pleasing to him all that eat thereof shall be polluted Ho. 9.4 See Isa. 66.1 2 3 4 5 6. The preaching the praying the sacraments of wilful sinners especially when they choose sin as necessary to his service are a scorn and mockery put upon the most Holy one As if your servant should set dung and carrion before you on your table for your food such offer Christ vinegar and gall to drink 2. In all this the weakest Christian that is sincere is of the same mind saving that in his ordinary course he useth to place too much of his Religion in controversies and parties and modes and ceremonies whether being for them or against them and allow too great a proportion in his thoughts and speech and zeal and practice and hindereth the growth of his grace by living upon less edifying things and turnning too much from the more substantial nutriment 3. And the seeming Christians are here of different wayes One sort of them place almost all their Religion in Pharisaical observation of little external ceremonial matters as their washings and fastings and tythings and formalities and the traditions of the Elders Or in their several opinions and wayes and parties which they call Being of the true Church As if their sect were all the Church But living to God in faith and love and in a Heavenly conversation and worshipping him in spirit and truth they are utterly unacquainted with The other sort are truly void of these essential parts of Christianity in the life and power as well as the former But yet being secretly resolved to take up no more of Christianity than will consist with their worldly prosperity and ends when any sin seemeth necessary to their preferment or safety in the world their way is to pretend their high esteem of greater matters for the swallowing of such a sin as an inconsiderable thing And then they extol those larger souls that live not upon circumstantials but upon the great and common truths and duties and pitty those men of narrow principles and spirits who by unnecessary scrupulosity make sin of that which is no sin and expose themselves to needless trouble And they would make themselves and others believe that it is their excellency and wisdom to be above such trifling scruples And all is because they never took God and Heaven for their All and therefore are resolved never to lose all for the hopes of Heaven and therefore to do that whatever it be which their worldly interest shall require and not to be of any religion that will undo them And three great pretences are effectual means in this their deceit One is
is made to shine upon the world he could not be content to live idly or to labour unprofitably or to get never so much to himself and live in never so much plenty himself unless he some way contribute to the good of others Not that he grudgeth at the smallness of his talents and lowness or obscurity of his place for he knoweth that God may dispose his creatures and talents as he please and that where much is given much is required Mat. 25. Luk. 12.48 19.23 But what his Lord hath entrusted him with he is loth to hide and willing to improve to his Masters use He is so far from thinking that God is beholden to him for his good works that he taketh it for one of his greatest mercies in the world that God will use him in doing any good And he would take it for a very great suffering to be deprived of such opportunities or turned out of service or called to less of that kind of duty If he were a Physitian and denied liberty to practice or a minister and denied liberty to preach it would far more trouble him that he is hindered from doing good than that he is deprived of any profits or honours to himself He doth not only comfort himself with the foresight of the reward but in the very doing of good he findeth so much pleasure as makeeth him think it the delightfullest life in the world And he looketh for most of his receivings from God in a way of duty Joh. 5.29 Gal. 6.10 Heb. 13.16 1 Pet. 3.11 2. But the weak Christian though he have the same disposition is far less profitable in the world He is more for himself and less able to do good to others He wanteth either parts or prudence or zeal or strength Yea he is oft like the infants and sick persons of a family that are not helpful but troublesome to the rest They find work for the stronger Christians to bear their infirmities and watch them and support and help them Indeed as an infant is a comfort to the mother through the power of her own love even when she endureth the trouble of its crying and uncleaness so weak Christians are a comfort to charitable ministers and people we are glad that they are alive but sadded often by their distempers Rom. 14.1 15.12 3. The seeming Christian liveth to himself and all his good works are done but for himself to keep up his credit or quiet his guilty conscience and deceive himself with the false hopes of a reward for that which his falseheartedness maketh to be his sin If he be a man of learning and good parts he may be very serviceable to the Church But the thanks of that is due to God and little to him who seeketh himself more than God or the good of others in all that he doth Mat. 25 24 25 26. XLII 1. A Christian indeed doth truly love his neighbour as himself He is not all for his own commodity His neighbours profit or good name is as his own He feeleth himself hurt when his neighbours is hurt And if his neighbour prosper he rejoyceth as if he prospered himself Though his neighbour be not united to him in the nearest bonds of Christianity or Piety yet he is not disregardfull of the common Vnity of Humanity Love is the very soul of life Lev. 19.18 Mat. 19.19 22.39 Rom. 13.9 Gal. 5.14 Jam. 2.8 Mark 10.21 1 Joh. 4.10 2. But the Love that is in weaker Christians though it be sincere is weak as they are and mixed with too much selfishness and with too much sowerness and wrath Little matters cause differences and fallings out When it cometh to MINE and THINE and their neighbours cross their interest or commodity or stand in their way when they are seeking any preferment or profit to themselves you shall see too easily by their sowreness and contention how weak their love is Mat. 24.12 1 Tim. 6.10 Luke 22.24 3. But in the seeming Christian selfishness is so predominant that he loveth none but for himself with any considerable love All his kindness is from self-love because men love him or highly value him or praise him or have done him some good turn or may do him good hereafter or the like If he hath any love to any for his own worth yet self-love can turn all that to hatred â—f they seem against him or cross him in his way For no man that is a Lover of the world and flesh and carnall self can ever be a true friend to any other For he loveth them but for his own ends and any cross Interest will shew the falshood of his love 2 Tim. 3.2 3 4. Mat. 5.46 XLIII 1. A Christian indeed hath a special Love to all the Godly such as endeareth his heart unto them and such as will enable him to visit them and relieve them in their wants to his own loss and hazzard according to his ability and opportunity For the image of God is beautifull and honourable in his eyes He loveth not them so much as God in them Christ in them the Holy Spirit in them He foreseeth the day when he shall meet them in Heaven and there rejoyce in God with them to Eternity He loveth their company and converse and delighteth in their gracious words and lives And the converse of ungodly empty men is a weariness to him unless in a way of duty or when he can do them good In his eyes a vile person is contemned but he honoureth them that fear the Lord Psal. 15.4 Other men grieve his soul with their iniquities while he is delighted with the appearances of God in his holy ones even the excellent ones on earth Psal. 16.3 2 Pet. 2.7 8. Yea the infirmities of Believers destroy not his Love for he hath learned of God himself to difference between their abhorred frailties and their predominant Grace and to love the very Infants in the Family of Christ. Yea though they wrong him or quarrel with him or censure him in their weakness he can honour their sincerity and love them still And if some of them prove scandalous and some seeming Christians fall away or fall into the most odious crimes he loveth Religion never the less but continueth as high an esteem of piety and of all that are upright as he had before 1 Joh. 4.7 8 10. Joh. 13.34 35. 1 Thess. 4.9 1 Joh. 3.11 14 23. Matth. 25.39 40 c. 2. The weak Christian sincerely loveth all that bear his Fathers image But it is with a Love so weak even when it is most passionate as will sooner be abated or interrupted by any tempting differences He is usually quarrelsome and froward with his Brethen and apter to confine his love to those that are of his own opinion or party And because God hath taught him to love all that are sincere the Devil tempteth him to censure them as not sincere that so he may justifie himself in the
mind and in the same judgement Phil. 2 1 2 3 4. If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any bowels and mercies fulfill ye my joy that ye be like minded having the same Love being of one accord of one mind Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves Look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others Ephes. 1.2 3 4 5 6 7. I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called with all lowliness and meekness with long suffering forbearing one another in love endeavouring to keep the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of peace There is one body and one spirit even as ye are called in one hope of your calling one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Read also Ephes. 4.12 13 14 15 16. 1 Cor. 12. throughout He looketh at uncharitableness and divisions with more abhorrence than weak Christians do at drunkenness or whoredom or such other hainous sin He feareth such dreadfull warnings as Acts 20.29 30. For I know this that after my departing shall grievous Wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them And he cannot slight such a vehement exhortation as Rom. 16.17 18. Now I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Therefore he is so far from being a divider himself that when he seeth any one making divisions among Christians he looketh on him as on one that is flashing and mangling the body of his dearest friend or as on one that is setting fire on his house and therefore doth all that he can to quench it As knowing the confusion and calamity to which it tendeth He is of a Christian and therefore of a truly Catholick spirit that is He maketh not himself a member of a divided Party or a Sect He regardeth the interest and welfare of the body the universal Church above the interest or prosperity of any party whatsoever And he will do nothing for a party which is injurious to the whole or to the Christian cause The very names of Sects and Parties are displeasing to him And he could wish that there were no name but that of Christians among us save only the necessary names of the criminal such as that of the Nicolaitans Rev. 2.6.15 By which those that are to be avoided by Christians must be known Christianity is confined to so narrow a compass in the world that he is unwilling to contract it yet into a narrower The greatest party of divided Christians whether it be the Greeks or Papists is too small a body for him to take for the Catholick or Universal Church He admireth at the blindness and cruelty of faction that can make men damn all the rest of the Church for the interest of their proper sect and take all those as no Christians that are better Christians than themselves Especially the Papists who unchurch all the Church of Christ except their Sect and make it as necessary to salvation to be a subject of the Pope as to be a Christian and when by their great corruption and abuses of Christianity they have more need of charitable censures themselves than almost any sort of Christians yet are they the boldest condemners of all others The confirmed Christian can difference between the strong and weak the sound and unsound members of the Church without dismembring any and without unwarrantable separations from any He will worship God in the purest manner he can and locally joyn with those Assemblies where all things considered he may most honour God and receive most edification and will not sin for communion with any He will sufficiently difference between a holy orderly Assembly and a corrupt disordered one and between an able faithfull Pastor and an ignorant or worldly hireling And he desireth that the Pastors of the Church may make that due separation by the holy Discipline of Christ which may prevent the peoples disorderly separation But for all this he will not deny his presence upon just occasion to any Christian Congregation that worshipeth God in truth though with many modal imperfections so be it they impose no sin upon him as necessary to his communion with them Nor will he deny the spiritual communion of faith and Love to those that he holdeth not local communion with He knoweth that all our worship of God is sinfully imperfect and that it is a dividing principle to hold that we may joyn with none that worship God in a faulty manner for then we must joyn with none on earth He knoweth that his presence in the worship of God is no sign of his approbation of all the failings of Pastors or people in their personal or modal imperfections as long as he joyneth not in a worship so corrupt as to be it self unacceptable to God While men who are all imperfect and corrupt are the worshippers the manner of their worship will be such as they in some degree imperfect and corrupt The solid Christian hath his eye upon all the Churches in the world in the determining of such questions He considereth what worship is offered to God in the Churches of the several parties of Christians the Greeks Armenians Abassines Lutherans c. as well as what is done in the Country where he liveth and he considereth whether God disown and reject the worship of almost all the Churches in the world or not For he dare no further reject them than God rejecteth them nor will he voluntarily separate from those Assemblies where the presence of Christ in his Spirit and acceptance yet remaineth And his fuller acquaintance with the gracious nature office and tenderness of Christ together with greater Love to his Brethren doth cause him in this to judge more gently than young censorious Christians do And his humble acquaintance with his own infirmities maketh him the more compassionate to others If he should think that God would reject all that order not and word not their prayers aright he would be afraid of being rejected himself who is still conscious of greater faultiness in his own prayers than a meer defect in words and order even of a great defectiveness in that faith and desire and love and zeal and reverence which should be manifested in prayer Though he be more apprehensive than others of the
that day But yet he thinketh not of it with so strong a faith and great consolation nor with such boldness and desire as the confirmed Christian doth but either with much more dull security or more perplexity and fear His thoughts of God and of the world to come are much more dark and doubtfull and his fears of that day are usually so great as make his desires and joys scarce felt Only he thinketh not of it with that contempt or stupidity as the Infidel or hardened sinner nor with the terrours of those that have no God no Christ no hope except when temptation bringeth him near to the borders of despair His death indeed is unspeakably safer than the death of the ungodly and the joys which he is entring into will quickly end the terrour but yet he hath no great comfort of the present but only so much trust in Christ as keepeth his heart from sinking into despair 3. But to the Hypocrite or seeming Christian Death and Judgement are the most unwelcome daies and the thoughts of them the most unwelcome thoughts He would take any tolerable life on earth at any time for all his hopes of Heaven and that not only through the doubts of his own sincerity which may sometime be the case of a tempted Christian but through the unsoundness of his belief of the life to come or the utter unsuitableness of his soul to such a blessedness which maketh him look at it as less desirable to him than a life of fleshly pleasures here All that he doth for Heaven is upon meer necessity because he knoweth that Die he must and he had rather be in Heaven than in Hell though he had rather be in prosperity on earth than either And as he taketh Heaven but as a reserve or second good so he seeketh it with reserves and in the second place And having no better preparations for Death and Judgement no marvel if they be his greatest terrour He may possibly by his self-deceit have some abatement of his fears and he may by Pride and Wit seem very valiant and comfortable at his death to hide his fear and pusillanimity from the world But the 〈◊〉 of all his misery is that he sought not first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and laid not up a treasure in Heaven but upon earth and loved this world above God above the world to come and so his heart is not set on Heaven nor his affections on the things above and therefore he hath not that Love to God to Christ to Saints to perfect Holiness which should make that world most desirable in his eyes and make him think unfeignedly that it is best for him to depart and live with Christ for ever Having not the Divine Nature nor having lived the Divine Life in walking with God his complacency and desires are carnal according to the nature which he hath And this is the true cause and not only his doubts of his own sincerity of his unwillingness to die or to see the day of Christs appearance Matth. 6.33.19.20 21. 1 Joh. 2.15 Col. 3.1 2 3 4. Rom. 8.5 6 7 8. 1 Cor. 2.13 14. 2 Pet. 1.4 And thus I have shewed you from the Word of God and the Nature of Christianity the true Characters of the confirmed Christian and of the weak Christian and of the seeming Christian. The Vses for which I have drawn up these Characters and which the Reader is to make of them are these I. Here the weak Christian and the Hypocrite may see what manner of persons they ought to be Not only how unsafe it is to remain in a state of Hypocrisie but also how uncomfortable and unserviceable and troublesome it is to remain in a state of weakness and diseasedness what a folly and indeed a sign of Hypocrisie is it to think If I had but grace enough to save me I would desire no more or I would be well content Are you content if you have but Life here to difference you from the dead If you were continually Infants that must be fed and carried and made clean by others or if you had a continual Gout or Stone or Leprosie and lived in continual want and misery you would think that Life alone is not enough and that non vivere tantum sed valere vita est that Life is uncomfortable when we have nothing but Life and all the delights of life are gone He that lyeth in continual pain and want is weary of his life if he cannot separate it from those calamities He that knoweth how necessary strength is as well as life to do any considerable service for God and how many pains attend the diseases and infirmities of the weak and what great dishonour cometh to Christ and Religion by the faults and childishness of many that shall be pardoned and saved would certainly bestir him with all possible care to get out of this sick or infant state II. By this you may see who are the strong Christians and who are the weak It is not alwaies the man of Learning and free expressions that can speak longest and wiseliest of holy things that is the strong confirmed Christian But he that most excelleth in the Love of God and man and in a heavenly mind and holy life Nor is it he that is unlearned or of a weak memory or slow expression that is the weakest Christian But he that hath least Love to God and man and the most Love to his carnal self and to the world and the strongest corruptions and the weakest grace Many a poor day-labourer or woman that can scarce speak sense is a stronger Christian as being stronger in Faith and Love and Patience and Humility and Mortification and Self-denial than many great Preachers and Doctors of the Church III. You see here what kind of men they be that we call the Godly and what that Godliness is which we plead for against the malicious Serpentine Generation The lyars would make men believe that by Godliness we mean a few affected strains or hypocritical shews or heartless lip-service or singular opinions or needless scrupulosity or ignorant zeal yea a schism or faction or sedition or rebellion or what the Devil please to say If these sixty Characters describe any such thing then I will not deny that in the way that such men call heresie faction schism singularity so worship we the God of our Fathers But if not the Lord rebuke thee Satan and hasten the day when the lying lips shall be put to silence Psal. 131.18 120.2 109.2 Prov. 12.19 22. 10.18 IV. By this also you may see how unexcusible the enemies of Christianity and Godliness are and for what it is that they hate and injure it Is there any thing in all this Character of a Christian that deserveth the suspicion or hatred of the world what harm is there in it or what will it do against them I may say to them of his servants