is one Heb. 4.13 to whom all things are open and manifest his word is quicke and as a two edged spirit dividing betweene the soule and spirit the joints and marrow the thoughts and intents of the heart Dally not therfore with him It s fearfull to fall into his hands He will not spare us but will punish our sins And Heb. 10.31 if we call him father who judgeth without respect of persons 1. Pet. 1.17 passe we the whole time of our dwelling here in feare For our God is a consuming fire This in generall In speciall The command of the Gospell to beleeve in Christ is most solemnly to be â—beyed make conscience of the most solemne command of the Gospel to beleeve in the Lord Jesus close with this command It is the most soveraigne and indispensable of all other Obey this and obey all for in this stands the obedience to all the rest The Lord hath ingaged all his glory and honour upon this one That the most vile miserable sinner living who is willing to come in with his load pinching him to hell shall finde ease Whether it seeme so or no this is the truth he hath purposed to magnifie all his Attributes in shewing mercy to such an one He will have it knowne that he can doe that which flesh cannot even love the most hatefull enemy in the world that is weary of his enmity This he hath set down with himselfe from eternity in time hath declared it to his Church by giving his justice a full discharge in the blood of his Sonne Hee is the upshot of promises and therfore looks that he be beleeved yea for a recompence hereof that he hath made all Yea and Amen in him 2 Cor. 1.20 Joh. 3.33 he desires but to be beleeved counting them that doe so to seale that he is true and calling the rest lyers Consult not now with flesh and reason Say not that this word is farre from thee Rom. 10.8 it is neere thee it is offered and pin'd to thy sleeve Esay 1. Luke 5.7 that thou mightst beleeve it consent and obey this and the worst is past As Peter sayd to Christ At thy command I will cast in though I have cast all night and catcht nothing So say thou I have long traded with mine owne inventions devotions and duties but now at thy command I will try what thy promise is worth and cast my selfe wholly upon it for pardon grace and life If I perish I perish Venture so and prosper Secondly proceed to other commands The same Lord of commands bids us love one another for love fulfilleth the Law Joh. 14. Jam. 3. 1 Tim. 1. All other commands issue from faith the end thereof being love out of a pure and good conscience and love unfained Feare this command also The person of man who is thy immediate object of love may perhaps seeme contemptible to thee for what can he doe unto thee whether thou love or love not But he that made thee and him too and hath planted you both in the body of his Church under Christ the head he it is who bids thee love thy neighbour love him by reproofe and murther him not love him by counsell example admonition compassion lowre not upon him curb selfe-love passion indignation wrath envie revenge slighting of him disdaining him Thinke with thy selfe it is not for nought that all the commands are said to bee done in this one of Love Thinke not that all shall be well if thou canst but beleeve in Christ Matth. 25. know that the Lord Jesus himselfe who will call for faith at his comming Luke 18.8 will call for love also The want of love and the due carriage of thy heart toward others is a spirituall solemne command of the Gospel as well as faith and one day will appeare to be so when God shall call thee to the Barre and convince thee how little fruit of love hath ever proceeded from thee Therefore close with this charge also look not upon man but upon that God who hath bound thee to him by this chain of love and who will hold himselfe wronged in the violation of it lay a more solemne charge upon thy spirit in this kinde then ever and feele thy soule to lye under the authority of this command as well as the former And what more should I say From these two well-springs proceed all the streames of Commands concerning God Man and thy selfe Hence issueth a Command of a close keeping the Sabbath ordering thy conversation aright Eph. 5.15 Jam. 1. ult hence comes that charge of walking circumspectly as wise keeping thy selfe unspotted of the world Hence it is that thou art forbidden to have thy course in covetousnesse to have any fellowship with the unfruitfull workes of darknesse Hence also it is that thou art bidden Redeeme the season Heb. 13.5 Eph. 5.11.16 Mat. 16.26 1 Pet. 3.9 Walke wisely toward them who are without To take up thy crosse daily to deny thy selfe to live by faith to sanctifie God in thine heart and make him thy feare And the like I might say of the rest for it were endlesse to speake of all Conceive of them all as comming from one rule of righteousnesse And know it hee that requires one urges all Perhaps thou wouldst thinke it equall to obey the Magistrate obey thy Parents keep the Sabbath but know it the same God commands thee to preach in season and our to execute the righteous judgements of God to be subject to thy husband to teach thy children the feare of God These are speciall ones and lesse welcome but if thou obey not them thou doest but play fast and loose with God in the generals For all sound obedience to God is equall and uniforme I know what flesh will say T is tedious to be so tied and tasked to be held to it from day to day never out say not I could be content to fast and pray one day to redeeme liberty for many I could walk close for a Sabbath so I might be mine owne man all the weeke But know that the law of love takes no thought for continuance it is no violent compulsion as a slave to ply his worke but as naturall as for the fire to burne or the sparkes to flye upward Let the Law bee once written in thy heart Jer. 31.31 and it will teach thee holy wisedome love and delight to accommodate and apt thy selfe to each one in speciall equally and constantly Simile The Law and Art of musick in the minde acts the fingers ends to such a nimblenesse and presentnesse of service as is admirable And if the writing of letters and characters upon Fringes and Frontlets were so powerfull as to prompt a man to the obedience of each occasion what then is the law of grace written in each faculty of the minde and will in the reines and the spirit of the Soule But here I cease
our families and living quietly with our wives hearing Sermons and the like But the Lord who will have us knowne to be such as feare God and eschew evill and declare our selves to be further off from mortall ones then so will take a course to try us further what is in our heart We see a lowd winde may long blow upon a rotten tree on the good side and the tree make a shift to stand But at last there comes a shrewd right winde and gets into the hollow of the tree Similie and affronts it on the rotten side and then it puts hard to it ten to one if it lay it not under feet Let us not then fence the hedge where it is highest but where it is lowest strengthen the feeble knees and rectifie that which is crooked seeke not praise to our selves for our gifts and labours but know there is a greater worke lies upon us to stick to our tacklings when the Lord tries us if God will bereave us of our onely beloved lusts and take from us the pleasure of our heart and that which is pretious in our eyes as he told Ezekiel if hee so bring it about Ezek. 24.16 that we cannot have him and our credit ease and carnall content also then let us consider what we have to doe and whether we will bee faithfull or no Now is our day of triall now to magnifie our selves and seek applause and spare our owne selves for ease for outward respects is unseasonable Thinke of these matters ere they come let us not be so busie with cockle shells and toyes upon the sea side that we forget the tide and so be swept away all on the sudden Despise not Gods trialls nor put the thought of preparing for them out of our minds as matters of lesse import thinke not to carry our course so smoothly as that we shall never be moved lest God gaster us with some such enemies as come with the necessity of armed men upon naked and unprovided ones and so make each veine in our hearts to ake because of our rashnesse Beware lest they make us examples unto others of more wisdome and prevention who might have given example to others of self-deniall uprightnesse of heart and trusting God in the greatest streights For surely if wee do thus seeke to save our lives Matth. 16.26 we shall lose them and no great thanke for our labour and that which we have preferred before God and peace of conscience shall come out at our nostrils as most irkesome vomit Amplification of the point John 21. The day of triall will not bee to us as the day of our freedome and ease but as our Saviour tells Peter When thou wert young thou girdedst thy selfe and wentst where thou wouldest but when thou art old another shall gird thee and lead thee whither thou wouldest not Prepare we for that day in our day of liberty Know that Halcyon dayes will not last alway but it is meet that offences and stumbling-blockes bee laid in our wayes to try us And commonly when we thinke our selves most stapled in our ease and exempted from trials then are they at our heeles So that it were our best wisedome to suspect our selves most when our way is most pleasant Suspect trials most when our estate seemes to be calmest and our neast warmest and best feathered Iob did thus and when sorrow came upon him in the midst of his prosperity yet if came not before it was feared Use wee our best outward contents as if we used them not and so the forgoing of them shall not be so excessively distastfull nor lye in our way as stumbling-blockes when God shall try us Behold them as things which may give us the slip when we least looke for it Nero that tyrant having a faire woman to his Empresse would sometimes take her by the necke or chin with these bloudy words O goodly face and necke but when I list it shall be cut off Such an Item should we give our best contents lest perhaps if we trust them to far they suddenly betray us to sorrow in forgoing or an ill conscience in retaining Oh faire mercies but when God will they shall bee cut off And not so onely but labour wee to stand upon good bottome and to trade not like banquerupts with other mens stockes who when they breake are found never to have been their owne men but with our own stocke be it never so little if it be good that is the love of God soundnesse of heart to the truth good conscience and faith unfained These being joyned with zeale and courage in the defence of a good cause will be armour of proofe without and a continual feast within whatsoever our affronts and discouragements shall be Faith shall then beare us out as a shield beares off blowes and assure us that let this cursed world bee never so disastrous yet God will keep us from absolute straits and so order it that wee shall not depart from his feare nor forsake his covenant They say that the Bezor that creature which hath that cordiall stone being hard hunted by the hounds and knowing by instinct also what it is she is hunted for not her skin nor carcasse but her stone will bite off her privities and leave them to the dogges to save her life And the like I have heard some affirme of the Fox that being catcht by the legge in a snare she wil gnaw it off flesh bones to escape with her life Let us take heed of such policie to wit when our pretious conscience is pursued which to some Nimrods is a more pretious thing then the pretious life of a man to an harlot then to bite it off and throw it to such Beagles Prov. 6.26 to save our skin carcasse They will make themselves as much or more sport in rejoycing at our flesh and nakednesse Judg 16.25 Gen. 37.30 then the Philistins did at Sampson their enemy and when we have lost that Jewell as poor Reuben spake of Ioseph how shall we behold the face of Iacob without confusion Or what shall it profit us to fish with a golden hook for a poor fish and lose it for our labour In vain is a net laid for that which hath wing or the deceitfull meat of the wicked ruler set before us to snare us Prov. 22.1.2.3 when we are jealous of our appetites and put our knife to our throats Let us also to conclude walke in this dangerous world Conclusion of all with admonition as a man would walke in a place full of snares laid to catch him Not onely with no purpose of committing evill but with a full purpose and armed minde not to commit it Watch we to the occasions of triall Seeing our way is so strawed with snares let us watch and bee armed which are offered us small ones may discover us to bee weake if unarmed when strong ones shall not
will be long enough ere you of your selves stirre one inch off your own ground If he alter not your intentions sure it is you will intend small good to your selves but please your selves in your drousie dead and senselesse way till yee goe hence and be no more Me thinks you should rouze up your selves and moan your selves to the Lord saying Am I the onely dry barren wretch of all others whom thy Spirit should never blow upon whom no mercies crosses or government of thine should ever affect I see O Lord thy steps wheresoever they goe drop fatnesse and thy fingers drop mirrh upon the handle of the doore Cant. 5.5 where thou knockest But I am still a barren desolate creature without any acquaintance with thee in thy wayes And for the second sort of such as have felt the Lord comming toward them in sundry wayes and that hee hath not left them without witnesse but by his Word his workes by death of wife or husband or by good company or losse of children estate name many privie and secret warnings of their conscience hath checked them or offered them many meanes of good and drawne their hearts thereby but they have shaken them off as a dog doth a blow on the head That sometime in such houses and places as they have dwelt in sometimes in hearing some searching Sermons or by the offer of Christian yoke-fellowes or by other occasions Such as God hath prevented beware of dallying the Lord hath solicited them earnestly to turn and repent howbeit it is with them as with Israel in the wildernesse whose carcasses were scattered therein they have tempted him seen his works but to no purpose for the Lord is vexed with them for their stubbornnesse and their hard and rebellious hearts which will not know God nor come in Oh! beware lest this patience of God which should have drawne you to repentance doe not harden your hearts to utter destruction To both sorts I say this Know it if those whom the Lord means to save he wil be alway busie about them to accommodate all things to their calling and conversion what a wofull case are they in who have all their lives long either seen no finger of his in meaning them good or else escaped his fingers most subtilly and slily as fast as he hath pursued them Doubtlesse for ought can appeare the Lord meanes them no good if they had been sheep belonging to his fold he would never have suffered them to erre and lose themselves so deeply in their lusts but hee would have recalled them But his not suffering the breath of his spirit one whit to stirre in them doubtlesse he meanes they shall nuzzle up themselves in a dead senselesse estate unto perdition Oh! what beds of ease doe you lye upon that you should take one nights rest two nights till you finde your selves out of this misery Secondly this should teach us to adore this great God and onely wise Vse 2 and that because hee hath the key not of the wombe onely and deeps Instruction Adore the wisedome and love of God in his preventing grace Jerem. 10.23 clouds and the grave but of the hearts of the sonnes of men Hee onely can order their courses wayes and intentions to their owne greatest good and his glory It is not in man to order his owne way the heart and purposes of men are their owne but the dispositions thereof are from the Lord as the issues so the preparations to life and death are in his hand It is no priviledge of a Prince over his subjects nor of a parent over his children nor of husband over wife They have authority to over-rule the bodies the outward behaviour and duties of such as are under them But for the secret over-swaying of intentions and turning them from their owne to his way it is onely the Lords prerogative It is with mans intentions as with the body of a man in a ship who walkes upon the hatches from East to West Yet the motion of the ship being contrary carries the man the way of her owne motion neverthelesse This should therefore breed in us singular reverence of God and provoke us to magnifie him both with our prayses and with our prayers With our praises first By praises As the Church in the Psalme having professed that shee had seene goings of God both towards their fathers and themselves Psal 68 24. Deut. 8. in wildernesse and Canaan that he might humble and try all in their heart subjoynes presently The men singers that goe before and the women singers after Psal 123.1 and praise the Lord. If the Lord had not been on my side shouldest thou say in disposing every way for my conversion I had never been brought home But I see that it was the finger of God that when I had run my selfe into desperate company forsaken the counsell of all friends shaped a course to my selfe perhaps to spend my patrimony riotously perhaps to haunt harlots and lewd companions or to travell beyond sea in an humour of discontent to seek my fortunes or to seek the world and implod my self in the dirt and dunghill of covetousnesse or to mâ—â—ch my selfe resolutely with one whom I fancied onely for her out-sidâ—â—ayâ—â—g Give mee her for she pleases me well then did the Lord provide better for mee then I deserved turn mine intentions quite off divert them to serious thoughts of mine estate prepare a good wife a peaceable life in marriage good friends good Ministery and turne mee from the pit I sought a good frame in a blinde corner under an Idoll the Lord tooke him away sent a better and tooke me napping in my hole and brought me home to himselfe Job 33. No good soule that hath tasted these preventions of God can bee silent Sundry passages of preventing providence one prayses God that living in a desolate prophane corner of the Country in the practice of drunkennesse and lewdnesse the Lord sent a friend by providence to the house where he dwelt who by his sober caniage and report of the fruit of the Gospel in other parts brake me off from my sinfull life bred a zeal after God good means by which I was haled out of my dungeon to live under the Ministery in Goshen where I was convinced by the light of truth and converted to God Another comes in and saith O Lord if I had rusht upon such a match lighted upon such a Ministery I had been quite lost thou plantedst me better As Psal 80. the Church blesses God for pulling her from Egypt where she grew as a lilly among thornes into a better soile So should we adore Gods preventing us accommodating and suting occasions crossing lets giving strength to the meanes and overruling purposes as no doubt the woman John 4. going to her kinsfolke and saying Come see a man who hath told me all magnified mercy which finding her in a cursed scornefull
3.9 to confesse God hath done much for thee and wish thy portion when God shall visit them Vse 3 Also it is admonttion to worldly wise ones to such as commonly carry Branch 1 the repute of learned ones and the like That the Lord confuteth wise ones by simple ones Admonit It should cause such to tremble and seeke to bee as little in your owne eyes as they seeme great to others For otherwise those excellent accomplishments wherein they excell others may become snares Their priviledge may become their prejudice Wise ones must become fooles that they may bee wise in Gods matters A learneder man then any of us could tremble at this meditation The idiots and fooles rise up and snatch the Kingdome by violence from us and we with all our learning are thrust downe to hell Oh! how sad is this Once a Princesse beholding a learned Civilian lame of his feet said Thy deformity is our great enormity meaning that he was disabled to stand in her presence But when the Lord shall say to many wise and great ones your excellent parts are my detriment what a sad greeting will that be Oh! it had beene better for me if thou hadst beene poore lame an Idiot then great and jolly Surely thou mightst have honoured me more with meaner gifts thine heart being lowly then with all these thou being so proud The best use that many put their parts to being this to strengthen themselves and others in their profanenesse luxury ambition and tyranny Oh! therefore be a foole that thou maist be wise Let all thy parts stoop yea be too little for Christ to preach to professe to honour him And bee afraid lest otherwise the Lord shall overlooke thee and say Oh this man was too bigge too stout too stately to beleeve too great to get through such a strait gate as heaven is Camels cannot go through needles eyes Oh pray God to little thee to pare off thy superfluities Oh Lord take out this proud heart of mine puft up with gifts experience skill wisdome Oh cleanse them all make me humble and betrust me againe with them and then being shaven and washed all shall serve thee and I shall lose all my excellency in thy glory thou shalt eclipse all my parts that my humility may honour thee My deformity shall bee no detriment to thee but I shall give thee the glory in the treading of my best readings arts skill elocution and whatsoever humane perfection under thy feet Lord accept me and doe what thou wilt with me so thou keepe me from all sacriledge and robbing thee of thy due Tit. 1.15 To the pure all things shall be pure if thou hast purged my parts 2 Tim. 2.21 I shall be a vessell prepared for every good use and as fire and water are good servants but ill masters so when my spirit and streame shall be wholly carried in thine I shall be I may be trusted with thy gifts to honour the giver Oh that my words could reach to many Ministers of worthy parts and endowments of whom some vanish in the base abuse of their liberties Caveat to Ministers not to abuse their parts to ease and pampering of the flesh the creature of meat and drinke of recreations and pastimes of apparell and fashions maintaining themselves and their wives in pompe and pride of life to the destruction of soules Others fall to excesse in drinking base company lurking in their dens either in their Colledges or in the Country utterly unprofitable Cretians slow bellies evill beasts Tit. 1.12 as that Poet said filling their panches and surfetting upon pleasures Others insatiable of livings and ambitious of preferments Others setting up their gifts above Christ and chusing to preach ten words without understanding rather then one to the peoples reach Alas is this the fruit of your studies and parts your abilities and gifts that when you should in humility feed the flock of God you despise them and set them at naught 1 Pet. 5.2 and honour your selves with Gods spoyle Beware lest the Lord pursue you and make you regorge these unsavoury morsels of yours with horrour and detestation or else revenge himselfe of you for all your sacriledge when there shall bee no remedy Then shall you wish as some have done that you had beene as poore and silly ones as walke upon the earth so you were free of robbing God of his glory Greeke Ebrew Latine Fathers all learning is good But if it have lost her savour and be as the oyntment which stinkes by dead flyes Luke 14 34. ult what shall it be good for Surely to be cast into the streets and to be troden upon yea to bee made the just scorne of men who never made conscience to reserve to God the entire service of his gifts but fed and prided themselves with his colours 1 Sam. 2.14 Hophni and Phinees would thrust their forke into Gods kettle and steal his due but no sacrifice could satisfie for such sin the Lord sware he would receive no paiment for their ransomtil he utterly rooted them out Seek not therfore your selves set not up your names and parts to be idolized scorn not those whose diligence pains in the Church exceed yours learne of them disdaine them not God doth great things by poor means but seldome receives honour from such as seeke to get up into their owne saddle by Gods stirrop and by their preaching the sacred truth of God hoyse up their owne sayles and out-run the Lord by their owne pride wonder not nor fret that you lose the hearts of Gods people and that they turne from you John 10.27 for his sheepe heare his voice and not the voice of a stranger Alter the property of the unsanctified parts and let them be devoted to an humble service of his Sanctuary Exod. 35.23 and then your gold and blue silke shall be accepted else Goats haire and Badgers skins shall bee preferred before you And to end my counsell consider but this although you should repent before you dye yet you must bee saved as it were by fire 1 Cor. 3.13.15 God will not suffer any of your hay and stubble to cleave to his foundation of pearles This is the best of it your worke must burne by the censure of Gods purity but if your worke burne not by your repentance both your selves and your worke too shall burne through your impenitency Vse 3 Secondly let me adde one Caveat to such as make conscience to improve Branch 2 their parts and excellencies to the best ends in their Ministery and labours Godly Ministers must not onely use but also lay downe their parts and services if God so require I confesse it might beseeme my selfe to learne of some of them yet let me speake one word Beware my Brethren lest having seemed to escape a gulfe ye be drowned in a shallow Renounce even those gifts also by which you seeme to
honour God rest not in this that you dare not basely pride your selves in any of your parts above God but beware of a finer spun selfe then this deny your selves even the second time as I may say lest otherwise you fall in love so farre with your service that you grow to thinke God cannot want you Perhaps God may try you in your onely sonne Ishac Gen. 22.2 whether you can be content to want him or no for God as well as to enjoy him in God The onely tryall of the denying of your owne parts for God is if when God calls for them in sacrifice you be as willing to make shipwracke of them as to improve them Be not more anxious for God then he is for himselfe for he can make the stones cry although you should hold your peace To serve God so with your gifts as to be loth upon any need to forgoe your selves distrusting God in case of losing them fearing the reproach of men or what domage hurt and dishonour may accrue to you in your private despised conditions I say this is to serve your selves and not the Lord. Enquire closely as well upon what termes your very gifts themselves may prove dishonourable to God as the case may stand as your forfet of them yea much more if God call for them Note well To despise to stoope to the enquiry after the least evill which may defile your consciences in the improveing of your gifts or to live ignorant of any such duty as might honour God as much or more then your gifts To conceale and hide from your owne eyes any part of Gods will under pretence of the best service done by your gifts To distrust God in supporting you for a good conscience in the forfeit of your gifts and lastly to rest in this that seeing God may use your sinne to his owne glory therefore your sinne may seeme lesse in your owne sight What are all these save unseasonably to pin your service upon Gods sleeve and to serve under a false banner to lose more in the hundred then you gaine in the shire and in a word Vzza like out of your heat and resolution to serve not to care upon what dishonourable and unseemly conditions you goe to worke I judge no particular person I leave you to the judgement of your owne conscience I doe not accuse you as if ye sought to winne the spurres by your parts or could not take it well of God if sometime he held you short in gifts and performances I presse yet another thing Bee your service never so allowable yet fall not in love so with it pittie not others so farre in the want thereof that you should be unwilling to come under the command of God as well in suffering as in obeying 1 Cor. 14.32 The spirit of Prophets must bee subject to the Prophets be it never so good how much more to God himselfe And it is as good sometime to take counsell as to give it and as good to looke so to some one thing which wee desire and finde our selves enabled by God unto as yet not to blindfold our other eye to over see some other duty lying before us which although perhaps it be unwelcomely sudden to us and speake in our cast yet is such an one as God calls for at our hands to a further honouring of him So shall wee doe greater things when God abases us in our selves and hath us at his becke then when all our best gifts are improved without such a command so also shall we proportion our selves in some beautifull sort to walke with God and trust his Alsufficiencie both in our sufferings and our doings and God shall honour himselfe in both and us for both we doing both in selfe-denyall and faith Luke 17.10 Although poore wretches when wee have done all wee shall be but unprofitable servants Fourthly this is terror and conviction to all Papists and formall worshippers Vse 4 Papists first Popish statelinesse of devotion is odious to God for their scorning the simplicity of Christ and his Ministery and ordinances and counting the meane things thereof a derogation to their Religion and an occasion to make the worship of God vile and contemptible to the people And therefore instead of meane and foolish things they stablish pompous great and wise waies and devices of their owne glorious Images Roods Crucifixes reliques donaries of gold silver and jewels They fill their Churches with paintings and curious pictures and strive who shall outstrip the other in the beauty of buildings the curiosity of carvings of imbellishings of Idols who shall have the richest copes and canopies and the most sumptuous Altars chalices pixes and other complements belonging when their Masse is most gorgeously set forth to the sense and when the Ministery of Christ is thereby eaten up as the fat kine by the lean when all spirituall means of mortification are turned to carnall and outward such as the flesh delights in but the lazy and base heart of man abhorres then do they think the service of God best dispatched Oh ye hypocrites who doe oppose God point blanke in his purpose and turne the conversion of soules into perdition of them how will ye answer God in his day of account ye pretend that hereby ye grace Gods service but the truth is ye overthrow it embondaging the senses and enthralling the consciences of men to a worship pleasing and possessing the carnall part but leaving their soules leane and sterved for lack of spirituall instruction God requires that his spirit in the ordinances 1 Cor. 2.1.2 should quash and controll all the excellency of man and you strive by amusing and detaining the eies and eares and senses of the body with pompe and state to quash the power of preaching and the efficacy of the spirit But there shall come forth a fire out of the breath of his mouth one day and consume all these inventions of yours and carry both you and them to the place whence they came The misery is that in the meane time you do snare and lead innumerable soules to hell and leave them at last either to senslesnes or despaire and none may say what doe you Proud hypocrites disdaine to be taught by mean persons The like I may say of all formall hypocrites who disdaine the sillines of Gods Ministers preaching and sacraments they forsooth scorn that every base fellow should have the credit of converting them they could be content to heare Christ preach or Paul or some of the Apostles who yet if they were among them should be as base with them as the basest they must either heare some great learned Doctor or schollar of renowne speake to them or else they will not lend their eare others say that their Jesuits are the only men of learning now a daies as for our English Preachers alas they are but silly fellowes to build a mans faith upon In a word either
conversion first that they make no other account before hand but to finde difficulties and affronts in their way although perhaps they set forward at first with faire winde and great hopes yet that both winde and tide may turne against them before they have done Let not him that puts on his harnis boast as he that puts them off Rather make account of the hardest before and be armed against it be not discouraged nor faint in the onset for I tell thee the worst of Gods way is easier then the best of thy former course of lust and ignorance the pathes whereof are pleasant yet going downe to hel And being warned thus it will be halfe an arming to thee it will coole thy carnall heat send thee to God for strength and make thee out of savor of thy selfe-attempts Secondly when thou shalt meet with such hardnesses in the way wonder not nor shrinke backe say thus I entred upon regeneration with this proviso and laboured to cast the hardest If easier termes be offred by Gods providence if Satan be kept off or corruption held under or the work made sweeter then I feared let me count it my gain and a portion which many of my brethren want But if I meet with brunts let me not desist and goe backe to Egypt but proceed on towards Canaan hoping that yet the issue shall be good Say thus now the Lord is trying of me of what mettle I am made even as he tryed those souldiers that sooped water Judg. 7. or lapped it now is the season for me to looke about me now let me abhorre to play the timeserver hypocrite staggerer and revolter from Gods way because I meet with offences in it If now I turne away and be distempered vowing that I will never goe on one step further nor strike one stroke more I shall shew my selfe and the mettle I am made of but if I shall meekely devour and digest these affronts then I shall shew a patient wayting heart upon God and one that esteemes grace above all my labour and a rich bargaine upon the price If Naaman had beene aware what God intended him before hand hee had said no lesse God tryes me by this delay God make me meek and keep me from rage But because he was yet ignorant therefore hee must bee conceived as one whose passions and anger the Lord meant to cover and pardon in due time and therefore now over-ruled for his good afterward Quest What difficulties are they which Gods travellers endure But some may aske what difficulties doe ye meane I answer such as these Many enter upon conversion upon great hopes and affections stirred up by the Gospell But after a while perhaps it pleases God to shew them their faces in such a glasse of terror and confusion that their hopes are turned into horror for some good space together Answ Manifold 1. Inward And in this condition they are tempted perhaps to avoide wounds of conscience by making away themselves if God staid them not Others feel a raging heart against the Law and Minister for searching their sores and convincing them so deeply if God turned it not to good after and thereby tawed them not more throughly by their owne corruption Others are in consult with themselves whether they were not better abandon all hearing and praying any longer and returne to their joviall company and pleasures of sinne againe that so they may shun this sharpe Schoolemaster by playing the trewants and so be at some ease except God shew them that this discipline as untoothsome as it is yet is wholesome Others stick long at this knot having a slavish sad melancholy spirit delighting in fullennesse and feare especially if sad crosses mixe themselves with inward heavinesse as ill marriage debts pursuits ill successe and the like They thinke God frownes more upon them then in the former daies of their ignorance Others are as much amazed on the other side because their terrors were never so great as others nor were their consciences so deepely affrighted with wrath and hell and therefore not duely humbled Others feele a great measure of unmortified lust and filth to dwell in them as wrath pride hollownesse revenge and to dog them so that they cannot thinke that such poyson and mercy to pardon can possibly stand together Others mistake the doctrine of preparation to faith thinking it to stand in the greatnesse of measure deepe sorrow breaking of heart deepe streights and being at a deepe losse great longings and thirstings after mercy and so of the rest It is long ere they come to see that there must bee a seed of the Gospell wrought ere these be or that they serve rather for marks of the spirit of grace then any furtherers of it from any thing in themselves Others feeling these wrought in them yet when they heare that faith only can put them into a safe estate they begin to feare that although they are prepared by the condition yet the Lord will not performe the effect of faith for them forgetting that Gods meaning in the one was to worke the other or at least thinke it will be a long time first and they shall be out of all heart ere then or they may dye ere the Lord make an end of his worke Others conceive amisse of the promise thinking it to be offred to such as can take hold of it by themselves not knowing that the strength is Gods and not theirs Esay 27.5.6 and that the offer comming frō the strength of a satisfaction to justice doth strengthen the Lord to make and tender it to a poore soule that needs it and concurs with that soule strongly to fasten it thereon as the due portion belonging to it Others are marvailously disquieted about their Election doubting that all their mournings and travailes are to no purpose because they strive against Gods will not remembring that secretes are for God not for for them and their surest markes come from the obeying of the revealed will Others when the fruit is come to the birth have no strength to bring forth it seemes impossible or hard or unlikely that such base ones should ever beleeve it were too good for so unworthy ones and in truth men looke wholly at their owne ends so much and so little at the glory which the Lord chiefly seekes to his grace that they little muse of the worke as becomming the omnipotency and free bounty of a reconciled God but of that scurffe they feele in themselves These are inward Others are outward affronts which meet with the soule 2. Outward some are molested grievously with sad motions and temptations and conflicts from Satan buffeting of them and stopping of their way by thoughts of feare injected into them as by Atheisme doubting of God of the truth of Scripture or with such qualmes and combats as doe arise up as sparkles from the over deepe terrors of conscience or the endlesse risings of their corrupt hearts
foile us if watchfull When the object of wrath pride contention unmercifulnesse strongly offers it selfe let us start at it and say This is to try what is in me now had I best looke to my selfe The Philistins are upon me I shall this day be tried by subtill and lewd company perhaps I shall heare the godly depraved jeered at sin and basenesse exalted God keep me if now I cast away my weapons I am tried to be a false traytor God will trust me no more but if I preserve conscience Gen. 22.12 God will set his marke upon mee for one that is faithfull as Abraham I say both in this and all other cases of triall Looke to our peace let us confesse that God may justly try us for he hath put a treasure into us which hee will not have us to imbezzell or betray to any enemy We are never tried by God Gods ends in triall not like Satans but to sift our Branne away from our Flowre that his graces may be purer and more pretious then Pearles Satan indeed tempts that hee might boult out all our Flowre and leave nothing but Branne Satan also tempts us that he might leave us as he did Iudas and Saul stript and bereft both of grace and peace to an hardned desperate impenitent spirit But the Lord tries us that after he hath found us upright and faithfull he might set his marke upon us of allowance and that we might for ever walke in and out Phil. 4. both toward him with confidence and within our selves with peace passing understanding Which peace as we have procured by a good conscience so it is preserved thereby Therefore look not at the difficulty of a triall but looke at the misery which an ill conscience and the happinesse and joy which a good will leave behinde it such a reward as all the fulfilling of our lusts can never afford us Can the son of Ishai give ye vineyards And can your lusts equall Gods boones and bounties 1 Sam. 22.7 Therefore let this peace of God so rule thee that thou wouldst chuse to forgoe thy life rather then forfet it Moreover pray dayly not against trialls for the triall of our faith and faithfulnesse is more pretious then gold both in respect of our selves who know not what our grace is 1 Pet. 1.7 till we be put to triall nor yet what corruption lurkes in us and therefore know not in what respects we should either be thankfull or humbled and of God also who is honoured much in the trialls of his and when he purposeth most to honour them And pray that we be not led into temptation Mat. 6.13.26.41 Heb. 3. ult he tries them to know them But I say pray that the Lord would not lead us into temptation to be foyled like slaves by Satan or our lusts And if indeed the Lord will have us go through the brunt and purgatory beseech him to sustaine us by his strength and pitty us when we are tempted that we may stand to it couragiously and wisely through his strength And if we have failed in our triall with Hezekiah and Peter 2 Cron. 32.26 Mat. 26. ult Esay 38. 1 Cor 11.28 let us be humbled againe after it as the one and repent as the other did and so feele our very slips and faylings to be occasions to better us and to try and judge our selves that so the Lord may not judge us And so much for this first point out of this eleventh verse I proceed now to the next point in this verse which is one of the maine points which I intended in the choosing this Scripture beloved to treate of among you The maine point of this whole Text and Treatise And that is the cause it selfe directly of this distemper of Naaman the unseasonable stop of the cure expected And that was this that he had a selfe-conceit of a way of curing him whereof yet he had no ground which now he is crossed of He confesseth it himselfe at large marke his owne words Behold saith he I thought with my selfe that he would surely come forth and pray to his God and strike his hand upon the place and heale the leper But who told him so had he any warrant for it no none save himselfe But now so deadly doth this conceit and toy of his owne braine worke with him that being defeated he is out of sorts and chuseth rather hearing of Gods way to goe away uncured Doct. Selfe is the enemy when all is done which will bereave an unsound heart of grace then to be cured thereby or by any way save his owne The point which I commend unto you is this when all is done without especiall prevention self will defeat the soul of mercy That is although men are in a very forward likelihood of obtaining conversion yet there may be some bitter root of selfe which may thwart and bring it to small effect I mean not that such a tech as Naaman took here may do it for all are not as he in point of ignorance of Gods way but from this particular of selfe in him which was selfe-conceit and carnall ease I gather a like conclusion of all selfe whatsoever A further opening of the ground Note for selfe is a monster of many heads a stocke of many bowes and branches That selfe may marre all the faire endeavours of a man toward grace if it be not prevented But perhaps this doctrine will seeme stranger then the former to such as conceive Naaman to be in no forwardnesse toward conversion at all Object To whom I answer as before that the Lord intending both his cure and conversion together Answ so over-ruled all occurrents in the one respect as concurring to the other besides and above the intention of Naaman So that his jarring with the way of God in the point of his healing was not onely a resemblance but a reall let of Gods worke in that greater worke of conversion But then it will be demanded what forwardnesse Naaman was in here Quest Was Naaman so forward which was so letted here by his selfe-conceit I answer First he was very sensible of his aile and malady and laid it deeply to heart for why Answ Yes and wherein he had wealth honour strength and favour with his Prince wanted nothing that might make him great yet what were all these to him having his leprosie hanging about him Secondly God sends him the message of a cure by strange-providence of a Maids report who told him of the Prophet and hearing thereof what desire of recovery doth he bewray How eager is he to pursue it to his uttermost 1. By going to his Master for letters of commendation and request 2. And having obtained them furnishing himself with all such provision rewards as he thought meet for the journey 3. He useth all meanes with diligence to compasse this his desire repaireth to the King of Israel
as this that out of her owne doores an enemy should come forth even this Selfe lurking in the secret corners of the heart unmortified selfe in revenge in unmercifulnesse in deadnesse of spirit security and pride wantonnesse and unbeliefe which should dishonor that God and wound that Spirit of grace which hath so lovingly vouchsafed to rid us of our first guilt and feare of wrath that we might be his owne redeemed ones and not serve our selves Againe if Selfe be so dangerous as to hold off the unbeleeving soule from faith how dangerous is it in stopping the passages of our comfort dayly from the promise or in threatning us some mischiefe ere we finish our course with perseverance Could he that hath runne a long and faire race toward the prise and is well neere come to it endure one who should stand armed and by force stoppe him from getting the silver bell how should that enemy even this wicked Haman bee abhorred by us that should defeate us thus yea if it were but the making of that doore of heaven more narrow in the entrance then it need be 2 Pet. 1.11 whereas the Lord hath set it wide open to receive us after our poore pilgrimage is ended how odious should such an adversary be to us But I returne to other uses of the doctrine This may serve for both branches of Admonition A second use is Terror and that in two Branches First to all prophane Vse 2 ones and contemners of the Gospel and of the power of conversion Terror in two Branches 1. If Selfe in the most forward professors be so dangerous what shall become of the loose libertine and ungodly wretch Looke about ye and be affraid of your condition if such as are so fair for salvation and have passed through so many steps toward it who both in their judgements of others and perhaps in their owne deluded opinions are out of danger yet faile of their purposes because they strive unlawfully where shall such as you appeare Oh yee libertines joviall and merry companions who make Religion a vaile for your loosenesse and your civility an excuse for your ungodlinesse did yee never duly weigh this doctrine wofull creatures who care for no Religion but so farre as it wil stand with your lusts what face will ye behold the judge withall when ye shall see thousands of all sorts both Ministers who have preached Christ in the streets and cast out divells Matth. 7. Psal 12. others who have abode the heat of the day in Gods vineyard yet for lacke of self-deniall to lose all and yet you have hated the Gospel as a snake or a toade because it threatens your liberties yea sweare that yee will be curbed by none of these Preachers your tongues are your owne and no Lord shall controll you Tell me I pray you what confusion of thought shall cease upon you in that day you shall stand in the forlorne ranke of the battell and shall be as stubble for the fire irresistable you shall have the convincement within yee of a thousand witnesses and yeeld to damnation as speechlesse and hugge the divells and say to hell thou art my portion and to the damned you are our companions Job 21.33 As Iob speakes of the wicked who rejoyced in the earth the clouds of the valley are sweet to us so I say to these That which ye have sought shall bee your reward destruction shall be your end because you sought no better Oh! let me adde one word Oh that I could perswade you perhaps you will fight against me with mine owne doctrine Object and say if the painfull lose heaven they can but lose it who take no pains and why then besides should they lose so many lusts and worldly pleasures as they enjoy Answ I answer this is as if a Traitor should answer why should I be loyall when as yet I may be hanged for cutting a purse Doe neither what necessity is that ye should perish either way should one runne into a pest-house because he may die of a burning ague though he should shunne the plague Doe what lies in you both by physicke and diet to escape both But first you must take heed of wasting your conscience openly ere you can get a good and sound conscience void of selfe and self-love There must be a beginning and perhaps a prophane heart may sooner become an humbled one then an hollow heart which will see nothing amisse He that breaks off thy prophanesse may also grant thee sincerity in thine endeavour get but a seed of God into thee and thou shalt shunne both the right hand and the left hand evills I bid thee first to renounce the grosser lusts and then the smaller shall follow and Gods yoke may prove sweeter then both Be not dismaide because some have miscarried in a higher degree for better is he that crawles up the hill by little and little though a creeple then he who is neere the toppe and Branch 2 tumbling downeward of Terror Pharisees terrified Matth. 6. Rom. 12.1 So much for the first Branch Secondly this no lesse chokepeare for all pharisees and formall hypocrites whose Religion rests in their duties of these I have spoken in part before the lesse may serve here Except your righteousnesse exceed the righteousnesse of such ye shall certainly perish Selfe will destroy many that goe beyond you and their error must lye downe with them in the dust when all is done as Iob saith Chap. 21. It must be a reasonable a spirituall sacrifice of subjection to God which he will accept deale not with multiplication but subtraction keep your sheep sacrifices to your selves Psal 40. The Lords are the Sheepe of a thousand hills he needs none of such offerings say with the Prophet A body thou hast given me Lo heere I come but come without thy Selfe and confidence therein and cast out old enmity of corruption acknowledge and kisse the Sonne for his sea onely can sweep away thy dunghill and dregs away with thy morality and morall swasions bring them to the Spirit of Christ and he that shall drown them all in his sea Psal 2. ult and this shall breed thee more peâ—ce in one day then thine own course all the whole yeare which the longer thou tradest with it the sadder fruit it shall breed thee and at last the worst of all So much for Terror The third use of the point is instruction and that in sundry particulars Vse 3 First to teach us a true judgement of this enemy of our peace Instruction and Branch 1 what censure to passe of her Neither adultery murther oppression Selfe exceeds opâ—n evills in her delusion and â—â—fâ—ction nor any such lust can defeate us of our last hopes but this Self may and will Reckon up thine enemies perhaps thou wilt say thou hast many no man more then thou some that seeke thy shame some thy goods some thy life and
all those objections and cavills whereby Selfe labours to rivet her selfe in the soule shee passes sentence against Selfe 5. Marke It answers all objections of Selfe and when Selfe hath spent her selfe in all she can say to hold the soule in her chaines yet the Spirit of Grace is stronger for Grace then Selfe for corruption Notwithstanding all her ease loathnesse to part advantage to the flesh difficulty of beleeving pretences and colours yet so it is Grace will beare the sway and perswades the soule to cast her out She is as those men of Juda whose words were stronger for David 2 Sam. 19 43. then the words of the men of Israel So that let Selfe dispute what she can against mercy yet mercy is that which at last the poore soule must betake her selfe to sooner or later and better at first while the heart is tender and willing to take paines then at last when she is sapped and soked in Selfe Grace is the thing she aimes at and although she have had many turnagaines and discouragements yet till she rests there and sets downe her stafe upon the promise shee shall have no rest or peace in her spirit and therefore bearing downe all difficulties cavills and pulbacks she resolves upon Grace and the freedome of mercy This cannot an hypocrite reach unto for either he is resolved to be as he is or else proceeds on in a continuall staggering If the former then he is hardened and will be as he is if he be in an error he will live and dye in it he will not change his estate for any mans hee desires to be in no better case then he is If the latter then he is alway devising of one shift or other to delude his owne conscience when it checks him for unsoundnesse making it his trade to daube it with untempered morter Contrary to both the Spirit of Grace causes the soule to bee informed of her owne danger to be content to heare of the hardest to amend any errors which have misled her though with much paine searing or lancing medicines or plasters she is willing to undergoe any hardship for a cure and will refuse nothing so she may be rid of an unsafe condition and although shee knows this divell will not out without foming and raging and much opposition yet she doth as the husbandman doth Eccles 11 4. who knowes if hee should observe winde and raine he should neither sow nor reape So the Spirit of Grace waites not while the coast bee cleare and all objections of Self be answered for she holds her own and will not be answered but breakes through the hoast of all cavills to come to the bare promise and when she cannot untie each knot by picking it shee takes her sword and cuts them in two at once that the soule may be at liberty Zachar. 5.11 And as the Prophet speakes of carrying the Ephah into the land of Shinar so doth the Spirit of Grace carry this resistance of Selfe farre away from the soule whence it may never returne any more to pester her in the maine point of resolving to cast her selfe nakedly upon Grace and Christ Sixtly Grace opposes Selfe by setting Selfe against Selfe 6. Marke It sets Selfe against Selfe and thereby wearing her in her owne way that shee may forsake it and take a better Hence it comes to passe that when the soule hath long traded with her owne affections devotions and duties satisfying her selfe with the warmth of her owne feathers the Lord sets another Selfe against them that is suffers some morall distempers to rise up in them as peevishnesse wandring after fond frothy vanities an inconstancy of spirit to unsettle them contenting themselves with the creature any shred of it eating and drinking padling in the world or about carnall objects which formerly they despised and why these Surely that they might be gastered by the worse from the better and being beaten from Self in both kindes might resolve to fasten upon that which might bottome them upon Christ I have observed it in sundry even of tender and good affections that through feare and weaknesse could not bee perswaded to cast themselves upon the onely free and unchangeable truth of the promise there to settle and to rest in Christs bosome without strugglings or distempers of their owne base distrust therefore the Lord hath suffered them to be exceedingly disguised and burdensome to themselves by the contrary qualities of sloth ease wearisomenesse deadnesse formality wrath and other baser evills Their former love of the word hath turned to indifferency whether they heare or no their painfull hearings meditatings with some life and savor praying with devout hearts and fervency with like care and jealousie in their other course hath wanzed and waxed wearisome and those evills which I named have come in their roome and when they have felt these pricks in their flesh to buffet them Oh! how sad and unsettled have they beene As a bone out of joint fit for nothing Yea how sullen with God quarrelling as if they never had any good wrought in them and sometimes ready to give over all in a tech and mood Why I pray you doth the Lord leave such painfull soules to such disguisements Hath hee delight to crosse them to breake the brused reed or to quench the smoking flax No doubtlesse Try your selves good brethren whether or no this hath beene your condition And if it have know that the Lord is just to deale thus with you although ye have not perhaps provoked him by an ill conscience by running to evill or wilfull rejecting of the meanes even because you still rest upon your owne bottomes and ascribe to your duties and affections he would pull ye off from these and draw you to set your soules upon better objects I know what objection you will make by and by That you have also as much as in you hath lyen strove against all resting in any affections of your owne Object laboured to deny your selves and to settle upon the promise Answ But I demand why then have you not obtained a bottome to rest upon You will secretly mutter and say the Lord hath not beene pleased to let out any saving and effectuall goodnesse out of his promise to prevent you in your endeavours and to sweeten you with the comfort of his Grace that so your labours might not be in vaine Doth hee not let out such sweetnesse as yee would Where then is the fault Could you lay the fault upon God Or thinke you that the error lies within your owne bosome What way hath God I pray you save the way of his promise inseperably attended by his Spirit to let in and convey himselfe into the soules of his poore servants Surely if you have closed with his promise for the assistance of the Spirit to convey his good things upon your soules then may and ought you to waite his leasure for the answering of your
naturall and beloved object The truth hath not made them free for if it had they would forsake all for it and buy it whatsoever it cost them but not sell it whatsoever they might have for it Besides they know not what spirit they are of while peace lasteth and the Gospel runnes in the streame of their liberties gifts services commodities and advantages who but they An humble and zealous Christian would almost tremble to heare their protestations their engagements for God and truth the cause of Christ and Religion who but they in their fastings and prayers deepe detestation of the sinnes of the times and mourning for the sorrowes of such as suffer But let the winde turne to another coast so that they see the enemies of truth lay hard to their free hold and they must either sadly suffer indeed for that they have professed or else bewray themselves to be hypocrites Then they shew upon what hinges their doore hanges and turnes even upon Selfe and selfe-love Then they wax stiffe for themselves then they cleave to the creature their ease and welfares their liberties and worldly contents Why this Alas They understood not their owâ— spirit and therefore it laid them in the suds ere they were aware Now their great declaiming against the sinnes of timeservers and selfe-loving hypocrites is turned to apologize for their inconstancy selfe-love and ends of their owne Moreover another cause is they sought not Christ simply and honestly for himselfe but for somewhat which might bee gotten from him to serve their owne turne by his meanes They know not how to licke themselves whole upon the Lord Jesus for any thing they lose for him and therefore they are loath to venture any more then they must quite make forfeit of If they knew whom to trust for amends or could beleeve that hundred fold requitall for God and his Gospel which is promised to all that lose any thing for him Oh! it would lithe their hearts exceedingly to suffer any thing for him To conclude they consider not what a poore bargaine they make of it when they sell the honour and glory of the Lord Jesus for the redeeming of a poore transitory content here below they consider not that they fish with a golden hooke for minums if they lose their hooke upon a shrag of triall and temptation they can never make amends againe for it by all they catch though the fish were fairer Conscience is no commodity to weigh in the balance against ease and carnall profits and pleasures as Elisha asked Gehazi Is this a season to purchase olives and vineyards and menservants or maidservants They consider not what poor and silly figleaves they sow together to cover their nakednesse when they pretend a necessity of serving God their owne way that way which will hold best agreement with their own ends to shun serving him his way of suffering which contradicts their self-love In all these respects and in many more let us not wonder at the wofull declension of these revolting times which leave the Lord Jesus himselfe to sinke or swim Nay further let us not be offended overmuch at such as at their first entry and onset upon Religion seemed so zealous as to chalenge all enemies of Christ and began to suffer for him But having born the brunt a while and felt the triall too hot and too heavy for them have with more shame and reproach revolted from him then ever they began to suffer with honour and commendation And sithence it fareth thus let all whom it concerneth Counsells to helpe this Exhortation to approve their faith and fidelity to the Lord Jesus as it doth concerne all who will not prove hypocrites now in these wofull daies strive for the holding up and preserving the entire honour and esteem of Christ his Grace his truth profession and Gospel both in their owne soules with sincerity and before men without shame or cowardize Consider poore soule by whose strength thou standest do not look too wisely upon next hand examples of staggerers and timeservers though perhaps thou hast admired them for their zeale and gifts know them by their fruits stagger not at their revolts But looke to Jesus the author and finisher of thy faith Heb. 12.2 who for the hope set before him and the love to thy soule and salvation despised the shame and endured the crosse Behold if examples do so much affect thee the patternes of those faithfull ones who in all ages have borne witnesse to Jesus and not esteemed their credits or goods or lives so that they might vindicate the glory of Christ and discharge the trust which in baptisme and much more in their conversion to God was committed to them to be faithfull souldiers and to contend for the truth against Divell and his instruments the world and their own fleshly selfe-love The Lord hath had in all ages some who have though it a businesse of importance to sticke to Christ and his honour whatsoever it cost them although thy strength be small the trialls of the malicious sharpe and fiery as darts yet if thou canst deny thine owne selfe humble thy soule be little in thine owne eies be above thine owne ends and sensuality Then that God who hath suffered thousands of subtill selfe-loving hypocrites to fall on thy right hand and thy left shall keepe thee safe in the midst under the covert of the wings and shadow of his Almighty power Psal 92.7 Counsells And to this end and purpose first get faith in Trialls more pretious then gold and looke not to suffer for Christ by thine owne strength but get strength from him whom thou sufferest for Get thee his innocency be sure thy cause be good joyne with it a good conscience two excellent banners to fight under and then by prayer beg from Christ that strength courage meeknesse simplicity selfe-deniall unashamednesse to confesse him and to suffer for him which becommeth one who hath received thy being of grace and the hope of welbeing of glory for ever from him Beleeve that hee who nayled all enmity of Satan and the gates of hell to his crosse hath risen by the might of his Godhead and is at his right hand will so provide that the remnant of their conquered and captivated malignity and malice shall never prevaile against thee If ever thou tookest hold of his strength to save thee from hell and from perishing trust him for strength to overcome all earthly enemies he can and will subdue them unto thee divert them disarme them disable them and give thee full redemption from them If ever hee built thee soundly upon his rocke feare not neither stormes nor sands nor tempests nor any assaults shall ever cause thy building to ruinate but thou shalt stand because built upon a rock Secondly be not heedlesse and carelesse of trouble but be well settled and informed in thy judgement concerning the weight and the importance of the truth of God Let
vessel without a bottome thou canst not endure the talke of such things 1 Cor. 1.20 Matth. 16.21 they are an offence unto thee There is a peece of the Jew and Gentile in thee as yet Gods matters are a stumbling blocke and foolishnesse unto thee and thou art as yrkesome and fulsome a creature to the appetite of God and good men as a potion is to a sicke stomack Try thy selfe I say by thy taking up the customary errors and speeches of worldlings as thus what make yee of this precisenesse What Thinke ye there was no Religion in the world ere these singular fellows came up What Will not indifferency and reason serve men to bee honest and no medlers to pay all men their due as quiet folke should doe but men must pester the world with so much zeale As for these Preachers what are they Meane fellowes such as the world might want yet subsist few of them have any learning and they are bad for a common-wealth And as for these yong hotspurres let them alone but a little and by that time they have wife and children to look to and feel what the hard world is we shall have the wind in another doore then they will be lesse in their heate and fall to their businesse as other men By my faith and truth or as God mend me I love Religion well so that too much of it make not men mad I would I were dead or hangd if I love not an honest man with my heart so it be with reason Ah! thou saplesse and barren wretch thy language of Ashdod betraies thee and that exceeding emptinesse of good utters it selfe in thy very speech and carriage thou art weighed and found light Secondly try thy self by thy Protestant carnality which is an addition Instance 2 of some divine light to the dim light of nature Protestant common savour whereby carnall reason is somewhat alaied and abated but yet the old principle abides still and Religion prevailes no further then carnall reason will admit Try thy selfe about this also Dost thou drive two trades a spirituall and a carnall Dost thou heare pray receive and professe with thy carnall savor and sent still unpurged So farre as thy wealth credit mony pleasures and worldly appetite will suffer so farre thou wilt be Religious upon condition thou maiest lose nothing by Religion but keepe the bredth of carnall jollity ease and content still nourish thy old thoughts and affections close sanctifie a rest upon the Sabbath so farre as will stand with thy businesse taking mony hireing workemen paying rates debts and recknings maintaine so much Religion as will keep thee from open prophanenesse but as for conscience alas there is little thou wouldest please a carnall husband wife friend rather then God and lose thy repute with God rather then thine ease credit living and maintenance in the world and yet thinke thy selfe to have as good an heart to God as the closest worshipper in spirit and truth To equivocate with thine owne conscience to flatter to lye to cog and play the timeserver thou carest not so it make for thine ends and yet Religion shall be the stalking-horse all the while and that shall be the soder for all cracks examine thy selfe is this thy condition Then is thy state as bad as the former and in this respect worse because thou art a subtill hypocrite further from sincerity then a downe-right carnall person thou art just of the temper of the times and if a Religion of bowing to altars to images and pictures of Saints and our Lady and the crucifix should bee obtruded or a worship of blinde devotion or Popish pompe void of all sap lo thou wert the man most like to imbrace it For why Since that a mediocrity best contents thee betweene Atheisme and Precisenesse what were more like to agree with thy humour then such a medly Nay thirdly try thy selfe by this Perhaps the Lord is so full of thy Instance 3 carnality Gods leaving of thee to the savour of the flesh that he hath secretly given thee over to the sway and swinge of thy carnall reason so that thou bewraiest thy selfe what thou art as the rat behinde the painted cloath Try thy selfe by this also Is thine heart thy tongue thy penne thy carriage let loose so farre that no Preacher no perswasion can unsettle thee from thy dregs but still thou holdest and wilt hold thy base principles they grow from a twig to a strong arme and bow of an oke past bending thou wouldest pull out the throat of any man that should rob thee of these whelps and as a chaste matron is to an harlot so is a spirituall Minister or Christian an offence and indignation unto thee Dost thou say as once a Pharisee did Wife let our children goe to our Parish Church so they go no further for they are green and raw but as for thee and me we need it not we are not now to learne the way to Heaven it is tedious to our old age to keepe our Church we may doe as well at home in reading upon a booke verily many such there are who thus lye in their mire and there like old jades dye and will not come out Art not thou such an one Nay art thou not growne so rooted in thy carnall reason that it makes thee little better then a politicke Atheist swaying all thy course by it sitting at the helme of it and adoring it as then Idoll Achitophel was a worshipper of God too 2 Sam. 16.21 but a villaine who for his politicke ends would have Absalon spread himselfe a tent and defile all his fathers concubines to make all Israel to know there could be no reconciliation what Was not such a thing against God Yes but what is God to a politician Tush tell yee him of selling Church livings of following his lusts and pleasures of serving the times and framing his conscience to the Religion of his betters Is not that the way to be quietest to have the favor of men to have our lusts and to be furthest off from a Puritan As Machiavel was wont to say truth of Religion is hard and needlesse a forme is easie and to as good purpose I say examine thy selfe perhaps thou hast overlived thy hope and accomplished thy destiny being now growne to measure all by thy owne fleshly meet-wand and to count gaine and lust godlinesse Instance 4 Againe try thy selfe about these particulars following First about Godâ— attributes Dost thou limit that infinite power providence alsufficiency of God to thy carnall sense So that God cannot change the miseries of the times cannot restore the integrity of his Gospel and the power of practice cannot curbe and restraine the malice of bad instruments because it seemes unlikely Secondly about the way to salvation Instance 5 Dost thou cavill unweariedly with restlessenesse of arguments against the doctrine of selfe-deniall the utter inability of flesh to convert himselfe or
obeying with them Prov. 30.34 Christians so they walke as wisely as they may should straine no bloud out of the nose of wisdome nor seeke to goe too farre in their carnall circumventions but leave all to God let him see to them Psal 119.93 and say I am thine Lord save me I desire to walke in thy way Stand betweene me and my harmes so that I need not for any straits bee put to an ill conscience Psal 37.5 I commit and roll my waies and ends all upon thee doe thou all my workes for me Carnall pollicy causes breaches among professors I see brethren an apparent difference among you in this point That the simple and well meaning dare scarce trust many of you who yet would seeme as forward professors because they see such shrewdnesse such tricks and pollicies in bargaines and performings of promises such hard dealing savouring too much of worldly wit and every man laying in for himselfe to save one Others have smooth tongues of their owne to defend their ill qualities even by lying and shifting defences others can keepe their owne councell and make the world beleeve that they are forward men in Religion but all is to bite in their owne mindes and conceale that deepe ignorance which they know is in them or else worse evills which they count deepe skill to hide from such as might teach or admonish them whereas others are naked and glad to be open hearted in confessing themselves each to others that they might shame themselves And so the one aimes at avoiding shame the other at getting grace Gen. 49.21 Others have an excellent gift at giving good words with Napthali but they will be sure to spare their owne purses their charge and travell to avoid expences yea such as by their owne consent are laid out for their behoofe others will be as little as they can in good conference or in extraordinary duties for feare loath to let theit neighbours see them forwarder for the Gospel or in loving the ministery then they are lest they should be censured others are very zealous for the Gospel with a squint eye to their shops their trades custome good marriage and takings Others will in no sort displease their Landlords or superiours very Nicodemites doing that they doe by night and by stealth for shame or feare wanting faith and courage to carry them out Joh. 3.3 Others covet to be thought well of by all sorts and so carry a very eaven and smooth course rather void of vices then truly vertuous in Gods sight and fulsomely salute all sorts with equall love and curtesie good and bad so that a man cannot see conscience to sway them Others have such a darke and doubtfull behaviour that no man can tell what to make of them like those Scepticks who were ever considering so these walke as staggerers neuters nonresolved ones as if their Religion were still to chuse and these affect the name of very wise ones because they will utter themselves no further then if need be they may keep their retreat safe and have the winde on their backs Others are very carnall in seeking their owne praises and advance their owne gifts merits and good deeds not so much for Gods ends as to blaze their owne worth and to be counted benefactors Others will smooth and side with the bad and corrupt in a Towne lest they should displease and so betray good government to their owne selfe love cannot endure to see any of their own kindred to be punished much lesse their children for open crimes eager to maintaine their owne greatnesse sway and elbowroom in their places Others will alway goe with the stronger side be their cause never so bad Others are so dangerously worldly snigging and biting usurers hard and oppressing or defrauding the simpler in their bargaines cannot abide any should go out of their fingers without a nip Others affect good Preachers for some carnall ends and professors for their naturall parts love the richer sort Jam. 3.3 cleave to Gentlemen and great ones such as weare velvet and sattin and rings but bid the meaner sort sit at their footstoole Others fall to compare Ministers and who shall go for their mony Againe to end how many are there who will be all in all to them whom they are beholding to for their gifts favours lendings and gratifications despising others Infinite it were to mention all I have I doubt wearied you already For some are yet worse and will sit at table and heare godly Ministers and others depraved by vile tongues and scarce give them their breath to latch the blow lest themselves should bee thought too forward Not to speake of those large breadths which they take to themselves in their profession for their attires pleasures haire companies and the like Shall I praise you in these I praise you not I fear rather that this carnall reason and corrupt heart of yours Carnall reason eates up grace hath betraied you to him who is the father of cunning and subtilty truly since this new found Religion of worldly pollicy and shifting came in the simplicity of godlinesse hath been thrust up in a narrow roome And I tell ye plainly brethren I fear that these time serving qualities do but lie in many of your bosomes to betray ye when times of triall for the truth sake shall come then as thick as now ye stand up to our very mouthes pulpits crowding for roome when ye shall see some of us suffer for the truth we preach or practise we shall see you come as behinde hand and scanty Professors unsound in peace wiâ—l be so much more in persecution Tell not me I will never beleeve it he that cannot walke sincerely toward the Gospel in peace he will never abide one brunt for it by persecution I looke to see this place thinne enough one day by many of you who I doubt thinke full little of it and say Am I a dogge that you presage such things of yee 1 King 8.13 No I judge you not as dogges but God give you and me the properties of children to be more ingenuous cordiall and plainehearted These Eagles feathers mixt with others devoure and marre all One Barbara Rogers Start at such mixtures of carnality as once an holy woman of this assembly did who being inclined to the dropsie and consulting with the Physitian who bad her to bestirre herselfe and be angry with her servants and fly about their eares lustily answered Oh! this will breed a worse sicknesse in me your remedy is worse then my disease As she durst not offend God by carnall wisdome for health so neither grate you or goe against the edge with simplicity of conscience and conversation either for feare favour flattery liberty gaine or ends of your owne but joyne with a comely and lawfull prudence in your waies the simplicity of Doves Proverb and you shall finde that he who
flattery of superiors Oh! there is a slavishnesse in some mens spirits that so they may bee taken up with their betters they will forfeit their Religion they will lose God rather then the company and countenance of the great An eight is base ease and formality Ease and formality of profession it is an Idoll universally received and spit out of the mouth of carnall reason the Masse as we say bites not A ninth is pollicy Equivocation when men equivocate with their owne conscience for their safety sake as those in Queene Maries time who would come to Masse to spare their skin and now adayes what dare not men doe to save a living Here perhaps it might be expected that I should say somewhat about Jesuiticall equivocations But if men of their owne side might be heard speake against them Papists against Papist I need say nothing Josephus Bâ—rnes for sundry of them have written in the open disclaiming of such villany It is sufficient Mâ—lderus Episcopus Antwerp that in such equivocations the heart thinkes one thing by reservation and speakes another and that to deceive What is lying if this be not And whereas they say that is for lawfull evasion I answer it is indeed for evasion but that which is by a lying way cannot be lawfull A Papist is asked art thou a Priest He answers no hee reserves this not a Priest of Baal or not a Priest to utter it to thee herein is a lye both for matter and manner for matter in that he utters for manner in that he means that is to deceive They object the whole proposition made both of the expression and suppression is true I answer That only which is expressed is the proposition which is a lye not that which is concealed if that were uttered the whole were true but so there were no cosenage To thinke a truth which in word they gainsay is a lye A lye properly respects another by declaring his minde by words which serve to that end no man is said to ly to himselfe but to another If I should say the fire is not hot meaning by an heate externall or a man is no reasonable creature meaning as an Angel are not here lyes Hee that denies denies whatsoever is contained under the sense of that he denies He therefore that so answers and sweares is perjured and so all sound Divines affirm Let what tricks be used that can be God takes the oath not as he intends it who makes it but as he who takes it oaths must go according to the common use of men To sweare is to call God as witnesse in things doubtfull but who doubts whether a Priest be a Priest of Apollo Truth is an act of righteousnesse not to be esteemed by conceits but words See Jerem. 9.8 2 Cor. 4.2 It is objected they maintaine not such answers alway but for uses to shunne danger death c. I answer that which is nought must never be done He that saith I saw not such a Priest reserving in his minde at Rome or Venice doth not qualifie his lye because he doth it to himselfe onely another cannot apprehend his mixture or limitation Such therefore are of Saint Iames his double minded ones It is objected that which is concealed is but onely a desperate thing not contrary to that which is uttered I answer yet it is a lye for if I affirme that of Plato which is only true of Socrates it is a lye yea this is a double lye because it is under the colour of simplicity Againe an oath is the end of all strife Heb. 6.16 But by these oaths controversies are never ended but endlesly multiplied they object the judge is incompetent or they are asked of things under the seale and secret of confession but then we must not lye but shunne such a judge or deny to answer for what is so false but may be made good if we may reserve what we list A written lye borrowes no truth from him that reads it nor a spoken lye by him that heares it a lye it is because it is so in the writer and speaker Truth must be to us as David was to his souldiers worth tenne thousand of them so worth our life goods liberty and all The speech of a woman I will not therefore deny a truth lest I should die but I will not lye lest I be damned Tell me what lawes could bridle lyers if this course were lawfull How foolish were the Martyrs who lost their life for want of this trick Whose testimony should be currant in Court These equivocators object the lies of the midwives Abraham David Rahab c. But one sinne excuses not another When 1 Sam. 16. the Prophet said he came to sacrifice he was not asked the question he spake the truth but not all neither needed he Christ seemed willing to goe further but did not and why Because he was disswaded by others Other examples which they bring are not words which require a reservation to cleare them from a lye but have an entire truth in them being aright understood The conclusion is the trade of equivocation is divellish Ambition A tenth is affectation of honour and preferment for which it is easie to lose a good conscience hee that can lose a little pompe may purchase a great deale of peace So also to end schisme and singularity these and such like Schisme and singularity are oyle to this flame of this corruption cut these off intercept these succours and through mercy this carnall reason may be starved and vanish for lack of nourishment and fewell But I insist no longer let this serve for the fourth branch and so for the whole use of Admonition A fourth use may be confutation of Popery It is a meer dunghill raked Vse 3 together by carnall reason Confutation of Popery All the world itcheth to goe after them Those that fear God should say as Peter answered Christ Joh. 6. Will ye Instance 1 also goe after them No Lord thou hast the words of eternall life Alas men are weary of spirituall worship when they have carnall The Divell and his eldest sonne know well the complexions of carnall people and when the Gospel hath beene preached twenty yeare together yet people will long after the garlick and onions of old Religion and carnall reason with her taile sweepes downe a great part of the starres of heaven we doe but gugge and tire most men with our preaching of selfe-deniall and faith Alas one carnall Popish fellow would draw more after him then tenne Preachers As one saith The Divell never shed drop of bloud for us yet he boasteth that he can have ten to one more at his beck then Christ Popish Embassadours have puld away abundance of London professors to their Masse they stablish their throne upon these two pillars of pompe and devotion both carnall and by their Circe her cup have made drunken the Princes Peeres people of
Reproofe in divers respects I have toucht some particulars by occasion before Practice of carnall reason reproved in all sorts I will adde a few more here I say it should convince the consciences of us all that are before the Lord this day for our arrerages of carnall reason We should say as Pharaohs butler Lord this day comes much of my sinne in this kind to my remembrance O Lord the branches of this stocke are infinite How oft hath my base heart stumbled at the purenesse the closenesse of thy waies desiring the doore were opener for my carnall ease liberty and breadth to goe in at How oft have I thought my fine wits and China-mettall'd understanding too dainty for thy matters to meddle with My parts too good to honour thee How little have I laboured to submit my wit to thy will with gladnesse How often have I stumbled at the simplicity of thy Ministers servants as too meanly gifted for my reach How much ado have I with my cursed heart to profit by them as not complying enough with my carnall expectation How oft have I measured good things by their successe Being ready rather to chuse sin with happinesse then vertue with defeat and ill consequence How weakely have I beene carried with partiality of heart towards the godly Affecting them who have beene close faithfull friendly usefull beneficiall welconceited of me tender and indulgent mercifull and bountifull rather then others who hath beene more estranged in affection more ready to reprove my faults How much adoe have I from restraining indignation from such as are aloofe from me and little esteeme me How seldome have I gone to heare publiquely or to take counsell but I have rather sodered my faults then desired that the righteous might smite me How prone am I to looke at the greatnesse of some religious ones and to make use of them in that kinde rather then their good examples and the savour of their grace How weake have I O Lord discovered my selfe to be both in doing and suffering In the one being carried more with outward incouragements hireling-wise then upon a promise If I have found my labours my services accepted with men credit countenance and maintenance following how trim have my wheeles gone If not how heavy In the sufferings I have had how doe I seeke rather to licke my self whole by outward helpes and remedies then by that hundred fold which thou hast promised to requite my losses withall And though I have not runne to good witches yet how have I clave to mine owne carnall reason And seeming to have shot a gulfe how have I beene drowned in a shallow Oh! when I have found unkinde unthankefull and base usage at the hands of them whom I have served in Ministry counsell or helpfulnesse how hardly yea bitterly have I taken it As if I had done it to bee thought well of and not as one who had learned to undergoe good and bad report How hath my arme shrunke it selfe in toward such As if I had served an ill master who will conceale the labour of my love Oh! yee Headburrowes and Officers of Townes let this truth of God convince yee how doe you looke at pleasing men shunning ill will aiming at serving your owne turnes and base ends rather then at discharging duty in punishing offenders both spirituall upon the Sabbath and morall at other times despisers of the ordinances swearers and drunkards Is not this carnall wisedome else know not I what is Alas where is Davids spirituall reason that blessed God for giving him an heart to build a Temple and prepare stuffe for it although it were the lot of Salomon to have the name of it So God had it how little cared he by whom So Christ were preached how little did Paul envie or care by whom And so againe what is the common speech of men If I had ever hurt him it would not have grieved me to bee ill spoken of or dealt with by him But alas thou hast more cause to blesse God for thy breast-plate of innocencie to shrowd thee from God his revenge Thou shouldst see God rather against thee for thy little respect to his Majesty in the sincerity of thy spirit then at man whom thou hast not offended So againe how oft have our carnall hearts intruded themselves upon Gods administrations to censure him for the long suffering of the bad and the crossing of his owne in their zeale and good cause Ah poore worme canst thou comprehend Gods ends in thy fist How doe wee Ministers murmure and complaine if wee doe no good Why are we above election or servants to it Is it well not that wee are a sweete savour in all And so I might bee endlesse Therefore I beseech you in Gods feare let this be a speciall meane to humble us all for this our base enterfeering with God in his holy wayes Application of it by our carnall reason Oh! you who have been so ready to be led from God by feare of parents displeasure losse of favour of betters repent and breake your hearts Ministers who have betraid the cause of God by base time-serving and pleasing men loathnesse to suffer Oh! repent of your carnall reason recover Gods losses ere ye dye Oh! you that have chosen to save your livings or lives rather then Gods honour consider how small your gaines have been in losing your soules for a mole-hill of earth Repent O carnall wretch who wouldest never bee brought to more religion then lay in the lap of thy carnall reason not cut off a locke for God not forgoe a petty oath for him not lose so much love of an husband a Landlord as is worth two strawes for him Repent and be humbled O thou that hast fleerd and laught in thy sleeve at the sincere Thou who hast made Gods worship and profession to serve thy turne and sold thy selfe by it to credit to custome in shop to good marriage by it thy selfe being bad Come out O thou hypocrite who like Absalon hast openly spread thy Tent for the attaining of thine owne ends Yee politicke projectors and cunning plotters for your owne gaines enhansing above others though with an ill conscience and oppressing of the silly humble your selves and be ashamed Take God and his people to witnesse this day by your teares and mourning that it is so You that have come and are still comming to the Sacrament with carnall hearts for custome and to prevent the Court or reproach rather then conscience who have your hearts on the left hand saying I see nothing there to be had it is no likely thing Abana can heale me and Jordan can cure my leprosie Me thinkes I feare I shall goe home as I come and lose my journey Oh! above all others repent yee of this carnall dispute Naman repented repent you yee have sinned with him repent with him on Gods name The Lord from heaven beloved showre downe blessing and convince your
as the end of that Psalme witnesseth See againe Psal 43. wherein the absence of one principle caused David to grow into deadly dumps and that was this His troubles were so long that he beganne to thinke God might repent him of that free grace wherewith he had once imbraced him This caused exceeding distemper in his spirit so that hee thought himselfe cast off So Hezechia in his sickenesse Esay 38. So Ionah in the whales belly And so the Church in captivity Lam. 3. thought herselfe forsaken and that God had forgotten to be mercifull Hence the heart grew hardened the peace of it declined to feare and horror then the word and promises grew unwelcome then the ordinances grew unsavoury then the practice growes secure and loose and so all goes to havocke which might all have beene prevented if the soule had kept herselfe to the rule That whom the the Lord loveth Joh. 14.1 to the end he loveth them Read moreover Lam. 1.8.9 where Ieremy describes the wofull downfall sorrow that Jerusalem was fallen into and how she was come down wonderfully by steps to the lowest abasement And why Sure the sad error lay in the foundation she thought God would keep covenant with her though she brake with him she thought that to lye close to God and keepe covenant was no such great matter but that she might trie conclusions and so by a little deceitfulnesse of sinne the heart grew defiled the conscience crazy the spirit hardened by custome the soule impenitent and secure grew to care for no threats to reject commands to distrust promises and so came Jerusalem down wonderfully All which had beene prevented if either she had kept close to the covenant or repented betimes upon her revolt Besides look upon Heb. 3.12 Take heed lest there be in any of you an evill heart of unbeliefe to depart away from the living God and so wax hardened by the deceitfulnesse of sin How doe many who beginne zealously yet wax weary of weldoing by an evill heart Upon that how doth Satan encrease delusion and tickle with his temptations How doth the error of the wicked added thereto draw away more by example Psal 50.18 Then perhaps God is patient and smites not so that the sinner thinkes him like herselfe then loosenesse growes then a conceit that former practice hath been too precise lesse will serve Then groweth a mean esteeme of the word especially if powerfull and comming close Then perhaps sin having kindled thus far makes the life of faith unsavoury the baites of sin sweet makes us thinke it easie to repent at our pleasure and so we grow some to embrace one lewd pranke some another some to take their ease neglect prayer good company nible at the Divells baites pleasure company gaming petty oathes dalliance with women base fashions to concurre with the world and at last to waste the conscience with Sampson and David so farre that a man is snared and growne to a falling sicknesse and cannot recover himselfe All which might have beene prevented by holding the rule keep well while thou art well Be not weary of weldoing and the like It were endlesse to dwell any longer upon proofes Reasons are many First because Religion is a condition of life much Reason 1 more warily to be tended and watched unto then any other businesse whatsoever Now yet in all other affaires thus we finde it yeeld but one absurdity infinite many will follow upon it unavoidablely Take it in the businesse of war If one mistake fall out how many sad inconveniences follow Let a besieger of a City be too ventrous and what perill ensueth How was Abimelec slaine by a milstone under the wall How was Vria and other worthies destroyed by a desperate affront made by Ioab How were the Benjamites enclosed betweene the two armies of Israel the one burning their City the other before their face How easie is it to fall upon privy ambushments suspecting no danger In point of contention betweene couples in marriage or partners in trading or others in worldly businesse neglect but one rule in marriage to forbeare and give place to wrath what a fire is kindled Neglect but oft recknings betweene men how endlesse and confused grow the accounts Admit but one tetch and conceit without due pondering the matter and how endlesse contention followes blowes upon words sutes upon blowes and the ruine of each other by sutes So fares it in all other kindes Let there be but an error in the digestion and what can mend it Nothing the bloud must needs be bad the concoction cannot amend it and so all diseases attend the ill stomacke both in the head and parts of the body Is it so in all things and must it not much more bee so in the chiefe affaire of all other which is the matter of Religion Must not one radicall error there cause an infinite pudder in the consequences thereof Yes verily no remedy of it Reason 2 Secondly by law of contraries it must needs follow For if true peace in our course attend the cleaving to our rule because the whole safety of it hangs upon the grounds and directions of truth which minister life support light and defence to the particular practise how can it chuse but that those who warpe from the rule must of necessity forfeit peace and runne upon confusion See Gal. 6. He that walkes according to rule peace shall be to him For when the rule holds entire it ministers peace to the soule in all her actions even as a sound inside of health in the heart liver and braine ministers content to the body in all her operations And contrarily if the rule be broken it fares with the life as it fares with the operations of nature when the inward parts wax diseased a palsey braine causeth the members to flag and hang downe an ill liver causeth the body to swell Even so is it with a spirituall man All the acts of Religion must issue from the soundnesse of rule and grounds if either there be knowledge or no sincerity or if there both yet some maine error creep in between the joynts secretly lo all the whole life is miscarried and those errors which we see may thanke some rooted one which we see not because it affords continuall succour unto it Reason 3 Lastly Religion is an holy harmony and consent agreeing in all her parts most sweetly Religion is like an harmony Eccles 10.1 As a song sung or lesson plaid in musicke let but one disproportion bee in the tone and voice one string jarring in the instrument the whole melody is marred one dead fly marres the whole box of ointment So is it in Religion each part affects the other by consent an error in one makes a jarre in all either there must be a sutablenesse in all or else there is a disorder in the whole If then a string amisse be enough to spoile musicke what is an error in the instrument
pride and will in us which hath hitherto borne sway and defiled both minde and members to the obedience thereof as fearing to crosse her and let us at last bee confounded for it If Iob were so how much more need had wee Chap. 42.4 And seeing it hath ever misled us let us crosse it abhorre it and give up our selves to the rule and authority of the Lord Jesus He is our sole King who must rule he will teach us to chuse will and affect love loath feare abhorre nothing but which shall be for our good Be ruled by him and he will destroy Athalia the usurper and set up the true heire and the land shall have rest Otherwise if we finally hold our owne against him he will doe that in wrath which he would have done in love and have his will of us in hell and suffering who could not get it in obeying For every one that contends with him in judgement Esay 54. end he shall most righteously condemne And so much for the coherence Now I come to the words themselves of this thirteenth Verse You may remember beloved the Analyse I gave you of the contents in this Verse and the order thereof First as you know I beganne with the attemptors The first generall head of the verse the attemptors these servants of Naaman in whom I considered First that speciall duty of loyall faithfulnesse to their Masters soule and body and the welfare of both This I call the duty they stood bound unto by vertue of their relation Sutable whereto was his commendation in a due respect and tendernesse towards them as a father towards children Father say they if the Prophet c. The word I grant is generally a tearme of reverence howbeit here the realnesse of their faithfulnesse shews that there was more in it They carried a filiall subjection towards him as to a father of peculiar honor account with them No children could have more faithfully demeaned themselves to their naturall Parent then these servants did to Naaman For why Opening of this ground of the servants fidelity they observing the scope of their Masters journey to bee weighty an object of great expectation to their Master and seeing him now through his distemper to take a course contrary to his owne designes yea thereby being ready to renounce the meanes of his welfare by a meere tetch and pritch against the Prophet What doe they Most faithfully set themselves to procure a redresse of this error as foreseeing it like to be sad and remedilesse except prevented in time And this they do with some earnestnesse seeing the case so to require that is they oppose him in his mood and humors seeke to rectifie them and breed a good opinion of the Prophet in him that so he might obey the message recover the cure and turne from his wilfull purpose of a wrathfull departure This will better appeare if we conceive that which some servants yea the most would have done in this case Surely to demerit their Master to humour him in his base pangs they would have come to him and said Here is a surly fellow indeed a Prophet who sent for our Master and yet that scornes to speake to him lo he hath sent him a flim flam a tale of a tubbe And what Nobleman of worth could brooke it Come Master let us scorne to attend upon him any longer let us set spurres to our horses and let him goe let him keepe his cure to himselfe If they had said so they might surely have beene welcommer to a man of passion then speaking as they did But the Lord whose the work was put more faithfull and wise thoughts into them then so for the attaining of his ends Doctrine Servants must be faithfull to their Masters both for body and soule The point then is this Servants must be loyall and faithfull to their Masters and procure their good both spirituall and outward for conscience sake I am now entring upon a point of morall nature yet of speciall use and importance for the instruction of this condition of people which seeing I am fallen upon though besides my scope of this text yet I will labour to open unto you as God shall give me grace ere I come to those other points more suting to my purpose Marke it then The dutie of servants in speciall is faithfulnesse to their governours of both sexes to whom they belong Every servant should count himself as an Onesimus in name and deed to his Philemon Philem. 11. usefull in all respects but especially in faithfulnesse That which once the Duke of Medina generall to the King of Spaines his fleet against England in eighty eight spake basely each servant should speake out of conscience For being asked by one what his meaning was to do with the English in case he got the day whether he would not spare the Catholicke party he answered he would neither spare one nor other but make way for his Master A speech of a very wickedly faithfull servant But a good servant must say so I am for my Master that is my scope So their Master fare well though they have an ill word and have small thanke yea sometime by himselfe for flatterers for a time finde more favour then faithfull ones yet they must still bee faithfull Reasons and proofes are these Reason 1 First reason It is an honourable thing to be a servant and bee put in trust by a Master To be trusted by our betters is honourable therefore he must be faithfull else it were more slavish and treacherous When Ioseph was tempted to unfaithfulnesse in a high degree his argument of disswasive best he could use to an heathen was My Master met with me a stranger and boughr me yet hath betrusted me with all he hath he knoweth of nothing of all under mine hand Gen. 39.8.9 he hath forbidden me nothing save thee and shall I play the traytor with him in this No. The trade of a servant in each kind is a stewardship no servant is so silly but is or may be in case to bee trusted with more or lesse that way Now it is required of each steward that hee be faithfull 1 Cor. 3.2 not that all servants are equally betrusted yet none are so ill trusted but if they despise conscience both the life and state of their Master more or lesse may lye at their curtesie As one said of a traitor who so despiseth his owne life may easily be Master of anothers They are supposed faithfull not suspected If they be false what may not they attempt Chastity of wife of daughter welfare and safety of sonne wealth and estate of Master name credit and content of all And should such an one bee faithlesse and not faithfull No verily except one maine sinew of society among men should bee cut in sunder Some servants are I grant more interessed in their Masters then others Merchants Factors
Exhortation but to bee faithfull not to have such and such parts but to have one worth them all subjection and faithfulnesse Learne here of Naamans servants What a shame is it that such poore heathens should come forth so suddenly under the anvile of this one present occasion formed and moulded and thou under all Gods discipline shouldest be no better Oh! you servants remember what a long race of unfaithfulnesse riot falshood stealth stomacke disobedience Bad servants must not think it too late for them to repent rebellion you have runne hitherto Oh! that I could but see one Onesimus here this day one fugitive one lewd and slothfull or wilfull wretch whom this my doctrine might convince and convert to God But truly brethren I see so few broken in peeces for their errors so few penitent and tender for their old pranks that I am afraid to put new wine of Exhortation into such old bottells for fear all should break be spilt I have met with some I thank God I see no cause why the Lord should not take some of ye napping in your service and the sins thereof as others in the way of their bad government marriage or childhood What have ye gone from service to service have ye left your rags behinde you and scattered your scurffe so in the places where yee have become that you think it now too late to repent Are you so sapped soked in your way that you begin to thinke there is no hope Beware of being so desperate Say thus Is it not enough Lord that I have beene so lazy so false fingered so bold so answering againe drunke at times loose in liberties not for my Masters ends but mine owne but now I must fulfill my measure adde drunkennesse to thirst and an hard heart to my other prankes No Lord this were not to bee an unfaithfull servant to a man which is bad but a desperate one and impenitent to thee which is cursed If Onesimus had not robbed his Master he had never met with Paul nor beene converted his perishing was his happinesse Thou hadst grace for him O Lord thou madest him faithfull to thy selfe purgest him of his basenesse as deeply seated in him for ought I know as mine is in me that thou mightest have the honour Thou madest him faithfull puttest him into thine own worke settest thy marke on him sendest him backe of a wretch good for naught good for all thinges Ah Lord This day my sinfull service comes to my remembrance Lord batter me breake and thaw mine heart put me in hope pardon my sin put me in to the Lord Jesus his Schoole cleanse me of all my cheats and prankes and make me a true Onesimus fit for thine use according to thine heart and I doubt not but out of thy forge mine heart shall bee framed and moulded to all subjection and faithfulnesse to man Beg it hard Lord teach me to adore thy wisdome in ordaining servants to their places and Masters to be their governours Lord discover thy soveraignty to me and shine thy selfe with thine authority upon my Master and Mistresse that I may see God in their government either because they are holy or else because they are governours If I see not such a Master as I would let me see mastership from thee and bee awed under it Lord take my will out of my bosome and put in thine Speak Lord thy servant heareth give me a will to be subject and bee as thou wilt and then command and spare not I will doe not onely what thy selfe but what man under thee commandeth And it shall be my heaven and happinesse to be under for conscience sake Give me also faith Lord to create all serviceable qualities in me to lythe to forme and to accommodate my spirit and members to all welpleasing without flattery and obedience Let me under a good Master bee subject and faithfull with thankefulnesse to a bad one for conscience not compulsion as serving the Lord Christ Sundry charges Lord thou givest by thine Apostles Paul and Peter Servants be subject to your Masters in all feare 1 Pet. 2.28 not onely to the good but also to the froward for this is thankeworthy if a man for conscience sake endure griefe wrongfully Coloss 3.22 Servants obey in all things your Masters not with eye-service as men pleasers but with singlenesse of heart fearing God Doing it heartily as unto God not unto men knowing that of him ye shall receive the inheritance for yee serve the Lord Christ And so in other places Lord write this Law of thine in mine inward parts Thou hast also in thy word not onely scattered the examples of vile servants Ziba Gehazi Iudas and others to tremble at and abhorre but also of faithfull ones Lord to follow and imitate Thou hast set forth Eliezers example that old trusty servant Gen. 24.10 1 Sam. 25. Mâ—tth 25. Acts 10.22 Texts alledged above to the good of his Masters sonne Those servants of Abigail to the life of her and her husband that of Ioseph to the chastity of his Mistresse that of Cornelius his servants to the soule of their Master those of the servants that occupied talents to the outward advantage of their Master that of Davids for the succour and reliefe of their Master in straits the Centurions to the content and businesse of their Master Rhode faithfull to Gods Ministers and so of others No one object of faithfulnesse but some patterne of it or other thou hast added to sweeten it to assure me of the possiblenesse of obeying it Oh! give to thy servant somewhat of all these that I may be all in one a cast peece without cracke or flaw in respect of unfaithfulnesse and the rest cover O Lord accept and pardon Be earnest I say with the Lord beg of him an understanding heart put not all over to thy Master say not looke you Master what you command for that concernes not me I must doe all you bid me No examine thy Masters commands ere thou obey them But if they be according to God scruple them not yea although they be not yet if but negatives onely forbeare for a time and provoke not by rebellion say not I will not forgoe such a Sermon such a duty of Gods worship But if it bee positively bad abhorre it Beg also the spirit and life of this faithfulnesse Put thy selfe forth by occasion for a good servant is never tried till he be put to it throughly be in one as another service wholly your Masters watch and bee upon wing for faithfulnesse picke out duties be ready for duties be unwearied Let the honour of thy Master the trust of thy Master absent or present the good of children whether abroad in fields at home working thy selfe overseeing others among fellow-servants at praier in family about a journey and message of weight about thy lawfull liberties Still let this soule of faithfulnesse be wholly in all and each
pleasures But leave we such to themselves and trust we God who hath taken such strickt order for our provision and contentment so long as we be faithfull As Peter speakes Feed we the flocke of Christ not for filthy lucre sake or from a greedinesse of gaine Pet. 5.2 but from a ready minde well appaid and satisfied with our service as serving a good Master who will see us abundantly requited Josh 13.33 The Lord told the tribe of Levi that they should have no inheritance among their brethren in the division of Canaan For why He himselfe would be their portion He had taken good and sure order for them and theirs that they should have no cause to complaine And so he did For so long as they walked in their places faithfully they were richly provided for Should the Levites then murmâ—re against God for this unequall distribution Should they cavill against him and say that he had cut them off from their hopes and means and preferred their brethren before them so that they must wait upon their trenchers and feed upon their scraps No no Rather he had exalted them above their brethren and alotted them a portion out of their estates by a command so that now their life was a life of faith their duty was to feed his people in Iaacob and his inheritance in Israel Their lips were to preserve knowledge so that the people might from their mouthes understand the lore and law of God If they attended these things well they were to cast themselves upon God for the rest who was their God allsufficient in a more eminent measure then any of the other Tribes Even so let the same care of God for us encourage us to our worke Let us not forsake this plow of the Ministry looking backe after the world and our owne ends Let us not distrust him for sinister and outward respects The world is unthankefull and the hearts of men very false and hollow this might cause us to forsake conscience and seeke our owne ends leave our studies conceale needfull discountenanced truths pick quarrells with our calling and alledge that we Ministers of all others are meanliest appointed exposed to the wrong and base usage of men that know not their worth nor how to prise their paines Therefore they must be faine to be lesse attendant to reading study oversight visitation of the people and regarding of their soules They must be compelled to turne Purchasers Usurers Merchants Husbandmen and to busie themselves deeply in the world They have a charge to looke too wife and children to maintaine and they know if they bee gone no body will looke after their posterity therefore if they turne their studies and Ministeries into carkings and toylings for the world let none blame them Well there is no doubt some cause to accuse the unthankefulnesse of people But of all others you may worst complaine for you rather harden their hearts by your own covetousnesse and base dishonouring of your Ministry by your sloth and idlenesse then procure to your selves or deserve respect and esteem from them they only may plead that who cleave to their Ministry and be instant in season and out of season not distrustfull Tit. 1.6 slothfull Cretians and worldlings and therefore be admonished Take not an occasion by the sinnes of the people to distrust God but rather by the promise of God abhorre your ease and distrust and fall to Gods work with cheerfulnesse and good conscience Againe seeing God hath taken the care for us Ministers 2. Branch Admonition Snare not our consciences in doing our worke whiles we are at worke let us not snare our selves with an ill conscience in the doing of our worke God is not tyed to our sinne for the meanes of supporting us Many make it a strong argument for the swallowing of any gobbets and to defend themselves in their flattering of their betters in their sinne smoothing and blanching them in their base courses because else say they wee shall not have their good will encouragement and assistance Great mens frownes are now a dayes all in all to scare men from faithfulnesse in their Ministry And if any perill or danger be cast in mens way for keeping of conscience presently this objection offers it selfe but what shall wee doe would you have us beg endanger our estates and freeholds our liberties and welfares Alas poore soules Is this the thanke which you returne to God for his alsufficient providing for you Should you distrust him after all the care which hee hath taken 1 Pet. 3. Should you now as Peter speaks cry a confederacy with the wicked cleave to base dishonourable courses to attaine your owne ends as if there were no God to provide It were base enough to do thus if the Lord hath left you at six and sevens to shift for your selves but having so faithfully promised to see to you while you are faithfull why should so vile a thought enter into you as to imagine that except you lick up the scurfe of the time and play the temporizers and hypocrites against conscience you must needs want supplies and be destitute of maintenance No no Trust God walke in your uprightnesse feare not the feares of the malicious but sanctifie the Lord God in your heart who hath promised to bee with you to the end of the world Matth. 28. ult Let him be your fear Let his promise be your strong hold forsake him not and he will not faile you he hath a treasure hid in the bowels of the earth for those that cleave to him and warpe not from him by an ill conscience hee hath not set men on worke to honour and support them to the end that he himselfe should let them sinke or swim if others should happly neglect them but in such a case he will step in himselfe and be their God alsufficient rather then faile so that they shall say by experience There is nothing lost by trusting God Heb. 13.5 At the hardest they have Gods bond to put in sure and he hath said 1 Pet. 4. ult Matth. 16.26 Habac. 3. He will not faile them Fear not therefore what man can do But in well doing commit your self unto him who is a faithfull keeper lose not conscience for what shall a man give for the recompence of ir Can all that a man gaines by such a bargaine requite his losse No surely Therefore quiet our selves though there were no calfe in the stall or bullocke in the flock yet the Lord will be your strong salvation I have seen the posterity of the idle scandalous covetous of Epicures and lovers of their owne bellles ease and lusts such as with Hophni and Phinees have stollen from Gods sacrifices to serve their owne turnes to beg their bread yea in that very place 1 Sam. 3. it s threatned But never saw I the righteous forsaken I have heard of a faithfull Minister who refused to change his living
mocked It behooves us to hope the best of all whom we cannot convince of the contrary But except this principle be ingrafted first all other shewes will vanish and a false heart must one way or other bewray her selfe This open sincere heart is the best present for a Preacher and that which will doe great things if need be as Naaman was here ready to do It saith to the Minister there is mine heart take that in pawn and the rest will follow But an iron close hollow heart is poison to a Minister The Jesuits begged of King Henry the fourth of France that he would bequeath them his heart in token of his esteeme which they keep in a golden cup in one of their Chappell 's Let us doe so to the Minister of Christ and as I said let not Fryers and Jesuits prevaile more with their votaries for their hearts then faithfull messengers from heaven with their people That which is well for the present among us brethren I commend If the Gospel had not some friends it could not be so well as it is onely take heed that bad times eclipse it not But I speake as I doe because daies of peace are not as daies of trouble among some good hearts of sincerity many are hollow and the best may amend and learne to bee confirmed to doe that they doe upon grounds of conscience And I desire the Lord that without prejudice wee might heare this truth and receive it Aske thine heart whence is it that my affections are so blunt and dead towards Gods Minister The more I am loved the lesse I love 2 Cor. 12.15 What Did his message never pierce my soule Did it never convince me to be a ranke enemy of God by nature That the wrath or favour of the Almighty was my life or death Did it never convince me of this that the Lord Jehovah hath in the bloud of his owne sonne devised offered sealed up a reconciliation and that for me Alas what wonder if the hearth of that Altar be cold whereon Gods fire was never kindled O Lord work the sense of the message of immortality and life in me by the Spirit of grace and then I shall behold the honour and worth of thy Minister with a spirituall eye and that common base judgement of the world shall vanish Then shall his feet be beautifull his face and voice pretious and his love above the love of any earthly object Job 33. Then shall I call him with Elihu one of a thousand For where one Minister cares for reconciliation himselfe or teacheth it to others some others doe not so they have the fleece what care they whether men sinke or swim Oh! Now I see it s a rare grace for a Minister to prise a soule to tremble at the losse of it to value it at the price of the bloud of the eternall God and the losse thereof as the spilling of the heart bloud of Christ Oh Lord Didst thou meane a poore soule so well as to give him a part in this bloud And to send me tidings thereof by the messenger of peace thy Minister sealing up that unto me on earth which in heaven thou hast granted me My goodnesse my thanks cannot reach thee but it shall fall upon thy Minister whose blessed voice thou hast caused to sound in mine eares and to convey thy love into my soule I hope I shall not forget such a Levite all my dayes So much for this Use Fourthly and lastly this point is for Instruction to teach us what duty Vse 4 we owe to God himselfe Instruction If we owe the Minister great things what owe we to God himselfe If to the Minister a poore mortall worm we owe such honour and reverence what then owe wee to God himselfe If we should doe great things for the instrument of our peace who is the messenger onely of glad tidings What then owe we to him that is the fountaine of it and him that sends it from heaven to us What should seeme great unto us for such kindnesse How should wee carry our lives liberties soules and selves in our bosomes ready to lay downe for him What cost what price is so great which should part the Lord and us Gen. 23.15 As Ephron said to Abraham touching the price of Machpelah its worth so many shekels of silver but what is that betweene me and thee So should we say Oh what is my best treasure worth Lord in respect of losing thy love and communion God will have his servants do some singular thing for him Some shreds I doubt not we should beteame him what great thing would we doe for him What vertue goes out of us What streames of our love and affection goe to him from whose springs all proceed unto us What singular thing doe we for him who gave his Sonne to save enemies and his Minister to bring us newes of it Servants who attend royall Benefactors love to seale their loyall love by some undeniable exploit and marke of extraordinary service As those worthies of David would breake through an hoast of enemies to fetch him water 2 Sam. 23.15 so great an hazard that David thought it a present meet for God And all to teach us that he whom great things do become to give deserves the greatest from us even the very neglect of life it self if he aske it When I read of the strange adventures of men for the pleasing of their Lords and Commanders methinks it shames us Christians It s recorded of the souldiers of Charles the fifth who hearing that he desired a way to be made for his army over a certaine broad River then beset with the ships of the enemy They put their swords in their mouthes and drew those ships surprised to the shore and conveied over the army in them What was this but for the pleasing of a mortall man But when as one day the soule shall be summoned before God and demanded by the Judge what singular thing hast thou done to put it out of question what love thou bearest to me What a wofull regret will it be when it can bethink it selfe of nothing save shreds and parings We could beteame that God should straine himselfe to a demonstration of some great thing for us If it were to make the Sunne stand still or goe backe ten degrees to worke some miracle or shew some signe from heaven of love to us that it might appeare how great we are in his bookes And we make small account of small blessings which others share in with us who are lesser then the least But what doe we picke out to resalute him withall How doe we curtall him of his ordinary dues rather Gen. 22.2 as thinking much of that The Lord bad Abraham do a great thing for him even kill his son and he was ready to do it and the Lord said Now I know that thou lovest me indeed But if he should put us to
make shew of consulting with a Minister making him beleeve that they advise with him upon equall tearmes whereas in truth they make him but a stalking horse telling their owne tale so faire that they pull some word of allowance from him that so they may say they went to worke by advice so if any thing befall amisse he shall beare the brunt of it But if it fall out that he disswade and oppose their purpose they have made sure beforehand to follow their owne counsell And I have had experience of such that whereas they have seemed to weepe and bewaile some lusts and corruptions of theirs or to hearken to reasons disswading them from rash changing of their callings or entring upon dangerous marriages or to restore goods gotten badly or the like whereas the simple Minister thought they meant plainly as they spake when hee enquires afterwards of such perhaps hee heares some of these who so wept and bemoaned themselves are ordinary drunkards or uncleane wretches others were sure of their changes ere they consulted others continue in their extortion or usury still but none of them sought counsell directly but to make semblance of that is not in them or to get the opinion of teachable ones or to stoppe the mouth of accusing conscience for the present or to prevent some ill report of themselves which they more feare the Minister should know then themselves should commit I have knowne some who have earnestly besought the Minister to come to their house and to meete with some friends to prevent haunting of their houses with loose company who when the Minister is come are about the practice of lewd fellowship and drinking the selfe same morning and others who have pittifully bewailed how raging shrewish froward they are vowing to curbe these passions who yet are found to returne to them after with more violence then ever when they have had some word of comfort upon hope of their humiliation Salomon hath a Proverb of such as vow first and then enquire saying it is not good First to commit sacriledge and then aske whether it bee lawfull These may mocke men and their owne conscience but God is not mocked And to conclude this Use 3. Branch Very teachable men in shew yet persisters in those sins which are reproved are dissemblers Thirdly this also reproves all such as pretend to bee very faire and propense in taking counsell but when all is done still they will follow their owne course They are so tractable in shew that the Minister seemes to admire them For why Whereas some are so rough and stout that no man may speake to them against their rebellious courses lo these are so faire that you may say what you please unto them admonish convince rebuke and advise them you cannot perceive any word or passion to come from them which might offend Who would not now thinke these men to be the onely obedient ones and to be ruled But marke them still they are the same men their tongues as unruly their families as ungoverned their marriages as perverse themselves as disordered For why They are moulded by a custome into this dangerous habit to suffer you to say any thing they have Asses eares talke what you will you shall have a nod and be endured but there is no heart in them to obey no strength to bee ruled 1 King 22. Thus Iehoshaphat hearing the false Prophets would needs have Micaja sent for but to what purpose Indeed he would heare him speak and perhaps would have wished Ahab to be ruled by him But when he would not did he tremble to joine with him or desist from the enterprise No but still continued this trade with him and his sonne Iehoram and married his sonne to a daughter of that Idolatrous family which was their ruine Such a desperate slynesse or fillinesse or weakenesse there is in many that winde themselves by this smoothnesse out of all mens fingers that they may roll backe into the armes of their accustomed habits and humours whatsoever hath beene said to the contrary Simil. The thicke haile falling upon the tiles of houses doth as much pierce and breake them as counsell prevailes with these as the one rebounds backe as fast as it comes so doth every droppe of counsell passe away from these Their honour to the Minister is to give him the hearing with both eares but to obey him in nothing Far are these from him that said Esay 50.5 The Lord hath opened me an eare I was not rebellious But I have lengthened out my speech beyond the due limits of the time Here therefore I cease for the present leaving the rest till another season Let us pray c. The end of the Fourtenth Lecture THE FIFTEENTH LECTVRE Still continued upon this thirteenth VERSE VERSE XIII And his servants came neere and said unto him Father if the Prophet had bid thee doe some great thing wouldest thou not have done it How much more then when he saith unto thee Wash and be clean VERSE 14. Then he went downe to Iorden and dipped himselfe c. 2 Kings WEE ended the last Lecture brethren with the latter use of Reproofe in the processe whereof we were cut off Returne to the former use of Reproofe But the point was a sharpe rebuke to all smooth people who will heare all and say as you say but hold their owne and doe as they list They seeme to want a bottome all that is said leaketh as fast out as it was powred in for lacke of a digesting and retentive spirit which their frothy vanity cannot admit It should seeme that those Jewes were such Deut. 5.29 who when Moses declared Gods covenant to them told him the word of the Lord was good they would obey all But the Lord cries out This people have said well in all they have spoken But oh that there were such an heart in them to doe it to feare and obey that it might goe well with them And this sinne seemed to runne in a bloud with them Ezek. 33. ult for the Lord tells Ezekel thus This people will sit and heare thy voice as the voice of a musitian yea thou art to them as one that singeth pleasantly to an instrument so are they catcht with thy words But they will not doe as thou saiest for their hearts goe still after their owne covetousnesse They are as slye fishes which will get out at one mash or other of the net To finish this Use therefore let all such know that as it is sinfull bashfulnesse for them to conceale themselves from their Minister whose lips are to preserve knowledge So it is double sinne and subtilty in them to advise with him for their owne ends and to use him onely as a stale when as their hearts are bent their owne way The former are their own worsâ— enemies But the latter trench upon the honour of God the esteeme of the Minister the peace of
dally with women Or you are too idle in your calling and runne up and downe needlesly Or you faile in compassion to the poore or doe small good with that you have you are hard and sore in dealings or make no conscience of keeping promise in all which respects the Gospel suffers and the Lord with your own credit and Ministery lye at the stake I beseech you if you love me as you professe to doe amend these I say obey him in all and be earnest with God and him to make thy love effectuall herein that thou maiest appeare not to love in word but in deed and truth And so much for this Exhortation And for the Minister one word let me adde Vse ult Ministers must love only for procuring obedience to the truth That which in the greene tree is not to be suffered how much lesse in the dry If people must not equivocate with their Minister much lesse may he with them Doe not seeke favour with the people and seeme to love them to any other ends save to draw them to obey thy Doctrine If thou wilt needs seem great with them improve al thine interest for God and their good Seeke not to idolize thy selfe in any mans heart and affections for thine own ends that thou mightst either magnifie thy person above other Ministers or get the reputation of some great person as Magus did or enlarge thine estate and preferments But in all let it appeare 2 Cor. 12.14 that thou seekest them not theirs and as a servant of Christ thou seekest to set up him though with thine owne abasement As thou usest thy selfe so will it appeare in thy course what thou aimest at and if once people smell what thou seekest thou shalt both draw flatterers enough as being meet covers for thy cup and deterre all that make conscience from honouring thee from the heart For why Under colour of serving thy Master thou tradest for thy selfe and discoverest thy self to bee a meer Sycophant not caring which end goes forward so thou canst worke thine owne ends Not much unlike those timeservers the Princes of Ioash who came and did him great homage but why To draw his heart from God to Idolls and their owne purposes and those leaguers in France in King Henry the fourth his time for the aliening of his heart from the Protestant Religion which proved the ruine of them both But of this in the next Argument Lastly here is Consolation to all such as second their affection to the Vse 4 Minister of God with entire and sincere obeying his voice Comfort Thou canst doe little for thy Minister perhaps but this thou doest thou obeyest him It s a signe unto thee that thy love is sincere unto him and which is better to the Lord himselfe to the message he brings nay it s a signe thy heart is in love with the truths of God his commands threats and promises It argues thou lovest all the Ministers of God without dissimulation or partiality a rate gift and hardly found for each man will have his owne Paul Cephas or Apollo Nay to conclude 1 Cor. 3.4 it s a signe that there are many graces in thee saith purging thy conscience humility and selfe-deniall all saving gaces This obeying is above all sacrifices and fat of lambes yea more to be rejoyced in then so many Jewells Could but I prove this in you my beloved who throng to heare and looke me in the face to pull out my words out of my mouth I should not need to comfort you or praise you Matth. 11.19 Wisdome is justified by her children your selves should praise you in the gates though I were silent Luke 1. And as the babe sprang in the wombe of Elizabeth when Mary came neare her so should your hearts leap in your bosomes while you heare me speake and as those two Disciples going to Emmeus Luke 22. so should you beare me witnesse this day and say Did not our hearts burne within us while he applied his doctrine But well may this use come in the last place for they are fewest whom it may truly concerne And so much for this second Argument of the Servants drawne from his love to the Prophet Now I come to the Third And that is couched closely but effectually in these words How much more when he saith unto thee 3. Argument The sincerity of the Prophet Wash and be cleane As if they should say Alas What seekes the Prophet in all this his charging thee to wash in Jorden What doth he expect a reward of thee Doubtlesse then he would not so effectedly have kept in and refused to talke with thee he would then have sought thy face as a Prince bringing great gifts flattered and fawned on thee for his owne vantage But now behold Explication of the ground he simply and sincerely tells thee Gods message looking at nothing else That which he urges is nakedly this that for thine owne good thou mightst wash and be cleane If he had sought from thee some great matter for himselfe though no doubt thou wouldest easily have yeelded to that also yet then he might with more colour have beene suspected But now since he hath no further reach then thy cure and welfare entirely desiring thy good and loath to see thee returne home with thy disease why shouldest thou not yeeld to him and wash Shall he seeme more heartily to wish thy happinesse then thou thine owne That were to be doubly blindefolded with passion neither to see his love nor to wish thine owne good This being their argument it affords us this observation Sincerity in a counsellor claimes acceptance That its a strong motive to all who are not perversly led by their own self-love to hearken to counsell when it shall appeare that he who gives it is sincerely affected to the party counselled without any respect to his owne advantage And in very deed it is that argument by which throughout the Scriptures the holy Ghost pleads audience 1 Sam. 12.3 Samuel being to urge the Israelites to repent and return againe into covenant with God and to contest with them for their Rebellion beginnes with this argument Behold here I am witnesse against me before the Lord Whose Oxe or Asse have I taken Whom have I defrauded or oppressed Of whose hands have I taken bribes to blinde mine eies q. d. If it were thus my mouth might be stopt in my conviction The Apostle Paul Act. 20.31.23.34 being to presse those Elders of Ephesus to tread in his steps and to conceale nothing of Gods truth from his Church urges his owne patterne I have coveted no mans silver gold nor apparell yea your selves know that these hands have ministred unto my necessities and to yours who have been with me and by this rule he bids them proceed pleading that golden speech of Christ It s a more blessed thing to give then receive The same Apostle 2 Cor.
that in some cases there be not that God might try our honesty then in the next place consult with the practise of such as lived next them in the most incorrupt ages and prime dayes of the Church when truth was as a chrystall streame which might bee seen to the bottome Read the writings of them who lived not only in times of prosperity and glory three hundred or foure hundred yeares after Christ but in those times of purity and sincerity when as yet truth had received no mixtures no defilements by the pompe the excesse of them who lived in them Enquire of the dayes of old when men were hunted persecuted martyred for the cause of Christ They to whom truth was dearer then their lives who were farre from seeking great things for themselves but carryed their lives in their bosomes to be let out with their life bloud for Christ I deny not but they are much to be reputed who have lived since but with difference the more arguments there be for their sincerity the more they deserve credit the more they suffered lost or forwent or still are ready to lose forgo for him when they need not the more ordinarily they are to be trusted except just reason may be alledged against them to wit that their self-deniall is contrary to the word as Popish martyrs the like Look how they preacht look what tenets they held concerning the aptnesse of men for the Ministry look what manners they were of what contempt of the world of fashions of carnall pompe look what they judged fittest for the calling of Ministers the pure administration of sacraments prayer in the assemblies collection for the poor censures of offendors admonition of the unruly frequency of preaching that let us take counsell from them in If they kept the Lords day onely as an humane ordinance by the Apostles appointment arbitrary and Ecclesiastically constituted or as the Lord Jesus his Agents from divine instinct and as a day perpetually to be observed for the honour of our perfected redemption then let us doe so looke what Paul hath thought of free-will of election of rejection of the free grace of God and so those worthies who followed looke what those Martyrs ancient or moderne thought of justification whether by workes or faith of Purgatory the Masse Popish Martyrs against the Scripture not to be regarded or the adoring of Saints and Images that let us cleave too for they wanted those blindeings of eies which others had though honour must be given to some without prejudice to any and the reason is my Doctrine Sincerity in the counseller deserves that their counsell be regarded And the like rule holds still good that those to whom truths are more pretious then goods lives liberties or ends other things sutable are to be preferred in point of advice and conscience then those who are short of them in selfe-deniall because the more of Selfe abides the lesse Sincerity Secondly it may be a caveat unto us in our judgements Caveat how to judge of meet or unmeet Counsellors touching Vse 2 them whom God hath set a marke of exception upon why their counsell ought in no wise to be followed whether Writers Preachers or Professors To wit such as have in all their courses bewraid themselves to be flatterers timeservers and seekers of their owne ends setters up of themselves with the pulling downe of Christ and his Gospel And they are first of all the nation of Papists contrary to Iohn Baptist Joh. 3.30 whose saying was I must decrease but he must encrease But these contrarily we must grow and encrease decrease who so will Tell me what one thing belonging to their Kingdomes savors of sincerity Popish falshood in all their waye in particulars from the crowne of the Miter to the foote Nay what was not first grounded in counterfeit humility to catch silly soules and to strip them both of their bodily welfare and salvation Even as the Ivy creeps out of the earth upon the silly stocke of the tree but never lins till it have overtopped it and suckt out the sap and so destroied it Sure if onely sincerity plead for audience then may all good Christians say of them their doctrine their lives their miracles traditions ceremonies sacraments Priests preachings prayers Gen. 49.6 Into their counsell let not my soule come Their scopes are carnall to set up their owne pompe ease belly-cheere to destroy the doctrine of faith true selfe-deniall and mortification Under the pretext of chastity of poverty of fasting pennance confession sacraments what have they done but lived in odious uncleannesse raked the treasures of whole Kingdomes into their Cells devoured whole houses of their votaries puft up themselves in the opinion of more righteousnesse then the Law exacts dived into the secrets of Princes hidden most cruell murthers of lawfull Kings and enhansed themselves to such a pompe state as made the whole Christian world groane under their tyranny Is it like that such should ever bring home soules to God whose onely study is to bring sacks to their Popes mill As he once said of the Turkes horse that where he came no more grasse grew So I may say of them so farre are they from sincerity in seeking mens salvation and Gods glory that they waste and blast all and every branch and blossome that tends that way Nay their most seeming holy devotions what serve they for but to fulfill the flesh to puffe up the heart with a conceit of her owne goodnesse Their counsells of perfection what tend they unto but to pride them in a thought of greater righteousnesse then God commands Their excommunications and censures to what end doe they aime save to live upon the sinnes of the people to picke their purses and spoile their soules Who ever by any of their counsells grew more chaste devoute or temperate and not rather desperate as knowing that money will answer all And when they write books what intend they but to flatter their Idoll the Pope and tell him although he draw milions of souls to hell yet may no man aske him what dost thou The travells of those Jesuits attending the Spanish armies into the East-Indies what scope had they Surely in shew for enlarging the religion of the Pope but in effect the murthering of infinite thousands savages and that contrary to oaths vows that so they might fill their purses with their treasures and hoards of gold till they made all Religion stinke in the nostrills of such as they pretended to convert Luther after all his experience of their Religion professed it to be the cutthroate of the soule and the leaver thereof at the brinke of despaire Doe not their attires fares attendance Temples exceed all the wealth of Princes their treasures are outward bravery Are such like to save souls Those Monks which were sent for to wait upon Austin the Apostle as they stile him of England found him mounted upon
our pleasure If they see that we are all for gold and gaine little caring for a flocke save for the fleece raking all from them to fill our purses and coffers and letting their soules goe to hell I pray tell me will they care for our preachings or counsells If wee shall now and then come in with a quaint Sermon or two and speake like Angels shall our counsell prevaile When they see our lives will they heare our words Shall not some poore simple Preacher far inferiour to us in learning or parts sway more with the conscience then a thousand such as we Cease therefore our owne base ends doe not fret against them who are above us in honesty but equall them in sincerity and then wee our gifts and counsells shall beginne to perswade and as a needle draw the thred of conviction after them Feed we the flocke of Christ not of constraint for base lucre or our owne ends but of a ready minde and then the worke will succeed and prosper 1 Pet. 5.4 Parliament men 〈◊〉 Patriots The like I may say to such as when occasion serves are employed in weighty matters of Church Common-wealth I am perswaded there be many good Patriots in this Land who wish well to the publicke good but what is that which hath hitherto hindred Simil. They say there is a fish called therefore Echeneis which will take hold of a ship and stop the passage of it And there is a weed whins I thinke which will cause the plow which rends up most weeds to stand still and I thinke no lesse but that this selfe-love is the fish and weed which hath thus long in secret prejudiced the effect of our Parliaments where Sages sit to consult but they have not cast out this Davus as I may call it which disturbs all such and such abuses I could reforme thinkes one and seeke to reduce improptiations to the right of the Church but then I must restore many my self and that will pinch Such Lawes I could wish but then perhaps I should be the first that should suffer If such a Minister were in my Parish as made conscience he would spy out my base wayes and reprove them and then I should be noted and so it were better to live under a worse that I may still sleepe in a whole skin The truth is this selfe-love is the canker which ruines States and Common-wealths whiles each man lookes at the consequence of good Lawes not at their goodnesse what hurt will redound to my name and state not what good may accrew to the publicke And hence it is that although for their owne liberties and the outward welfare of the subject each one is ready to strike in yet for those things which concerne the honour of God the welfare of his Gospell and purging out abuses they are fearefull to medle Oh they feare they shall hereby bring their names in question and thus private ends crosse the publicke Oh if men in authority had sincerity sutable the North winde doth not so drive away raine as they might suppresse sin And when inferiours perceive the honest bent of governours to make and execute Lawes neither turning to the right hand nor the left neither looking at flattery feare or foolish pitty Oh how would they quaile and tremble If in our Townes and families it were thus that Headborrowes would consult and governe according to this rule not looking at their owne ends a squint but with a single eye what might not be done Whereas the most like well a good order and punishing of the unruly in generall till it come to my sonne daughter servant tenant or kinsman and then they have the disease in the nose called touch me not then their wine is water and their silver tin and their zeale turnes to ashes Others love and like order but they will not stir themselves they love to spare their travell their purses or the note of others they love ease and thereby sinne goes unpunished or foolish pitty marres the City and sinne growes so rife by custome that its past remedy To conclude if husbands would sincerely counsell their wives Husbands and Parents without selfe respects and parents their children and Masters their servants what housholds should we have But when husbands are affraid to distaste their wives and chuse rather to endure ill fashions the losse of the worship of God in family then displeasure of their wives parents chuse rather to lay the bridle on their childrens neckes then to crosse them seeking their owne ease with their ruine as Ely and David did and Masters care not how servants spend the Sabbath or carry themselves so their worke goe forward how should it be chosen but God and Religion must be cast out of the family So much shall serve for Admonition Vse 4 Next whereto as I conceive Exhortation may be added That as I have warn'd them against base respects Exhortation to sincerity in Counsell so I might perswade all sorts and especially such as whose counsell amounts to the greatest good or deepest evill to sincerity and faithfulnesse And once againe my brethren Ministers consider you shall never be able to convince by the sincerity of truth and the word till you adde sincerity of conscience and intention of the peoples good Evidence of truth from God and evidence of sincerity for God must as Aaron and Hur alway prop up your Ministery on both sides as Moses arme from flagging Ministers doe not alway prevaile when they doe thus but never when they doe otherwise Act. 26.27 Excellent was that speech of Paul to Agrippa Oh I desire that thou wert not almost but altogether as I am excepting my bands He wishes him well with integrity of love So thou were a through Christian let the chaine rest upon me I seek thy soul no ease to my self I know there be many of us who have shot those gulfes which I spake of in the Use before And I know that we would many of us abhor to crooke the rule of Truth to flatter others in their lewdnesse and sinne for our owne bellies hopes or purposes and to hold correspondence with our betters by corrupt consciences I know we dare not to curry favour and shunne the opinion of singularity sow pillowes under mens elbows cry peace peace in their ears against the word which were to put out theirs and their owne eyes both Matth. 23. ◠Jam. ult that both leader and led might fall into the pit But yet there is even in us another dreg of Selfe to bee purged out We are men of passion as Elia was and when the Divell sees that we will close with our calling be painfull or that we will not easily be seduced to open ambition epicurisme company pleasures and covetousnesse all which nourish false ends then he hath another bait for us That we may couch Selfe under our best reproofes and sometime pitch upon them with
uncharitable affections revenge of such as we distaste too good conceit of such as we affect or adde some bitter gourd or other of our owne to mar the pottage Numb 20.11 Thus did Moses being willed to speake to the rocke he would adde of his owne and smote it that the people might see their sinne but it cost him deare and did no good So hard a taske it is for flesh to trade in Gods mâ—tters with Gods minde entirely and sincerely if the meekest man was so what are we prone unto And yet how may this dreg of ours hurt the receit even as if we made no conscience at all Brethren every mans temptations lye within his owne element Perhaps we are faithfull and diligent preachers but our livings are not to our mindes we thinke our selves not regarded to our deserts here steps in our owne spirit and mixes it selfe unlawfully with a thing lawfull It s meet we were well requited But say we come short we are never knowne while we be tryed where then is our sincerity in doing our worke for the workes sake and trusting our Master for wages who hath set us on worke How doe mutterings and murmurings break in upon us with complaints discontents and unwillingnesse to proceed How doth the unthankfulnesse of people encroach upon our spirits to breed distrust and impatience which rather should excite and improve our faith to the uttermost And this is so farre from healing our sore that it rather incenses it more and weakens both the opinion of our labours and the supply of our wants in the mindes and practices of our hearers who thinke thus of us to be not as we are but as we should be men void of self-love and full of sincerity for the true ends of God and their soules Now brethren what peace can we have within while we are carnall in ministring of the spirituall things of God or vend his wares upon our owne stall fleecing the Lord of his dearest jewell his glory and making him a stalking horse for our owne game The base ends of other professions as Physitians Lawyers Tradesmen is not of so deep a dye as ours because the ground we stand on and the Trade we drive is holy and divine theirs only civill and worldly But how will some say may this Quest grace be gotten I will give two or three Answ directions and two or three motives and finish the Use First addict we our selves with delight to attend upon reading 1. Rules for sincerity in Ministery and Counsell study converse with one another imparting our needs and aides in the ordinances each to other as immediately serving to breed and feed this grace and to weane us from the contrary refusing not onely the usuall pleasures profits and vanities of the world except meet and private recreations but even denying our owne curiosity in studies and abuse of gifts to ostentation or to vent our owne way of quotations and conceits Doe not shew your tooles but your workemanship and that you are workemen that need not be ashamed dividing the word aright not seeking your selves but the end of your labours men thinke if they have once got them a name they are made for ever But let us not looke at the carnall custome of the times but at that which may breed sincerity in us God may be served with the best of our gifts so that we first resigne up our selves and them to him so take them back againe refined and purged washed and pared and shaven for his owne service When God hath stampt them with his owne Image and Spirit there is use of them all If ordinary meanes will not serve let extraordinary be used observe what speciall tang of selfe-love doth most assault us every man is not alike tempted some itch after one impure end some another sloth and ease bearing sway pride of life gaine pleasures or as the humour lyes Doe but consider what excellent lights have waxen dimme yea gone out as a snuffe by one of these Demas Diotrephes Alexander many in our owne experience If there be not sincerity in our preaching-scope it is a shrewd presumption there is but little in any respect and then what may not befall us I have noted some in this kinde who by degrees have wanzed and betraied themselves to be but unfaithfull in the maine and for their ends have forsaken the cause of Christ altogether Consider how little good is done at the best 1. Some motives to sincerity in Counsell when we are most sincere But as for the other how little or no good appeares to be done in the places where they reside Who knowes in such a world as this so full of timeservers so full of temptations baites feares how great need we have of prayer of armour and watching lest he that thinks he stands yet fall before he be aware How many are our snares on every side either by the flattery of such as applaud us or the unthankefulnesse of such as forsake us or the ignorance of such as will not acknowledge us or the wrongs of such as provoke us the unprofitablenesse of our hearers the cousenage of Satan or the falshood of our owne hearts How many in discontent have turned Papists Pelagians Anabaptists Socinians and never come to a pitch till death have ended their ambitious dayes How will hard times the multitude of expences the example of others our inferiours exceeding us in preferments tickle us to forsake sincerity exept God have put a sweetnesse into us of working for himselfe and conscience and trusting him for successe It must be our whole worke even to locke our selves wives and posterity into the arke of providence and the promise of alsufficiency knowing that except we be such as can swallow any gobbets we shall not by all our carking adde one cubit or make one haire white or blacke one promise beleeved will prove a surer stocke then all our selfe-love and selfe-seeking will profit us not to speake of an ill conscience besides Let us beare this minde that whatsoever our meanes be for our labours yet rather then we would not honour God in them if we might and the case so required we would trust him for support and supply To conclude oft muse of the price of soules It is Peters argument when he urges Ministers to preach of a ready minde not for gaine because the flocke of Christ is bought with his bloud And to conclude with that which he there addeth That hundred fold which wee shall reap for all our losses in and for the cause of God and sincerity will fully requite us if here we lose our skinne and fleece by wolves and dogs which pursue and teare us the great Shepheard of the flocke our Lord Jesus shall come we shall have a Crowne of glory that fades not better then all that we can expect or men can gratifie us with Thus much also for Exhortation may serve the turne Vse 5
Nextly here is Terror and Reproofe for all that live under convincing Terror to all proud despisers of sincere Counsell sincere and faithfull counsell yea such as they cannot except against to proceed from unfaigned desire of their salvation conversion and repentance and yet still live in a stout and wilfull obstinacy and resolution to abide in their lusts and liberties without controll This is sure while men can pretend any sinister end in the Minister they thinke themselves to have buckler enough to beare off all blowes But even to you this I say that it shall not serve your turne to cast this blame upon your Minister for the power of the word ought more to convince you and scare you from your base courses then the Ministers insincerity to excuse you But when all this your plea is gone and cut off and you cannot deny but the evidence of the word goeth with the evidence of sincerity and you cannot for your eares deny but that your soules and selves have beene sought with the denying of our owne health gaine nay that you have had some Ministers who have robb'd themselves to teach you denyed many succours for your sake and been at their owne cost to study and preach unto you and yet the day is to come that one of many of you are wonne from your blindenesse Atheisme infidelity hollownesse pride worldlinesse or the like Oh what answer shall you make to the Lord when hee shall load you with this accusation Saul himselfe in a pang relented at Davids simplicity of heart in cutting off the lap when he might have cut his throat 1 Sam. 24.4 but such confession was yet never extorted from some of you I will not make all alike in this kinde God forbid But I wish all to looke about them Some are so cursed as those hearers of Christ who when he by the finger of God cast out Divells Matth. 12.31.32 yet enraged their hearts even against the very Spirit it selfe by which he wrought and preacht in an high degree whom he pronounced unpardonable It were enough to sin against any one doctrine promise or threat or command of the Spirit as thousands doe daily and many of you before me have done Speak before the Lord and answer for your selves what one sound reproofe what truth of Gods Spirit either of Law or Gospel hath pierced many here for their dead hearing tyring out the hearts of Gods Ministers for their drunkennesse uncleannesse base tongues lying and the like But some there are who have set themselves against the Spirit it selfe of truth and sincerity in the Preacher Witnesse this That the more faithfull he is the more they have raged against him and rebelled nay some have studied how to make the sincerity of the Preacher his snare entrapping him in those speeches wherein perhaps not with so much caution yet with as great sincerity as is possible for sinfull flesh he hath expressed himselfe for their good And if not so yet they wilfully have slept and lived in security under it As Nicodemus told Christ Joh. 3.2 that the Pharisees his fellowes knew him to be from God in their conscience but yet smothered their light Oh fearfull sinne How dare any of you provoke the wrath of God thus to smoke against you I remember that example of them who came to Christ and practised this treachery Matth. 16.22 Mark 11.31 Master say they we know thee to be from God and teachest the word sincerely not caring for the person of any Tell us then Is it lawfull to give tribute to Cesar or no As if they should say Thou preachest sincerely therefore wee come to cut thy throat with thine owne words Worse then Herod in this kinde who murthered Iohn halfe against his will Matth. 14.2 and afterward feared that he was risen and could have no peace because he had slaine so sincere a witnesse of God but these would shed the bloud of such and no whit blanke but thinke they doe God good service But say that all are not so vile Joh. 16.2 yet how many of us are there who being guilty in our owne conscience of our sinnes and of the sincerity of the reprover yet hold their owne and will not come in will not discerne a gift of God above any thing which man can reach unto but resist it Partly by their slightnesse partly that they are so full of their owne matters contentions with others covetous courses politicke principles and self-delusions with pride of heart stoutnesse and disdaine techinesse and reliques of some old bitter roote which is bred in the bone or such like evills and the love of them will not be drawne by any sincerity of the Minister to forsake these wayes which long custome hath hardned them in but rather become more pathed in their sinnes by much beâ—ting upon To whom I say will you never bethinke you Will it not be bitternesse in the end What will you deferre all till death And then as others have done cry out for the Minister and empty out your whole heart The misery of contemners and say Oh Sir I knew of a long time that you spoke unto me from God but what for one cause and what for another I contemned the love and compassion wherewith you spake dallyed with God and sinned against my owne soule and that tender honesty of your reproofes and admonitions Oh you have been patient long and borne with my frowardnesse Prov. 1.26 But now if I live I hope I shal see your affection honour your Ministery humble my selfe under your terrors beleeve the promises reforme my wayes Oh doe you delay till now But who can tell whether God will not leave you at such a time to the former hardnesse of your heart Or if not yet whether your humiliation will prove sincere or false as being on the racke Whether God will take you away in your dallyings or no ere that day It is not safe venturing But most wise and safe to yeeld to the sincerity of good counsell while it is given ere it be too late This know that wheresoever God hath a sincere Minister he shall never goe without honour although it be in the destruction and finall conviction of the gainsayers Take heed you be none of them whom this guilt ceazes upon Vse 6 Sixtly this is Instruction and that in two kindes The former this To judge by this rule 1. Brâ—nch Instâ—uction Gods counsells are most sincere Rom. 15.3 Rom. 5.7 what great reason God hath to presse us to obey all his offers counsels exhortations promises To be sure although we should say all men are lyars and seeke themselves yet the Lord is sincere faithfull he cannot seeke his owne ends to our hurt Hee cannot bee benefited by us his are the sheep upon a thousand mountaines Psal 50.10 he needs not our wealth but goodnesse reaches not to him Psal 16.2 Who hath given to him first
No they would not for a world have concealed it but now they were glad that they gave not place to their Masters madnesse or their own feare of his ill will and that by this craft of theirs even of sincerity they had conquered him Oh how many temptations we have within and without to lay downe our counsells and give all over thinking wee shall tire our selves and prevaile little purchase ill will for our love and hatred for our sincerity and that would grieve us Grive us nay it would have grieved us if we had beene hollow but there is no cause of griefe now whether our counsell take or not our labour is with God Sonne of man saith God to Ezek. 18. If thou seest the plague comming and shalt plainly tell them of it thou hast saved thine owne soule their bloud shall be upon their owne head if they beleeve not Here is the season of upbraiding by base Rebels for our plaine dealing But bee of good cheere hereafter will be the day in which wee shall be admired when the Lord shall arraigne all Sycophants for their flattery and spilling the bloud of soules and the bloud of Christ the price thereof then conscience shall rend them in peeces then all their owne ends of gaine or ambition shall vanish and then they will cry out Oh that we had beene faithfull Then shalt thou be comforted and they tormented yea let all such as have received good counsell rejoice and bee thankefull David having heard Abigails plaine counsell was rapt into praise unto God 1 Sam. 25. Oh saith she my Lord it will not grieve thee when thou shalt sit upon the throne that thou hast obeyed thine handmaid and not shed innocent bloud Grieve thee nay wonderfully glad thee that thou scapedst such a disaster Oh saith he blessed be the Lord and blessed be thy counsell which hath turned off my sword from this fact which else I had committed so shalt thou blesse God for a counsellor and for mercy to perswade thee by it and say it was ten to one that I tooke it I had as many temptations to reject it as Naaman had here which if I had I had gone on in my unbeleefe and pride to hell which gulfe I have now shot We need not aske whether Naaman comforted himselfe in following the advice of his Servants Concerning which the verses following entreat Thus much for this third argument of the Servants viz. the sincerity of Elisha his counsell There is yet one more which now I come to and so finish the whole Verse And that is in the last words How much more when he saith unto thee wash and be cleane It is taken from a comparison of unequalls Their fourth and last aâ—gument from comparison Thus thou pretendest great respect to the Prophet in greater things this is but a small one if thou meane as thou makest shew thou must needs obey in the lesser if thou meantst it in the greater else thou shouldest be but hollow and not to be trusted The point is He that is honest and upright Doctrine The faithfull in greater things will much more be so in smaller if he be faithfull in greater things will much more be so in smaller This point attends the former very fitly That called upon us for the brestplate of righteousnesse This puts upon us the belt or girdle of Truth Both are peeces of the Christian armor Ephes 6. and the summe of it is That where truth is there is proportion and equalnesse A man may know where to have an honest man if he shew forwardnesse in great things by good reason a man may expect readines to do smaller matters He is but a meer boaster and hypocrite who makes great shewes of doing this or that but being puâ— to the triall shrinkes his neck out of the collar even in trifles no man judges such a one to be any better then a gull But to speak a word or two in the Proofe and so breefly come to the Use Luke 16.11 The ground of it may be fetcht from that speech of our Saviour If you be unfaithfull in the lesser things the Mammon of this world who will trust you in the greater Treasure That is if you may not be trusted in the disbursing of a little pelfe and trash that perisheth for the good of the body and releefe of the poore who will trust you in the dispensing of heavenly treasure to the comfort of the soules of such as need it As if he had said The Law of equity supposes that if you were faithfull in a greater you might be well trusted with the lesser but if the lesser bewray you to be unfaithfull doubtlesse much more would you be so in the greater If I should betrust a man with twenty shillings to distribute it among poor folke the party should deceive me and rob the poor of it I durst hardly trust him to be my Executor to disburse a great summe to their use The reason is good and holds strong that basenesse of heart which hinders him from the lesse by reason of a trifle would assuredly much more withdraw him by a greater booty and try his falshood And so by contraries But I will adde a Reason or two First Religion agrees well with naturall principles and admits those consequences which reason allowes Now there is nothing more common Reason 1 in nature and reason then this That every whole must needs containe his parts and every general his particulars for why its greater and therefore includes his lesser Againe we have a rule issuing from hence That which availes in the greater much more availes in the lesser Whether greater in quantity the greater circle includes the lesse the perfectest figure as a circle comprehends a lesse perfect as a cube or in quality as a greater heat containes a lesser a greater light as the Sun containes the lesser as the Moone So in other degrees greater strength containes a lesse in numbers hundred comprehends scores oftnesse comprehends seldomenesse in notions the more unlikely comprehends the lesse the more difficult the more easie and arguments may easily be drawne from the one to the other to convince any that is guided by sound reason Therefore it must hold in Religion also Reason 2 Secondly God is the God of order and his off-spring is like him Religion is an orderly thing no confusion But if men might goe to worke as they list and goe out and in be off and on in greater matters conscionable in lesser carelesse bound to no rule where should wee have or finde men Religion being the seed of God acts and workes the heart to grace or duty by an infallible principle so that who so makes conscience of great things doth it upon a command of God and not only for observation sake or base respects Now he who is guided by a command considers it according to the extent of it and if he bee willing in cases
of difficulty to obey he is much more ready to obey in easier and lesser because else he should justly question his sincerity in the greater The same generall tye lying upon the soule in both great and small the soule dares not offend in the small lest it should seeme to obey the greater for some ends of it owne to avoid the shame which the neglect of the greater might rather cause then the violation of the smaller Reason 3 Thirdly faithfulnesse in the greater takes away that barre of falshood which might hinder the performance of the smaller Perhaps a false heart might possibly buckle to a greater worke of Piety or Charity then to a smaller because it sees more carnall content accruing to it selfe by the greater then by the smaller But a sincere heart that abhorres falshood is carried by another instinct and cares not so much what men thinke as what God thinkes remembring that speech Not he who men praiseth is a true Jew or Christian but whom God praiseth The argument in sundry respects prevailes with a Christian from the lesser to the greater Rom. 2. ult as well from the greater to the lesser When great duties lye upon him to be done he argues thus Shall I make conscience of smaller secreter offences and shall I not much more abhor the grosser Doe I provide for my owne peace in the smaller so that the least gnat makes me straine and doe I not make much more conscience of greater which would more waste and weaken my peace So in good things Doe I make conscience of smaller duties as to give an almes to rule my tongue or a passion wherein God is lesser honoured and doe I not much more regard the maine duties of faith and the purging of my heart and inner man from hypocrisie in which I should honour him much more Again when the question is of lesser sinnes avoiding or duties doing then it disputes another way Have I found the yoke of God light unto me in those things which I feared my base heart would never be drawne too because of their difficulty and danger and shall I draw backe in smaller wherein no such hurt or hardnesse is to be feared Surely this were to requite God evill for good and to bewray my lewdnesse that I seeke starting holes and excuses to shake off the yoke when I see the least crevis of liberty to the flesh afforded so that I will serve God no more then needs must and would shift my hands of the greatest much more if the necessity thereof and the expectation of others did not compell me So then the point is cleer He that is faithfull in a greater will be so much more in the lesser Howbeit the point must be understood aright Explanation of the point and according to the naturall meaning and intent of it we must therefore qualifie Greatnesse and Smalnesse in their due measure or else the point will not hold First we must qualifie men aright in their opinion for to some men that may seem greatest which to another is smallest and another may judge that least which another thinks greatest When that young man came to our Saviour and told him He had kept all the Commands from his youth our Saviour answered him Goe sell all The scope of Christ was to confute his presumption in keeping all by laying open his inability to keepe one and that lesser then any of the morall ones For to obey one command in the manner and due measure thereof is that which never yet flesh could do But to sell all hath beene done by many who never obeyed one command of the morall Law in his extent and fulnesse Now yet marke this young man tooke it otherwise for hee thought to sell all to be harder then all the other in which respect our Saviour searcht him to the quicke but in the thing it selfe it was not so Againe in this case circumstances prove essentialls sometimes as of time for at some time a man may be fit for a greater who at another is not fit for a smaller As to give ten pound at his death for religious uses who perhaps while hee lived could not so well spare tenne shillings Also the preparation of the heart must be considered In the generall David may be thought to be readier to pardon Mephibosheth then Shemei the one failing by error the other substantially but he was armed in the case of the one but naked in the other Besides he beheld Shemei under a true colour as set on by God to try him but the other in a false as suspecting that a favorite should be treacherous which was nothing so So a generall custome of corrupt nature may fasten greater degree upon a lesser thing and a lesser upon a greater Act. 14. Those people of Lycaonia might have thought it a greater humility for men to abase themselves to men then to God But Idolatry and corrupt custome caused even their proud hearts to proffer worship to Paul and Barnabas as agreeing with a fleshly heart rather then God himself whom when they were urged to worship they tooke up stones to kill the Apostles And endlesse it were to shew the variety of respects wherein this rule may faile But this I say if the true natures of things and the judgements of men about them be reconciled taking things in their due extent without error then the point alway holds true He that is faithfull in the greater is so much more in the smaller For why A Christian is acted by such a spirit as teaches him to doe all things with sincerity equality and proportion both great and small one and another lest if any flaw appeare it should breed a disproportion in the eye of God or of man and cause an ey-sore to both As when wee see a comely face joyned to a crooked body or a deformed and crooked back and shoulders to a good countenance presently there appeares an indignation in us at the eye-sore Vse 1 The first Use is for Instruction It informes us of the reason why many men who seem forward in some greater acts of religion especially for the bulke thereof yet faile most grossely in the smaller Iâ—struction It s a shrewd marke of unfaiâ—hfulnesse to be forward in great duties and backward in small Surely it is an argument of great unfaithfulnesse and impurity of spirit For if there were soundnesse there would bee much more forwardnesse in lesser then in greater as being joyned with lesse damage and difficulty But when the heart is impure there is no sure rule in a man to keep him in he may bee franke in greater acts and very defective in smaller What was the cause that moved our Saviour to magnifie the woman that cast in two farthings into the treasury above them that cast in handfulls of silver Mark 12.43 Not for the summe but the different spirit of both She cast in out of devotion and would have
Oh they say its pitty such Ministers should live they serve for no other save to gaster and unsetle men who are in peace They have done that with their words which all their labour with both hands cannot undoe againe Oh wofull wretch Is the Minister able to goe beyond the Lord Is he not a servant of God to doe what he will use him for Esay 10.15 Rom. 9. Shall the axe exalt it selfe against him that cutteth therewith Or the clay say to the Potter why dost thou make no more haste to fashion me No it s enough that he shall heale whom he hath wounded and make up the breach he hath made when God will use him In the meane time perhaps thy cavilling at the meanes bindes Gods hand behinde him thou needest not wonder that he doth thy wife or child so little good rather cease thy rebelling as bootlesse and yeeld thy selfe to come into Gods order that he may worke upon thy heart as he hath done theirs And so let it by the way encourage the Minister of God who pleads for the glory of God and travells with a soule burthened and despairing of ever seeing good day Oh Lord saith many a such one Vse 3 it is for thee that I have so urged the conscience of my hearer to trust upon thy accomplishment of thy word If I have deceived the people Encouragement to the Ministers of God Ezek. 14.9 Rom. 3.7 thou hast deceived me Oh if I should leave any poore soule in the briars and never see the worke of faith finisht in him I should be accounted a liar for God! what a dishonour were this Lord put to thine hand helpe thy weake servant save thine owne name and my credit Disable me not from being beleeved leave me not a reproach to vile ones Alas They whom I have to deale with are a sturdy and a rebellious people cavillers and such as will disgrace me if thy word should not prove true honour me therefore and set thy seale to my poore labours that in my truth thy name may be glorified 2 Cor. 10.4 Esay 57.18 batter and pull down their high stomacks plunge them into horrors and then create the fruit of the lips in them and strengthen me to be an able Minister of reconciliation that so the mouthes of them who would traduce thy Messengers and Ordinances may bee stopped Even as the Lord Jesus Joh. 17. praied his Father to glorifie him for the sake of them whom he had given him so doe thou entreat also Oh in thy weldoing be not discouraged by such nor be too sollicitous for God! feare not Esay 42.8 he will not give his glory to another he will not be laught at as unable to goe through that which he hath begunne These poore servants of Naaman were weake instruments to speake of but yet made strong enough by the Lord to conquer their Master so thou shalt perhaps be the instrument to water that which others have planted Gal. 2. And what if others enter into thine If God may have a Temple built by Salomon 2 Chron. 28.14 David will lay in Timber and Cedars and willinglly forgoe the name thereof And therefore distrust not God nor faint in thy service Thirdly let this be use of Admonition to us that since God hath Vse 3 said it He will not alway contend but create peace Admonition Cleere and justifie God in his delay of grace therefore wee judge not amisse of God when we see the worke deferred as if he did deserve the blame but rather cleer him and say He cannot lie the fault lyes some where else The truth is we heare of few who honour God in the improvement of this promise though it be not the fault of all for many doe beare witnesse to God in this kinde But why Because they wilfully make it a long journey which God makes short And first they will not confesse that which God hath done They think faith to be such a sensible effectuall grace that none can have it but by and by they shall see the flame of it and so not discerning any excellency of effects they consult with their owne feelings and conclude there is nothing at all Alas poore soules the beginnings of faith are poore though the encreases may be great Job 8.7 Spirituall things in a carnall subject are as hardly discerned as a pearle among much dung that which is our owne appeares easily and dismaies us But that which is Gods is more secret Againe many looke more at their owne stirrings of the poole then at Gods I can speak it by experience that whereas one hath made complaint of his not clasping to a promise and mourned simply for unbeleefe ten have bemoaned their losse of the affections which they have had in hearing praier or conference A signe that their owne is nearer then Gods worke with them Faith is not alway a victorious sensible and reflecting grace upon the soule wherein it is But a casting of her selfe after all her fruitlesse wrastlings as being convinced of the insufficiency and invalidity of them all upon the streame of the word to carry her to the haven of peace If then you have lost your first feelings and zeale give not God over but still seek him for a further spirit of recovery and encrease upon the best grounds Naaman here had lost his first hopes yet you see he recovers them againe by better insight and perswasion and that ere he looked for it Pray earnestly O Lord thou hast power to set the Sunne ten degrees backe Lord set mine ten degrees forward Thou oh Lord hast all instruments meanes seasons perswasions blessings crosses in thy hand to worke by apply them Lord and suffer not my soule which is sunke into giddinesse ease worldlinesse discontent of spirit and dead sullennesse to lye still in that dungeon Drive me out of my carnall tracke into thy Royall Rode and if I must be delaid yet keepe me in thy way presse the Lord with his owne word and say Thou canst discover to me all my steppings out of thy way all my stops and lets Thou canst uncharme Satans spell Thou canst multiply perswasion and weaken disswasion Thou canst remove that utter unwillingnesse and uncouthnesse of the soule to this work and cause lythnesse and complying therewith Thou canst pull me out of those snares which enwrapt me in bondage as the weeds did Ionah No rocks shall split me with feare no Syrens shall inchant me with baites if thou assist Thou canst menage thy Spirit with so strong an arme Esay 55.8.9 that it shall prosper to doe what thou wilt and cause that no raine no snow shall returne in vaine but doe that for which thou sentest it Take heed give not God over trifle not out thy time improve fasting to cast out the Prince of Divells Unbeleefe and frequent the Sacrament as Gods sealing Ordinance and then know that he who hath begunne will finish
of Ivory or Gold But the Lord onely exalts himselfe in the spirit and conscience there he sits as Soveraigne and causes it to become his owne Recorder witnesse and Judge against the person himselfe so that the greatest selfe-love in the world cannot bribe the conscience to side with the sinner against him who is the Lord of conscience and can condemne both the one the other 1 John 3.20 Matth. 10.28 Feare not him who can kill the body onely but him who can cast body and soule into hell fire I say unto you feare him So then the Soveraignty of the commands of God stands much in the intents of God and that meaning of his to rule the spirits of his subjects and in all their obedience either negative or affirmative either in doing or suffering to cast a secret chaine upon the conscience to obey cheerfully equally uprightly wisely constantly For instance in the worship of a Sabbath the abhorring of oppression the suffering for the cause and truth of God the Lord lookes not at the externall act but the intent of the soule and the pure carriage of the heart towards himselfe as with what delight it keepes a Sabbath how cordially it preserves the spirit chaste and cleane for what ends it suffers the crosse whether for Gods or it owne Thus much for the former Quest 2. What is meant by the extent of a command The latter is what is meant by the extent of a command I answer The full reach of the command As for instance First the unlimitednesse of the command The Lord makes not some Lawes for great ones and some for small ones as if the great flye might get through the cobweb but the little ones must be taken but his nets as they are small enough to catch the small fish so they are strong enough to hold Whales and the mightest They reach to all sorts without limit rich and poore noble and simple high and low one and another Secondly their extent stands in their influence to all The Princes law reaches to all his Subjects as well as to his Chamber of London but yet the law-giver reacheth no further then his presence in absence and behinde his backe his Lawes are slighted But this Law-giver is omnipresent and assists his Lawes with immediate influence causing them to convince in secret as well as in publicke and is able to execute his owne Lawes to the uttermost so that for lacke of strength and reach of arme no sinner can goe unpunished Thirdly this breadth reaches in the affirmative command to the negative and in the negative to the affirmative as directly as if they had both been expressed In the narrow Lawes of men the sense and scope of the Law must bee limited to the words of the Statute which as the common speech is have no meaning in them beyond the tearmes thereof But the power of Gods commands stands in their insinuations and imply somewhat by necessity which they expresse not Fourthly their extent stands in the coherence thereof to wit that whatsoever maine good or evill the Lord commands or forbids by the same power hee forbids or commands whatsoever concernes that command the means tending thereto the occasions leading all circumstances attending whatsoever possibly the soule of man can apprehend directly or indirectly to make for that Law or to thwart or crosse that Law Fifthly it reaches to the quantity and measure of the duty urging not only sin to be shunned in the greatest degree but also in the smallest and so duty to be done not only in the main peeces but in the pettiest all proceeding from the same goodnesse and justice Sixthly it reaches to the measure of the principle of obeying urging it to obey not coldly deadly slackly formally but to put forth the uttermost affection strength wisdome will courage zeale reach and largenesse fruitfulnesse and extension of the inward and outward man to concurre with the meaning of the Commander which the Holy Ghost calls all welpleasing Col. 1.7 Seventhly it reacheth to an universality of time place occasions not to be limited straitened and circumscribed at our narrow will and pleasure but tyes us alway yesterday to day and ever to one obedience Heb. 13.8 not to vary with the time with the multitude by occasion of dangers feares losses enmity power of man not to be cast off in private in secret but to be enlarged according to it selfe generally to all circumstances This is a field of matter but I have already elsewhere walked in it in some sort as the reader hereof may perceive by that I have written in my practicall Catechisme part 3. in the article of the directive rule of our obedience the Law of God where I treat fully of the point So much for this second To these two questions a third may be added Object and answered ere we goe any further and that is that it may seem harsh to presse this point under the Gospell since that the liberty thereof takes off this strictnesse and limits commands from the old extent of them to the ease of the Gospell To the which I answer That the Gospell is so farre from that loosenesse that rather it establishes Answ extends and corroborates them then otherwise A great part of our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount is spent in confuting this conceit Matth. 5.6.7 not onely of Pharisaicall but of Antinomian abuse and dissolutenesse Paul also tells us Ro. 2. ult that faith setles the Law stronger upon her bottome then ever So that he is as well accursed now as ever who shall adde or detract Rev. 22. True it is that the terror rigor and the impossiblenesse of the Law is removed by our Lord Jesus The Law how far it s strengthened or weakned by the Gospell 1 Tim. 1.5.6 but looke what is taken off in that kinde is supplied in another for the spiritualnesse and purity of obeying is enlarged now rather then diminished only it is true that even in this enlargement the Lord Jesus hath made his yoke most sweet and easie to them who out of faith love and a good conscience seeke the end of the commandement as Paul speakes of which more shall be occasioned to speake after if God will in the use of Exhortation It s enough here to say That as the Lord Jesus hath removed that burdensomenesse tyranny and irkesome rigor of Lawes which was intollerable so he hath put another yoke upon the soule instead thereof which although love make sweet yet justice will not abate nor cut off Love made Iacobs labour welcome but still the frost was tedious and the heat wearisome Gen. 29.20 and the conditions hard enough to flesh and bloud So much for this and for the ground of the point Now in the third place I come to the use of the Doctrine And Vse 1 first let it be Instruction and Caveat to all superiours and men in dignity and authority as to acknowledge
Rom. 1 3. Eph. 1.20.21.22 that he might make himselfe a full witnesse of a perfect redemption And shall not this eight dayes rest of his cause a rest to us A rest of peace through pardon the peace of conscience and joy in the holy Ghost Should these things bee so darke unto us or so uselesse that we should question it whether they are worth a Sabbath or no Farre bee it from us But rather let the corruption of men provoke us to keep an holier closer and not ceremoniously to observe a more spirituall Sabbath then ever wee â—ave done Vse 2 Secondly this point is terror to all hypocrites who being pinched with the authority of the Word according to it that is the closenesse of commands Terror to all that cast off the yoke of Gods commands doe kick and spurne at it and rather then they will be subject to it they cast it off and lay it in the dirt Perhaps so far as it will goe in their own stream they will allow it but let it pinch them and wring them as a straight shooe wrings the foot then they cast off Psal 2.7 and will no longer endure it Thus those Psal 2. are said to cast off the cords of Christ he means the Jewes and Pharisees when they felt the spiritualnesse of his kingdome For the opening of this Use Foure Branches first let us see the truth of the point in the grounds that hypocrites goe upon Secondly the wayes of hypocrites in balking them Thirdly the shifts they have to shift off the dint of pinching Commands And fourthly 1. Branch Hypocrites their false grounds 1. In breaking Commands apply the terrour home unto them For the first lest any should thinke there are none so vile know it that they cannot be other all things considered For first their heart is uncleane and rotten at the core although they seeme in their owne sight and in the sight of others to be never so pure They love evill therefore they breake commands naturally but they keep commands and doe good onely so farre as it agreeth with their owne ends and purposes Secondly because they are held in and detained violently from that which they aime at therefore as a prisoner in his chaines alway lies at the catch and opportunity to seeke his escape so doe these whensoever any colour or evasion any shift or trick is offered they cleanly and slily winde themselves out of the authority of God Thirdly because there is a strugling in all such hypocrites to be better thought of then they deserve therefore their occupation is perpetually to bribe their owne conscience and to delude themselves with some shewes of duty religion pangs of devotion passions and affections vows purposes of good and to keep up the damme of their own consciences from breaking in upon them and yet all this while they have no power to lay hold upon any solid bottomes of truth either threats promises or commands Fourthly its certaine that every hollow heart doth seeke finally her owne ease and quiet of carnall liberty and to be rid of the dint and power of commands from molesting her that so by her cunning tricks and distinctions she might at last scrue herselfe into a content of the flesh and to stop the mouth of conscience from any more accusation And although this cannot at the first be attained while there remaines any sparke of truth in the soule yet by degrees and by oft declinnig the dint of solemne commands it comes to passe that a base heart winnes a presumptuous habit to herselfe and finding a corrupt ease therein resolves to hold it as strongly as an honest heart would preserve sound peace and ease of conscience by the promise And so being resolved to hold whatsoever false peace she gets and to lose it upon no tearmes of a better condition she outgrowes all former tendernesse of heart which was wont to attend her and nouzells herselfe in that which she feeles as if it were a sure bottome easily beleeving that to be which she would have And this for the first ground of Terror Now to apply it Application of this first ground Consider what a fearfull state and condition this is what wofull rotten grounds these are of peace Who is there so vile and lewd except inchanted by the Divell and held in the snares of his owne lusts who durst commit himselfe to the sea of a religious course in so broken a Barke Take but one example hereof recorded I thinke for the nonce to scare all eluders and shifters with Gods Commands And that is Balaam who having his charge given him solemnly by the Lord not to goe with those messengers of Balac Num. 22.19 who came with bribes and presents in their hands to procure the service of his Sorcery and witch craft to curse Israel feeling himselfe sore pinched with this command and yet having no rest in his owne covetous heart to forgoe the wages of iniquity studies how he might reconcile Gods ends and his owne And seeing that could not bee compassed by a direct refusall to goe therefore first he bids the men stay till the morning and in the meane while he so blind-folds his own eyes as to dreame that if God would give him leave to goe he might goe But what a deluding thought was that when as his conscience told him God had denied it before Well by going to God to blanch over the matter viz. That if he would give him leave to goe he would doe no otherwise then he was bidden the Lord connives at his going And what doth he He takes it very gladly Verse 20.21 and makes use of it but from whence is it that he doth so Surely from no other bottome save this that by his going hee hoped one way or other to attaine those ends which else hee knew he should not whereas if hee had meant truely he would have abhorred such an occasion as laid a blocke in his way to fall at And how did he goe forward Surely with a foole-hardy courage and a peevish resolution to get his booty for when Gods Angell crossed him Ibid. opened his Asses mouth to convince him so blinded he was that he despised it and smote her whereas he should have returned home and abhorred his blanching with Gods command And was he sensible of himselfe in all this his race No but still impudently tels God when he saw there was no remedy he would goe backe if he might not go What was that but to upbraid God for resisting him having before given him leave And so he proceeded in his journey and sought divinations that is cast about with himselfe how he might curse the people and get his ends And when the Lord crossed him still yet to shew what mettall he was made of rather then he would lose his booty he advises Baalac how to procure God to curse them by provoking them to Idolatry and uncleannesse
you will bee filthy Rev. 22. be filthy still Adde to the number and fulfill the measure of your abominations goe forward you can but goe to hell therefore take your pleasure Know that hee who sets up Altar against Altar and his will against Gods a close following of his Justs his cups his harlots his oppression pride envy against Gods close Commands shall apply all his closest plagues and vengeance against such and who soever shall rise up against God in judgement Esa 54. Esay 54. Psal 50. him shall God most righteously condemne Oh thinke of it you that forget God! Shall not the hypocrites avoid everlasting burnings who doe but adulterate the purity of close Commands and you shall escape who disanull them You walke as the forlorne ranke in the face of the Canon and what wonder if you be shot all to pieces And all who will desperately follow your steps let them know they goe straight forward neither turning to left hand nor to right to the Bethshemesh of destruction It s terrible to heare of and see the present plagues of such even here some open defiers of the Sabbath to be struck mad others in their fencing upon that day to fall downe dead a third in shooting off his recoyling gun to be beaten to shivers the end of proud rebels is terrible in this world Iezabels Sauls Herods But the whole of their misery here is not the tenth of that hereafter the day is to come Esay 1. wherein the Lord will cry Aha I will be avenged of mine enemies I will laugh at their destruction I will make my blade fat with their bloud And when I have done I will take as little thought for their woe as they did for my Commands Oh tremble at this Vse 3 I proceed to the third use of the point and that is Examination Is it so Examination that the commands of God must be obey'd according to them that is their intent and extent and that they are so sad and close things Oh then in the feare of God try we our selves whether they be so to us or not It imports us exceedingly to doe it for if God be sad and we be slight if his issue be to enquire after close obeying but we onely looke at the surface and outsides of duty taking what wee please and sâ—umming off the fat and easie part leaving the leane and more unwelcome part to whose will we shall finde a wrong bargaine of it The eyes of God are piercing eyes and looke over the whole earth where he may finde close strict and sad obeyers of his voyce as he saith Esay 50. and there is his delight But as for him that with-drawes himselfe and secretly like that Iudas whips out from his fellowes for his owne ends Heb. 10.38 his soule shall have no delight in him Therefore in such bad times as these wherein every one will be religious but few or none close with the power of commands how imports it every of us Brethren to let loose stuffe goe to try our selves touching the soules concurrence wiâ—h God in this Soveraignty of his Commands And because me thinkes I see you to be desirous to try your selves about this but want direction how to do it aright therefore I will lay down some such rules of direction as through mercy may sweetly search every such heart as is willing to come to the touch-stone and leave it sound and sincere or if it shall discover it selfe to be otherwise then to looke to it selfe and to abhorre all such lets as it shall finde to hinder it from this closenesse and faithfulnesse in obeying commands First that soule which obeyes closely Trials of close obedience is very active and lively in Triall 1 her enquiring after the true and plaine intent and extent of Gods commands dare not flatter it selfe in her owne way and ease She is truly willing to know the uttermost of the truth but suspects her selfe still in her obedience that it is too loose too easie and too slight to be good She desires to goe downe right with Gods commands and having found out Rom. 12.2 what that good acceptable will of God is then nakedly she desires to close with it come what come will of it whereas the hypocrite is of a cleane contrary straine For why having a guilty conscience of withdrawing a part of the heart from God it is death for him to come to the triall 1 Sam. 15.12 Saul was as a Beare haled to the stake when he came to Samuels inquiry Acts 5.5 because he knew himselfe crazy So Ananias and Sapphira when they came under Peters inquisition Sold yee it indeed for so much Fell down dead Oh! the hollow heart shrugges and shrinkes at the extent of Commands cannot endure to thinke them larger then it selfe is willing to doe them If she should heare of a rule of more closenesse then she can admit she must needs bewray her selfe which she is loth to do Oh! how desirous a base heart is to get abatements of commands There is no man so forward to urge the uttermost allowance of the weight of gold that his light peeces might passe for currant as an hypocrite craves still for allowance to his slight obedience It kils his heart to heare of the strictnesse of a Sabbath what the rules of a lawful Fast are to prepare himselfe to the Sacrament to heare the Word to deny himselfe to be tied to doe or take good in company to walke unspotted of the world to oppresse none by fraud usury hardnesse Alas his Trade lies in this kinde take him off that you kill him See 1 King 22. Ahab being urged to call for a Prophet of God sent for him But as the Messenger went for him in his returne hee entreats him that his words might bee like the words of the foure hundred Prophets and that hee would not bee too strict But the closer obeyer is a close inquirer like Micaja who would not bee pulled to the right or left hand from God he is a willing person to bee informed about the nakednesse and simplicity of commands desirous to know the hardest Thus Iob cap. 34. and verse 32. saith If I faile that which I see not doe thou teach me Thus David Search me O Lord and try me if there be any way of evill in me Not that they have not much corruption and come farre short but yet they have no treacherous heart of withdrawing but rather an entire affection to be equall to Commands And as the heart of an hypocrite doth infinitely disobey So the soule of a beleever hath a boundlesse unlimited desire to obey a word according to a word in which regard it s called a perfect heart because it would be so and mournes that it cannot as a naturall childe is troubled that it cannot doe the fathers will to the full and therefore doth what it can to the uttermost
opinion by other consequences hereupon which I silence else I could have beene silent But to returne God is a great performer of promises and is known by that name as the King of England is knowne by the name of Defender of the Faith it s his royall Title Thousands of years are but as one day to his memory he forgets not one promise all that while The Saints have alway yeelded him this Prerogative A God that keepeth covenant Luke 1.70.71 Zachary tels us that he raised up a strong horne of salvation according to the oath made to our father Abraham that he would give us To performe the promise made to our forefathers and to keep his holy covenant Oh! if he be so faithfull shall his servants we are a contrary badge of falshood Is it not a marke of a citizen of heaven Psal 15.6 that he keeps promises although to his detriment Shall heathens condemne us in this Of whom one obtaining leave of the enemy to goe home to Rome upon promise to returne went and returned and was rolled to death in a barrell driven with nailes Judg 11.30.36.39 Iephtha is said to have kept his vow in simplicity if he did keepe it for lacke of knowledge and fo◠did his good daughter my father goe not backe But we in subtilty and for lacke of conscience breake promises as fast as we make them No man can tell what to make of our daies of payment our promises to aid the distressed to make good dowries promised in marriage to performe trusts reposed in us for orphans in point of education of them repaying of stocks payment of debts legacies but sweare and forsweare our selves in the administring of goods as if we had sold and paid creditors to the uttermost Alas the measure of your foote is as good as your bond one tricke or other will salve all how many wofull and gracelesse banquerupts are there who under the name of profession have undone many poore widowes poore orphans poore kindred yea strangers who have admired them for the repute of their sincerity and zeale to the Gospell Oh say they I durst put my life in his hand much more my will my estate my wife and children the more wofull traitor thou who hast undone them all and made them beggars and withall caused the lewd to cry out and condemne all Religion and Purity Endlesse it were to mention the common defaults of men in their buyings and tradings and whole conversation woe be to all such as dare thus spit in the face of God honesty and yet walk with as impudent and bold faces and hardned hearts as if none could say blacke is their eye But then to conclude what shall be said to such as mocke God himselfe and dally with those solemne vowes and covenants they have made with him Breakers of covenants with God are in a bad condition Some upon their death-beds solemnly vowing repentance to God restitution of stolne goods to them whom they defrauded all to stop conscience but upon recovery have paid God with double impiety and men with oppression Ionah Hezechia Davids breach of covenants shall not helpe you you have sinn'd with Peter as that wretch said so you have covenanted with these but you have not repented of your breach thereof with these Learne first to purpose and then to promise so doth the Lord and not in your heat of feare and being upon the racke to lavish our promises of an ell long one inch whereof you will not keepe after But you fare accordingly I wish you no worse scourge to whip you then your owne for neither will God nor Gods Ministers trust you they may visit you on your death-beds and beare witnesse against you what you have said but they will not trust you Men also abhorre you so that as they who are hang'd are execrable and between heaven and earth so heaven hath vomited you downe and earth cast you up as wofull persons Be scared in Gods feare and repent of this treachery Branch 2 Divers instances 1 Such as have no promise and yet charge God for breaking promise offend Secondly this is terror to other sorts of persons who complaine of God for frustrating them of performances when as yet they never had any promises made them What Shall God beare the blame for your sakes Did ever any complaine of Gods unfaithfulnesse who had to doe with a promise Why then are you the first that reproach God for nothing You are like him that called God an hard Master for reaping where hee never sowed and gathering where he never strawed But doth God doe so No he performes no promises save to such as are in Christ Wōder not if God afflict you everyway with an unquiet heart with horrors and feares astonishment anguish that he may drive you into covenant As for your quarrelling with him God may say as Iehu said to the messenger 2 Kings 9. What hast thou to doe with peace Turn behind me And yet what is more common then the mutterings of such hypocrites See Esay 58. and Mal. 3. But God is not so superfluous a fulfiller of promises that he should enlarge himself to them that are none of his It 's enough that he fails not in necessary performances 2. So doe such as deceive themselves And that 1. By Gods forbearance Moreover this is terror to a contrary sort of hypocrites and prophane ones who on the other side boast of such performances as are not As you see there bee divers sorts of Market-folks most complain of their hard penyworths but some are such fooles as to bely their owne markets and boast of such penyworths as they never got And this befalls in sundry respects First in respect of Gods forbearance of them and shewing much patience and long-suffering toward them that having been such sinners as they say they have yet God should not set them on the stage of reproach and make them a by-word in the world This they interpret a great performance unto them the rather because they see not onely many bad ones but even many good ones afflicted in this life for their sinnes But oh foole because sentence is deferred against thee doest thou crack of patience Rom. 2 3. Hath this long suffering of God led thee to repentance No thine heart is still set in thee to doe evill and to heap up wrath but it pleases a presumptuous hypocrite to shrowd himselfe under a covert which is none of his and to goe on securely in sin under pretext of being in high favour with God But oh wofull creature this Lion couchant will one day turne rampant and bee in good earnest though now he seemes to dally All mens sinnes are not alike some goe before 1 Tim. 5.24 some follow but all meet in judgement except they repent I aske thee hath God been so patient toward thee by vertue of a promise Doth he not so Rom. 9. to vessels
prepar'd to destruction as in the old world and Sodoms case Doth he not so to a sinner of an hundred yeares old nay to Cain of nine hundred who yet at length must be destroyed Eccles 8.12 Did he not so to those Atheists 2 Pet. 3.6.7 whose conceit yet could not out-sleep their damnation Shall God performe a promise to such as are in league with hell But why are others lesse sinners so set in the fore-front escape Surely perhaps to break their heart and convert them to God whereas thou goest on in a close and hardned heart to colour and excuse the like sins or if not yet to be far from repenting of them It had been better for thee God had served thee so too then to harden thee by long-suffering And perhaps thou hast bought of these sinnes with thy wealth and greatnesse but God is not mocked Another sort of these are such as boast because they are kept from open sins and outrages have no deep tempâ—aâ—ions 2. Abstinence from open sins no great horrors or distempers of consciences but goe on in a faire and civill way as one said of that Emperour rather free from foule vices then qualified with any true vertues They are well thought of and are no base drunkards or the like Such and such say they run into excesse of riot and discredit for their spend-thrifty uncleane and ruffianlike courses but I am void of such evils Is it not say they a signe of favour Doth not God promise to his to keep them free from such offences Oh mistaken wretch God upholds his in their integrity indeed in token of love Psal 41.12 But integrity is equality from great and small But alas sin as sin never affected thy soule as yet thou hast no sense of thy nature of the enmity of God of a secret false prophane hollow unsavoury heart Thy sent is in thee still as in Moab God hath not rolled thee upon thy dregges Jer. 48.29 therefore they settle And is this mercy thinkest thou to soder thee up in a base course Thou art held in by abstinence but that 's a negative principle no positive grace Restraint by education favour of nature generall light awe of punishment is not the favour of a promise these never cost the bloud of Christ to purchase at least they are not the purchase in kinde A third sort are such as boast of promises in point of externall blessings 3. By outward blessings Job 21.10 God hath so furnisht them with health strong bodies successe in trades good crops marriage and children as much corne as can stand on ground no Cow but gendreth and casts not Calfe that they conclude themselves happy as few rubbes and changes as any Psal 17.14 They goe downe in peace and leave all to their babes But are you not also of them who because they have no changes feare no God Such may be as ranke Atheists as live God makes no promises to such as goe downe into the pit Not the still but the safe death argues a promise True it is Psal 37.37 The end of the righteous is alway peace but it is the peace of good conscience not of stupor and ease Note Performances are alway good things but good things are not alway performances Mercies of the left hand are no tender mercies Eccles 9.1 Deut. 33.16 Love is no more discerned by these then hatred Hast thou got the love and good will of him that dwelt in the Bush Surely except the sea of mercy hath come between thy wealth and thy soule to purge away all thy drosse of carnall savour the blessings of the Sun and Moone and earth cannot pleasure thee Alas no! Jer. 2.13 All is from a dry pit as the corne on the thatch which fills not the hand of the Mower One performance from a promise is worth ten such blessings as these Lastly all such as boast of their hearings prayers doings and sufferings 4. By their Religion good affections to religion distastes of old sinnes These they say argue a change and that is a signe of a covenant But Oh poore soule these may be some changes in respect of what in times past hath been But these are not that change which comes from Gods promise except some other markes as well as these may be alledged Iehu doted upon himselfe to see such zeale against Iehoram But none of the sins of Ahabs house were purged out of him Goe 2 Kings 10.16 finde out some surer markes then the forbearance of some old anger pride wantonnesse while the pang lasteth or else this flame will breake out againe and burne up all To conclude I say let all such bee afraid of their rotten and false proppes What became of those Sycophants who would needs be King Edward or such other Princes Were they not hanged up What noble man can endure a base fellow who pleads kindred to him because of name or likenesse of countenance When yet they are mungrels and bastards having no drop of Noble blood within them Beware therefore and meddle not with Gods performances they are Childrens bread and belong to no Dogges while they are so Thus much for this Vse 6 A sixt use is Instruction teaching us the admirable honour and prerogative of saving and pretious faith A second Instruct with caveat Luk. 9.23 Faith in promises performances is a most pretious Jewel and why It is cloathed with all the wealth wardrobes treasures and provisions of God All the performances of God are hers As our Saviour said If thou canst beleeve all things are possible No sooner doth faith close with a promise upon earth but the Lord in heaven closes with that soule by ratifying to it what it beleeveth Faith as hee saith is when that which is said is done The Lord meaning to doe a poore soule good causeth it to meet his purpose by beleeving it that so he may honour it with a performance Faith is like the Cherubims which were alway peeping into the Mercy seat so doth faith alway trade in heaven spying out what good thing God is preparing for the soule that she may beleeve it and carry it alway with her If faith concurred not as well with performances as with promises who would care for it Pro. 27.19 But she makes all reall and present to the soule as well as promised As face answers to face in water so doth a promise to a performance in a needing soule Note Joh. 11.40 Compare Jona 2. v. 4. and 8. with v. 10. and that by the mediation of Fâ—i h. As our Saviour said to Martha Said I not to thee If thou beleeve thou shalt â—ee the glorious power of God Marke Naaman here No sooner doth he resigne up himselfe to the promise by washing but instantly there comes in new marrow into his bones and smoothnesse upon his flesh here is no intermission or delay of performance looke what was said is now
embrace their gods Bacchus Venus and the rest more strongly then ever Enough wee have who are of the spirit of Caiphas his Hall and those that spited scorned and spit at Christ crying Crucifie him not many whose spirits are towards him tender to his glory to his mercy and grace to his poore Church and people Oh the spirit of ambition selfe-love is now all in all What should I say to such except they be accursed by Gods owne mouth that never any good should seaze upon them let this point in Gods feare scare them Me thinkes thou shouldst not heare of such a spirit of Grace and tendernesse as I speake of but thy soule shoâ—ld tremble and thy heart throb in thy bosome to consider what a contrary spirit of corruption and hell thou walkest with Oh! if God should leave thee to this spirit of thine owne to be conceited of thy selfe to feare no danger to be carelesse what may betide thee and to adde drunkennesse unto thirst what shall become of thee what is wanting save hell it selfe to make up the woe of such a soule And yet I tell thee this is not farre off from thee Read Deut. 29. Deut 29.15 If any man hearing the words of this booke and the curses thereof shall yet say in his heart I shall have peace I shall fare well I feare nothing Especially if conceited of its owne welfare the wrath of God shall smoke out against such a man and God will not be entreated of him for why he is over head and eares in the spirit of gal bitternesse a thousand to one if ever he recover Therefore looke about thee in season As the Lord said to Elijah in the cave so say I to thee Up arise and goe forth for thou hast a great journey to goe ere thou come at the Horeb of God I wish thee to goe by mount Sinai and hath thy base spirit throughly with those terrours of God 1 Kings 19.7 which may gaster thee with some feeling of thy condition Sinne is got into thy spirit and hath seated it selfe deeply in the entrals of thy soule A great gulfe is set betweene thee and the spirit of grace therefore pull downe thy rebellious heart and as Peter said to Simon Magus try by all meanes whether this thy sinne may be forgiven thee The spirit of grace is joyned with the spirit of mourning Acts 8.22 Try whether God cannot bring thee out of one spirit of bitternesse into a contrary for he promiseth that all humbled ones shall be in bitternesse as a thing steept in vineger as he that is in bitternesse for the losse of his onely sonne Zach. 12.10 Bitternesse of a prophane and presumptuous heart must be turned into the bitternesse of a broken and subdued spirit Oh! that ever I should exalt folly so highly and disdaine mercy yea kill the Lord of life as I have done Read Acts 2. Acts 2. where this prophecy was fulfilled in such as crucified Christ himselfe and yet being pierced in heart for it the Lord powred the spirit of grace into them and annointed them with oyle of gladnesse and joy so that they who murthered him had the first hansell of life and pardon from him Oh blessed art thou if the like portion might befall thee who hast ventured as farre as they did So much for this Branch 2 Secondly it is terrour to all Neuters and Sceptiques whose spirit seemes not so ranke and cursed Indifferency Neutrality of spirit worse then prophanenesse Numb 23. 25. but yet is as deepe and dangerous because they maintaine a vile spirit of indifferency and mediocrity in stead of this spirit of grace They say as Balac did to Balaam Neither blesse nor curse In this respect they are worse then the former because they utterly abandon all sense of the Gospel and become fulsome Atheists upon point neither hot nor cold fish nor flesh They would seeme to hate open villanies But then they much more abhorre the spirit of the Gospel Their spirits are flat and flash whereas the spirit of the Gospel is tender Luke 14. ult zealous and powerfull Wofull ones hanging betweene Heaven and Earth cast downe from Heaven vomited up from the earth Salt which hath lost his savour good for nothing no not for the dunghill All their skill stands in selfe-concealments forsooth their religion and conscience may not be known What can you worke wonders can you carry coales in your bosomes and not be burnt Such have their Religion to chuse Doubtlesse the not burning of your bosomes by this fire argues that there is not one coale of the Altar fallen upon them you are Quench-coale no sparkle of grace can kindle upon your cold hearth you must needs be ashamed of the Gospel because the spirit of magnifying it and of justifying wisdome is not in you but rather an aloofe dead and Gallio-like spirit is in you Whether you serve Christ or Beliall whether you be Popish or Protestant who but God can judge And surely you lie fulsome upon his stomach Acts 18.15 as luke-warme water and that which makes you happy in your own conceit will prove you accursed in Gods It were better you were hot or cold then thus wambling and next to be vomited for ever out of the mouth of him Revel 3.19 who never returnes to his vomit Under pretext that thou darest not trust men thou betrayest God and the spirit of the Gospel a remedy worse then the disease To be as wise as a Serpent I disswade thee not But shall this destroy that naked simplicity and spirit of love to God and his truth which where it cannot goe will creepe and play at small game rather then sit out What Matth. 10. 2 Cor. 10.4 because we cannot expresse our selves in such acts and services as we would or have done shall we serve God with neither might spirit or courage at all Is that command dispensable and confined to this season or to that hath God no need of thee in dangerous times or because thou darest trust no man wilt thou therefore trust no God Shall the Gospel carry thee no further then ease and the serving of thine owne fleshly turne will concurre Wilt thou dare to doe any thing against the spirit of the Gospel because thou hast not elbow-roome sufficient to act that part as thou wouldest It is just with God to take it quite from thee because thou walkest contrary to it And to give thee over to a close spirit of thine owne that thou shouldest jeere and scorne the zealous as Micoll did David dancing with his Ephod before the Arke 2 Sam. 6.20 Was not the King a goodly foole to day How many of these Neutrall spirits have growne to it Let it gaster us from it and teach us to nourish such a spirit in our bosomes as the Gospel hath wrought if ever any such were wrought and to be farre from disdaining
roofes have tasted the like and what hindreth but you may Oh chuse rather to follow my counsell then to cause the wrath of God to smoak out against you for adding drunkennesse to thirst and speaking peace to your selves Deut. 29.15 and saying Though I stil walk on in the stubbornnesse of my heart yet I shall doe well enough God keepe this plague farre from you And so much for this Branch 4 Lastly and so I shut up all you that have long feared the Lord Exhorta ions and shewed forth the fruit of this spirit of Conversion go forward and persevere I must not deny God the honour of his truth And such as have to nourish it in themselves he hath not left us without witnesse in this particular Few are they whom this doctrine is verified in yet some there are and the very sight of their faces this day doth not a little encourage me to speake unto them If ever then you saw cause at your first comming out of Jordan to joyne with God his Religion his glory now especially joyne partners and cleâ—ve to him now side with him and the power of Christianity Surely he that hath hitherto kept you alive and brought you safely through so many waters deserves it much more at your hands now being much neerer to your salvation Rom. 13.11 1 King 9.33 then when you first beleeved Doe as those two Eunuches of Jezabel when Jehu cried out Who is on my side Who They looked out at the window and became agents for him Could they thrust her downe headlong who were of her bed-chamber how much more you who have long since beene sworne confederates to the Lord Jesus Never was there better season for you if there be but a sparke of this spirit in you to declare your selves on whose side you are The power of godlinesse is on every side deserted and she throwne to the ground if God mercifully did not by the power of the sword and civill Magistrate preserve us what should we be save a booty to Papists and enemies who have long watcht our overthrow Now therefore if you halt with God halt for ever If God bee not God 1 King 18.21 give him over If he be that God who hath forgiven you and will save you let Baal be Baal and let him be as he deserveth Say thus Have I but one poore life to give for him who gave ten thousand times a more precious one for me and shall I thinke it too deare for him Shall Rimmon be more deare to me Shall I goe and bow to that Idoll having received a better cure from the God of Israel then he could have given me No Lord There thou wannest my heart to thy selfe for ever That sweete welcome those embraces which then I felt those Flagons and Apples can never be forgotten Cantic 2.5 Psal 73.19 I behold the workes of such as decline but I blesse thee I repent not of my choyce their Image is despised by me My soule come not into their counsels Oh! if you can say thus blesse God who hath kept you And for time to come I exhort you that the more you shall see the power of truth scorned and forsaken in the world the closer you cleave to it and if this be to be vile be yet more vile 2 Sam. 6.22 Pick out some speciall services in which you may be usefull to God and his glory If the Devill take any Apprentises he will set his marke upon them both in their hands and foreheads either they must shew some singular zeale for him or else hee will suspect them And are you ashamed of your Master Matth. 7. end Now this world destroyes the Law write it you upon your frontlets and the fringes of your garments shew the world what Master you serve Deut. 6.8 and be not ashamed Let the same spirit rest in your bosomes for Grace which you see now a dayes rests upon them who are going from us into New-England They will not endure you to speak one word amisse of it but their hearts are at their mouthes presently they magnifie and extoll it in all places wheresoever they become their very spirits are possessed and taken up with the hope and longing for it they stand upon thornes till they be there where their treasure is they are soone knockt off from hence though their native soyle where they have had all their conversation yet as if they had not knowne it so doe they renounce it and all the contents of it They use it as if they used it not for the affection sake they beare the other Parents neighbours kindred yea wives and children are deserted for it and who may controll them Tell them of the sad attempt of going what danger by Sea what change of fare there and want of all commodities Oh! you doe but encourage them by your disswasives they are content to learne to deny themselves and to change their dainty diet for bare their soft beds for hard and what not so they may come thither Paines cost selling all and packing up their fardels is nothing to them for their desire sake Oftentimes I have wish'd the place good enough for such affections But in this argument touching the spirit of Conversion and Grace for the embracing of which no affections can be sufficient how doe we flagge Where is the man who can doe thus much for God and his glory from the experience of mercy Aske thine owne heart Doe I loath the least appearance of evill doe I carry about me the zeale of Gods owne house am I tender of the least offence can I not endure the least affront to his person Lawes Gospel Ordinances doe I honour his Ministers doe I thinke nothing too deare for him is my life liberty name wife children vile unto me in respect of a good conscience Oh! that it were so How happy should we be in approving our selves Let me leave generals Particular urging of this exhortation to al sorts Ministers people Magistrates c. and come to particular estates and conditions yee Ministers of God pick out speciall service for God a few of you are left to wrestle for God ply your worke let not the glory of the Gospell fall labour to inspire the soules of your hearers with Christ alas they cannot chuse but be dead hearted when there is no glad tydings brought them no love shed into their soules Yee people looke up your old evidences for Heaven scoure off your rust you see upon what costly terms the Gospel is maintained this is no season to palter out your time shew forth your courage for God let not the spirit of Popery nor prophanenesse quash that spirit of Grace which is within your bosomes Walke humbly wisely and yet boldly hold out the truth of God without feare against all scorners and Edomites God shall prop you up feare not the vilest wretch shall never bee able to
such selfe-deniall or try us with hard duties we rather would hang downe the head with that young man and goe away sorrowfull So that he might say of us I have tried thee now and found that thy wealth thy liberty wife children are dearer to thee then my selfe I will trust thee no more Oh how should we tremble at this How should our base penurious scanty hearts even stinke in our nostrills and shame us Act. 3.3 when that creeple looked stedfastly upon Peter and Iohn all he gaped after was a penny or two of almes but they bestowed more then he desired and healed his lamenesse How thinke wee was hee astonished 1 King 3.15 And how was Salomon ravished when he had Gods answer Even so which of us brethren that belong to God can deny but that he hath given us more then ever we could aske or thinke But what have we done for him Have we found out singular things for him Deniall of our selves forgoing of our wills lusts pleasures for him Nay have we not taken our uttermost liberty in them A good wife husband child recovery out of sicknesse have deserved more from us then ever we rendred But what can we say when his Christ is yet unpaid for 1631. Now this deare yeare which of us makes it our season to doe great things for God We know that we doe for his members wee doe for him Where is the man who fellow-feeles this hard pinching yeare and these prises of corne and victualls If you of the poorer sort would doe great things for God even live by faith and set up the promise and alsufficiency of God above your hungry bellies and empty purses hee would doe great things for you But brethren let the sinnes of the poore goe looke we to our owne and amend them Be wee really pinched in the feare of God with their present miseries Say not with that churle shall I take my flesh and bread and give it these beggars 1 Sam. 25. No give a portion to six and to seven the necessity of the time craves some singular thing Common service stinkes in Gods nostrills in a season of speciall duty If now we come in with our common stuffe our sinne shall be as great as our denying them altogether at another time Oh! it were a great thing if we would even feele a pinch in our owne selves while this pinch lasts and abridge our diet our apparrell much more our feasts and excesse in an holy sympathy of their pinch and let our pinching and sparing from our selves become a reliefe of theirs and a bound to their refreshing Else wee shall pay full dearly for our basenes Sell a groat a test on yea two if need be cheaper then every churle Pinch your selves in your prises sell your corne eat your meat and put up gaines with lesse sweetnesse more pinching of sorrow then at other times If it were not Lord thou knowest for this pinching time I would not be so scanty to my selfe as I am but seeing I cannot abound my selfe Satan who seeks thy bloud can prevaile for more then Christ who shed his bloud for thee but I am prone to be scanty to others therefore I will chuse to scant my selfe that I may bee enlarged to others Let his good brethren be that singular thing wherein we declare our selves to God And if we do this in love and be sutable in other the like we shall have the reward of such as doe great things for God when as others doe little or nothing at all Remember Satan himselfe requires it and obtaines it at the hands of his servants So much for the ground of this second Argument Now I come to the inference upon it The which is The second branch of this Argument the application and urging of this truth upon their Master If thou wilt do such great things out of thy love to the Prophet then shew it by reall obeying his counsell q. d. else all thy shews are naught worth The point is True love and honour to a Prophet Doctrine True love and honour of Gods Prophets appears in our obeying them stands in obeying his voice We see in common experience if a man have a friend whom he seems to thinke highly of yet if that friend perceive that in any case of importance and weight his friend will sooner hearken to any stranger then to him and that he shall be of his court but others of his counsell What will he doe thinke himselfe regarded No he will conclude surely this man slights my counsell and followes his owne wayes whatsoever I say therefore for my part I leave him to them who can sway him more with their counsell then I can How much more then is it thus with the Minister If he see his people court him in their carriage complement with him in speech and curtesies but still abide the old men reforme nothing amisse goe on still in their course what shall he conclude Surely this I see this people loves me not for I can prevaile with them in nothing their owne waies they will take though I teare my tongue to the stumps therefore surely they love me little or not at all But let us see first some Reasons then some Scriptures to prove the point and so come to some use First they who love from the heart will obey from the heart because Reason 1 there is a reciprocall affection of people to Minister as well as of Minister to God and Christ Now the Minister out of a loyall heart of love to God and Christ doth as he is bidden God saith If thou love me feed my lambes and my sheep else pretend no love to colour thy sloth and negligence Even so should the Minister of God say to the people If you love me obey my counsell and do as I teach else colour not over your falshood with pretences As the Minister is to carry himselfe to God so are they under God to carry themselves to him It will bee smally to their comfort if all the obedience lye upon his shouldiers for although he hath saved his owne soule yet no thanke to them Ezek. 18. But when there is a reciprocation of affection with the fruit of obedience then shall neither grudge at other Both stand in equall obligation to obey if both performe it there is mutuall cause of joy and love but if one be faithfull to God and the other unfaithfull to him there will be unequall drawing in the yoake and great cause of complaint Secondly there is an holy judiciousnesse and wisdome in love compelling Reason 2 the people to consider that the Minister presseth that he doth upon them not as from himselfe but as from God it s nothing to him what they doe or doe not he is but a servant he is set over them for good and to give an account to God for them hee shall have his recompence for his worke
and his labour is with God if then for conscience he seekes their welfare and counts it his crowne if they obey Esay 49.4 its equall and righteous that they requite love for love duty for duty That they set his crowne upon his head by their faithfull obedience The businesse concernes themselves very sadly for the Minister preaches not comforts not exhorts not for his owne ends but for theirs If then he be for them and not himselfe shall they be able to answer it if they be not for their owne soules Alas what shall the discouragement they afford to the Minister hurt him Shall it not redound to them See Heb. 13.17 That were smally to their comfort He is from God and as in the stead of Christ doing his Embassage As Ieremy speakes to those rebells Chap. 44. Lo I am before you you may answer me as you will But know that he who sent me will not be so easily answered 2 Pet. 1.16 he will pay ye home for your rebellion If the Minister be bound to follow God and not cunning devises and fables of his own head and must give a strict account thereof to his Master Woe be to them that perceive not nor lay to heart What a solemne account will lye upon them if they dispise that message which he delivers upon such tearmes He hath saved his soule but thy bloud shall be upon thine owne head True love then is judicious see 2 Cor. 5.14 and as in all other things so in this she is loath to offer any measure to the Minister which she is loath God should offer herselfe Reason 3 Thirdly love is marveilous tender He then that loves his Minister is very sensible of that griefe and discontent which must needs smites his heart when he sees his labours slighted 1 Cor. 13. especially if he be a man wholly set to seek Gods ends in preaching A good heart will say I warrant you it stings the heart of him who teaches us soundly to behold in us slight acceptance Oh this will breed bad bloud This will load him with sorrow and he hath no whither to goe for ease but to him who set him on worke And the Lord will take his wrongs to heart and count them his owne and that will prove sad for us Oh! let us not provide so ill let us not cut downe the onely prop we stand on let us condole him in his heavinesse and remove the cause of it that so his heart being joyed may procure a good errand to heaven in our behalfe and bring downe a blessed answer from God unto us Reason 4 Fourthly love is given to esteem highly of that which it loves unites it and strengthens it selfe in the object delighted in she sets it up in her heart exceedingly and good cause why for love proceeds from some convinced amiablenesse and worth in the thing loved and that reflects backe honour and esteeme Now if it be so then love of a Minister will breed honour to him under God neither under his worth nor above it but sutable to it contrariwise if there be small or no love what will the answer be Tush what is he He is but a man as others yea and perhaps a weake one a man of passions and frailties So then marke A lovelesse heart despiseth a Minister shames him is as rottennesse to his bones thwarts the doctrine makes all that behold him in the mirror of such people to thinke they have a Minister of like disposition to themselves else for shame they would not be so base I conclude then true love will devise with her selfe what will grace and magnifie the Minister and his labours and finding that nothing will do it so much as the obeying of his voice they will force and compell themselves out of the meer nature of their love to obey him to the uttermost cost it them never so much the setting on as face answers face in water Proverb so doth the life of an hearer who loves his Minister answer his labours Love must needs destroy it selfe if it should disesteem her object therefore she honoureth that as she would support herselfe So much for Reasons This point first affords Terror to all basely minded men who live Vse 1 in the utter hatred and scorne of their Ministers thwarting Terror Two or three Branches vexing and crossing them to the uttermost in stead of obeying Such as Jer. 44.16 openly tell him The word of God which thou spakest unto us we will not heare it Such as live at open defiance with the Minister asking Shall this fellow reigne over us No Shall we be tyed to his girdle We scorne it Let us cast his cords from us Psal 2.12 What Lord shall controll us Our tongues our spirits and wayes are our owne Shall he teach us to marry to buy sell keep company use our liberties Shall he come among us to forestall our pleasures our wills and lusts They that live at open defiance with their Ministers are odious Cannot wee tell as well as he what is good for us He serves us and lives upon us and shall we maintaine our servant to be in our tops Oh base wretch He is thy servant for thy good but made so by God not a slave but a free honourable Minister of reconciliation not to serve thy humours but to controll them And as I said before then they will runne and ride and lay their purses together nay set on all the mastives of the Country against them to worry them out But oh wofull creatures Reproach of Ministers shame and spots of assemblies you need not to hunt them out Read but that in Mica 2.6.7 and there you shall finde God himself will doe it for you You say prophesie not But I say Ezek. 3.26 they shall not prophesie unto such lest they take shame I will not suffer their faces to be covered with such confusion as to be plagued with such I will rid them from among such and carry them to a people that love them As for these haters of them when as once their shepheards are gone I will come in among them and worry them that worried these And I will let in a flood upon them of woe when my Noa's are taken into mine Arke That which they sought for revenge of my Minister I will inflict as a revenge upon them and when they see themselves left to be consumed by those lusts of theirs which they scorned to be rooted out by him then they shall roare for very anguish some here under penury rags shame diseases and impenitency some in hell but then one houre of a faithfull Minister shall not be given them if they had the world to give for it Beware lest seeing the fearefull examples of vengeance in Scripture for contempt of the Minister besides daily experience of the sudden end of scorners and persecutors will not draw you from your trade God make you examples for