be denied or neglected HEaven-work and Heart-work are the chiefest parts of Christian duty Christ often giveth us his summaries of the Law and inculeateth his great Command Iob. 13. 35. Matth. 22. 37 38 39. Luk. 10. 27. And so doth the Apostle Rom. 13. 10. 1 Pet. 1. 22. 1 Iohn 3. 11 14 23. 4 7 11 12 20. 2 Ioh. 5. And the fruits of the spirit are manifest Gal. 5. 22 23. Iames saith that pure Religion and undefiled before God even the father is this to visit the fatherless and widows in adversity and to keep our selves unspotted of the world Jam. 1. 27. Paul saith 1 Tim. 1. 5. The end of the Commandement is Charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned And then addeth From which some having swarved have turned aside to vain janglings In a word The effectual belief of pardon and eternal Glory given through Christ and the Love of God and man with the denial of our selves and fleshly desires and contempt of all things in the world which are competitors with God and our salvation with a humble patient enduring of all which must be suffered for these ends is the nature and sum of the Christian Religion Do nothing therefore as a duty which is a hinderance to any of this Contentious preachings and factious sidings which weaken Love are not of God The servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men 2 Tim. 2. 24. When you come into a family and find that their Religion consisteth in promoting some odd opinion and pleading for a party and vilifying others be sure that this is a Religious way of serving the devil being contrary to the great and certain duties of a godly liâ—e When you fall into company which stiâ—leth all talk of Heaven and all Heart-searching and Heart-humbling conference by pleading 〈◊〉 this or that opinion be sure that it is but one way of enmity to Holiness though not so gross as scorning and persecuting it That which I said before of Truth is applyable to this of Duty It is one of the most important things in the world for the resolving of a thousand cases of conscience and the directing of a Christian life to know which Duties are the Greater and which are the lesser and so which is to be preferred in competition For that which is a duty at another time is a sin when it is done instead of a greater as Christ hath resolved in the case of the Sabbath If Good must be loved as Good then the Greatest Good must be most loved and sought Sacrifice instead of mercy is a sin Our gift must be left at the altar while we go to be reconciled to our brother Math. â— Never hearken to those men who would set up their controverted duties or any positives and lesser things against the duties of nature it self or the great substantial parts of godliness DIRECT XL. Labour for a sound judgement to know good from evil left you trouble your selves and others by mistakes And till you grâ—w so judicious forsake not the guidance of a judicious Teacher nor the company of the agreeing generality of the Godly ALmost all our contentions and divisions are caused by the ignorance and injudiciousness of Christians especially the most self-conceited They are for the most as children that yet need to be taught the very principles of the divine Oracles and to be fed with milk when they think themselves fit to be teachers of others Heb. 5. 11 12. And therefore as children they are tossed to and fro and caried about with every wind of doctrine Eph. 4. 14. And when they have many years together been crying up an opinion and vilifying dissenters at last they turn to some other opinion and confess that they did all this upon mistake And was it not a pitiful life that they lived that while and a pitiful zeal which did set them on and a pitiful kind of worship which they thus offered to God Alas to hear a man pray and preach up Antinomianism one year and Arminianism the next and Socinianism the next To hear a man make Separation and Anabaptistry a great part of his business to men in preaching and to God in prayer for seven and seven years together and at last confess that all this was his errour and his sin Or if he confess it not it is so much the worse Is it not sad that ignorance and hasty rashness should so much injure the Church and mens souls that so many well meaning people should put evil for good and good for evil darkness for light and light for darkness Isa. 5. 20. But because there is no hope that most should be judicious there is no other remedy for such but this of Christs prescript which I have here set down First Happy is he that chooseth a judicious faithful Guide and learneth of him till his own understanding be better illuminated And that escapeth the conduct of ignorant erroneous self-seeking proud dividing Teachers Secondly Continue in the Communion of the generality of agreeing Christians The generality of the godly are more unlikely to be forsaken of Christ than a few odd self-conceited singular professours This is the way of peace to your selves and to the Church of Christ. DIRECT XLI Let not the bare Fervour of a Preacher or the Lowdness of his voice or affectionate manner of utterance draw you too far to admire or follow him without a proportionable degree of solid understanding and judiciousness IT is pity that any wise and judicious Minister should want that fervour and seriousness of speech which the weight of so great a business doth require And it is greater pity that any serious affectionate Minister should be ignorant and injudicious And it is yet greater pity that in any good men too much of their fervour should be meerly affected and seem to be what it is not or at least be raised by a selfish desire to advance our selves in the hearers thoughts and to exercise our parts upon their affections But it is most pitiful that the Church hath any hypocrites who have no other but such affected dissembled fervency And it is not the least pity that so many good people especially youths and women should be so weak as to value an affectionate tone of speech above a judicious opening of the Gospel I confess there is something in an affectionate expression which will move the wisest And as light and judgement tend to generate judgement so heat of affection tendeth to beget affection And I never loved a senseless delivery of matters of eternal consequence As if we were asleep our selves or would make the hearers to be so Or would have them think by our cold expressions that we believe not our selves when we set forth the great inestimable things of the life to come But yet it grieveth my very soul to think what pitiful raw and ignorant kind of preaching is crowded
as a profession of Christianity And as to the Act it must be first A signification of the mind by word or writing or some intelligible sign Secondly it must seem to be understood For no man consenteth to that which he understandeth not But herein any intelligible sign of a tollerable understanding must be accepted though we find that the persons conceptions are raw and not so distinct and clear as they ought nor the expressions ready orderly or compt Thirdly it must seem to be serious For that which is apparently dissembled or Iudicrous is null Fourthly It must be de presenti a present giving up our selves to Christ and not only a promise de futuro that we will hereafter take him for our Saviour and Lord and not at present Fifthly it must seem to be voluntary and not constrained for then it is not serious Sixthly it must seem to be deliberate and resolute and setled and not only the effect of a mutable passion This goeth to make it a real Profession in the common sense of all mankind Obj. But how few among us do so much as seem be understanding serious and resolved in covenanting with Christ Answ. In the Degree of these we all fall short of that which is our duty But if you accuse any of the want of so much as is necessary to an acceptable Profession First you must be sure that you speak not by uncharitable surmise and hear-say but upon certain proof or knowledge Secondly and that therefore you speak it not at a venture of whole Parishes or families but only of those persons by name whom you know to be guilty Thirdly and that you remember that it is the Pastors office to judge and that you expect not that every one must give an account of their knowledge to you And if there be a mis-judging it is the fault of the Pastor and not yours of which more anon Fourthly that persons Baptized are already admitted into the Church and therefore if they make profession of Christianity they must not be put to bring any other proof of their title but it lies on you to disprove it if you will have it questioned And to reject them from communion without a proved accusation is Tyranny and Lording it over the Church of God These are Gods terms of Church-communion And if you will needs have stricter you must have none of his making but your own Obj. But all visible Christians and Churches are visible Saints and Regenerate and so are not ours Answ. To be a Visible Saint is to profess to be a Saint And whosoever doth profess the Baptismal Covenant professeth to be a Saint Conversion Regeneration Faith and Repentance are all contained into taking God the Father Son and Holy Ghost for our Father Saviour and Sanctifier Obj. But you may teach a Parrot to speak those words Answ. It s true And perhaps to speak any words which you use your selves But if you will thence conclude that words must not be taken as a Profession you grosly err or abusively wrangle or if you infer thence that your neighbour understandeth himself no more than a Parrot doth you must prove what you say to the Pastor of the Church For God hath not allowed him to excommunicate baptized persons because you say that they are ignorant And if they are willing to learn it is fitter to teach them than to excommunicate them And here I must lament it that I have met with many censorious Professors who would not communicate with the Parish Churches because the people are ignorant who when I have examined themselves have proved ignorant of the very substance of Christianity so that I have been much in doubt whether I ought to admit them to the Lords Table or not They knew not whether Christ was Eternal or whether he was God when he was on earth or whether he be Man now he is in heaven nor what Faith is or what Iustification or Sanctification is nor what the Covenant of grace is nor what Baptism or the Lords Super are nor could prove the Scripture to be the word of God or prove mans soul to be immortal but gave false or impertinent answers about all these And yet could not joyn with the ignorant Churches And next I desire you here to observe the different Priviledges as well as the different Conditions of Visible and Invisible Churchmembership The members of the Church mystical or Regenerate have the pardon of all sin and acceptance with God and communion with him and with his Church in the spirit and are the adopted children of God and heirs of everlasting life and shall live in heaven with Christ for ever The meer Visible Members of the Church that are not regenerate by the spirit as well as sacramentally by water have only an outward Communion with the Saints and have only the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament and only a name to live when they are dead And are these such great matters that we should envy them to poor sinners that must have no more Have we the Kernel and do we envy them the Shell Have we the Spirit and do we envy them the flesh or outward signes alone Yea consider farther that it is more for the sake of the truly faithful than for their own that all Hypocrites have their station and priviledges in the Church God maketh use of their Gifts and Profession for his elect to many great services of the Church And is it not then a foolish ingratitude in us to murmur at their presence Understand well the conditions and Reasons of this visible state of membership and how far it is below the state of the Regenerate and it will turn your separating murmuring into a thankful acknowledgment of the wisdom of God DIRECT VII Get right and deep aprehensions of the Necessity and Reasons of Christian Unity and Concord and of the sin and misery of Divisions and Discord WHen we have but slight apprehensions of a duty we easily neglect it and scarce reprove our selves for it or repent of our omission And when we have but slight apprehensions of the evil of any sin a little temptation draweth us to it we are hardly brought to through-repentance for it And there is in many Christians a strange inequality and partiality in their apprehensions of good and evil Some duties they dare not omit and they judge all ungodly who omit them when some others as great are past by as if they were no part of religion And some sins they fear with very great tenderness when we can scarce make their consciences take any notice of others as great And usually they let out all their zeal on one sâ—de only while they over-look the other The Papist seemeth so sensible of the good of Unity and the evil of Divisions that he thinketh usurpation of an Universal Church-Monarchy and Tyranny and horrid bloud-shed to be not only lawful but necessary for the prevention and the cure
will joyn with such a one no more And it is the Confession which must be the sin But if once we have to do against the sin of any that are Great or Godly that power or piety is made a patron of the errour then it may be a smarting censure indeed which we may expect One crieth out He is a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition as they did of Paul though I hate and preach-against sedition Another saith he is bitter and speaketh against the Godly when I spend my self to preach up Godliness But if it be a party that is engaged in the errour you must expect the censure of all the party And what errour is it that hath not a party or that hath neither Greatness nor Godliness for a refuge If in doctrinal or practical consultations of great moment you have to do with injudicious unskilful men if you contradict their way be it never so modestly you are proud and self-opiâ—ionated and must have your own way If you follow their mistakes and contradict them not you may wound the Church and Cause of Christ and be more generally censured at the last In a word when such a multitude of things are matters of Controversie as many may be the matters of Censure One will censure me for praying with a form or book and another for praying without it One for being too long and another for being too short one for this gesture and another for that One for preaching when I am silenced another for not preaching more One for being too gentle to dissenters and another for being too severe One for being too narrow in my principles and communion and another for being too large and universal And if in the sense of the sin and misery of some Christians Love-killing principles and practises I have spent the best of twenty years in writing preaching while I had leave conferring and praying for the Union of Christians and the Churches peace I have but made a wedge of my bare hand by putting it into the clift and both sides have closed upon me to my pain But I have turned both parties in the fray which I endeavoured to part against my self when each side had one adversary I had two Nay this is not the worst to be expected But moreover I must add that I was never more accused of any thing as a crime than of that which I did most against And even for doing so Never more suspected of Carnal compliance than when I exercised the greatest self-denial Never more accused of unpeaceableness than for labouring for the Churches peace Never was I more accused of Schism than for striving with all my power to have united the Ministers and healed the Church or at least prevented further divisions Never more accused of enmity against the true Discipline of the Church than when I have done most and at the dearest rates to stablish it and to prevent its fall In all this I meddle not with my Civil Superiours as thinking it meeter patiently to bear than to aggravate their censures though not all so tolerable as private mens I might give you as many instances of the matters of common Converse He that hath much to do in the world shall hardly escape the censure of many The buyer will say he sells too dear The seller will say he would buy too cheap Every one that expecteth a commodity will censure him that hindereth it and steps in before him If I have a friend or kinsman unworthy of any office or preferment he is nevertheless peremptory in his desires and expectations for being unworthy If I will not speak for him and further his suit I am censured as unnatural and unkind and turn a friend into an enemy If I do speak for him I am false to my conscience and the common good and I must look to be censured accordingly by many But I will add no more instances lest what I intend for instruction seem to be but a complaint But to what purpose is all this It is to let the Reader know that man is not God nor his judgement to be rested in nor his favour to be over-valued To call to you O cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils whose heart is deceitful and desperately wicked For wherein is he to be accounted of Look up to God and take him for your God indeed Rest in his Love and be satisfied in his approbation Despise not man nor lay any stumbling blocks before them but as to your own interest in their esteems farther than Gods service and their benefit requireth it account it but a shadow and a thing of nought And say of it as Paul With me it is a very small thing to be judged of you or of mans day or judgement For I have one that judgeth me even the Lord. 1 Cor. 4. 3. It is GOD Christians it is GOD it is only GOD whose infallibility justification and unspotted truth and goodness you must make your rest It is Heaven it is Heaven it is only Heaven where perfect truth and impartial righteousness and the full vindication of all the just and the fruition of perfect Love and Concord is to be expected and where malice and lies and discord and the father of them are totally and finally shut out As you would not be used as Hypocrites by God and deprived of the true Reward of faith O seek not after the hepocrites reward What is the applause of mortal man Can you not bear the censure of such a shadow How then would you suffer martyrdome for Christ Over-value not the esteem of High or Low of the Great or of the Godly of the many or of the few Gods approbation is sufficient to be your reward See that you be Godly and then be more indifferent though you are thought ungodly See that you be loyal and peaceable and then you may bear it if you be called the contrary Abhor all unwarrantable divisions and then you may bear to be reputed schismaticks Study you to be good and not to be accounted good And what if I should look further to historical fame when I am dead Away with the over-valuing of that too as part of the hypocrites reward I confess God usually blesseth the memory of the just and sets their names above the power of the greatest tyrants and causeth the names of the wicked to rot But this is but a temporal and uncertain thing If one write in my praise to the highest and another write a Volume of false reproaches how shall posterity know which is true who knew neither party nor the cause But yet the nearer reason of all this admonition is to let you know that as contention comes by pride so over-valuing the esteem and censures of men though Good or Great is a dreadful snare and cause of schismes For then you will be stretching your consciences and using your wits to please the party whose censures you must escape And
found 3. You would shew a humble sense of your own frailty who dare not proudly contemn your brethren 4. You would shew more love to God himself when you love all of God whensoever you discern it and cannot abide to hear his gifts and mercies undervalued 5. You would increase the grace of love to others in your selves by the daily exercise of it when backbiting and detraction will increase the malignity from which they spring 6. You would increase Love also in the hearers which is the fulfilling of the Law when detraction will breed or increase malice 7. You will do much to the winning and conversion of them whom you commend if they be unconverted For when they are told that you speak lovingly of them behind their backs it will much reconcile them to your persons and consequently prepare them to hearken to the counsel which they need But when they are told that you did backbite them it will fill them with hatred of you and violent prejudice against your counsel and profession Yet mistake me not It is none of my meaning all this while that you should speak any falsehood in commendation of others nor make people believe that a careless carnal sort of persons are as good as those that are careful of their souls or that their way is sufficient for salvation Nor to commend ungodly men in such a manner as tendeth to keep either them or their hearers from repentance Nor to call evil good or put darkness for light nor honour the works of the devil But to shew Love and impartiality to all and to be much more in speaking of all the good which is in them than of the evil Especially if they be your enemies or differ from you in opinions of Religion Tit. 3. 1. Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers to obey Magistrates to be ready to every good work to speak evil of no man to be no brawlers but gentle shewing all meekness to all men For we our selves were sometime foolish c. Grace is clean contrary to this detracting vice DIRECT L Study the Duty of instructing and exhorting more than Reproof and finding fault I Deny not but that it is duty to tell a brother of his fault and to reprove and that with plainness too Math. 18. 15. Lev. 19. 17. And it is but few that do this rightly of many that will backbite and censure But yet I have long observed that many Christians are enquiring How they must manage the duty of Reproof who ne-never enquire how to perform the duty of Christian exhortation or instructing of the ignorant When as this later is much more usually a duty than the former And you are bound to exhort a multitude whom you are not bound to reprove And exhortation to good is a duty which the hearer is usually less offended at It doth not so much gall and exasperate his mind It shameth him not so much and yet is the greater part of our duty to him as the positives of Religion are before the negatives Exhortation rightly used is the plain direct expression of Love and an earnest desire of anothers good When Reproof doth savour of a mixture of Love and displeasure and the wrath doth often cloud the love And I must say that I find many surly proud Professors much proner to Reproof than to Exhortation Their pride and self-conceitedness makes them too forward to reprove their Governours and the ignorant people are ready enough to reprove their Teachers and the servant to reprove the Master or the Mistris but not to be reproved by them Ministers must be wise and cautelous how they set such people on reproving and finding fault with others when their own pride and passion and fond self-opinion is ready to put them on too far DIRECT LI. The more you suffer by your Rulers or any men the more be watchful lest your sufferings tempt you to dishonour them And the more you are wronged by your equals the more be afraid lest you should be tempted to withdraw the Love which is their due THe Honouring of our superiours is a Moral or Natural duty of the fifth Commandement which sufferings will not excuse us from And so is the Love of all men even of our enemies And selfishness and Passion are things so powerful that it is wonderful hard to escape their deceit They will blind the mind and change the judgement and corrupt the affections before you are aware or believe that you are at all perverted Every man must watch most where his temptation is strongest Do you not think that you have a far stronger temptation to dishonour a persecuting Magistrate than a good one And to hate an enemy than a friend Therefore arm your selves and one another against this snare And when others are aggravating the fault and injury do you in company remember each other in what danger you are now of losing your innocency and of doing your selves more hurt by that than any powers or enemies can do you It is an easie thing to Love one that loveth you and to honour a Magistrate that doth good to you and all But as the Apostle saith of servants 1 Pet. 2. 18 19 20. Be subject Not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward For this is thank-worthy if a man for conscience toward God endure grief suffering wrongfully For what glory is it if when ye be buffeted for your faults you take it patiently But if when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently this is acceptable with God DIRECT LII Make conscience of heart-revenge and tongue-revenge as well as of hand-revenge IT is so notorious that Revenge is a usurpation of Gods prerogative a heinour sin that Professors could not so frequently easily commit it if they did not first deceive themselves and take that to be no revenge which is To do any open hurt to another they take notice of as sinful revenge But is there no secret wish in your heart that some evil may befal another Nor no secret gladness that some evil hath befaln him You will say It is not in revenge but in hope he may repent But take heed what is in your heart It s one thing to Repent of his injury to you as such and to make you amends and repair your honour And it s another thing to repent of it as a sin against God to the saving of his own soul. Is it not the former that you more desire than the later And are not your Tongues employed too often in revenge What are all your secret reflections and endeavours to dishonour those that have wronged you but revengeful speeches Railing and backbiting and nibling at anothers honour and good name may be acts of revenge as truly as the actions of the hand DIRECT LIII When you are exasperated at the hurt which you feel from Magistrates remember the good which the Church receiveth by them
as well as the hurt IF you look all at the evil in any man and overlook the good you cannot choose but hate hâ—m And if you think only of what you suffer by Magistrates you may easily know what the effect must be And the sin is so great that it should not be made light of by a tender conscience The good of the Office and of the person is of God and the evil is of Satan And should you so look at Satans part as to pass by all Gods part What ingratitude is it to take notice so deeply of your suffering and to take no notice of your mercies There are few Heathen Magistrates from whom those Christians who live under them receive not much more good than hurt Much more Christian Magistrates are a blessing to believers For if they persecute some yet they usually protect more from the fury of the vulgar rabble who would quickly devour them if Rulers did not restrain them And the countenancing of the Christian Religion in the essentials and defending Christian assemblies for Gods worship is an unvaluable mercy If Paul said to the Romans Rulers are not a terrour to good works but to evil Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same for he is the Minister of God to thee for good Rom. 13. 3 4. How much more may those say so who have Christian Magistrates Or if some particular persons do suffer more under some such than Paul or the Christians did under Heathens Acts 28. last yet every true Christian must more regard the publick interest than his own and must rejoyce that the Gospel hath any protection and furtherance and the souls of the people any benefit whatever his personal suffering be Read Phil. 1. 12 to the 20. DIRECT LIV. Learn to suffer by Ministers and Good people and not only by Magistrates nor only by the ungodly I Confess it is a thing most unnatural for one true Christian to afflict another and especially for a Minister who is the father of the flock to be a hurter of them and to do like an enemy and to fleece them and devour them But yet it is a thing which sometimes must be born I have observed that Religious people when a Magistrate though a usurper persecuteth them they can in some sort undergo it as no strange thing And they are not so forward to cast off the office and abhor the persons by whom they suffer But if they suffer never so little by a Minister they flye away from him and are uncapable of comfortable communion with him and the breach is hardly ever made up I confess there is some more colour for this impatiency to be mentioned in another place But yet Gods servants have been tryed by this kind of suffering also and therefore you must not be so tender of it nor be driven by it into sinful separations or into a contempt of the Ministers of the Gospel as too many sects in these times have been Read what at large is said of the afflicting Shepherds Ezek. 34. Zech. 10. 11. And you will see that it is not a thing to be wondered at to have Shepherds which fleece and destroy the flocks and tread down their pasture and muddy their waters and feed themselves and not the flocks and gather not that which goeth â—stray Nay their own Shepherds pitied them not Zech. 11. 5 I know that it is the Magistrates that are often meant by Shepherds in the Prophets but the Priests also are usually meant with them and sometime distinctly by the same word And their falshood and cruelty oft expressed as in Ier. 2. 8 26. 5. 31. and 26. 7 8 11. 32. 32. Ezek. 22. 26. Hos. 6. 9. Mich. 3. 11. Zeph. 3. 4. Mal. 1. 6 2. 1. c. And remember that all the wickedness of these Priests and their abuse of the people did not warrant the people to forsake the Jewish Church Though the Ark was taken by the Philistines for the wickedness and violence of Eli's sons and the people tempted to desire a King by the sins of the sons of Samuel yet none of their mis-doings did warrant a separation from that Church Yea Christ who was persecuted by the Priests did yet bid the cleansed Lepeâ— go shew himself to the Priest and offer according to the Law Therefore a true Christian must learn though not to favour any mans sin nor to be indifferent what Ministery he liveth under yet patiently to suffer much abuse and persecution sometimes from Ministers themselves and to see that it drive them not in peevish impatiency into any extream or to any unlawful sect or separation nor to a disdain of the sacred office which they abuse nor to lose the benefit of it or be unthankful for it And though it be sad that true Christians should abuse each other yet this also must be born Many can bearâ—th scorn and cruelties of the openly profane who can scarce bear to be neglected or set light by much less to be hardly censured by the Religious But observe first that your Pride may notably appear in this and it is no great sign of humility to suffer only from the worst For you look on them as persons of no honour and the â—fore not capable of dishonouring you For a dog to bark at you you take for no disgrace Nay you take it for your honour to suffer by such persons as supposing it a mark of Christs disciples But the Religious you more reverence and think their contempt is a great dishonour to you and fore your pride will not suffer you to bear it patiently Secondly And remember that different opinions and interests may possibly so far exasperate some that are otherwise religious as to make them afflicters or more plainly persecâ—tors of one another though Godliness it self be applauded by them all The experience of England Scotland and Ireland within these 25 years doth sadly tell us and the world how far men can go in persecuting each other for different interests and opinions who all profess a zeal for godliness And let it have your special remark that one reason why all men as Christians and Godly do more easily and commonly love one another is because aâ— Christians and Godly they do not hurt or wrong each other But as they are of various sects they hate and envy one another because as they are sectaries they hurt and injure one another For the spirit and zeal of a sect as such is censorious hurtful unpeaceable and dividing But the spirit and zeal of Godliness and Christianity is kind and gentle and inclineth to do good to all Remember that you have never learâ—n the Christian art of suffering aright till you can suffer not only by bad men but by men that otherwise are good nor only by enemies but by friends nor only by them that bear the sword but also by some who preach the word and will not by