would make us serious § 6. And Ministers are not set up only for publick Preaching but for private counsel also according Acosta noteth it as a great hinderance of the Indians conversion that their Teachers shifâ— for beâ—ter livings and stay not till they are well acquainted with the people and that the Bishops are of the same temper Haec tanta claâ—es est anâ—m â—â—um ut satis deploâ—aâ—i â—â—â—â— possit Nihil Sacerdos Christi praecâ—aâ—â— proficiet in salute Iâ—dorum sine familiari hominum rerum nâ—â—â—â—tia l 4. c. 10. â— â—9â— Sunt autem multi qui injuncto muneri câ—piose se satisfacere existimanâ— Orationem dominâ—â—â—â—m symbolum salutationem augâ—â—cam tum praecepta decalogi Hispan idiomate identidem Indis recitantes eorum infantes baptizantes mortuos sâ—pelientes matrâ—mâ—nio juvenes collocante rem sacram festis diebus facientes Neque conscientia quam uâ—iâ—â—m â—auterizatam non habeaut mordenâ—uâ— quod dispersae sint oves domini c. c. 7. p. 373. to our particular needs As Physicions are not only to read you instructions for the dyeting and curing of your selves but to be present in your sickness to direct you in the particular application of remedies And as Lawyers are to assist you in your particular cases to free your estates from encumbrances and preserve or rescue them from contentious men Choose therefore some able Minister to be your ordinary Counsellor in the matters of God And let him be one that is humble faithful experienced and skilful that hath leisure ability and willingness to assist you § 7. As Infants in a family are unable to help themselves and need the continual help of others and therefore God hath put into the hearts of Parents a special Love to them to make them diligent and patient in helping them so is it in the family of Christ Most Christians by far are young or weak in understanding and in grace It is long before you will be past the need of others help if ever in this life If you feel not this your infirmity and need it is so much the greater God will have no men to be self-sufficient we shall all have need of one another that we may be useful to one another and God may use us as his messengers and instruments of conveying his mercies to each other and that even self-love may help us to be sociable and to love one another And our souls must receive their part of mercy by this way of communication as well as our bodies And therefore as the poor above all men should not be against charity and communicating that need it most so young Christians that are weak and unexperienced above all others should be most desirous of help especially from an able faithful guide § 8. But be sure you deal sincerely and cheat not your selves by deceiving your counsellor and hiding your case To do so by your Lawyer is the way to lose your suit And to do so by your Physicion is the way to lose your life And to do so with your Pastor and soul-counsellor is the way to lose your souls And let the judgement of your Pastor or judicious friend about the state of your souls be much regarded by you though it be not infallible How far such must be trusted I am afterward to open to you with other of your duties belonging to you in this Relation I now only proceed to General advice Direct 8. KEep right apprehensions of the excellency of Charity and Unity among believers and Direct 8. Against Unchaâ—â—â—â—ableness and Schism See more in Tâ—n 2. Câ— 23. receive nothing hastily that is against them especially take heed lest under pretence of their Authority their Number their Soundness or their Holiness you too much addict your selves to any Sect or Party to the withdrawing of your special Love and just Communion from other Christians and turning your Zeal to the interest of your Party with a neglect of the common interest of the Church But Love a Christian as a Christian and promote the Unity and welfare of them all § 1. Use often to read and well consider the meaning and reason of those many urgent passages Utrumqueâ—mperium Mâ—hoâ—eâ—â—â—â—m Pontificium ortum est ex dissidus de doctrina Cum in Oriente diâ—aceâ—â—â—â—ae essâ—â—t â—â—clesiae 〈…〉 n multorum 〈…〉 in Scripture which exhort all Christians to Unity and Love Such as Iohn 11. 52. 17. 11 21 22 23. 1 Cor. 3. 10. 17. 12. throughout 2 Cor. 13. 11. 1 Thess. 5. 12 13. Phil. 2. 1 2 3. 1 Pet. 3. 8. Rom. 16. 17. 1 Cor. 1. 10. 3. 3. 11. 18. And Iohn 13. 35. Rom. 12. 9 10. 13. 10. 2 Cor. 13. 11. Gal. 5. 6 13 22. Col. 1. 4. 1 Thess. 4. 9. 1 Iohn 3. 11 14 23. 4. 7 11 16 19 20 21. Surely if the very life of Godliness lay not much in Unity and Love we should never have had such words spoken of it as here you find Love is to the soul as our Natural heat is to the Body whatever destroyeth it destroyeth Life and therefore cannot be for our good Be certain that opinion course or motion tends to death that tends to abate your Love to your Brethren much more which under pretence of zeal provoketh you to hate and hurt them To Divide the Body is to kill it oâ— to maim it Dividing the essential necessary parts is killing it Cutting off any integral part is maiming it The first can never be an act of friendship which is the worst that an enemy can do The second is never an act of friendship but when the cutting off a member which may be spared is of absolute necessity to the saving of the whole man from the worse division between soul and body By this judge what friends Dividers are to the Church and how well they are accepted of God § 2. He that loveth any Christian aright must needs love all that appear to him as Christians And when malice will not suffer men to see Christianity in its profession and credible appearance in another this is as well contrary to Christian Love as hating him when you know him to be a true Christian Censoriousness not constrained by just evidence is contrary to Love as well as hatred is § 3. There is a Union and Communion with Christians as such This consisteth in having one God one Head one Spirit one Faith one Baptismal Covenant one Rule of holy living and in loving and praying for all and doing good to as many as we can This is a Union and Communion of Mind which we must hold with the Catholick Church through the world And there is a Bodily local Union and â—â—â—â—muniâ—â— which consisteth in our joyning in body as well as mind with particular Congregations And this as we cannot hold it with all nor with any Congregation but one at once so we are not 〈◊〉 to
is here a great encouragement to the soul to think that Jesus our great High Priest doth make all his Children Priests to God They are a chosen generation a royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar people that they should shew forth the prayses of him that hath called them out of darkness into his marvellâ—us light An holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Iesus Christ 1 Pet. 2. 5 â— Even their broken hearts and contrite Spirits are a sacrifice which God will not despâ—se Psal. 51. 17. He knoweth the meaning of the Spirits groans Rom. 8. 26 27. § 19. 16. The strength of corruptions which molest the soul and are too often strugling with it and too much prevail doth greatly discourage us in our approach to that God that hateth all the workers of iniquity And here faith may find relief in Christ not only as he pardoneth us but as he hath conquered the Devil and the world himself and bid us be of good cheer because he hath conquered and hath all power given him in Heaven and Earth and can give us victorious grace in the season and measure which he seeth meetest for us We can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth us Go to him then by faith and prayer and you shall find that his grace is sufficient for you § 20. 17. The thoughts of God are the less delightful to the soul because that Death and the Grave do interpose and we must pass through them before we can enjoy him And it is unpleasing to nature to think of a separation of soul and body and to think that our flesh must rot in darkness But against this faith hath wonderful relieâ— in Iesus Christ. For asmuch as we were partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part with us that he might destroy through death him that had the power of death even the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage Hâ—b 2. 14 15. O what an encouragement it is to faith to observe that Christ once dyed himself and that he rose from the dead and reigneth with the Father it being impossible that death should hâ—ld him And having conquered that which seemed to conquer him it no more hath dominion over him but he hath the Keyes of Death and Hell we may now entertain death as a disarmed enemy and say O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory Yea it is sanctified by him to be our friend even an entrance into our Masters joy it being best for us to depart and be with Christ Phil. 1. 23. and therefore death is become our gain v. 21. O what abundance of strength and sweetness may faith perceive from that promise of Christ John 12. 26. If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be As he was dead but now liveth for evermore so hath he promised that because he liveth therefore shall we live also John 14. 19. But of this I have written two Treatises of Death already § 21. 18. The terror of the day of Iudgement and of our particular doom at death doth make the thoughts of God less pleasing and delectable to us And here what a relief is it for faith to apprehend that Iesus Christ must be our Judge And will he condemn the members of his body Shall we be afraid to be judged by our dearest friend by him that hath justified us himself already even at the price of his own blood § 22. 19. The very strangeness of the soul to the world unseen and to the inhabitants and employments there doth greatly stop the soul in its desires and in its delightful approaches unto God Had we seen the world where God must be enjoyed the thoughts of it would be more familiar and sweet But faith can look to Christ and say My head is there he seeth it for me he knoweth what he possesseth prepareth and promiseth to me and I will quietly rest in his acquaintance with it § 23. 20. Nay the Godhead it self is so infinitely above us that in it self it is inaccessible and it is ready to amaze and overwhelm us to think of coming to the incomprehensible Majesty But it emboldneth the soul to think of our Glorified Nature in Christ and that even in Heaven God will everlastingly condescend to us in the Mediator For the Mediation of Redemption and acquisition shall be ended and thus he shall deliver up the Kingdom to the Father yet it seems that a Mediation of fruition shall continue For Christ said to his Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my glory John 17. 24. We shall rejoyce when the marriage of the Lamb is come Rev. 19. 7. They are blessed that are called to his Marriage Supper v. 9. The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple and the Light of the New Ierusalem Rev. 21. 22 23. Heaven would not be so familiar or so sweet to my thoughts if it were not that our glorified Lord is there in whose Love and Glory we must live for ever O Christian as ever thou wouldst walk with God in comfortable communion with him study and exercise this Life of faith in the daily use and improvement of Christ who is our Life and Hope and All. DIRECT III. Gr. Dir. 3. Understand well what it is to believe in the Holy Ghost and see that he dwell To believe in the Holy Ghost and live upon his Grace and operate in thee as the Life of thy soul and that thou do not resist or quench the Spirit but thankfully obey him § 1. EAch person in the Trinity is so believed in by Christians as that in Baptism they enter Scrutari temeritas est credere pietas nesse vita Bernard de consid ad Eâ—geâ— l. 5. distinctly into Covenant with them which is to Accept the Mercies of and perform the 〈…〉 each person distinctly As to take God for Our God is more than to believe that there is a God â—nd to take Christ for Our Saviour is more than barely to believe that he is the Messiah so to Believe in the Holy Ghost is to take him for Christs Agent or Advocate with our souls and for our Guide and Sanctifier and Comforter and not only to believe that he is the third person in the Trinity This therefore is a most practical Article of our Belief § 2. If the Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost be the unpardonable sin then all sin against the Holy Ghost must needs have a special aggravation by being such And if the sin against the Holy Ghost be the greatest sin then our duty towards the Holy Ghost is certainly none of our smallest duties Therefore the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit and our duty towards him and sin against him deserve not the least or
soul came from him and therefore naturally should tend to him It is from him and for him and therefore must Rest in him or have no Rest. We delight in the house where we were born and in our Native country and in our parents and every thing inclineth to its own Original And so should the soul to its Creator § 8. Direct 7. Corrupt not your Minds and appetites with contrary delights Addict not your selves to fleshly pleasures Tast nothing that is forbidden Sorrow it self is not such an enemy to spiritual Delights as sensual sinful pleasures are O leave your beastly and your childish pleasures and come and feast your souls on God Isa. 55. 1 2 3. Away with the Delights of lust and pridâ— and covetousness and vain sports and gluttony and drunkenness if ever you would have the solid and durable Delights Think not of joyning both together Bethink your selves Can it be any thing but the disease and wickedness of thy heart that can make a play or a feast or drunken wanton company more pleasant to thee than God What a heart is that which thinketh it a toil to meditate on God and Heaven and thinks it a pleasure to think of the baits of pride and covetousness What a heart is that which thinks that sensuality wantonness and vanity are the pleasure of their families which must not be turned out and that Godliness and Heavenly discourse and exercises would be the sadness and trouble of their families which must not be brought in lest it maâ—r their mirth That think it an intollerable toil and slavery to Love God and Holiness and Heaven and to be imployed for them and thinks it a delightful thing to Love a whore or excess of meat or drink or sports Can you say any thing of a man that is more disgraceful unless you say he is a Devil It were not so vile for a child to Delight more in a Dog than in his Parents or a Husband to delight more in the ugliest Harlot than in his Wife as it is for a man to delight more in fleshly vanities than in God Will you be licking up this dung when you should be solacing your souls in Angelical pleasures and foretasting the delights of Heaven O how justly will God thrust away such wretches from his everlasting presence who so abhor his ways and him Can they blame him for denying them the things which they hate or set so light by as to prefer a lust before it If they were not haters of God and Holiness they would never be so averse even to the Delights which they should have with him § 9. Direct 8. Take heed of a Melancholy habit of body For Melancholy people can scarce delight Direct 8. in any thing at all and therefore not in God Delight is as hard to them as it is to a pained member to find pleasure or a sick stomack to delight in the food which it loaths They can think of God with trouble and fear and horror and despair but not with delight § 10. Direct 9. Take heed of an impatient pievish self-tormenting mind that can bear no cross and Direct 9. of overvaluing earthly things which causeth impatience in the want of them Make not too great a matter of fleshly pain or pleasure Otherwise your minds will be called to a continual attendance on the flesh and taken up with continual desires or cares or fears or griefs or pleasures and will not be permitted to solace themselves with God The soul that would have pure and high Delights must abstract it self from the concernments of the flesh and look on your body as if it were the body of another whose pain or pleasure you can choose whether you will feel when Paul was rapt up into the third Heaven and saw the things unutterable he was so far freed from the prison of sense that he knew not whether he was in the Body or out of it As the separated souls that see the face of God and the Redeemer do leave the Body to be buried and to rot in darkness and feel not all this to the interrupting of their joys so faith can imitate such a Death to the world and such a neglect of the flesh and some kind of elevating separation of the mind to the things above If in this near conjunction you cannot leave the Body to rejoyce or suffer alone yet as it self is but a servant to the soul so let not its pain or pleasure be predominant and controll the high operations of the soul. A manly valiant believing soul though it cannot abate the pain at all nor reconcile the flesh to its calamity yet it can do more notwithstanding the pain to its own delight than strangers will believe § 11. Some women and passionate weak-spirited men especially in sickness are so pievish and of such impatient minds that their daily work is to disquiet and torment themselves One can scarce tell how to speak to them or look at them but it offendeth them And the world is so full of occasions of provocation that such persons are like to have little quietness It is unlike that these should delight in God who keep their minds in a continual ulcerated galled state uncapable of any delights at all and cease not their self-tormenting § 12. Direct 10. It is only a life of faith that will be a life of holy heavenly Delight Exercise your Direct 10. selves therefore in believing contemplations of the things unseen It must not be now and then a glance of the eye of the soul towards God or a seldom salutation which you would give a stranger but a walking with him and frequent addresses of the soul unto him which must help you to the Delights which Believers find in their communion with him § 13. Direct 11. Especially let faith go frequently to Heaven for renewed matter of delight and Direct 11. frequently think what God will be to you there for ever and with what full everlasting delight he will satiate your souls As Heaven is the place of our full delight so the foresight and foretast of it is the highest delight which on earth is to be attained And a soul that is strange to the foresight of Heaven will be as strange to the true Delights of faith § 14. Direct 12. It is a great advantage to Holy Delight to be much in the most Delightful parts of Direct 12. worship as in Thanksgiving and Praise and a due celebration of the Sacrament of the Body and blood of Christ Of which I have spoken in the foregoing Directions § 15. Direct 13. A skillful experienced Pastor who is able to open the treasurie of the Gospel and Direct 13. publickly and privately to direct his flock in the work of self-examination and the heavenly exercises of faith is a great help to Christians spiritual delight The experiences of believers teach them this How oft do they go away refreshed and
have a higher birth than they and higher hopes and higher hearts by setting light by that which their hearts are set upon as their felicity When seeming Christians are as worldly and ambitious as others and make as great a matter of their gain and wealth and honour it sheweth that they do but cover the base and sordid Spirit of worldlings with the visor of the Christian name to deceive themselves and bring the faith of Christians into scorn and dishonour the holy name which they usâ—r◠§ 35. Dirâ—ct 4. It much hâ—noureth God when his servants can quietly and fearlesly trust in him Diâ—â—ct 4. iâ— the â—â—ce of all the dangers and threatnings which Devils or men can cast before them and can joyfully sufâ—er pain or dâ—ath in obedience to his commands and in confidence on his promise of everlasting happinesâ— This sheweth that we believe indeed that there is a God and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. and that he is true and just and that his promises are to be trusted on and that he is able to make them good in despight of all the malice of his enemies and that the threats or frowns of sinful Worms are câ—ntemptible to him that feareth God Psal. 58. 11. Sâ— that men shall say Verily there is a reward for the righteous Verily there is a God that judâ—eth in the earth and that at last will judge the world in righteousness Paul glâ—ried in the Thâ—ssal â—iaâ—s for their faith and paâ—ience in all their persecutions and tâ—ibulations which they endured as a mâ—nifest tâ—ken â—f the righteous judgement of God that they might be accounted worthy of the Kingdâ—m 〈…〉 God fâ—r which they suffered Seeing it is a righteous thing with Gâ—d to recompence tribulation to them that trouble us and rest with his Saints to those that are troubled 2 Thess. 1. 4 5 6 7. If ye be rep 〈…〉 d for the name of Christ happy are ye for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you â—â— their part he is evil spâ—ken of but on your part he is glorified 1 Pet. 4. 14. If any man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed but let him glorifie God on this behalf Vers. 16. When confidence in God and assurance of the great reward in Heaven Matth. 5. 11 12. doth cause a believer undâ—untedly to say as the three Witnesses Dan. 3. We are not careful O King to answer thee in this mâ—tter The God whâ—m we serve is able to deliver us when by faith we can go through the tryal of carnal mâ—ckings and scourgings of bonds and imprisonment to be destitute and afflicted yea and toâ—tured not accepting deliverance upon sinful terms thus God is glorified by believers List up your voices O ye afflicted Saints and sing fâ—r the Mâ—jesty of the Lord Glorifie ye the Lord in the fires even the name of the Lord God of Israel in the Islâ—s of the Sea Iâ—a 24. 14 15. Sing to his Praise with Paul and Silas though your feet be in the stocks Iâ— God call for your lives remember that you are nâ—t your own you are bought with a price therefâ—re glorifie God in your bodies and Spiâ—its which are his 1 Cor. 6. 20. Rejoyce in it if you bear in your bodies the marks of the Lord Iesus Gal 6. 17. And if you alwayes bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Iesus that the life also of Iesus may be manifested in your bodies 2 Cor. 4. 10. And with all boldness see that Christ be magnified in your bodies whether it be by life or death Phil. 1. 20. Hâ— dishonoureth and reproacheth Christ and faith that thinks he is not to be trusted even unto the death § 36. Direct 5. It much honoureth God when the hopes of everlasting joyes do cause believers to Direct 5. liâ—e much more jâ—yfully than the most prosperous worldlings not with their kind of doting mirth in vain sports and pleasures and foolish talking and uncomely jests But in that constant cheerâ—ulness and gladness which beseemeth the heirs of glory Let it appear to the world that indeed you hope to live with Christ and to be equal with the Angels Doth a dejected countenance and a mournâ—ul troubled and complaining life express such hopes or rather tell men that your hopes are small and that God is a hard Master and his service grievous Do not thus dishonour him by your inordinate dejectedness Do not affright and discourage sinners from the pleasant service of the Lord. § 37. Direct 6. When Christians live in a readiness to dye and can rejoyce in the approach of death Direct 6. and lâ—ve and long for the ay of Iudgement when Christ shall justifie them from the slanders of the woâ—ld and shall judge them to eternaâ— joyes this is to the glory of God and our profession When death which is the King of fears to others appeareth as disarmed and conquered to believers when Iudgement which is the terror of others is their desire this sheweth a triumphant faith and that godliness is not in vain It must be something above nature that can make a man desire to depart and be with Christ as best of all and to be absent from the body and present with the Lord and to comfort one another with the mention of the glorious coming of their Lord and the day when he shall judge the world in righteousness Phil 1. 21. 2 Cor. 5. 8. 1 Thess. 4 18. 2. 1 10. § 38 Direct 7. The Humility and Meekness and Patience of Christians much honour God and their Direct 7. holy faith as Pride and Passion and Impatience dishonour him Let men see that the Spirit of God doth cast down the devillish sin of Pride and maketh you like your Master that humbled himself to assume our flesh and to the death of the Cross and to the contradiction and reproach of foolish sinners and made himself of no reputation but endured the shame of being derided spit upon and crucified Phil. 2. 7 8 9. Heb. 12. 2. and stooped to wash the feet of his Disciples It is not stoutness and lifting up the head and standing upon your terms and upon your honour in the world that is the honouring of God When you are as little children and as nothing in your own eyes and seek not the honour that is of men but say Not to us O Lord not to us but to thy Name be the glory Psal. 115. 1. and are content that your honour decrease and be trodden into the dirt that his may increase and his name be magnified this is the glorifying of God So when you shew the world that you are above the impotent passions of men not to be insensible but to be angry and sin not and to give place to wrath and not to resist and avenge your selves Rom. 12. 19. and to be meâ—k and lowly in heart Matth. 11. 29. It will appear that
ability opportunity and a Call may be excused by Religion from worldly labours as Ministers but not from such spiritual labours for others which they can perform He that under pretence of Religion withdraweth from converse and forbeareth to do good to others and only liveth to himself and his own soul doth make Religion a pretense against Charity and the works of Charity which are a great part of Religion For pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted of the world Jam. 1. 27. Even when sickness imprisonment or persecution disableth to do any more for others we must pray for them But while we can do more we must § 4. Quest. 4. Will not Riches excuse one from labouring in a Calling Answ. No but rather bind Quest. 4. them to it the more For he that hath most wages from God should do him most work Though Wâ—â—l not Riches excuse they have no outward want to urge them they have as great a necessity of obeying God and doing good to others as any other men have that are poor § 5. Quest. 5. Why is labour thus necessary to all that are able Answ. 1. God hath strictly commanded Quest. 5. â—â—y Labour is necessary it to all And his Command is Reason enough to us 2 Thess. 3. 10 11 12. For even when we were with you this we commanded you that if any would not work neither should he eat For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly working not at all but are busie-bodies Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Iesus Christ that with quietness Ezek. 46. 1. Deut. 16. 15. Deut. 2. 7. Exod. 34. 21. they work and eat their own bread See vers 6. 14. 1 Thess. 4. 11. We beseech you brethren that ye study to be quiet and to do your own business and work with your hands as we commanded you that ye may walk honestly or decently towards them that are without and that ye may have lack of nothing Gen. 3. 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground And in the fourth Commandment Six dayes shalt thou labour So Ephes. 4. 28. Prov. 31. 31 33. § 6. 2. Naturally action is the end of all our Powers and the Power were vain but in respect to the act To be able to understand to read to write to go c. were little worth if it were not that we may Do the things that we are enabled to § 7. 3. It is for Action that God maintaineth us and our abilities work is the moral as well as the natural End of power It is the act by the power that is commanded us § 8. 4. It is action that God is most served and honoured by not so much by our being able to do good but by our doing it who will keep a servant that is able to work and will not Will his meer ability answer your expectation § 9. 5. The publick welfare or the good of many is to be valued above our own Every man therefore is bound to do all the good he can to others especially for the Church and Commonwealth And this is not done by Idleness but by Labour As the Bees labour to replenish their hive so man being a sociable creature must labour for the good of the society which he belongs to in which his own is contained as a part § 10. 6. Labour is necessary for the preservation of the faculties of the mind 1. The labour of the mind is necessary hereto because unexercised Abilities will decay as Iron not used will consume with rust Idleness makes men fools and dullards and spoileth that little ability which they have 2. And the exercise of the Body is ordinarily necessary because of the minds dependance on the body and acting according to its temperature and disposition It is exceedingly helped or hindered by the body § 11. 7. Labour is needful to our health and life The Body it self will quickly fall into mortal Socrates was mightâ—ly addicted to the exercise of his body as necessary to the health of body and mind Laert. Plâ—tarch out of Plato saith that soul and body should be equally exercised togâ—ther and driven on as two Houses in a Coach and not either of them overgo the osher Prâ—â— of Health diseases without it except in some very few persons of extraordinary soundness Next to abstinence labour is the chief preserver of health It stirreth up the natural heat and spirits which perform the chief offices for the life of man It is the proper bellows for this vital fire It helpeth all the concoctions of nature It attenuateth that which is too gross it purifieth that which beginneth to corrupt it openeth obstructions it keepeth the mass of blood and other nutritious humours in their proper temperament fit for motion circulation and nutrition it helpeth them all in the discharge of their natural offices It helpeth the parts to attract each one its proper nutriment and promoteth every sermentation and assimilation by which nature maintaineth the transitory still consuming Oyle and mass It excelleth art in the preparation alteration and expulsion of all the excrementitious matter which being retained would be the matter of manifold diseases and powerfully fighteth against all the enemies of health In a word it doth incomparably excell the help of the most skilful Physicions and excellent Medicines in the world for the preventing of most diseases incident to man and consequently to the benefit of the soul it self which cheerfully useth a cheerful and well tempered body and useth a languishing sickly body as the Rider useth a tired Horse or as we use a sick or lazie servant or a blunted Knife or a Clock or Watch that is out of order I speak all this of Bodily labour which is necessary to the Body and consequently to the mind For want of which abundance grow melancholly and abundance grow sluggish and good for nothing and abundance cherish filthy lusts and millions yearly turn to earth before their time For want of bodily labour a multitude of the idle Gentry and rich people and young people that are slothful do heap up in the secret receptacles of the body a dunghill of unconcocted excrementitious filth and vitiate all the mass of humours which should be the fewel and oyle of life and dye by thousands of untimely deaths of Feavors Palsies Convulsions Apoplexies Dropsies Consumptions Gout c. more miserably than if Thieves had murdered them by the High-way because it is their own doing and by their sloth they kill themselves For want of bodily exercise and labour interposed abundance of Students and sedentary persons fill themselves with diseases and hasten their death and causelesly blame their hard studies for that which was caused by their bodily sloth The hardest studies will do
of each other than you would be if they were your own Fall out no more with your wife for her faults than you do with your self for your own faults and than you would do if hers had been your own This will allow you such an anger and displeasure against a fault as tendeth to heal it but not such as tendeth but to fester and vex the diseased part This will turn anger into compassion and speedy tender diligence for the cure 5. Agree together before hand that when one is in the diseased angry fit the other shall silently and gently bear till it be past and you are come to your selves again Be not angry both at once When the fire is kindled quench it with gentle words and carriage and do not cast on Oyle or fuel by answering provokingly and sharply or by multiplying words and by answering wrath with wrath But remember that now the work that you are called to is to mollifie and not to exasperate to help and not to hurt to cure another rather than to right your self As if another fall and hurt him your business is to help him up and not to tread upon him 6. Look before you and remember that you must live together untill death and must be the companions of each others fortunes and the comforts of each others lives and then you will see how absurd it is for you to disagree and vex each other Anger is the principle of revenge and falling out doth tend to separation Therefore those that must not revenge should not give way to anger and those that know they must not part should not fall out 7. As far as you are able avoid all occasions of wrath and falling out about the matters of your Families some by their slothfulness bring themselves into want and then being unable to bear it they contract a discontented pievish habit and in their impatiency they wrangle and disquiet one another some plunge themselves into a multitude of business and have to do with so many things and persons that one or other is still offending them and then they are impatient with one another some have neither skill nor diligence to manage their businesses aright and so things fall cross and go out of order and then their impatiency turneth it self against each other Avoid these occasions if you would avoid the sin And see that you be not unfurnished of Patience to bear that which cannot be avoided 8. If you cannot quickly quench your passion yet at least refrain your tongues speak not reproachful or provoking words Talking it out hotly doth blow the fire and encrease the flame Be but silent and you will the sooner return to your serenity and peace Foul words tend to more displeasure As Socrates said when his Wife first railed at him and next threw a vessel of foul Water upon him I thought when I heard the thunder there would come rain so you may portend worse following when foul unseemly words begin If you cannot easily allay your wrath you may hold your tongues if you are truly willing 9. Let the sober party condescend to speak fair and to intreat the other unless it be with a person so insolent as will be the worse Usually a few sober grave admonitions will prove as water to the boyling pot say to your angry Wife or Husband You know this should not be betwixt us Love must allay it and it must be repented of God doth not approve it it and we shall not approve it when his heat is over This frame of mind is contrary to a praying frame and this language contrary to a praying language we must pray together anon let us do nothing contrary to prayer now sweet water and bitter come not from one spring c. Some calm and condescending words of Reason may stop the torrent and revive the Reason which Passion had overcome 10. Confess your fault to one another when passion hath prevailed against you and ask forgiveness of each other and joyn in prayer to God for pardon and this will lay a greater engagement on you the next time to forbear You will sure be ashamed to do that which you have so confessed and asked forgiveness for of God and man If you will but practice these ten Directions your conjugal and family peace may be preserved § 10. Direct 6. A principal duty between husband and wife is with special care and skill and Direct 6. diligence to help each other in the knowledge and worship and obedience of God in order to their salvation Because this is a duty in which you are the greatest helps and blessings to each other if you perform it I shall 1. Endeavour to quicken you to make Conscience of it and then 2. Direct you how to do it § 11. I. Consider 1. How little it can stand with Rational Love to neglect the souls of one another I suppose you believe that you have immortal souls and an endless life of joy or misery to live And then you cannot choose but know that your great concernment and business is to make sure provision for those souls and for the endless life Therefore if your Love do not help one another in this which is your main concernment it is little worth and of little use Every thing in this world is valuable as it is useful A useless or unprofitable Love is a worthless Love It is a trifling or a childish or a beastly Love which helpeth you but in trifling childish or beastly things Do you love your Wife and yet will leave her in the power of Satan or will not help to save her soul What! Love her and yet let her go to hell and rather let her be damned than you will be at the pains to endeavour her salvation If she were but in bodily pain or misery and you refused to do your part to succour her she would take it but for cold unprofitable love though you were never so kind to her in complements and trifles The Devil himself maketh shew of such a love as that He can vouchsafe men pleasures and wealth and honour so he may but see the perdition of their souls And if your love to your wife or husband do tend to no greater matters than the pleasures of this life while the soul is left to perish in sin bethink your selves seriously how little more kindness you shew them than the Devil doth O can you see the danger of one that you love so dearly and do no more to save them from it Can you think of the damnation of so dear a friend and not do all that you are able to prevent it would you be separated from them in the World that you are going to would you not live with them in Heaven for ever Never say you love them if you will not labour for their salvation If ever they come to Hell or if ever you see them there both they and you will then confess
works of charity the other is covetous and is alwayes hindring them § 37. Direct 12. Lastly It is a great part of the duty of Husbands and Wives to be helpers and Direct 12. comforters of each other in order to a safe and happy death 1. In the time of Health you must often and seriously remember each other of the time when death will make the separation and live together in your daily converse as those that are still expecting the parting hour Help to awaken each others souls to make ready all those graces which then will prove necessary and to live in a constant preparation for your change Reprove all that in one another which will be unsavoury and ungrateful to your review at death If you see each other dull and slow in your preparations or to live in vanity worldliness or sloth as if you had forgotten that you must shortly dye stir up one another to do all that without delay which the approach of such a day requireth 2. And when Death is at hand O then what abundance of tenderness and seriousness and skill and diligence is needful for one that hath the last office of love to perform to the departing soul of so near a friend O then what need will there be of your most wise and faithful and diligent help When nature faileth and the pains of flesh divert the mind and temptations are strongest while the body is weakest when a languishing body and a doubting fearful troubled mind do call for your compassion and help O then what skill and holy seriousness will be necessary O what a calamity is it to have a carnal unsanctified Husband or Wife which will neither help you to prepare for death nor can speak a serious word of counsel or comfort to you at a dying hour that can do nothing but stand by and weep over you but have not a sensible word to say about the life that you are going to nor about the duty of a departing soul nor against the temptations and fears which then may be ready to overwhelm you They that are utterly unprepared and unfit to dye themselves can do little to prepare or help another But they that live together as the heirs of Heaven and converse on earth as fellow-travellers to the Land of Promise may help and encourage the souls of one another and joyfully part at death as expecting quickly to meet again in life eternal § 38. Were it not lest I be over tedious I should next speak of the Manner how Husbands and Wives must perform their duties to each other As 1. That it should be all done in such entire Love as maketh the case of one another to you as your own 2. That therefore all must be done in Paâ—ience and mutual forbearance 3. And in familiarity and not with strangeness distance sowerness noâ— affected complement 4. And in secresie where I should have shewed you in what cases secresie may be broken and in what not 5. And in confidence of each others fidelity and not in suspicion jealousie and distrust 6. And in prudence to manage things aright and to foresee and avoid impediments and inconveniences 7. And in holiness that God may be the first and last and all in all 8. And in constancy that you cease not your duties for one another until death But necessary abbreviation alloweth me to say no more of these CHAP. VIII The special Duties of Husbands to their Wives § 1. HE that will expect Duty or Comfort from his Wife must be faithful in doing the duty of a Husband The failing of your selves in your own duty may cause the failing of another to you or at least will some other way as much afflict you and will be bitterer to you in the end than if an hundred failed of their duty to you A good Husband will either make a good Wife or easily and profitably endure a bad one I shall therefore give you Directions for your own part of duty as that which your happiness is most concerned in § 2. Direct 1. The Husband must undertake the principal part of the Government of the whole family Direct 1. even of the Wife her self And therefore I. He must labour to be fit and able for that Government which he undertaketh This ability consisteth 1. In holiness and spiritual wisdom that he may be acquainted with the End to which he is to conduct them and the Rule by which he is to guide them and the principal works which they are to do An ungodly irreligious man is both a stranger and an enemy to the chiefest part of family-government 2. His ability consisteth in a due acquaintance with the works of his Calling and the labours in which his servants are to be employed For he that is utterly unacquainted with their business will be very unfit to govern them in it unless he commit that part of their government to his Wife or a Steward that is acquainted with it 3. And he must be acquainted both with the common temper and infirmities of mankind that he may know how much is to be born with and also with the particular temper and faults and virtues of those whom he is to govern 4. And he must have Prudence to direct himself in all his carriage to them and Iustice to deal with every one as they deserve and Love to do them all the good he can for soul and body II. And being thus able he must make it his daily work and especially be sure that he govern himself well that his example may be part of his government of others § 3. Direct 2. The Husband must so unite Authority and Love that neither of them may be omitted Direct 2. or concealed but both be exercised and maintained Love must not be exercised so imprudently as to destroy the exercise of Authority And Authority must not be exercised over a Wife so Magisterially and imperiously as to destroy the exercise of Love As your Love must be a Governing Love so your Commands must all be Loving Commands Lose not your Authority for that will but disable you from doing the Office of a Husband to your Wife or of a Master to your servants Yet must it be maintained by no means inconsistent with Conjugal Love and therefore not by fierceness or cruelty by threatnings or stripes unless by distraction or loss of reason they cease to be uncapable of the carriage otherwise due to a Wife There are many cases of equality in which Authority is not to be exercised but there is no case of inequality or unworthiness so great in which Conjugal Love is not to be exercised and therefore nothing must exclude it § 4. Direct 3. It is the duty of Husbands to preserve the Authority of their Wives over the Children Direct 3. and Servants of the family For they are joint-governours with them over all the inâ—eriors And the infirmities of women are apt many times to expose
them not tyrannically but in tenderness and love and command them nothing that is against the Laws of God or the good of their souls Use not wrath and unmanlike fury with them nor any over-severe or unnecessary rebukes or chastisements Find fault in season with prudence and sobriety when your passions are down and when it is most likely to do good If it be too little it will embolden them in doing ill If it be too much or frequent or passionate it will make them sleight it and despise it and utterly hinder their repentance They will be taken up in blaming you for your rashness and violence instead of blaming themselves for the fault § 2. Direct 2. Provide them work convenient for them and such as they are fit for Not such or Direct 2. so much as to wrong them in their health or hinder them from the necessary means of their salvation Nor yet so little as may cherish their idleness or occasion them to lose their pretious time It is cruelty to lay more on your horse than he can carry or to work your Oxen to skin and bones Prov. 12. 10. A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast much more of his servant Especially put not your servants on any labour which hazardeth their health or life without true necessity to some greater end Pity and spare them more in their health than in their bare labour Labour maketh the body sound but to take deep colds or go wet of their feet do tend to their sickness and death And should another mans Life be cast away for your commodity Do as you would be done by if you were servants your selves and in their case And let not their labours be so great as shall allow them no time to pray before they go about it or as shall so tire them as to unfit them for Prayer or instruction or the Worship of the Lords day and shall lay them like blocks as fitter to lie to sleep or rest themselves than to pray or hear or mind any thing that is good And yet take heed that you suffer them not to be idle as many great men use their Serving men to the undoing of their souls and bodies Idleness is no small sin it self and it breedeth and cherisheth many others Their time is lost by it and they are made unfit for any honest employment or course of life to help themselves or any others § 3. Direct 3. Provide them such wholsome food and lodging and such wages as their service doth Direct 3. deserve or as you have promised them Whether it be pleasant or unpleasant let their food and Col. 4. 1. lodging be healthful It is so odious an oppression and injustice to defraud a servant or labourer of his wages yea or to give him less than he deserveth that methinks I should not need to speak much against it among Christians Read Iam. 5. 1 2 3 4 5. and I hope it will be enough § 4. Direct 4. Use not your servants to be so bold and familiar with you as may tempt them to Direct 4. despise you nor yet so strange and distant as may deprive you of opportunity of speaking to them for their spiritual good or justly lay you open to be censured as too magisterial and proud Both these extreams have ill effects but the first is commonest and is the disquiet of many families § 5. Direct 5. Remember that you have a charge of the souls in your family and are as a Priest Direct 5. and Teacher in your own house and therefore see that you keep them to the constant worshipping of God especially on the Lords day in publick and private and that you teach them the things that concern their salvation as is afterward Directed And pray for them daily as well as for your selves § 6. Direct 6. Watch over them that they offend not God Bear not with ungodliness or gross sin in Direct 6. your family Read Psal. 101. Be not like those ungodly masters that look only that their own work be done and bid God look after his work himself and care not for their servants souls because they care not for their own and mind not whether God be served by others because they serve him not unless with hypocritical lip-service themselves § 7. Direct 7. Keep your servants from evil company and from being temptations to each other as Direct 7. far as you can If you suffer them to frequent Alehouses or riotous assemblies or wanton or malignant company when they are infected themselves they will bring home the infection and all the house may fare the worse for it And when Iudas groweth familiar with the Pharisees he will be seduced by them to betray his Master You cannot be accountable for your servants if you suffer them to be much abroad § 8. Direct 8. Go before them as examples of holiness and wisdom and all those virtues and duties Direct 8. which you would teach them An ignorant or a swearing cursing railing ungodly Master doth actually teach his servants to be such and if his words teach them the contrary he can expect but little reverence or success § 9. Direct 9. Patiently bear with those tolerable fâ—ailties which their unskilfulness or bodily temperature Direct 9. or other infirmity make them lyâ—ble to against their wills A willing mind is an excuse for many frailties much must be put up when it is not from wilfulness or gross neglect make not a greater matter of every infirmity or fault than there is cause Look not that any should be perfect upon earth Reckon upon it that you must have servants of the progeny of Adam that have corrupted natures and bodily weaknesses and many things that must be born with Consider how faultily you serve your Heavenly Master and how much he daily beareth with that which is amiss in you and how many faults and oversights you are guilty of in your own employment and how many you should be overtaken with if your were in their stead Eph. 6. 9. And ye Masters do the same things to them forbearing threatning knowing that your master also is in Heaven neither is there respect of persons with him Col. 4. 1. Masters give unto your servants that which is just and equal c. § 10. Direct 10. See that they behave themselves well to their fellow servants of which I shall speak Direct 10. anon Tit. 2. Directions to those Masters in foraign Plantations who have Negro's and other Slaves being a solution of several Cases about them Direct 1. UNderstand well how far your Power over your slaves extendeth and what limits Direct 1. God hath set thereto As 1. Sufficiently difference between Men and Bruits Remember that they are of as good a kind as you that is They are reasonable Creatures as well as you and born to as much natural liberty If their sin have enslaved them to you yet Nature
sense and reason but will wish that they had Loved God and sought and served him not formally in hypocritical complement but with all their heart and soul and might § 9. Direct 8. Labour also to fortifie the minds of your friends against all fears of suffering for Direct 8. Christ and all impatience in any of their afflictions Say to them The sufferings as well as the pleasures of this life are s◠short that they are not worthy once to be compared with the durable things of the life to come If I have past through a life of want and toil if my body hath endured painful sickness if I have suffered never so much from men and been used cruelly for the sake of Christ what the worse am I now when all is past Would an easie honourable plentiful life have made my death either the safer or the sweeter O no! It is the things eternal that are indeed significant and regardable Neither pleasure nor pain that is short is of any great regard Make sure of the Everlasting pleasures and you have done your work O live by faith and not by sense Look not at the temporal things which are seen It is not your concernment whether you are rich or poor in honour or dishonour in health or sickness but whether you be justified and sanctified and shall live with God in Heaven for ever Such serious counsels of dying men may make their sickness more fruitful than their health CHAP. XXXI Directions to the Friends of the Sick that are about them § 1. Direct 1. WHen you see the sickness or death of your friends take it as Gods warning Direct 1. to you to prepare for the same your selves Remember that thus it must be with you Thus are you like to lye in pain and thus will all the world forsake you and nothing of all your honour or wealth will afford you any comfort This will be the end of all your pleasures of your greatness and your houses and lands and attendance and of all your delicious meats and drinks and of all your mirth and play and recreations Thus must your carkasses be forsaken of your souls and laid in a grave and there lie rotting in the dark and your souls appear before your Judge to be sentenced to their endless state This certainly will be your case and O how quickly will it come Then what will Christ and Grace be worth Then nothing but the favour of God can comfort you Then whether will it be better to you to look back on a holy well-spent life or upon a life of fleshly ease and pleasure Then had you rather be a Saint or a Sensualist Lay this to heart and let the house of mourning make you better and live as one that looks to dye § 2. Direct 2. Use the best means for the recovery of the sick which the ablest Physicions shall advise Direct 2. you to as far as you are able Take heed of being guilty of the Pride and folly of many self-conceited ignorant persons who are ready to thrust every Medicine of their own upon their friends in sickness when they neither know the nature of the sickness or the cure Many thousands are brought to their death untimely by the folly of their nearest friends who will needs be medicining them and ruling them and despising the Physicion as if they were themselves much wiser than he when they are meerly ignorant of what they do As ignorant Sectaries despise Divines and set up themselves as better Preachers so many silly Women despise Physicions and when they have got a few Medicines which they know not the nature of nor how to use they take themselves for the better Physicions and the lives of their poor friends must pay for their pride and folly No means must be trusted to instead of God but the best must be used in subservience unto God And one would think that a small measure of wit and humility might serve to make silly women understand that they that never bestowed one year in the study of Physick are not so likely to understand it as those that have studied and practised it a great part of their lives It is sad to see people kill their dearest friends in kindness even by that ignorance and proud selfconceitedness which also maketh them the destroyers of their own souls § 3. Quest. But seeing God hath appointed all mens time what good can Physick do If God hath Quest. appointed them to live they shall live and if he have appointed them to dye it is not Physick that can save them Answ. This is the foolish reasoning of wicked people about their salvation If God have appointed Answ. me to salvation I shall be saved if he have not all my diligence will do no good But such people know not what they talk of God hath made your duty more open and known to you than his own decrees And you separate those things which he hath joyned together As God hath appointed no man to salvation simply without respect to the means of salvation so God hath appointed no man to live but by the means of life His Decree is not Such a man shall be saved or Such a man shall live so long only But this is his Decree Such a man shall be saved in the way of faith and holiness and in the diligent use of means and Such a man shall live so long by the use of those means which I have fitted for the preservation of his life So that as he that liveth a holy life may be sure he is chosen to salvation if he persevere and he that is ungodly may be sure that he is in the way to Hell so he that neglecteth the means of his health and life doth shew that it is unlike that God hath appointed him to live and he that useth the best means is liker to recover though the best will not cure uncurable Diseases nor make a man immortal The reasoning is the same as if you should say If God have appointed me to live so long I shall live though I neither eat nor drink But if he have not eating and drinking will not prolong my life But you must know that God doth not only appoint you to live that is but half his Decree but he decreeth that you shall live by eating and drinking § 4. Direct 3. Mind your friends betimes to make their Wills and prudently by good advice to settle Direct 3. their estates that they may leave no occasion of contending about it when they are dead This should be done in health because of the uncertainty of life But if it be undone till sickness it should then be done betimes The neglect of it oft causeth much sinful contending about worldly things even among those near relations who should live in the greatest amity and peace § 5. Direct 4. Keep away vain company from them as far as you can conveniently
is through the faith of Christ that being made conformable unto his death I may attain to the Resurrection of the dead and may by him be presented without spot or blemish My God thou hast encouraged my fearful soul by the multitude of thy mercies as well as by thy promises to trust thee and yield it self to thee Thou hast filled up all my dayes with mercy Every place that I have lived in and every relation and all that I have had to do with in the world are the witnesses of thy Love and mercy to me Thy eyes beheld my substance being yet imperfect and all my members were written in thy Book My parents were instructed by thee to educate me and all things commanded by thee to serve for my preservation comfort and salvation Thou hast brought me forth in a land and age of mercies and caused me to hear and see the things which others have not seen or heard The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places My life hath not been spent in a howling wilderness nor in banishment from thy Sanctuary or the communion of thy Saints nor hath it been wholly consumed in darkness and sorrow and unserviceable barrenness But often have I heard the joyful sound and I have gone with the multitude to the house of God and there have seen the light of thy countenance and drank of the Rivers of thy pleasure even of the waters of life and have been solaced with the voice of joy and praise How oft have I cryed unto thee in my trouble and thou hast delivered me out of my distresses When for my folly and transgression I was afflicted thou broughtst me out of darkness and the shadow of death Thou renewedst my age as Hezekiahs and causedst the shadow of my Dyal to go back and hast set me at liberty to praise thee for thy Goodness and declare thy Psal. 107. 8. 15 Psal. 50. 15. 2 Cor. 1. 9 10. Psal. 23. Psal. 139. 17 18. Heb. 13. 5. John 13. 1. Psal 57. 10. 108. 4. 36. 5. 103. 17. 136. Psal. 63. 3. Phil. 1. 23. Luke 2. 29 30. 2 Cor. 1. 2 3 4 5 7 8. works to the children of men In the day of trouble I called upon thee and thou didst deliver me that I might glorifie thee Thou causedst me to receive the sentence of death that I might trust in God that raiseth the dead My Shepheard hath led me in his pleasant pastures by the silent streams He restored my soul and conducted me in the paths of righteousness How pretious are thy thoughts unto me O God! how great is the summ of them If I should count them they are more in number than the sand And will that mercy now forsake me which hath abounded to me and supported me so long Thou hast said I will never fail thee nor forsake thee Having loved thy own that are in the world thou wilt love them to the end For thy mercy is great and reacheth to the Heavens and it endureth for ever O therefore when I awake let me be with thee And as thy loving kindness is better than Life and to depart and be with Christ is far better than the best condition upon earth so let thy servant depart in peace his eye of faith beholding thy salvation And when my earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved let me have that building of God the house not made with hands eternal in the heavens Let my present burden of sin and suffering make me more earnestly to groan not to be unclothed but to be clothed upon that mortality may be swallowed up of life that being absent from the body I may be present with the Lord. And seeing this Cup may not pass from me and I must not look for the Chariot of Elias to carry me unto Heaven let thy Will be done and let me rest therein and let death be the gain and advantage of my soul And Phil. 1 21. 2 Cor. 4. 16 â—8 1 Kings 19. 4. while this outward man is perishing let the inner man be renewed from day to day For what am I better than my Fathers and all thy Saints and the generations of mankind that I should think of any other passage than this of Death to the world of immortality O let this fainting heart be glad and let my glory rejoyce and in Love and Ioy in Thankfulness and Praise let me pass into the world of Love and Ioy where Thanksgiving and Praise shall be my work for ever And though my flesh and heart will fail Psal. 73. 26. be thou the strength of my heart O God and my portion for ever Though I must walk through the valley of the shadow of death let me fear no evil But be thou still with me and let me be comforted by thy rod Psal. 23. 4 5 6. and staff Let the goodness and mercy which hath followed me thus far all my dayes receive me at the last that I may dwell with thee for ever For it is the will of my Redeemer that those which thou hast given him be with him where he is to behold the glory which thou hast given him And that his servants John 17. 24. John 12. 26. Acts 7. 59. Luke 23. 43. John 20. 17. Joh. 14. 1 2 3. Psal. 16. 11 12. should follow him that where he is there also may his servants be Amen Lord Iesus Good is thy Will and the Word which thou hast spoken Into thy hands I commend my Spirit which thou hast Redeemed Receive it and let me be with thee in Paradise O thou that hast called us thy Brethren when thou didst ascend to thy Father and our Father and to thy God and our God take up this poor unworthy soul to the mansions which thou hast prepared for us that I may be with thee where thou art And though this flesh must perish let it rest in hope and be but sowed as a grain of wheat till thy powerful Call shall raise it from the dust and this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal shall put on immortality and this 1 Cor. 15. 53 54 55. natural body shall be raised a spiritual body and death shall be swallowed up in Victory For though I be dead my life is hid with Christ in God And when thou appearest who art my Life then let me appear with Col. 3. 3 4 5. 2 Thess. 1. 10 11. thee in glory O hasten that appearance and come with thy holy glorious Angels to be glorified in thy Saints and admired in and by Believers When thou wilt change our vile bodies and make them like to thy Glorious Body by the mighty working by which thou canst subdue even all things to thy self Hast Phil. 3. 21. Rev. 2â— 20 17 Eph. 5. 26 27. 1 Cor. 15. 45. Acts 3. 5. John 14. 19. Rev. 14. 13. Matth. 10. 30. Luke 21. 18. Heb. 12. 22 23 Rev. 1. 6. Rom. 11. 36. Rev.
not ad semper no act especially external is a duty at all times Therefore not this of revealing an offenders fault And if it be not alwayes a duty then it must be none when it is inconsistent with some greater benefit or duty For when two goods come together the greater is to be preferred Therefore in case that you see in just probability that the concealment of the sinner will do more hurt to the Common-wealth or the souls of men than the saving of your life is like to do good You may not promise to conceal him or if you sinfully promise it you may not perform it But in case that your life is like to be a greater good than the Not promising to conceal him then such a promise is no fault because the disclosing him is no duty But to judge rightly of this is a matter of great difficulty If it be less than life which you save by such a promise it oft falls out that it is a lesser good than the detecting of the offence § 18. But it will here be said If I promise not to conceal a Robber I must conceal him nevertheless for when he hath killed me I cannot reveal him and I must conceal the bribe-taker for till I have promised secrecy I cannot prove him guilty And he that promiseth to forbear a particular good action whilest he liveth doth yet reserve his life for all other good works whereas if he dye he will neither do that nor any other But this case is not so easily determined If Daniel dye he can neither pray nor do any other good on earth And if he live he may do much other good though he never pray And yet he might not promise to give over praying to save his life I conceive that we must distinguish of duties essential to the outward part of Christianity or of constant indispensible necessity and duties which are alterable and belong only to some persons times and places Also between the various consequents of omissions And I conceive that ordinarily a man may promise for the saving of his life that he will forbear a particular alterable duty or relation As to read such a Commentary to speak with such a Minister to be a Magistrate or a Minister c. in case we have not before bound our selves never to give over our Calling till death And in case that the good which will follow our forbearance is likely to a judicious person to be greater than the evil But no man may promise to omit such a duty as God hath made necessary during life as not to love God or fear or trust him not to Worship him and call upon him and praise him nor to do good to mens souls or bodies in the general or not to Preach or Pray while I am a Minister of Christ or not at all to Govern while you are a Governour For all these contradict some former and greater promises or duties Nor may you omit the smallest duty to save your life at such a time when your death is like to do more good than your life would do without that one duty Apply this to the present case § 19. Quest. 12. If another man deceive me into a promise or Covenant against my good am I bound Quest. 12. to perform it when I have discovered the deceit Answ. Yes 1. In case that the Law of the Land or other reasons for the publick good require it 2. Or in case that you were faulty by negligence heedlesness or otherwise guilty of your own deceit in any considerable and avoidable degree Otherwise in that measure that he deceived you and in those respects you are not obliged § 20. Quest. 13. If the contracting parties do neither of them understand the other is it a Covenant Quest. 13. Or if it be whose sense must carry it Answ. If they understand not each other in the Essentials of the Contract it is no contract in point of Conscience except where the Laws for the publick safety do annex the obligation to the bare external act But if they understand not one another in some circumstances and be equally culpable or innocent they must come to a new agreement in those particulars But if one party only be guilty of the misunderstanding he must bear the loss if the other insist on it § 21. Quest. 14. Am I bound to stand to the bargains which my friend or trustee or servant maketh Quest. 14. for me when it proveth much to my injury or loss Answ. Yes 1. If they exceed not the bounds of that commission or trust which they received from you 2. Or if they do yet if by your former trusting and using them or by any other sign you have given the other party sufficient cause to suppose them entrusted by you to do what they do so that he is deceived by your fault you are bound at least to see that he be no loser by you though you are not bound to make him a gainer unless you truly signified that you authorized them to make the contract For if it be meerly your friends or servants errour without your fault it doth not bind you to a third person But how far you may be bound to pardon that errour to your friend or servant is another question and how far you are bound to save them harmless And that must be determined by laying together all other obligations between them and you § 22. Quest. 15. If I say I will give such or such a one this or that am I bound thereby to do it Quest. 15. Answ. It is one thing to express your present mind and resolution without giving away the liberty of changing it And it s another thing to intend the obliging of your self to do the thing mentioned and that obligation is either intended to man or to God only and that is either in point of rendition and use or in point of veracity or the performance of that moral duty of speaking truth If you meant no more in saying I will do it or I will give it but that this is your present Will and purpose and resolution yea though it add the confident perswasion that your will shall not change yet this no further obligeth you than you are obliged to continue in that will And a mans confident resolutions may lawfully be changed upon sufficient cause But if you intended to alienate the title to another or to give him present right or to oblige your self for the future to him by that promise or to oblige your self to God to do it by way of peremptory assertion as one that will be guilty of a lye if you perform it not or if you dedicate the thing to God by those words as a Vow then you are obliged to do accordingly supposing nothing else to prohibit it § 23. Quest. 16. Doth an inward promise of the mind not expressed oblige Quest. 16. Answ. In a Vow to God it
destroying the Kingdom of the Devil and next the purifying his peculiar people and calling home all that are ordained to eternal life § 60. But more particularly he looketh principally at the heart to plant there 1. Holy Knowledge 2. Faith 3. Godlyness or holy devotedness to God and Love to him above all 4. Thankfulness 5. Obedience 6. Humility 7. Heavenly-mindedness 8. Love to others 9. Self-denial and Mortification and contentment 10. Patience And in all these 1. sincerity 2. tenderness of heart 3. â—eal and holy strength and resolution And withal to make us actually serviceable and diligent in our masters work for our own and others salvation § 61. II. Christs order in working is direct and not backward as the Devils is He first revealeth saving truth to the understanding and affecteth the will â—â— shewing the Goodness of the things revealed And these employ the Thoughts and Passions and Senses and the whole body reducing the inferiour faculties to obedience and casting out by degrees those images which had deceived and prepossessed them § 62. The matter which Christ presenteth to the Soul is 1. Certain Truth from the Father of Lights set up against the Prince and Kingdom of darkness ignorance error and deceit 2. Spiritual and everlasting Good even God himself to be seen and Loved and Enjoyed for ever against the Tempters temporal corporal and seeming good Christs Kingdom and work are advanced by Light He is for the promoting of all useful knowledge and therefore for clear and convincing Preaching for reading the Scriptures in a known tongue and meditating in them day and night and for exhorting one another daily which Satan is against § 63. III. The Means by which he worketh against Satan are such as these 1. Sometime he maketh use of the very temper of the body as a preparative and being Lord of all he giveth such a temperature as will be most serviceable to the soul As a sober deliberate meek quiet and patient disposition But sometime he honoureth his Grace by the conquest of such sins as even bodily disposition doth entertain and cherish § 64. 2. Sometimes by his providence he withdraweth the matter of temptations that they shall not be too strong for feeble souls But sometimes his Grace doth make advantage of them all and leave them for the magnifying of its frequent victories § 65. 3. Sometimes he giveth his cause the major vote among the people so that it shall be a matter of dishonourable singularity not to be a professed Christian and somtime but exceeding rarely it is so with the life of Godliness and practice of Christianity also But ordinarily in the most places of the world Custom and the Multitude are against him and his grace is honoured by prevailing against these bands of Satan § 66. 4. He maketh his Ministers his principal Instruments qualifying disposing and calling them to his work and helping them in it and prospering it in their hands § 67. 5. He maketh it the duty of every Christian to do his part to carry on the work and furnisheth them with Love and Compassion and Knowledge and Zeal in their several measures § 68. 6. He giveth a very strict charge to Parents to devote their Children with themselves to God encouraging them with the promise of his accepting and blessing them and commandeth them to teach them the word of God with greatest diligence and to bring them up in the nurture and fear of God § 69. 7. He giveth Princes and Magistrates their power to promote his Kingdom and protect his servants and encourage the good and suppress iniquity and further the obedience of his Laws Though in most of the world they turn his enemies and he carrieth on his work without them and against their cruel persecuting opposition § 70. 8. His Light detecteth the nakedness of the Devils cause and among the Sons of Light it is odious and a common shame And as wisdom is justified of her children so the judgement of holy men condemning sin doth much to keep it under in the world § 71. 9. His providence usually casteth the sinner that he will do good to into the bosome and communion of his holy Church and the familiar company and acquaintance of the Godly who may help him by instruction affection and example § 72. 10. His providence fitteth all conditions to their good but especially helpeth them by seasonable quickning afflictions These are the means which ordinarily he useth But the powerful inward operations of his Spirit give efficacy to them all Tit. 2. Temptations to particular sins with Directions for preservation and Remedy IN Chapter 1. Part 2. I have opened the Temptations which hinder sinners from Conversion to God I shall now proceed to those which draw men to particular sins Here Satans Art is exercised 1. In fitting his baits to his particular use 2. In applying them thereto § 1. Tempt 1. The Devil fitteth his Temptations to the sinners age The same bait is not suitable Tempt 1. to all Children he tempteth to excess of playfullness lying disobedience unwillingness to learn the things that belong to their salvation and a senselesness of the great concernments of their souls He tempteth youth to wantonness rudeness gulosity unruliness and foolish inconsiderateness In the beginning of manhood he tempteth to lust voluptuousness and luxury or if these take not to designs of worldliness and ambition The aged he tempteth to covetousness and unmoveableness in their error and unteachableness and obstinacy in their ignorance and sin Thus every age hath its peculiar snare § 2. Direct 1. The Remedy against this is 1. To be distinctly acquainted with the Temptations of Direct 1. your own age and watch against them with a special heedfullness and fear 2. To know the special duties and advantages of your own age and turn your thoughts wholly unto those Scripture hath various precepts for the various ages study your own part The young have more time to learn their duty and less care and business to divert them Let them therefore be taken up in obedient learning The middle age hath most vigor of body and mind and therefore should do their masters work with the greatest vigor activity and zeal The Aged should have most judgement and experience and acquaintedness with Death and Heaven and therefore should teach the younger both by word and holy life § 3. Tempt 2. The Tempter also fitteth his Temptations to mens several bodily tempers as I Tempt â— shewed § 22. The hot and strong he tempteth to lust The sad and fearful to discouragement and continual self-vexations and to the Fear of Men and Devils Those that have strong appetites to Gluttony and Drunkenness Children and Women and weak-headed people to Pride of Apparel and trifling Complement And masculine wicked-unbelievers to Pride of Honour Parts and Grandeur and to an ambitious seeking of Rule and Greatness The meek and gentle he tempteth to a yieldingness unto the perswasions
be improved Keep thus a just account of your Receivings and what Goods of your Masters is put into your hands And make it a principal part of your study to know what every thing in your hand is good for to your Masters use and how it is that he would have you use it § 9. Direct 6. Keep an account of your expences at least of all your most considerable talents and Direct 6. bring your selves daily or frequently to a reckoning what good you have done or endeavoured to do Every day is given you for some good work Keep therefore accounts of every day I mean in your conscience not in papers Every mercy must be used to some good Call your selves therefore to account for every mercy what you have done with it for your Masters vse And think not hours and minutes and little mercies may be past without coming into the account The servant that thinks he may do what his list with Shillings and Pence and that he is only to lay out greater summs for his Masters use and lesser for his own will prove unfaithful and come short in his accounts Less summs than pounds must be in our reckonings § 10. Direct 7. Take special heed that the common Thief your carnal-self either Personal or in your Direct 7. Relations do not rob God of his expected due and devour that which he requireth It is not for nothing that God calleth for the first fruits Honour the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase so shall thy Barns be filled with plenty and thy Presses shall burst forth with new wine Prov. 3. 9 10. So Exod. 23. 16 19. 34. 22 26. Lev. 2. 12 14. Nehem. 10. 35. Ezek. 20. 40. 44. 30. 48. 14. For if carnal self might first be served its devouring greediness would leave God nothing Though he that hath Godliness with contentment hath enough if he have but food and rayment yet there will be but enough for themselves and children where men have many hundreds or thousands a year if once it fall into this Gulf. And indeed as he that begins with God hath the promise of his bountiful supplyes so he whose flesh must first be served doth catch such an hydropick thirst for more that all will but serve it And the Devil contriveth such necessities to these men and such Uses for all they have that they have no more to spare than poorer men and they can allow God no more but the leavings of the flesh and what it can spare which commonly is next to nothing Indeed though Holy uses in particular were satisfied with first fruits and limited parts yet God must have all and the flesh inordinately or finally have none Every penny which is laid out upon your selves and children and friends must be done as by Gods own appointment and to serve and please him Watch narrowly or else this thievish carnal self will leave God nothing § 11. Direct 8. Prefer greater duties caeteris paribus before lesser and labour to understand Direct 8. well which is the greater and to be preferred Not that any real duty is to be neglected But we call that by the name of Duty which is materially good and a duty in its season But formally indeed it is no duty at all when it cannot be done without the omission of a greater As for a Minister to be praying with his family or comforting one afflicted soul when he should be preaching publickly is to do that which is a duty in its season but at that time is his sin It is an unfaithful servant that is doing some little charâ— when he should be saving a Beast from drowning or the house from burning or doing the greater part of his work § 12. Direct 9. Prudence is exceeding necessary in doing good that you may discern good from evil Direct 9. discerning the season and measure and manner and among divers duties which must be preferred Therefore labour much for Wisdom and if you want it your self be sure to make use of theirs that have it and ask their counsel in every great and difficult case Zeal without Iudgement hath not only entangled souls in many heinous sins but hath ruined Churches and Kingdoms and under pretence of exceeding others in doing good it makes men the greatest instruments of evil There is scarce a sin so great and odious but ignorant zeal will make men do it as a good work Christ told his Apostles that those that killed them should think they did God service And Paul bare record to the Sell all and give to the poor and follow mâ— But sell not aâ—l except thou follow me that is Except thou have a vocation in which thou maist do as much good with little means as with great Lord Bacon Essay 13. the murderous persecuting Jews that they had a zeal of God but not according to knowledge Rom. 10. 2. The Papists murders of Christians under the name of Hereticks hath recorded it to the world in the blood of many hundred thousands how ignorant carnal zeal will do good and what Sacrifice it will offer up to God § 13. Direct 10. In doing good prefer the souls of men before the body caeteris paribus To convert Direct 10. a sinner from the error of his way is to save a soul from death and to cover a multitude of sins Jam. 5. 20. And this is greater than to give a man an alms As cruelty to souls is the most heinous cruelty as persecutors and soul-betraying Pastors will one day know to their remediless wo so mercy to souls is the greatest mercy Yet sometime Mercy to the Body is in that season to be preferred For every thing is excellent in its season As if a man be drowning or famishing you must not delay the relief of his body while you are preaching to him for his conversion but first relieve him and then you may in season afterwards instruct him The greatest duty is not alwayes to go first in time Sometimes some lesser work is a necessary preparatory to a greater And sometimes a corporal benefit may tend more to the good of souls than some spiritual work may Therefore I say still that PRUDENCE and an HONEST HEART are instead of many Directions They will not only look at the immediate benefit of a work but to its utmost tendency and remote effects § 14. Direct 11. In doing good prefer the good of many especially of Church or Common-wealth before Direct 11. the good of one or few For many are more worth than one And many will honour God and serve him more than one And therefore both piety and charity requireth it Yet this also must be Absurdum est unum â—aâ—te vivere cum multi â—suriant Quanto enim gloriosâ—uâ— est multis benefacere quam magnifice habitate Quanto prudentius in homines quam in lapides in auâ—um impâ—nsas facere
Gospel Leave out this Gratitude and it is no Evangelical Repentance And what is our saving faith in Christ but the Assent to the truth of the Gospel with a Thankful Acceptance of the good which it offereth us even Christ as our Saviour with the Benefits of his Redemption The Love to God that is there required is the Thankful Love of his Redeemed ones And the Love to our very enemies and the forgiving of wrongs and all the Love to one another and all the works of Charity there required are the exercises of Gratitude and are all to be done on this account because Christ hath loved us and forgiven us and that we may shew our thankful Love to him Preaching and Praying and Sacraments and publick praises and communion of Saints and obedience are all to be animated with Gratitude and they are no further Evangelically performed than Thankfulness is the very life and complexion of them all The dark and defective opening of this by Preachers gave occasion to the Antinomians to run into the contrary extream and to derogate too much from Gods Law and our Obedience But if we obscure the doctrine of Evangelical Gratitude we do as bad or worse than they Obedience to our Ruler and Thankfulness to our Benefactor conjoyned and co-operating as the Head and Heart in the Natural body do make a Christian indeed Understand this well and it will much incline your hearts to Thankfulness § 4. Direct 2. Let the greatness of the manifold mercies of God be continually before your eyes Direct 2. Thankfulness is caused by the due apprehension of the greatness of mercies If you either know them not to be mercies or know not that they are mercies to you or believe not what is said and promised in the Gospel or forget them or think not of them or make light of them through the corruption of your minds you cannot be thankful for them I have before spoken of Mercy in order to the kindling of Love and therefore shall now only recite these following to be alwayes in your memories 1. The Love of God in giving you a Redeemer and the Love of Christ in giving his life for us and in all the parts of our Redemption 2. The Covenant of Grace the pardon of all our sins the justification of our persons our adoption and title to eternal life 3. The aptness of means for calling us to Christ The gracious and wise disposals of providence to that end the gifts and compassion of our instructers the care of Parents and the helps and examples of the servants of Christ. 4. The efficacy of all these means â—he giving us to will and to do and opening of our hearts and giving us repentance unto life and the Spirit of Christ to mortifie our sins and purifie our nature and dwell within us 5. A standing in his Church under the care of faithful Pastors the liberty comfort and frequent benefit of his Word and Sacraments and the publick communion of his Saints 6. The company of those that fear the Lord and their faithful admonitions reproofs and encouragements the kindness they have shewed us for body or for soul. 7. The mercies of our Relations or habitations our estates and the notable alterations and passages of our lives 8. The manifold preservations and deliverances of our souls from errors and seducers from terrors and distress from dangerous temptations and many a soul-wounding sin and that we are not leâ—t to the errors and desires of our hearts to seared Consciences as forsaken of God 9. The manifold deliverances of our bodies from enemies hurts distresses sicknesses and death 10. The mercies of adversity in wholesome necessary chastisements or honourable sufferings for his sake and support or comfort under all 11. The communion which our souls have had with God in the course of our private and publick duties in Prayer Sacraments and Meditation 12. The use which he hath made of us for the good of others that our time hath not been wholly lost and we have not lived as burdens of the world 13. The mercies of all our friends and his servants which were to us as our own and our interest in the mercies and publick welfare of his Church which are more than our own 14. His patience and forbearance with us under our constant unprofitableness and provocations and his renewed mercies notwithstanding our abuse our perseverance untill now 15. Our hopes of everlasting Rest and Glory when this sinsul life is at an end Aggravate these mercies in your more enlarged meditations and they will sure constrain you to cry out Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits who forgiveth all thine iniquities who healeth all thy diseases who redeemeth thy life from destruction who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies Psal. 102. 1 2 3 4. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his Courts with praise be thankful to him and bless his name For the Lord is good his Mercy is everlasting and his truth endureth to all generations Psal. 100. 4 5. The Lord is merciful and gracious slow to anger and plenteous in mercy For as the Heaven is high above the Earth so great is his mercy to them that fear him Psal. 103. 8 11. O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever Psal. 136. 1 c. O give thanks unto the Lord call upon his name make known his deeds among the people sing ye unto him sing Psalms unto him talk ye of all his wondrous works glory ye in his holy name Let the heart of them rejoyce that seek him Psal. 105. 1 2 3. § 5. Direct 3. Be well acquainted with the greatness of your sins and sensible of them as they are Direct 3. the aggravation of Gods Mercies to you This is the main end why God will humble those that he will save Not to drive them to despair of mercy nor that he taketh pleasure in their sorrows for themselves But to work the heart to a due esteem of saving mercy and to a serious desire after it that they may thankfully receive it and carefully retain it and faithfully use it An unhumbled soul sets light by Christ and Grace and Glory It relisheth no spiritual mercy It cannot be thankful for that which it findeth no great need of But true humiliation recovereth our appetite and teacheth us to value mercy as it is Think therefore what sin is as I have opened to you Dir. 8. and think of your manifold aggravated sins and then think how great those mercies are that are bestowed on so great unworthy sinners Then mercy will melt your humbled hearts when you confess that you are unworthy to be called Sons Luke 15. and that you are not worthy to look up to Heaven Luke 18. 13. and that you are not worthy of the least
that we can use to help them and none but the Almighty can cast him out and deliver them Let Husband or Wife or Parents or the dearest friends intreat a hardned sinner to be converted and he will not hear them Let the learnedst or wisest or holiest man alive both preach and beseech him and he will not turn At a distance he may reverence and honour a great Divine and a learned or a holy man especially when they are dead But let the best man on earth be the Minister of the place where he liveth and intreat him daily to repent and he will either hate and persecute him or neglect and disobey him What Minister was ever so learned or holy or powerful a Preacher that had not sad experience of this When the Prophet Isa. 53. 1. cryeth out Who hath believed our report And the Apostles were fain to shake off the dust of their feet against many that rejected them and were abused and scorned and persecuted by those whose souls they would have saved Nay Jesus Christ himself was refused by the most that heard him And no Minister dare compare himself with Christ. If our Lord and Master was blasphemed scorned and murdered by sinners what better should his ablest Ministers expect St. Augustine found drunkenness so common in Africk that he motioned that a Council might be called for the suppression of it But if a General Council of all the Learned Bishops and Pastors in the world were called they could not convert one hardned sinner by all their Authority Wit or diligence without the power of the Almighty God For will they be converted by Man that are hardned against God What can we devise to say to them that can reach their hearts and get within them and do them good Shall we tell them of the Law and Judgements of the Lord and of his wrath against them Why all these things they have heard so often till they sleep under it or laugh at them Shall we tell them of Death and Judgement and Eternity Why we speak to the posts or men asleep They hear us as if they heard us not Shall we tell them of endless Ioy and Torments They feel not and therefore fear not nor regard not They have heard of all these till they are a weary of hearing them and our words seem to them but as the noise of the Wind or Water which is of no signification If Miracles were wrought among them by a Preacher that healed the sick and raised the dead they would wonder at him but would not be converted For Christ did thus and yet prevailed but with few Iohn 11. 48. 53. And the Apostles wrought Miracles and yet were rejected by the most Acts 7. 57. 22. 22. Nay if one of their old companions should be sent from the dead to give them warning he might affright them but not convert them for Christ hath told us so himself Luke 16. 31. Or if an Angel from Heaven should preach to them they would be hardned still as Balaam and others have been Christ rose from the dead and yet was after that rejected We read not of the Conversion of the Souldiers that watcht his Sepulchâ—e though they were affrighted with the sight of the Angels but they were after that hired for a little money to lye and say that Christs Disciples stole him away If Magistrates that have power on their bodies should endeavour to bring them to Godliness they would not obey them nor be perswaded King Hezekiahs messengers were but mocked by the people David and Solomon could not convert their hardned subjects Punish them and hang them and they will be wicked to the death Witness the impenitent Thief that dyed with Christ and dyed reproaching him Though God afflict them with rod after rod yet still they sin and are the same Psal. 78. Hâ—s 7. 14. Amos 4. 9. Ier. 5. 3. Isa. 1. 5. Let death come near and look them in the face and let them see that they must presently go to judgement it will affright them but not convert them Let them know and confess that sin is bad that Holiness is best that death and eternity are at hand yet are they the same and all will not win their hearts to God Till Grace take away their stony hearts and give them tender fleshy hearts Ezek 36. 26. § 8. Direct 6. Take notice of the doleful effects of hard heartedness in the world This fills the Direct 6. world with wickedness and confusion with Wars and bloodshed and leaveth it under that lamentable desertion and delusion which we behold in the far greatest part of the Earth How many Kingdoms are left in the blindness of Heathenism and Mahometanism for hardning their hearts against the Lord How many Christian Nations are given up to the most gross deceits of Popery and Princes and people are enemies to Reformation because they hardned their hearts against the light of truth What vice so odious even beastly filthiness and bitterest hatred and persecution of the wayes of God which men of all degrees and rancks do not securely wallow in through the hardness of their hearts This is the thing that grieves the godly that wearieth good Magistrates and breaks the hearts of faithful Ministers when they have done their best they are fain as Christ himself before them to grieve for the hardness of mens hearts Alas we live among the dead Our Towns and Countreys are in a sadder case than Aegypt when every house had a dead man Even in our Churches it were well if the dead were only under ground and most of our seats had not a dead man that sitteth as if he heard and kneeleth as if he prayed when nothing ever pierced to the quick We have studied the most quickning words we have preached with tears in the most earnest manner and yet we cannot make them feel As if we cryed like Baals worshippers O Baal hear us or like the Irish to their dead Why wouldst thou dye and leave thy house and lands and friends So we talk to them about the death of their souls and their wilful misery who never feel the weight of any thing we say we are left to ring them a peal of lamentation and weep over them as the dead that are not moved by our tears we cast the seed into stony ground Matth. 13. 5 20. It stops in the surface and it is not in our power to open their hearts and get within them I confess that we are much too blame our selves that ever we did speak to such miserable souls without more importunate earnestness and tears and it is because the stone of the heart is much uncured in our selves for which God now justly layeth so many of us by But yet we must say our importunity is such as leaveth them without excuse we speak to them of the greatest matters in all the world we speak it to them in the name of God we shew them his
thou be proud Why Devils possessing thy body are not so bad or hurtful to thee as sin in thy soul. The sight of a sin should more take down thy pride than the sight of a Devil Should that man be proud that hath lived as thou hast lived and sinned as thou hast sinned from thy childhood untill now that hath lost so much time and abused so much mercy and neglected so much means and omitted so many duties to God and man and been guilty of so many sinful thoughts and so many false or foolish words and hath broken See my Treatise of Self-ignorance all the Laws of God Should not he be deeply humbled that hath yet so much ignorance error unbelief hypocrisie sensuality worldliness hard-heartedness security uncharitableness lust envy malice impatience and selfishness as is in thee Should not thy very Pride it self be matter of thy great humiliation to think that so odious a sin should yet so much prevail Look thus on thy leprous defiled soul and turn thy very Pride against it self Know thy self and thou canst not be Proud § 93. Direct 12. Look also to the desert of all thy sins even unto Hell it self and try if that will Direct 12. bring thee low Though Pride came from Hell effectively yet Hell objectively may afford thee a remedy against it Think on the worm that never dyeth and the fire that never shall be quenched and consider whether Pride become that soul that hath deserved these Wilt thou be proud in the way to thy damnation Thou mightest better be proud of thy Chains and Rope when thou art going to the Gallows Think whether the miserable souls in Hell are now minding neat and well set attire or seeking for dominion honour or preferment or contending who shall be the greatest or striving for the highest rooms or setting out themselves to the admiration and applause of men or quarrelling with others for undervaluing or dishonouring them Do you think there is any place or matter there for such works of Pride when God abaseth them § 94. Direct 13. Look to the day of Iudgement when all proud thoughts and looks shall be taken Direct 13. down and to the endless misery threatned to the proud Think of that world in which your souls must ere long appear before the Great and Holy God whose Presence will abase the proudest sinner When the Tyrants and Gallants and Wantons of the Earth must with trembling and amazement give up their accounts to the most righteous Judge of all the world then where are their lofty looks and language Then where is their glory and gallantry and proud imperious domineering and their scornful despising the humble lowly ones of Christ Would you then think that this is the same man that lately could scarce be seen or spoken with that looked so big and swaggered it out in wealth and honour Is this he that could not endure a scorn or to be slighted or undervalued or plainly reproved that must needs have the honour and precedency in wit and greatness and command Is this the man that thought he was perfect and had no sin or that his sins were so small as not to need the humiliation renovation and holy diligence of the Saints Is this the woman that spent half the day in dressing up her self and house and furniture for the view of others and must needs be in the newest or the neatest fashion that was wont to walk in an artificial pace with a wandring eye in a wanton garb as if she were too good to tread on the earth Oh then how the case will be altered with such as these Can you believe and consider how you must be judged by God and yet be Proud § 95. Direct 14. Look to the Devils themselves that tempt you to be Proud and see what Pride Direct 14. hath brought them to and remember that a proud man is the Image of the Devil and Pride is the Devils special sin He that envyeth your happiness knoweth by sad experience the way to misery and therefore tempteth you to be proud that you may come by the same Way to the same End that he himself is come to The Angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness to the judgement of the great day Jude 6. § 96. Direct 15. Look well upon thy self both body and soul and think whether thou be a person Direct 15. fit for Pride God hath purposely clothed thine immortal soul in the course attire of corruptible flesh and placed it in so poor and ruinous a Cottage that it might be kept from pride yea he made this frail and corruptible body to be a constitutive part of our very persons that in knowing it we may know our selves Some will have a dead mans skull stand by them in their Studies or Chambers as an Antidote against pride But God hath fastned us yet closer to mortality Death dwelleth Fama est fictilibus caenasse Agathoclea Regem Atque abacum Samio saepe onerasse luâ—o Fercula gemmatis cum pokerâ—t aurea vasis Et misceret opes pauperiemque simul Quaerenti causam respondit Rex ego qui sum Sicaniae figulo sum gâ—nitore satus Fortunam reverenter habe quicunque repente Dives ab exili progrediere loco Auson li. Epi. ram in our bowels We are apt to marvel that so noble a soul should be lodged in so mean a body made of the earth to which it must return A Stone is durable and clean but my flesh is corruptible and must turn to lothesome filth and rottenness A Marble Pillar will stand firm and beautiful from age to age but I must perish and consume in darkness The Seats we sit upon the Pillars we lean to the Stones we tread upon will be here when we are turned to dust The house that I build may stand when I am rotten in the Grave A Tree will live when he that planted it is dead Our bodies are of no better materials than the Brutes Our substance is in a continual flux or waste and loseth something every day and if it were not repaired and patched up by daily air and nourishment it would soon be spent and our Oyle consumed If you were chained to a dead carkass which you must still carry about with you it were not a matter so fit to humble you as to be united so nearly to so vile a body of your own We carry a dunghill continually within us Alas how silly a piece is the greatest the strongest and the comeliest of you all What is that flesh which you so much pamper but a skin full of corruption a bag of filth of flegm or choller or such like excrements Iâ— the curiousest Dames had but a sight of the flegm in their heads and bowels the choller about their liver and galls the worms or filâ—h in other parts they would go near to vomit at
thy meditations And though these thoughts be not the sweetest 8. 〈…〉 and wants yet thy own folly hath made them necessary If thou be dangerously sick or but painfully sore thou canst scarce forget it If poverty afflict thee with pinching wants thy Thoughts are taken up with cares and trouble day and night If another wrong thee thou canst easily think on it And hast thou so often wronged thy God and Saviour and so unkindly vilified his mercy and so unthankfully set light by saving Grace and so presumptuously and securely ventured on his wrath and yet dost thou find a scarcity of matter for thy meditations Hast thou all the sins of thy youth and ignorance to think on and all the sins of thy rashness and sensuality and of thy negligence and sloth and of thy worldliness and selfishness ambition and pride thy passions and thy omissions and all thy sinful thoughts and words and yet art thou scanted of matter for thy thoughts Dost thou carry about thee such a body of death so much selfishness pride worldliness and carnality so much ignorance unbelief averseness to God and backwardness to all that is spiritual and holy so much passion and readiness to sin and yet dost thou not find enough to think on Look over the sins of all thy life see them Thus Evil may be made the object and occasion of good It is good to meditate on evil to hate it and avoid it Keep acquaintanâ—â— with Conscience and read over its Books and it will furnish your thoughts with humbling matter in all their aggravations as they have been committed against knowledge or means and helps against mercies and judgements and thy own vows or promises in prosperity and under affliction it self in secret and with others in thy general and particular calling and in all thy relations in every place and time and condition that thou hast lived in thy sins against God directly and thy injuries or neglects of man sins against holy duties and sins in holy duties in prayer hearing reading Sacraments meditation conference reproofs and receiving of reproofs from others thy negligent preparations for death and judgement the strangeness of thy soul to God and Heaven Is not here work enough for thy Meditations certainly if thou think so it is because thy heart never felt the bitterness of sin nor was ever yet acquainted with true Repentance but the time is yet to come that Light must shew thee what sin is and what thou art and what thou hast done and how full thy heart is of the Serpents brood and that thy sin must find thee out Dost thou not know that thy sins are as the Sands of the Shore or as the hairs upon thy head for number and that every sin hath deadly poyson in it and malignant enmity to God and holiness and yet are they not enough to keep thy Thoughts from being idle Judge by their language whether it be so with penitents Psal. 51. 2 3. Wash me throughly from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me Psal. 40. 12. For innumerable evils have compassed me about mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I am not able to look up they are more than the hairs of my head therefore my heart faileth me Psal. 119. 57. I thought on my ways and turned my feet unto thy testimonies True Repentance is thus described Ezek. 36. 31. Then shall ye remember your own evil ways and your doings that were not good and shall loath your selves in your own sight for your own iniquities and for your abominations Yea Gods forgiving and forgetting your sins must not make you forget them Ezek. 16. 60 61 62 63. I will establish to thee an everlasting Covenant Then thou shalt remember thy ways and be ashamed And I will establish my Covenant with thee That thou maist remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done saith the Lord God of Hosts § 9. Direct 9. Be not a stranger to the methods and subtleties and diligence of Satan in his Temptations Direct 9. to undo thy soul and thou wilt find matter enough to keep thy thoughts from idleness He is 9. Satans Temptations thinking how to deceive thee and destroy thee and doth it not concern thee to think how to defeat him and escape and save thy self If the hare run not as fast as the dog he is like to dye for it O that thy eyes were but opened to see the snares that are laid for thee in thy nature in thy temperature and passions in thy interests thy relations thy friends and acquaintance and ordinary company in thy businesses and possessions thy house and goods and lands and cattel and tenants and servants and all that thou tradest with or hast to do with in thine apparel and recreations in thy meat and drink and sleep and ease in prosperity and adversity in mens good thoughts or bad thoughts of thee in their praise and in their dispraise in their benefits and their wrongs their favour and in their falling out in their pleasing or displeasing thee in thy thinking and in thy speaking and in every thing that thou hast to do with Didst thou but see all these temptations and also see to what they tend and whither they would bring thee thou wouldst find matter to cure the idleness or impertinencies of thy thoughts § 10. Direct 10. The world and every creature in it which thou daily seest and which revealeth to Direct 10. thee the great Creator might be enough to keep thy Thoughts from idleness If Sun and Moon and Stars if Heaven and Earth and all therein be not enough to employ thy thoughts let thy idleness have some excuse I know thou wilt say that it is upon some of these things that thou dost employ them Yea but dost thou not first destroy and mortifie and make nonsense of that on which thou meditatest Dost thou not first separate it from God who is the life and glory and end and meaning of every creature Thou killest it and turnest out the soul and thinkest only on the Corps or on the Creature made another thing as food for thy sensual desires As the Kite thinketh on the Birds and Chickens to devour them to satisfie her greedy appetite Thus you can think of all Gods works so far as they accommodate your flesh But the World is Gods book which he set man at first to read and every Creature is a Letter or Syllable or Word or Sentence more or less declaring the name and will of God There you may behold his wonderful Almightiness his unsearchable Wisdom his unmeasurable Goodness mercy and compassions and his singular regard of the sons of men Though the ungodly proud and carnal wits do but play with and study the shape and comeliness and order
continually in that case your selves If you should be still so what were you good for or what could you enjoy or what comfort would your lives be to you Why if a long pain be so bad a short one is not lovely Keep not wilfully so troublesome a malady in your mind § 6. Direct 4. Observe also what an enemy it is to the body it self It inflameth the blood and Direct 4. stirreth up diseases and breedeth such a bitter displeasedness in the mind as tends to consume the strength of nature and hath cast many into Acute and many into Chronical sicknesses which have proved their death And how uncomfortable a kind of death is this § 7. Direct 5. Observe how unlovely and unpleasing it rendereth you to beholders deforming the Direct 5. countenance and taking away the amiable sweetness of it which appeareth in a calm and loving temper If you should be alwayes so would any body love you or would they not go out of your way if not lay hands on you as they do anything that is wild or mad You would scarce desire to have your picture drawn in your fury till the frowning wrinkles and inflamed blood are returned to their places and have left your visage to its natural comeliness Love not that which maketh you so unlovely to all others § 8. Direct 6. You should love it the worse because it is a hurting passion and an enemy to Love and Direct 6. to anothers good You are never angry but it inclineth you to hurt those that angred you if not all others that stand in your way It putteth hurting thoughts into your mind and hurting words into your mouths and enclineth you to strike or do some mischief And no men love a hurtful creature Avoid therefore so mischievous a passion § 9. Direct 7. Nay mark the tendency of it and you will find that if it should not be stopt it would Direct 7. tend to the very ruine of your brother and end in his blood and your own damnation How many thousand hath anger murdered or undone It hath caused Wars and filled the world with blood and cruelty And should your hearts give such a fury entertainment § 10. Direct 8. Consider how much other sin immoderate anger doth incline men to It is the great Direct 8. crime of drunkenness that a man having not the government of himself is made lyable by it to any Proâ—rium est magnitudinis verae non sentire se esse percussum Qui non irâ—scitur inconcussus injuria persistit qui irascitur motus est Sexec de Ira. l. 3. c. 5. wickedness And so is it with immoderate anger How many Oaths and Curses doth it cause every day How many rash and sinful actions What villany hath not anger done It hath slandered railed reproached falsly accused and injured many a thousand It hath murdered and ruined Families Cities and States It hath made Parents kill their Children and Children dishonour their Parents It hath made Kings oppress and murder their Subjects and Subjects rebell and murder Kings What a world of sin is committed by sinful anger throughout all the world How endless would it be to give you instances David himself was once drawn by it to purpose the murdering of all the family of Nahal Its effects should make it odious to us § 11. Direct 9. And it is much the worse in that it suffereth not a man to sin alone but stirreth up Direct 9. others to do the like Wrath kindleth wrath as fire kindleth fire It s two to one but when you are angry you will make others angry or discontent or troubled by your words or deeds And you have not the power of moderating them in it when you have done You know not what sin it may draw them to It is the Devils bellows to kindle mens corruptions and sets hearts and families and Kingdoms in a flame § 12. Direct 10. Observe how unfit it maketh you for any holy duty for prayer or meditation or Direct 10. any communion with God And that should be very unwelcome to a gracious soul which maketh it unfit to speak to God or to be employed in his Worship If you should go to prayer or other Worship in your bedlam passion may not God say as the King of Gath did of David Have I need of mad men Yea it unfitteth all the family or Church or society where it cometh for the Worship of God Is the family fit for prayer when wrath hath muddied and disturbed their minds Yea it divideth Christians and Churches and causeth confusion and every evil â—am 3. 15 16. work § 13. Direct 11. It is a great dishonour to the grace of God that a servant of his should shew the Direct 11. world that grace is of no more force and efficacy that it cannot rule a raging passion nor so much as keep a Christian sober that it possesseth the soul with no more patience nor fear of God nor Government over it self O wrong not God thus by the dishonouring of his Grace and Spirit § 14. Direct 12. It is a sin against Conscience still repented of and disowned by almost all when Direct 12. they come to themselves again and a meer preparation for after sorrow That therefore which we fore-know we must repent of afterwards should be prevented and avoided by men that choose not shame and sorrow § 15. Object 1. But you 'll say I am of a hasty cholerick nature and cannot help it Object 1. Answ. That may strongly dispose you to anger but cannot Necessitate you to any thing that is sinful Answ. Reason and Will may yet command and master passion if they do their Office And when you know your disease and danger you must watch the more § 16. Object 2. But the provocation was so great it would have angered any one Who could choose Object 2. Answ. It is your weakness that makes you think that any thing can be great enough to discharge Answ. a mans reason and allow him to break the Laws of God That would have been small or nothing to a prepared mind which you call so great You should rather say Gods Majesty and dreadfulness is so great that I durst not offend him for any provocation Hath not God given you greater cause to obey than man can give you to sin § 17. Object 3. But it is so sudden that I have no time of deliberation to prevent it Object 3. Answ. Have you not Reason still about you And should it not be as ready to rule as passion to Answ. rebell Stop passion at first and take time of deliberation § 18. Object 4. But it is but short and I am sorry for it when I have done Object 4. Answ. But if it be evil the shortest is a sin and to be avoided And when you know before hand Answ. that you must be sorry after why will
appetite I hope you will not say that God is too strict with you or would dyet you too hardly as long as he alloweth you ordinarily to choose that when you can have it lawfully which is most for your own health and forbiddeth you nothing but that which hurteth you What Heathen or Infidel that is not either mad or swinish will not allow this measure and choice as well as Christians Yea if you believe not a life to come methinks you should be loth to shorten this life which now you have God would but keep you from hurting your selves by your excess as you would keep your Children or your Swine Though he hath a farther end in it and so must you namely that a healthful body may be serviceable to a holy soul in your Masters work yet it is the health of your bodies which is to be your nearest and immediate end and measure It is a very great oversight in the Education of youth that they be not taught betimes some The Measure of Eating common and necessary Precepts about dyet acquainting them what tendeth to health and life and what to sickness pain and death And it were no unprofitable or unnecessary thing if Princes took a course that all their subjects might have some such common needful Precepts familiarly known As if it were in the Books that Children first learn to read in together with the Precepts of their moral duty For it is certain that men love not death or sickness and that all men love their health and Multum confert coâ—â—tatio exitus qâ—od cum omnibus â—iâ—jis sit commune tamen huic proprâ—um Petrarch life And therefore those that fear not God would be much restrained from Excess by the fear of sickness and of death And what an advantage this would be to the Common-wealth you may easily perceive when you consider what a mass of treasure it would save besides the lives and health and strength of so many subjects And it is certain that most people have no considerable knowledge what measure is best for them but the common rule that they judge by is their Appetite They think they have eaten enough when they have eaten as long as they have list and not before If they could eat more with an appetite and be not sick after it they never think they have been guilty of Gluttony or Excess § 44. First Therefore you must know that Appetite is not to be your Rule or measure either for Temperaâ—tia voluptatâ—bus imperat alias odit atque abigit alias dispensat ad sanum modum dirigit nec unquam ad illas propter ipsas venit Senâ—â— Scit optimum esse modum cupidorum non quantum velis sed quantum debeas sumere Senâ—â— quantity quality or time For 1. It is irrational and Reason is your Ruling faculty if you are men 2. It dependeth on the temperature of the Body and the humours and diseases of it and not meerly on the natural need of meat A man in a Dropsie is most Thirsty that hath least cause to drink Though frequently in a putrid or malignant Feavor a draught of cold drink would probably be death yet the Appetite desireth it never the less Stomachs that have acide humours have commonly a strong appetite be the digestion never so weak and most of them could eat with an appetite above twice as much as they ought to eat And on the contrary some others desire not so much as is necessary to their sustenance and must be urged to eat against their Appetite 3. Most healthful people in the world have an Appetite to much more than nature can well digest and would kill themselves if they pleased their appetites For God never gave man his Appetite to be the measure of his eating or drinking but to make that grateful to him which Reason biddeth him take 4. Mans Appetite is not now so sound and regular as it was before the fall but is grown more rebellious and unruly and diseased as the body is And therefore it is now much more unfit to be our measure than it was before the fall 5. You see it even in Swine and many greedy Children that would presently kill themselves if they had not the Reason of others to rule them 6. Poyson it self may be as delightful to the Appetite as food and dangerous meats as those that are most wholsome So that it is most certain that Appetite is not fit to be the measure of a man Yet this is true withal that when Reason hath nothing against it then an Appetite sheweth what nature taketh to be most agreeable to it self and Reason therefore hath something for it if it have nothing against it because it sheweth what the Stomach is like best to close with and digest and it is some help to Reason to discern when it is prepared for food § 45. Secondly It is certain also that the present feeling of ease or sickness is no certain rule to judge of your digestion or your measure by For though some tender relaxed windy stomachs are sick or troubled when they are overcharged or exceed their measure yet with the most it is not so unless they exceed to very swinishness they are not sick upon it nor feel any hurt at present by less excesses but only the imperfection of concoction doth vitiate the humours and prepare for sicknesses by degrees as is aforesaid and one feeleth it a moneth after in some diseased evacuations and another a twelve-moneth after and another not of many years till it have turned to some uncurable disease For the diseases that are bred by so long preparations are ordinarily much more uncurable than those that come but from sudden accidents and alterations in a cleaner body Therefore to say I feel it do me no harm and therefore it is no excess is the saying of an ideot that hath no foreseeing Reason and resisteth not an enemy while he is Garrisoning fortifying and arming himself but only when it comes to blows Or like him that would go into a Pest-house and say I feel it do me no harm But within a few dayes or weeks he will feel it As if the beginning of a Consumption were no hurt to them because they feel it not Thus living like a Beast will at last make men judge like Beasts and brutifie their brains as well as their bellies § 46. Thirdly It is certain also that the common custom and opinion is no certain rule nay certainly it is an erring rule For judging by appetite hath brought men ordinarily to take excess to be but temperance All these then are false measures § 47. It I should here presume to give you any Rules for judging of a right measure Physicions would think I went beyond my Calling and some of them might be offended at a design that tendeth 〈…〉 for the Measure of Eating so much to their impoverishing and those that serve the greedy Worm
in the most adorned manner and do all that Harlots can do to make themselves a snare to fools do put the charitable hard to it whether to believe that it is their tongues or their backs that are the lyer As Hierome saith Thou deservest Hell though none be the worse for thee for thou broughtest the poyson if there had been any to drink it Let thy apparel be suited not only to thy rank but to thy disease If thou be enclined to lust go the more meanly clad thy self and gaze not on the ornaments of others It s folly indeed that will be enamoured on the Taylors work yet this is so common that its frequently more the apparel than the person that â—ntiseth first and homely rags would have prevented the deceit As the Poet saith Auferimur cultu gemmis auroque teguntur Omnia pars minima est ipsa puella sui Ovid. de Remed Am. § 13. Direct 11. Think on thy tempting object as it is within and as it shortly will appear without Direct 11. How ordinary is it for that which you call Beauty to be the portion of a fool and a fair skin to cover a silly childish pievish mind and a soul that is enslaved to the Devil And as Solomon saith Prov 11. 22. As a jewel of Gold in a Swines snout so is a fair woman without discretion And will you lust after an such adorned thing Think also what a dunghill of filth is covered with all those ornaments that it would turn thy stomach if thou sawest what is within them And think what a face that would be if it were but covered with the Pox and what a face it will be when sickness or age hath consumed or wrinkled it And think what thy admired Carkass will be when it hath lain a few days in the grave Then thou wouldst have little mind of it And how quickly will that be O man there is nothing truly amiable in the Creature but the image of God the wisdom and holiness and righteousness of the soul. Love this then if thou wilt Love with wisdom with purity and safety For the Love of Purity is pure and safe § 14. Direct 12. Think on thy own death and how fast thou hastest to another world Is a lustful Direct 12. heart a seemly temper for one that is ready to dye and ready to see God and come into that world where there is nothing but pure and holy doth abide § 15. Direct 13. Consider well the tendency and fruits of lust that it may still appear to your Direct 13. minds as ugly and terrible as it is indeed 1. Think what a shame it is to the soul that can no better rule the body and that is so much defiled by its lusts 2. Think what an unfit companion it is to lodge in the same heart with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit shall a member of Christ be thus polluted shall the Temple of the Holy Ghost be thus turned into a Swine sty Is lust fit to dwell with the Love of God wilt thou entertain thy Lord with such odious company what an unkindness and injury is this to God that when he that dwelleth in the highest Heavens condescendeth to take up a dwelling in thy heart thou shouldst bring these Toads and Snakes into the same room with him Take heed lest he take it unkindly and be gone He hath said he will dwell with the humble and contrite heart but where said he I will dwell in a lustful heart 3. Think how unfit it makes thee for Prayer or any holy address to God What a shame and fear and deadness it casts upon thy spirit 4. And think how it tends to worse Lust tendeth to actual filthiness and that to Hell cherish not the Eggs if thou wouldst have none of the Brood It s an easie step from a Lustful heart to a defiled body and a shorter step thence to everlasting horrour than you imagine As St. Iames saith Every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lust and entised then when lust both conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Jam. 1. 13 14. Gal. 6. 8. If ye sow to the flesh of the flesh ye shall reap corruption Remember that Lust is the spawn of sin and sin is the way to Hell § 16. Direct 14. Be sure to keep up a holy constant Government over thy Thoughts Suffer them not Direct 14. to go after tempting filthy sensual things As soon as ever a thought of Lust comes into thy mind abhor it and cast it out Abundance of the cure and of thy safety lyeth upon thy Thoughts They that let their Thoughts run uncontrolled and seed on filthiness are already fornicators in the heart and are hatching the Cockatrice Eggs and no wonder if from Thoughts they proceed to deeds O what a deal of uncleanness is committed by the Thoughts which people are little ashamed of because they are unseen of men If the Thoughts of many were open to beholders what wantonness and lust would appear in many adorned Sepulchres Even in the time of holy Worship when once such give the unclean spirit possession of their thoughts how hardly is he cast out they can scarce look a comely person in the face without some vicious thought If Hierome confess that in his Wilderness his Thoughts were running among the Ladies at Rome what may we think of them that feed such filthy Phantasies Say not you cannot rule your Thoughts You can do much if you will and more than you do If money and honour can make an ungodly Preacher command his Thoughts to holy things in the studies of Divinity through much of his life you may see that your Thoughts are much in your power but of this before § 17. Direct 15. If other means serve not open thy case to some friend and shame thy self to him as Direct 15. I advised under the former Title Confession and shame and advise will help thee § 18. Direct 16. Above all go to Christ for help and beg his spirit and give up thy Heart to better Direct 16. things O if it were taken up with God and Heaven and the Holy life that 's necessary thereto these things are so Great and Holy and sweet and of such concernment to thee that they would leave little room for Lust within thee and would make thee abhor it as contrary to those things which have thy heart No such cure for any carnal Love as the Love of God nor for fleshly lusts as a spiritual renewed Heavenly mind Thou wouldst then tell Satan that God hath taken up all the room and thy narrow Heart is too little for him alone and that there is no room for lust or the thoughts that serve it A true Conversion which turneth the heart to God doth turn it from this with other sins though some sparks may still be unextinguished It was once noted
If you be so proud or rash as to reply why should I leave my sport for another mans conceits or judgement I will tell thee that which shall shame thy reply and thee if thou canst blush 1. It is not some humorous odd fanatick that I alledge against thee nor a singular Divine But it is the judgement of the antient Church it self The Fathers and Councils condemn Christians and Ministers especially that use spectacula spectacles or behold Stage-plays and Dicing 2. Even the oldest Canons of our own Church of England forbid Dicing to the Clergy which is because they reputed it evil or of ill report 3. Many Laws of Religious Princes do condemn them 4. Abundance of the most learned holy Divines condemn them 5. The sober learnedest of the Papists condemn them 6. And how great a number of the most Religious Ministers and people are against them of the age and place in which you live you are not ignorant And is the judgement of the antient Church and of Councils and Fathers and of the most learned Protestants and Papists and the most Religious people besides many antient Laws and Canons of no force with you in such a case as this Will you hold to a thing confessedly unnecessary against the judgement of so many that account them sinful Are you and your play-fellows more wise and learned than all these Or is it not extremity of Pride for such unstudied empty men to prefer their sensual conceits before such a concurrent stream of wiser and more ponderous judgements Read but Dr. Io. Reignolds his Treat against Stage-Plays against Albericus Gentilis and you will see what a world of witnesses are against you And if the judgement of Voetius Amesius and other Learned men against all Lusory Lots be of no authority at least it should move you that even Mr. Gataker and other that write for the lawfullness of them in that respect as Lusory Lots do yet lay down the rest of the requisites to make them lawful which utterly condemn our common use of Cards and Dice much more our Gamesters So that all the sober Divines that ever I read or heard condemn all these And are you wiser than all of them § 26. 4. Besides this your Consciences know that you are so far from them using to fit you for your Callings that you either live idly out of a Calling or else you prefer them before your Callings You have no mind of your work because your mind is so much upon your play you have no mind of your home or family but are weary of your business because your sports withdraw your hearts And you are so far from using them to fit you to any holy duty that they utterly unfit you and corrupt your hearts with such a kind of sensual delight as makes them more backward to all that is good insomuch that many of you even grow so desperate as to hate and scorn it This is the benefit it bringeth you § 27. 5. And you cannot but know what a Time-wasting sin it is Suppose the game were never so lawful Is it lawful to lay out so many hours upon it as if you had neither souls nor bodies nor families nor estates nor God nor death nor Heaven to mind § 28. 6. And how much prophaneness or abuse of others is in many of your Stage-plays How much wantonness and amorous folly and representing sin in a manner to entise men to it rather than to make it odious making a sport and mock of sin with a great deal more such evil And your Cards and Dice are the exercise usually of covetousness the occasion of a great deal of idle talk and foolish babble about every cast and every Card and oft-times the occasion of cursing and swearing and railing and hatred of those that win your money and oft it hath occasioned fighting and murder It is one of the Roman Laws 12. tab Prodigo bonâ—rum suorum administratâ—o interdicta esto it self And even your huntings are commonly recreations so costly as that the charge that keepeth a pack of Hounds would keep a poor mans family that is now in want Besides the Time that this also consumeth So that the case is clear that our Gamesters and licentious sportfull Gallants are a sort of people that have blinded their minds and seared their Consciences and despise the Laws and presence of God and forget death and judgement and live as if there were no life to come neglecting their miserable souls and having no delight in the word or holy worship of God nor the forethoughts of eternal joys and therefore seek for their pleasure in such foolish sports and spend those pretious hours in these vanities which God knows they had need to spend most diligently in repenting of their sins and cleansing their souls and preparing for another world § 29. If yet any impenitent Gamester or idle Time-waster shall Reply I will not believe that my Object Cards or Dice or Plays are unlawful I use them but to fit me for my duty What! would you have all men live like heremites or anchorites without all pleasure I answer you but by this reasonable request Will you set your selves as dying men in the presence of God and the â—ight of eternity and provide a true answer to these few Questions even such an answer as your Consciences dare stand to at the bar of God § 30. Quest. 1. Dost thou not think in thy Conscience that thy Maker and Redeemer and his work and Quest. 1. service and thy family and calling and the forethoughts of Heaven are not fitter matters to delight a sober mind than Cards or Stage-plays And what can it be but a vain and sinful mind that should make these toys so pleasant to thee and the thoughts of God and Heaven so unpleasant § 31. Quest. 2. Doth not thy Conscience tell thee that it is not to fit thee for thy Calling or Gods Quest. 2. service that thou usest these sports but only to delight a carnal fantasie Doth not Conscience tell thee that it is more the pleasure than the benefit of it to thy soul or body that draws thâ—e to it Dost thou work so hard or study so hard all the day besides as to need so much recreation to refresh thee § 32. Quest. 3. Doth not thy Conscience tell thee that if thy sensual fantasie were but cured it Quest. 3. would be a more profitable recreation to thy body or mind to use some sober exercise for thy body which is confined to its proper limits of time or to turn to variety of labour or studies than to sit about these idle games § 33. Quest. 4. Dost thou think that either Christ or his Apostles used Stage-plays Cards or Dice Quest. 4. or ever countenanced such a temper of mind as is addicted to them Or was not David as wise as you that took up his pleasure in the word of God and his
he shall serve me He that worketh Deceit shall not dwell within my House He that telleth lyes shall not tarry in my sight Prov. 3. 33. The Curse of the Lord is in the House of the wicked but he blesseth the Habitation of the Iust. LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons at the Sign of the Princes-Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard 1673. To all that fear God in the Burrough and Parish of Kederminster in Worcestershire Dear Friends YOU are the Only People that ever I took a special Pastoral Charge of And Gods blessing and your Obedience to his Word do make the remembrance of my Labours and Converse with you to be sweet It was neither by Your Will or Mine that we have been this twelve years separated nor that we yet continue so I thank our most Gracious God who maugre all the Serpents Malice hath Inwardly and Outwardly so well provided for you above most others as that I hope you will be no losers by any thing which hath yet befallen you That I have hitherto survived so many of my departed Friends both with you and elsewhere after all that you have known is my own wonder as well as yours And what I have been doing in this time of our separation I have formerly told you in part by some other Writings and now tell you more by this which was written about five or six years ago though it found not passage into the world till now I live not yet Idle But whether this be the way of my chiefest service to the Church of God in my present case some distant Censurers have questioned If it be not my Ignorance of my duty and of what will be most useful to others is the cause and not my Love of Ease or my obeying Man rather than God I judge that my chief duty which I think is likest to do most good I am glad that once more before I dye I have opportunity to speak to you at this distance and to perswade you to and Direct you in that Family Holiness and Righteousness which hath been so much of your Comfort and Honour and will be so while you faithfully continue it O how happy a state is it to have God dwell in your Families by his Love and Blessing and Rule them by his Word and Spirit and Protect them by his Power and Delight in them and they in Him as his Churches preparing for the Coelestial Delights O how much of the Interest of true Religion must be kept up in the world by the Holiness and Diligence of Christian Families How happy a supply doth it afford where there are sad defects in the Teaching Holiness and Discipline of the Churches O that the Rulers of Families who are silenced by no others did not silence themselves from that Instructing and Prayer which is their work I should be sorry that this Directory is so Voluminous that few of you can buy it but that more Ends than One in such works must be intended If any of you which God forbid shall shew by an ungodly life that you have forgotten the Doctrine which was taught you or if more yet shall traduce the Doctrine of your once unworthy Teacher Posterity shall here see what it was in this Record which may remain and preach when I am yet more silenced in the dust The Lord whom we have served though with lamentable defects and in whom though alas too weakly we have trusted preserve us in the Life of Faith Hope and Love in Sincerity Zeal and patient Constancy to the Glorious Life where we hope to behold in Perfect Love without the fear of death or separation our most Blessed Head and God for ever Amen Totteridge near Barnet Feb. 10. 1671 2. Your Servant in Willingness Richard Baxter A Christian Directory TOM II. Christian Oeconomicks CHAP. I. Directions about Marriage for Choice and Contract AS the Persons of Christians in their privatest capacities are Holy as being Dedicated and separated unto God so also must their Families be HOLINESS TO THE LORD must be as it were written on their Doors and on their Relations their Possessions and Affairs To which it is requisite 1. That there be a Holy Constitution of their Families 2. And a holy Government of them and discharge of the several duties of the Members of the Family To the right constituting of a Family belongeth 1. The right contracting of Marriage and 2. The right choice and contract betwixt Masters and their Servants For the first § 2. Direct 1. Take heed that neither lust nor rashness do thrust you into a marryed condition before Direct 1. you see such Reasons to invite you to it as may assure you of the Call and approbation of God For 1. It is God that you must serve in your Marryed state and therefore it is meet that you take his counsel before you rush upon it For he knoweth best himself what belongeth to his service 2. And it is God that you must still depend upon for the blessing and comforts of your relation And therefore there is very great reason that you take his advice and consent as the chief things requisite to the match If the Consent of Parents be necessary much more is the Consent of God § 3. Quest. But how shall a man know whether God call him to Marriage or consent unto it Hath Quest. he not here left all men to their liberties as in a thing indifferent Answ. God hath not made any Universal Law commanding or forbidding Marriage but in this Answ. Whether Marriage be indifferent regard hath left it indifferent to mankind yet not allowing all to marry for undoubtedly to some it is unlawful But he hath by other General Laws or Rules directed men to know in what cases it is lawful and in what cases it is a sin As every man is bound to choose that condition in which he may serve God with the best advantages and which tendeth most to his spiritual welfare and increase in Holiness Now there is nothing in Marriage it self which maketh it commonly inconsistent with these benefits and the fulfilling of these Laws And therefore it is said that He that Marrieth doth well that is he doth that which of it self is not unlawful and which to some is the 1 Cor 7. 7 3◠most eligible state of life But there is something in a single life which maketh it especially to Preachers and persecuted Christians to be more usually the most advantagious state of life to these Ends of Christianity And therefore it is said that He that marrieth not doth better And yet to individual persons it is hard to imagine how it can choose but be either a duty or a sin at least except in some unusual cases For it is a thing of so great moment as to the ordering of our hearts and lives that it is hard to imagine that it should ever be indifferent as a means to our main end but
strait or penurious therefore she will dispose of it without his consent this is thievery disobedience and injustice Quest. But as the case standeth with us in England hath the Wife a joint propriety or not Quest. 1. Answ. Three wayes at least she may have a propriety 1. By a reserve of what was her own before which however some question it may in some cases be done in their agreement at marriage 2. By the Law of the Land 3. By the Husbands consent or donation What the Law of the Land saith in this case I leave to the Lawyers But it seemeth to me that his words at Marriage with all my worldly goods I thee endow do signifie his consent to make her a joynt-proprietor And his consent is sufficient to the collation of a title to that which was his own Unless any can prove that Law or custome doth otherwise expound the words as an empty formality and that at the contract this was or should be known to her to be the sense And the Laws allowing the wife the third part upon death or separation doth intimate a joynt-propriety before Quest. 2. If the Husband live upon unlawful gain as cheating stealing robbing by the high-way c. Quest. 2. is not the wife guilty as a joynt proprietor in retaining such ill-gotten goods if she know it And is she bound to accuse her Husband or to restore such goods Answ. Her duty is first to admonish her husband of his sin and danger and endeavour his repentance in the mean time disclaiming all consent and reception of the goods And if she cannot prevail for his Repentance Restitution and Reformation she hath a double duty to perform the one is to help them to their goods whom he hath injured and robbed by prudent and just means The other is to prevent his robbing of others for the time to come But how these must be done is the great difficulty 1. If she foresee or may do that either by her husbands displeasure or by the cruel revenge of the injured party the hurt of discovering the fraud or robbery will be greater than the good then I think that she is not bound to discover it But by some secret indirect way to help the owner to his own if it may be done without a greater hurt 2. To prevent his sin and other mens future suffering by him she seemeth to me to be bound to reveal her husbands sinful purposes to the Magistrate if she can no other way prevail with him to forbear My reasons are Because the keeping of Gods Law and the Law of the Land and the publick order and good and the preventing of our Neighbours hurt by Robbery or fraud and so the interest of honesty and right is of greater importance than any duty to her Husband or preservation of her own peace which seemeth to be against it But then I must suppose that she liveth under a Magistrate who will take but a just revenge For if she know the Laws and Magistrate to be so unjust as to punish a fault with death which deserveth it not she is not to tell such a Magistrate but to preserve her Neighbours safety by some other way of intimation If any one think that a Wife may in no case accuse a husband to the hazzard of his life or estate let them 1. Remember what God obliged Parents to do against the lives of incorrigible Children Deut. 21. 2. And that the honour of God and the lives of our Neighbours should be preferred before the life of one offender and their estates before his estate alone 3. And that the light of Reason telleth us that a Wife is to reveal a Treason against the King which is plotted by a Husband and therefore also the robbing of the Kings Treasury or deceiving him in any matter of great concernment And therefore in due proportion the Laws and common good and our Neighbours welfare are to be preserved by us though against the nearest relation Only all due tenderness of the life and reputation of the Husband is to be preserved in the manner of proceedings as far as will stand with the interest of justice and the common good Quest. 3. May the Wife go hear Sermons when the Husband forbiddeth her Quest. 3. Answ. There are some Sermons which must not be heard There are some Sermons which may be heard and must when no greater matter doth divert us And there are some Sermons which must be heard whoever shall forbid it Those which must not be heard are such as are Heretical ordinarily and such as are superfluous and at such times when greater duties call us another way Those which may be heard are either occasional Sermons or such Lectures as are neither of Necessity to our selves nor yet to the owning of God and his publick Worship One that liveth where there are daily or hourly Sermons may hear them as oft as suiteth with their condition and their other duties But in this case the Command of a Husband with the inconveniences that will follow disobeying him may make it a duty to forbear But that we do sometimes publickly owne Gods Worship and Church-Ordinances and receive Ministerial teaching for our Edification is of double necessity that we dâ—ny not God and that we betray not or desert not our own souls And this is especially necessary ordinarily on the Lords Dayes which are appointed for these necessary uses And here the Husband hath no power to forbid the Wife nor should she formally obey his prohibition But yet as affirmatives bind not ad semper and no duty is a duty at every season so it is possible that on the Lords Day it may extraordinarily become a duty to forbear Sermons or Sacraments or other publick Worship As when any greater duty calleth us away As to quench a fire and to save mens lives and to save our Countrey from an enemy in a time of War and to save our own lives if we knew the assembly would be assaulted or to preserve our liberty for greater service Christ â—et us to learn the meaning of this Lesson I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice In such a case also a mischief may be avoided even from a Husband by the omission of a duty at that time when it would be no duty for this is but a transposition of it But this is but an act of prudent self-preservation and not an act of formal obedience Quest. 4. If a Woman have a Husband so incorrigible in Vice as that by long tryal she findeth that Quest. 4. speaking against it maketh him worse and causeth him to abuse her is she bound to continue her disswasion or to fâ—rbear Answ. That is not here a duty which is not a means to do some good And that is no means which we know before hand is like iâ— not certain to do no good or to do more harm We must not by weariness laziness or â—ensoriousness take a case to
be desperate which is not Nor must we so easily deâ—ist with so near a relation as with a stranger or a neighbour But yet Christs indulgence of not exposing our selves to be torn by Dogs and his Word trodden in the dirt by Swine doth extend to relations as well as others But then you must observe that she that is justly discouraged from sharp reproofs may yet have hope that gentle and humble perswasions may succeed And she that is discouraged from open or frequent or plain reproofs may yet have hope that secret or more seldome or more distant and general admonitions may not be lost And she that is discouraged from one way of doing him good may yet have many other wayes as to set some Minister whom he reverenceth to speak to him to put some suitable Book into his hand c. And she that is discouraged at the present ought not totally to despair but may make some more attempts hereafter either in some sickness or time of mortality or danger or affliction or when possibly time and consideration may have better prepared him to hear And in the mean time she is to continue all Conjugal affection and duty and a convincing winning course of life which may prove the most effectual reproof Quest. 5. What should a Woman do in controverted cases of Religion when her judgement and her Quest. 5. Husbands differ Answ. 1. Some make a controversie of that which with all good Christians or sober persons should be past controversie and some controversies are indeed of real if not insuperable difficulty 2. Some controversies are about important necessary things and some about things of lesser moment 3. Some are about meer Opinion or other mens practice and some about our own practice 1. In all differences of judgement the Wife must exercise such self-suspicion and modesty and submission as may signifie her due sense both of the weakness of her Sex and of her subjection to her Husband 2. In things indifferent she must in practice obey her Husband unless when superiour powers do forbid it and that in cases where their authority is greater 3. She may modestly give her reasons of dissent 4. She must not turn it to an unpeaceable quarrel or matter of disaffection or pretend any differences against her Conjugal duties 5. In dark and difficult cases she should not be peremptory and self-conceited nor importunate but if she have faith that is some more knowledge than he have it to her self in quietness and silence and seek further information lest she err 6. She must speak no untruth nor commit any known sin in obedience to her Husbands judgement 7. When she strongly suspecteth it to be sin she must not do it meerly in obedience to him but seek for better satisfaction For she is sure that he hath no power to force her to sin And therefore hath no more assurance of his power in that point than she hath of the lawfulness of the thing 8. But if she prove to be in the error she will sin on either side till she recover 9. If a Husband be in dangerous error she must wisely but unweariedly seek his reformation by her self or others Cases about Divorce and Separation Quest. 1. IS it lawful for Husband and Wife to be long absent from each other and how long and Quest. 1. in what Cases Answ. It is lawful to be absent either in the case of prayer which Paul mentioneth or in case of the needful affairs of their estates so long as may be no danger to either of them as to mental or corporal incontinency nor to any other hurt which will be greater than the benefits of their absence nor cause them to be guilty of the neglect of any real duty Therefore the cases of several persons do much differ according to the different tempers of their minds and bodies and affairs He that hath a Wife of a chaste contented prudent temper may stay many moneths or years in some cases when all things considered it tendeth to more good than hurt As Lawyers by their Callings are often necessitated to follow their Callings at Terms and Assizes And Merchants may be some years absent in some weighty cases But if you ask Whether the getting of money be a sufficient cause I answer that it is sufficient to those whose families must be so maintained and their Wives are easily continent and so the good of their gain is greater than any loss or danger that cometh by it But when Covetousness puts them upon it needlesly and their Wives cannot bear it or in any case when the hurt that is like to follow is greater than the good it is unlawful Quest. 2. May Husband and Wife be separated by the bare command of Princes If they make a Law Quest. 2. that in certain cases they shall part As suppose it to Ministers Iudges or Soldiers Answ. You must distinguish between the bare Command or Law and the Reasons and Ends of that Command and so between a Lawful Command and an Unlawful In some Cases a Prince may justly command a separation for a time or such as is like to prove for perpetuity and in some cases he may not If a King command a separation without sufficient cause so that you have no Motive but his Authority and the question is Whether formally you are bound to obedience I answer No Because what God hath joyned no man hath power to puâ— asunder Nor can either Prince Pope or Prelate dispeâ—se with your Marriage Covenant In such a case it is as a Private act because God hath given them no authority for it and therefore their Commands or Laws are Nullities 〈◊〉 Only if a Prince say He that will be a Judge or a Justice shall part with his Wife it is lawful to leave the Office and so obey the Law But if he say to all Ministers of the Gospel you shall forsake your Wives or your Ministry they should do neither because they are Divinely obliged to both and he hath no power to forbid them or to dispense with that obligation But it may fall out that the Ends of the Command may be so great as to make it Lawful and then it must be obeyed both formally for the authority of the Prince and finally for the reasons of the thing As if the safety of the Commonwealth should require that Married persons be Souldiers and that they go far off yea though there be no likelihood of returning to their families and withal they cannot take their Wives with them without detriment or danger to their service In this case men must obey the Magistrate and are called by God to forsake their Wives as if it were by death Nor is it any violation of their Marriage Covenant because that was intended or meant to suppose the Exception of any such Call of God which cannot be resisted when it will make a separation Quest. 3. May Ministers leave their Wives to go
among those that cannot pray Iohn and Christ taught their Disciples Mat. 6. Luk. 11. to pray Tit. 4. Special Directions for secret Prayer § 1. Direct 1. LET it be in as secret a place as conveniently you can that you may not be Direct 1. disturbed Let it be done so that others may not be witnesses of it if you can avoid it and yet take it not for your duty to keep it unknown that you pray secretly at all for that will be a snare and scandal to them § 2. Direct 2. Let your voice be suited to your own help and benefit if none else hear you If it be Direct 2. needful to the orderly proceeding of your own thoughts or to the warming of your own affections you may use a voice But if others be within hearing it is very unfit § 3. Direct 3. In secret let the matter of your prayers be that which is most peculiarly your own Direct 3. concernment or those secret things that are not fit for publick prayer or are there passed by Yet never forgetting the highest interest of Christ and the Gospel and the World and Church § 4. Direct 4. Be less sollicitous about words in secret than with others and lay out your care about Direct 4. the heart For that 's it that God most esteemeth in your prayers § 5. Direct 5. Do not through carnal unwillingness grow into a neglect of secret prayer when you Direct 5. have time Nor yet do not superstitiously tye your selves to just so long time whether you are fit or at leisure from greater duties or not But be the longer when you are most fit and vacant and the shorter when you are not To give way to every carnal backwardness is the sin on one side and to resolve to spend so long time when you do but tire your selves and sleep or business or distemper maketh it a lifeless thing is a sin on the other side Avoid them both § 6 Direct 6. A melancholy person who is unfit for much solitariness and heart-searchings must be much Direct 6. short if not also seldomer in secret prayers than other Christians that are capable of bearing it And they must instead of that which they cannot do be the more in that which they can do As in joyning with others and in short ejaculations besides other duties but not abatâ—ing their piety in the main upon any pretence of curing melancholy CHAP. XXIV Brief Directions for Families about the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. OMitting those things which concern the publick administration of this Sacrament for the Reasons before intimated Tom 2. I shall here only give you some brief Directions for your private duty herein § 1. Direct 1. Understand well the proper ends to which this Sacrament was instituted by Direct 1. Christ and take heed that you use it not to ends for which it never was appointed The true ends Q. What are the Ends of the Sacramâ—nâ— Matth. 26. 28. Mar. 14. â—4 Luâ— â—2 â—0 1 Cor. 11. 25. Heb. 9. 15 16 â—â— 1â— 1 Cor. 10. 16 24. Joh. 6. 32 35 51 58. are these 1. To be a solemn commemoration of the Death and Passion of Jesus Christ to keep it as it were in the eye of the Church in his bodily absence till he come 1 Cor. 11. 24 25 26. 2. To be a solemn renewing of the holy Covenant which was first entred in Baptism between Christ and the Receiver And in that Covenant it is on Christs part a solemn delivery of Himself first and with Himself the Benefits of Pardon Reconciliation Adoption and right to life eternal And on mans part it is our solemn acceptance of Christ with his Benefits upon his terms and a Delivering up our selves to Him as his Redeemed ones even to the Father as our Reconciled Father and to the Son as our Lord and Saviour and to the Holy Spirit as our Sanctifier with Professed Thankfulness for so great a benefit 3. It is appointed to be a lively objective means by which the spirit of Christ should work to stir up and exercise and increase the Repentance Faith Desire Love Hope Ioy Thankfulness and new-obedience of Believers by a lively Representation of the evil of sin the infinite Love of God in Christ the firmness of the Covenant or promise the greatness and sureness of the mercy given and the blessedness purchased and promised to us and the great obligations that are laid upon us And that herein Believers might be solemnly called out to the most serious exercise of all these 1 Cor. 11. 27 28 29 31. 1 Cor. 10. 16 17 â—1 1 Cor. 11. 25 26. 2 Cor. 6. 14. Act 2 42 46. 20. 7. graces and might be provoked and assisted to stir up themselves to this Communion with God in Christ and to pray for more as through a sacrificed Christ. 4. It is appointed to be the solemn profession of Believers of their Faith and Love and Gratitude and obedience to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and of continuing firm in the Christian Religion And a badge of the Church before the world 5. And it is appointed to be a signe and means of the Unity Love and Communion of Saints and their readiness to communicate to each other § 2. The false mistaken ends which you must avoid are these 1. You must not with the Papists think that the end of it is to turn Bread into no bread and Wine into no wine and to make them Really the true Body and blood of Jesus Christ. For if sense which telleth all men that it is still Bread and wine be not to be believed then we cannot believe that ever there was a Gospel or an Apostle or a Pope or a man or any thing in the world And the Apostle expresly calleth it Bread three times in three verses together after the consecration 1 Cor. 11. 26 27 28. And he telleth us that the use of it is not to make the Lords Body really present but to shew the Lords death till be come that is As a visible representing and commemorating sign to be instead of his bodily presence till he come § 3. 2. Nor must you with the Papists use this Sacrament to sacrifice Christ again really unto the Father to propitiate him for the quick and dead and ease souls in Purgatory and deliver them out Rom. 6. 9. 1 Cor. 15. 3. 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. Heb. 9. 26. 10. 12 26. Heb. 9. 24. of it For Christ having dyed once dyeth no more and without killing him there is no sacrificing him By once offering up himself he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified and now there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin Having finished the sacrificing work on earth he is now passed into the Heavens to appear before God for his Redeemed ones § 4. 3. Nor is it any better than odious impiety to receive the Sacrament to
and hope for audience when they beg for mercy and offer up prayer or praises to him § 15. III. In the Communication though the Sacrament have respect to the Father as the Joh. 3. 5. 1 Cor. 12. 12 â—3 1 Cor. 15 45. Gal. 3. 14. 4. 6. Eph. 2. 22. principal Giver and to the Son as both the Gift and Giver yet hath it a special respect to the Holy Ghost as being that spirit given in the flesh and blood which quickeneth souls without which the flesh will profit nothing And whose Operations must convey and apply Christs saving benefits to us Ioh. 6. 63. 7. 39. § 16. These three being the parts of the Sacrament in whole as comprehending that sacred Action and participation which is essential to it The material Parts called the Relate and correlate are 1. Substantial and Qualitative 2. Active and passive 1. The first are the Bread and Wine as signs and the Body and Blood of Christ with his graces and benefits as the things signified and given The second are the Actions of Breaking Pouring out and Delivering on the Ministers part after the Consecration and the Taking Eating and Drinking by the Receivers as the sign And the thing signified is the Crucifying or Sacrificing of Christ and the Delivering himself with his benefits to the believer and the Receivers thankful Accepting and using the said gift To these add the Relative form and the ends and you have the definition of this Sacrament Of which see more in my Univers Concord p. 46 c. § 17. Direct 3. Look upon the Minister as the Agent or Officer of Christ who is commissioned by Direct 3. him to seal and deliver to you the Covenant and its benefits And take the Bread and Wine as if you heard Christ himself saying to you Take my Body and Blood and the pardon and Grace which is thereby purchased It is a great â—â—â—â—p in the application to have Mercy and pardon brought us by the hand of a commissioned Officer of Christ. § 18. Direct 4. In your preparation before hand take heed of these two extreams 1. That you Direct 4. come not prophanely and carelesly with common hearts as to a common work For God will be sanctified in them that draw near him Lev. 10. 3. And they that eat and drink unworthily not discerning the Lords Body from common bread but eating as if it were a common meal do eat death to Quinam auteâ—â— indigâ—i ineptive sint quibus Angelorum panis praebeatur sacerdoâ—um ipsoâ—um audâ—ta confessione â—aeâ—erisque perspectis judicium esto Acosta â— 6. c. 10. p. 549. themselves instead of life 2. Take heed lest your mistakes of the nature of this Sacrament should possess you with such fears of unworthy receiving and the following dangers as may quite discompose and unfit your souls for the joyful exercises of faith and Love and Praise and Thanksgiving to which you are invited Many that are scrupulous of Receiving it in any save a feasting gesture are too little careful and scrupulous of Receiving it in any save a feasting frame of mind The first extream is caused by Prophaneness and negligence or by gross ignorance of the nature of the Sacramental work The later extream is frequently caused as followeth 1. By setting this Sacrament at a greater distance from other parts of Gods worship than there is cause so that the excess of Reverence doth overwhelm the minds of some with terrours 2. By studying more the terrible words of eating and drinking damnation to themselves if they do it unworthily than all the expressions of Love and mercy which that blessed feast is furnished with So that when the Views of infinite Love should ravish them they are studying wrath and vengeance to terrifie them as if they came to Moses and not to Christ. 3. By not understanding what maketh a Receiver worthy or unworthy but taking their unwilling infirmities for condemning unworthiness 4. By Receiving it so seldom as to make it strange to them and increase their fear whereas if it were administred every Lords day as it was in the Primitive Churches it would better acquaint them with it and cure that fear that cometh from strangeness 5. By imagining that none that want Assurance of their own sincerity can receive in faith 6. By contracting an ill habit of mistaken Religiousness placeing it all in poâ—ing on themselves and mourning for their corruptions and not in studying the Love of God in Christ and living in the daily Praises of his name and joyful Thanksgiving for his exceeding mercies 7. And if besides all these the Body contract a weak or timerous melancholy distemper it will leave the mind capable of almost nothing but fear and trouble even in the sweetest works From many such causes it cometh to pass that the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is become more terrible and uncomfortable to abundance of such distempered Christians than any other ordinance of God And that which should most comfort them doth trouble them most § 19. Quest. 1. But is not this Sacrament more holy and dreadful and should it not have more preparation Quest. 1. than other parts of worship Answ. For the degree indeed it should have very careful preparation And we cannot well compare it with other parts of worship as Praise Thanksgiving Covenanting with God Prayer c. because that all these other parts are here comprized and performed But doubtless God must also be sanctified in all his other worship and his name must not be taken in vain And when this Sacrament was received every Lords day and often in the week besides Christians were supposed to live continually in a state of general preparation and not to be so far from a due particular preparation as many poor Christians think they are § 20. Quest. 2. How often should the Sacrament be now administred that it neither grow into contempt Quest. 2. or strangeness Answ. Ordinarily in well disciplined Churches it should be still every Lords day For 1. We have no reason to prove that the Apostles example and appointment in this case was proper to those times any more than that Praise and Thanksgiving daily is proper to them And we may as well deny the obligation of other institutions or Apostolical orders as that 2. It is a part of the seâ—led order for the Lords days worship And omitting it maimeth and altereth the worship of the day and occasioneth the omission of the Thansgiving and Praise and lively commemorations of Christ which should be then most performed And so Christians by use grow habited to sadness and a mourning melancholy Religion and grow unacquainted with much of the worship and spirit of the Gospel 3. Hereby the Papists lamentable corruptions of this ordinance have grown up even by an excess of reverence and fear which seldom receiving doth increase till they are come to Worship Bread as their God 4. By seldom communicating men are
be proportionable to your possessions John 15. 5. Mar. 12. 41. Luke 12. 48. Do as much more good in the world than the poor as you are better furnished for it than they Let your servants have more time for the learning of Gods Word and let your families be the more religiously instructed and governed To whom God giveth much from them he doth expect much Direct 12. Direct 12. Do not only take occasions of doing good when they are thrust upon you but study how to do all the good you can as those that are zealous of good works Tit. 2. 14. Zeal of good Matth. 5. 16. Gal. 6. 7 8 9 10. 1 Pet. 2. 12. Heb. 10. 24. Tit. 3. 8 14. 2. 7. Ephes. 2. 10. 1 Tim. 2. 10. 5. 10. Acts 9. 36. works will make you 1. Plot and contrive for them 2. Consult and ask advice for them 3. It will make you glad when you meet with a hopeful opportunity 4. It will make you do it largely and not sparingly and by the halves 5. It will make you do it speedily without unwilling backwardness and delay 6. It will make you do it constantly to your lives end 7. It will make you pinch your own flesh and suffer somewhat your selves to do good to others 8. It will make you Labour in it as your Trade and not only consent that others do good at your charge 9. It will make you glad when good is done and not to grudge at what it cost you 10. In a word it will make your neighbours to be to you as your selves and the Pleasing of God to be above your selves and therefore to be as glad to do good as to receive it Direct 13. Do good both to mens souls and bodies but alwayes let bodily benefits be conferred in Direct 13. order to those of the soul and in due subordination and not for the body alone And observe the many other Rules of Good Works more largely laid down Tom. 1. Cap. 3. Direct 10. Direct 14. Ask your selves often How you shall wish at death and judgement your estates had been Direct 14. laid out and accordingly now use them Why should not a man of Reason do that which he knoweth before hand he shall vehemently wish that he had done Direct 15. As your care must be in a special manner for your children and families so take heed Direct 15. of the common error of worldlings who think their children must have so much as that God and their own souls have very little When selfish men can keep their wealth no longer to themselves they leave it to their children who are as their surviving selves And all is cast into this gulf except some inconsiderable parcels Direct 16. Direct 16. Keep daily account of your use and improvement of your Masters Talents Not that Mat. 25. 14 15 you should too much remember your own good works but remember to do them and therefore ask your selves What Good have I done with all that I have this Day or Week Direct 17. Look not for long life for then you will think that a long journey needeth great provisions Direct 17. But dye daily and live as those that are going to give up their account And then Conscience 1 Tim. 6. 18. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. Luke 16. 10. will force you to ask whether you have been faithful Stewards and to lay up a treasure in Heaven and to make you friends of the Mammon that others use to unrighteousness and to lay up a good foundation for the time to come and to be glad that God hath given you that the improvement of 1 Tim. 5. 25. which may further the good of others and your salvation Living and Dying let it be your care and business to Do Good CHAP. XXIX Directions for the Aged and weak HAving before opened the Duties of Children to God and to their Parents I shall give no other particular Directions to the Young but shall next open the special Duties of the Aged § 1. Direct 1. The old and weak have a lowder call from God than others to be accurate Direct 1. in examining the state of their souls and making their calling and election sure Whether they Iâ— Augustines speech to the people of Hippo for Fradius his succession he saith In Infantiâ spâ—raâ—ur pueritia in pueritia speratur adolescentia in adolescentià spâ—râ—â—ur juventuâ— in juventure speratur gravitas in gravitate speratur senectus Utrum contingat incertum est est tamen quod sperâ—tur Senâ—ctus autem alâ—am â—â—atem quam speret non habet Vid. Papâ—r Massoâ— in vita Coelâ—sti fol. 58. are yet Regenerate and Sanctified or not is a most important question for every man to get resolved but especially for them that are nearest to their end Ask counsel therefore of some able faithful Minister or friend and set your selves diligently to try your Title to eternal life and to cast up your accounts and see how all things stand between God and you And if you should find your selves in an unrenewed state as you love your souls delay no longer but presently be humbled for your so long and sotâ—ish neglect of so necessary and great a work Go open your case to some able minister and lament your sin and fly to Christ and set your hearts on God as your felicity and change your company and course and rest not any longer in so dangerous and miserable a case The more full Directions for your Conversion I have given before in the beginning of the Book and in divers others and therefore shall say no more to such it being others that I am here especially to Direct § 2. Direct 2. Cast back your eyes upon the sins of all your life that you may perceive how humble Direct 2. those souls should be that have sinned so long as you have done and may feel what need you have of Christ to pardon so long a life of sin Though you have repented and been justified long ago yet you have daily sinned since you were Justified And though all be forgiven that is repented of yet must it be still before your eyes both to keep you humble and continue the exercise of that Repentance and drive you to Christ and make you thankful Yea your forgiveness and Iustification are yet short of perfection whatever some may tell you to the contrary as well as your sanctification For 1. Your Justification is yet given you but conditionally as to its continuance even upon condition of your perseverance 2. And the temporal chastisement and the pains of death and the long absence of the body from Heaven and the present wants of grace and comfort and communion with God are punishments which are not yet forgiven executively 3. And the final sentence of Justification at the day of Judgement which is the perfectest sort is yet to come And therefore you have
when the next sickness cometh to remember that they were unthankful for their last recovery and how falsly they dealt with God in the breaking of their promises Foresee this that you may prevent it Tit. 3. Directions for a Comfortable or Peaceable Death COmfort is not desirable only as it Pleaseth us but also as it strengtheneth us and helpeth us in our greatest duties And when is it more needful than in sickness and the approach of death I shall therefore add such Directions as are necessary to make our departure comfortable or peaceful at the least as well as safe Direct 1. Because I would make this Treatise no longer than I needs must in order to overcome Direct 1. the fears of Death and get a chearful willingness to dye I desire the sick to read over those twenty Considerations and the following Directions which I have laid down in my Book of Self-denyal And when the fears of death are overcome the great impediment of their comfort is removed § 2. Direct 2. Misunderstand not sickness as if it were a greater evil than it is but observe how Direct 2. great a mercy it is that Death hath so suitable a harbinger or fore-runner That God should do so much before he taketh us hence to wean us from the world and make us willing to be gone that the unwilling flesh hath the help of pain and that the senses and appetite languish and decay which did draw the mind to earthly things and that we have so lowd a call and so great a help to true Mr. Vinâ—s Mr. Capell Mr. Holli gâ—orth Mr Aâ—hhâ—ost Mr A bâ—osâ— M 〈…〉 Bâ—raell c. repentance and serious preparation I know to those that have walked very close with God and are alwayes ready a sudden death may be a mercy as we have lately known divers holy Ministers and others that have dyed either after a Sacrament or in the Evening of the Lords Day or in the midst of some holy exercise with so little pain that none about them perecived when they dyed But ordinarily it is a mercy to have the flesh brought down and weakned by painful sickness to help to conquer our natural unwillingness to dye § 3. Direct 3. Remember whose Messenger sickness is and who it is that calleth you to dye It is Direct 3. he that is the Lord of all the world and gave us the Lives which he taketh from us And it is he that must dispose of Angels and Men of Princes and Kingdoms of Heaven and Earth and therefore there is no reason that such Worms as we should desire to be excepted You cannot deny him to be the Disposer of all things without denying him to be God It is he that Loveth us and never meant us harm in any thing that he hath done to us that gave the life of his Son to Redeem us and therefore thinketh not Life too good for us Our sickness and death are sent by the same Love that sent us a Saviour and sent us the powerful Preachers of his Word and sent us his Spirit and secretly and sweetly changed our hearts and knit them to himself in Love which gave us a life of pretious mercies for our souls and bodies and hath promised to give us life eternal And shall we think that he now intendeth us any harm Cannot he turn this also to our good as he hath done many an affliction which we have repined at § 4. Direct 4. Look by faith to your dying buryed risen ascended glorified Lord. Nothing will Direct 4. more powerfully overcome both the poyson and the fears of Death than the believing thoughts of him that hath triumphed over it Is it terrible as it separateth the soul from the body So it did by our Lord who yet overcame it Is it terrible as it layeth the body in the grave So it did by our Saviour though he saw not corruption but quickly rose by the power of his Godhead He dyed to teach us believingly and boldly to submit to death He was buried to teach us not overmuch to fear a grave He rose again to conquer death for us and to assure those that rise to newness of life that they shall be raised at last by his power unto glory and being made partakers of the first resurrection the second death shall have no power over them He liveth as our Head that we might live by him and that he might assure all those that are here risen with him and seek first the things that are above that though in themselves they are dead yet their life is hid with Christ in God and when Christ who is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in glory Col. 3. 1 2 4 5. What a comfortable word is that John 14. 19. Because I live ye shall live also Death could not hold the Lord of life Nor can it hold us against his will who hath the keyes of death and Hell Rev. 1. 18. He loveth every one of his sanctified ones much better than you love an eye or a hand or any other member of your body which you will not lose if you are able to save it When he ascended he left us that message full of comfort for his followers John 20. 17. Go to my Brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father to my God and your God which with these two following I would have written before me on my sick-bed John 12. 26. If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there also shall my servant be And Luke 23. 43. Verily I say unto thee to day shalt thou be with me in Paradise O what a joyful thought should it be to a Believer to think when he is dying that he is going to his Saviour and that our Lord is risen and gone before us to prepare a place for us and take us in season to himself Iohn 14. 2 3 4. As you believe in God believe thus in Christ and then your hearts will be less troubled Ver. 1. It is not a stranger that we talk of to you but your Head and Saviour that loveth you better than you love your selves whose office it is there to appear continually for you before God and at last to receive your departing souls and into his hand it is that you must then commend them as Stephen did Acts 7. 59. § 5. Direct 5. Choose out some Promises most suitable to your condition and roll them over and over Direct 5. in your mind and feed and live on them by faith A sick man is not usually fit to think of very many things and therefore two or three comfortable promises to be still before his eyes may be the most profitable matter of his thoughts such as those three which I named before If he be most troubled with the greatness of his sin let it be such as these Joh. 3. 16. God so loved the world
except it be Direct 4. such as must needs be admitted or such as are like to receive any good by the holy counsel of the sick It is a great annoyance to one that is near death to hear people talk to little purpose about the world or some impertinencies when they are going speedily to their endless state and have need of no more impediments in their way but of the best assistance that their friends can afford them Procure some able faithful Minister to be with them to counsel them about the state of their souls And get some holy able Christians to be much about them who are fit to pray with them and instruct them § 6. Direct 5. Bear with their impatience and grudge not at any trouble that they put you to Remember Direct 5. that weakness is froward and as you bear with the crying of children so must you with the pievishness of the sick And remember that shortly it is like to be your own case and you must be a trouble to others and they must bear with you Be not weary of your friends in sickness but loving and tender and compassionate and patient § 7. Direct 6. Deal faithfully and prudently with them about the state of their souls Your faithfulness Direct 6. must be shewed in these two points 1. That you do not flatter them with vain hopes of life when they are more likely to dye 2. That you do not flatter them with false perswasions that their state is safe when they are yet unsanctified nor put them in hopes of being saved without regeneration Your Prudence must be manifested 1. In suiting your counsel and speeches and prayers to their state and not using the same words to the ungodly as you would to the godly 2. In so contracting your counsel for the Conversion of the ungodly as not to overwhelm them with more than they can bear and yet not to leave out any point of absolute necessity to salvation Alas how much skill doth such a work require and how few Christians that I say not Pastors are fit for it § 8. Quest. But is it a duty when the sick are like to dye to make it known to them Quest 1. Answ. Sometime it is and sometimes not 1. Some sicknesses are such as will be so increased with Answ. fear that the Patient that before was in hope of a recovery will be put almost past hope And some sicknesses are much different and are not like to be so increased by it And some are past all hope already 2. Some are so prepared to dye that they have the less need to be acquainted with their danger and some are unconverted and in so dangerous a case that the absolute necessity of their souls may require it When the soul is in so sad a case and yet the body may be endangered by the fear of the sentence of death it is the safest course to tell them that though God may recover them yet their disease is so dangerous as calleth for their speedy and serious preparation for death which will not be lost if God restore them So that they may have so much hopes as to keep their fear from killing them and so much acquaintance with their danger as may put them upon their duty But in case there be already little or no hope or in case the Disease will be but little increased by the fear which is the case of the most the danger should not at all be hid § 9. Quest. Am I alwayes bound to tell a wicked man of his sin and misery when it may exasperate Quest. 2. his disease and offend his mind Answ. If it were a sickness that is void of danger in case his mind be quiet and be like to kill Answ. him if his mind be disturbed then it were the most prudent course to call him so far to Repentance and faith as you can do it without any dangerous disturbance of him Because it is most Charity to his soul to help him to a longer time of Repentance rather than to lay all the hopes of his salvation upon the present time But this is not an ordinary case Therefore ordinarily it is a duty to acquaint the sick person that is yet in his sin and unregenerate state with the truth of his danger and the necessity of renovation Alas it is a lamentable kind of friendship to flatter a poor soul into damnation or to hide his danger till he is past recovery When he is in a state of unexpressible misery and hath but a few Dayes or Weeks time left to do all that ever must be done for his salvation what horrid cruelty is it then to let him go to Hell for fear of displeasing or disquieting him § 10. Object But I am afraid I shall cast him into despair if I tell him plainly that he is in a state of damnation Answ. If you let him alone a little longer he will be in remediless despair There is no despair remediless but that in Hell But now you may help to save him both from present and endless desperation He must needs despair of ever being saved without a Christ or without the Regeneration of the Holy Spirit or without true faith and repentance and love to God and holiness But need he despair of attaining all these while Christ is offered him so freely and a full remedy is at hand He must know his sin and misery or else he is never like to scape it But he must also be acquainted with the true remedy and that is your way to keep him from despair and not by flattering him into Hell § 11. Quest. But what should one do in so short a time and with dead hearted sinners Alas what hope Quest. 3. is there If it were nothing but their Ignorance it cannot be cured in a moment And is there then any hope in so short a space to bring them to knowledge and faith and repentance and a changed heart to love God and holiness and that when pain and weakness do disable them Answ. The case indeed is very sad but yet while there is life there is some hope And while there Answ. is any hope we should do our best when it is for the saving of a soul And the difficulty should but stir us up to use our utmost skill and diligence But as it is the misery of such to delay conversion till so unfit a time so is it too frequently the sin of Believers that they delay their serious endeavours to convert men till such a time as they almost despair of the success § 12. Quest. But what shall we do in a doubtful case when we know not whether the person be renewed Quest. 4. and truly penitent or not which is the case of most that we have to deal with Answ. Answ. You can tell whether the grounds of your hope or of your fear concerning them be the greater
Jer. 31. 34. Eph. 1. 7. Act. 5. 31. Eph. 5. 26. Rev. 1. 5. 2 Cor. 6. 16. Mal. 3. 17. Joh. 1. 12. 3. 16. Eph. 2. 14. Rom. 8. 1 17. Luk. 4. 18. Rom. 5. 1 5. Luk. 1. 74. Joh. 10. 28. Luk. 23. 43. 1 Cor. 15. 8. Tit. 3. 3 4. Act. 4. 4 5 6. 1 Tim. 1. 13 14 15 16. A Form of Exhortation to the Godly in their Sickness DEar Friend Though Nature teacheth us to have compassion on your flesh which lyeth in pain yet Faith teacheth us to see the nearness of your Happiness and to Rejoyce with you in hope of your endless Joyes which seem to be at hand We must Rejoyce with you as your friends that Love you and therefore are partakers of your welfare And we must Rejoyce with you as your fellow-travellers and fellow-souldiers that are going along with you to the same felicity and if we are left behind for a little while yet hope ere long to overtake you and never to be separated from you more This is the day for which Christ hath been so long preparing you And which you have so long foreseen and have been so long preparing for your self This is the day which you thought on in all your prayers and patience in all your labours and sufferings your self-denyal and mortification since God did bring you to your self and him Now you are going to see the things which you have believed and to possess the things which you have sought and hoped for To see the final difference between the Righteous and the wicked between a Holy and a worldly life between the vessels of mercy and of wrath Your Time is hasting to an end and Endless Blessedness must succeed it O now what a mercy is it to have a Christ That you are not to encounter an unconquered Death nor to go to God without a Mediator But that Death is by Christ disarmed of its sting and that you may boldly resign your soul into the hands of your Redeemer and commend it to him as a member of himself Now what a case had your soul been in if you had no Intercessor If you had been to answer for your sins your self only and had not a Saviour to be your Advocate and answer for you Now you may better perceive than ever you have done what God did for you when he opened your eyes and humbled and changed and renewed your heart and how great a mercy it is to be a penitent Believer You may now see more fully than ever heretofore what God intended for you when he converted you When he forgave all your sins and justified you by his Grace and adopted you for his child and an heir of life and sealed you with his Spirit and sanctified and separated you to himself Now what a case were you in if you were yet in your sins and in the bondage of Satan and had not this evidence of your title to eternal life If you had your heart now to soften and to humble and to convert and your faith and justification all to seek and all your preparations for Heaven to make If you had all this to do with a pained body and a distracted mind in so short a time with God and Eternity and Death before you ready with terror to overwhelm your souls If now you were to seek for an interest in Christ and for the pardon of all your sins and your peace with God were yet to make If you had all your life past to look back upon as consumed in sin and when Time is at an end must cry out of all that is past as lost This is the case that God in justice might have left you to But what an unspeakable mercy is it that you have already been Reconciled to that God that you are going to and that the sins which now would have been your terror are all forgiven through the blood of Christ That you can look back upon your Time since the day of your Conversion as spent in faithful Devotedness to God and in a believing preparation for your endless life and in godly sincerity notwithstanding your manifold sinful imperfections which Christ hath undertaken to answer for himself Though you have nothing of your own to boast of and no works that will justifie you according to the Law at the Barr of God but you need a Saviour and a Pardon for the failings even of the best that ever you did Yet must you with thankfulness remember that Grace which hath begun eternal life within you and prepared and sealed you to the full possession of it For all the mercy that is in God and for all the Glory that is in Heaven and for all the Merits and satisfaction of Christ and for all the fulness and freeness of the Gal. 4. 4 6. Rom. 8. 16 17. Rom. 8. 9. 1 Pet. 3. 7. Promise if God had not given you a believing penitent heart and sanctified and sealed you by the Spirit of his Son all this could have afforded you little comfort but would have aggravated your misery as it did your sin Seeing then that many of the wicked would be glad to dye the death of the Righteous and when it is too late they would all be glad if their latter end might be like his how glad should you be that God by such a life hath prepared you for such an end And though a humble soul hath still an eye upon its own unworthiness and Satan is ready to aggravate our Rom. 5. 2. 17. Rom. 5. 20 21. sins in order to our discouragement and fear yet must you remember what an honourable victory grace hath had over them And look on them as Christ did as the advantage of his grace that where sin abounded there grace hath superabounded You have had something to humble you and to Rom. 8. 35 36. Ephes. 1. 6 7. 2. 5 7 8 Tit. 3. 3 5 6 7. Rom. 3. 24. 2 Cor. 12. 9. Luke 15. 4 6 24. Matth. 18. 11. 2 Pet. 3. 9. shew you that you were a child of Adam And you have had something for grace to contend with and to conquer and for Christ to pardon Bless him through whom you have had the victory Had you not deserved Hell Christ could not have saved you from a deserved Hell and the Song of the Lamb would not have been so sweet to you in the everlasting remembrance and experience of his grace You have sinned as a Man and he hath pardoned as God You have been weak and nothing but his grace hath been sufficient for you and by his strength you can do all things He hath as dear a Love to you now in his exaltation as he had upon the Cross when he was bleeding for your sins And will he suffer a chosen soul to perish for whom he hath paid so dear a price A Christ in Heaven John 3. 15 16. Matth. 18. 14. Luke 21. 18. John 18. 9.
carnal mind is enmity against God and is not subject to his Law nor can be Rom. 8. 7. And they that are in the flesh cannot please God v. 8. And you may easily conceive what work will be made in the Ship when an enemy of the Owner hath subtilly possessed himself of the Pilots place He will charge all that are faithful as mutineers because they resist him when he would carry all away And if an enemy of Christ shall get to be Governour of one of his Regiments or Garrisons all that are not Traytors shall be called Traytors and cashiered that they hinder not the treason which he intendeth And as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit even so it is now But what saith the Scripture cast out the bond-woman and her son c. Gal. 4. 29 30. It is not the sacred office of the Ministry nor the profession of the same religion that will cure the enmity of a carnal heart against both Holiness and the Holy seed The whole business of the world from age to age is but the management of that war proclaimed at sins first entrance into the World between the seed of the woman and the Serpent And none of the serpents seed are more cruel or more successful Gen. 3. 15. than those of them that creep into the Armies of Christ and especially that get the conduct of his Regiments Neither Brotherhood nor Unity of profest Religion would hold the hands of Poetae nunquam perturbarunt Respublicas Oratores non raro Buchoâ—tz malignant Cain from murdering his Brother Abel The same Religion and father and family reconciled not scoffing Ishmael to Isaac or prophane Esau to his brother Iacob The family of Christ and an Apostles office did not keep Iudas from being a Traytor to his Lord. If carnal men invade the Ministry they take the way of ease and honour and worldly wealth and strive for Dominion and who shall be the greatest and care not how great their Power and Iurisdiction is nor how little their profitable work is and their endeavour is to fit all matters of Worship and discipline to their ambitious covetous ends and the spiritual Worshipper shall be the object of their hate And is Acosta l. 6. c. 23. p. 579. Nothing so much hurteth this Church as a rabble of hirelings and self-seekers For what can natural men that scarce have the Spirit do in the cause of God A few in number that are excellent in vertue will more promote the work of God But they that come hither being humble and lovers of souls taking Christ for their pattern and bearing in their bodies his Cross and death shall most certainly find heavenly treasures and inestimable delights But when will this be When men cease to be men and to savour the things of men and to seek and gape after the things of men With men this is utterly impossible but with God all things are possible Because this is hard in the eyes of this people shall it therefore be hard in my eyes saith the Lord Zech. 10. pag. 580. I may say to some Ministers that cry out of the schismatical disobedience of the people as Acosta doth to to those that cryed out of the Indians dulness and wickedness It is long of the Teachers Deal with them in all possible love and tenderness away with Covetousness Lordliness and Cruelty give them the example of an upright life open to them the way of truth and teach them according to their capacity and diligently hold on in this way who ever thou art that art a Minister of the Gospel and saith he as ever I hope to enjoy thee O Lord Jesu Christ I am perswaded the harvest will be plentiful and joyful l. 4. p. 433. passim But saith he we quickly cease our labours and must presently have hasty and plenteous fruit But the Kingdom of God is not such Verily it is not such but as Christ hath told us like seed cast into the earth which groweth up by degrees we know not how p. 433 434. Hieroms case is many anothers Concivit odia perditorum Oderunt eum haeretici quia eos impugnare non desinit Oderunt Clerici quia vitam eorum insectatur crimina Sed plane eum boni omnes admirantur diligunt Posthumianus in Sulp. Severi Dialog 1. And Dial. 2. Martinus in Medio caetu conversatione populorum inter Clericos dissidentes inter Episcopos saevientes cum fere quotidianis scandalis huic atque inde premeretur inexpugnabili tamen adversus omnia virtute fundatus stetit Nec tamen huic crimini miscebo populares soli illum Clerici soli nesciunt Sacerdotes nec immerito Nosce illum invidi noluerunt quia si virtutes illius nossent suorum vitia cognovissent it any wonder if the Churches of Christ be torn by Schism and betrayed to prophaneness where there are such unhappy guides § 85. Direct 8. In a special manner take heed of pride Suspect it and subdue it in your selves Direct 8. and do what you can to bring it into disgrace with others Only by Pride cometh contention Prov. How the Jesuites have hereby distracted the Church read Mariana Archiâ—pisc Pragensis Censur de Bull. Iesâ—it Daâ— Hospital ad Reges c. Auâ— Ardingbelli Paradoxa Iesuitica Galindus Giraldus c. Arcana Iesuit 13. 10. I never yet saw one schism made in which Pride conjunct with Ignorance was not the cause nor never did I know one person forward in a schism to my remembrance but Pride was discernably his disease I do not here intend as the Papists to charge all with Schism or Pride that renounce not their understandings and choose not to give up themselves to a beastial subjection to Usurpers or their Pastors he that thinks it enough that his Teacher hath Reason and be a man instead of himself and so thinketh it enough that his Teacher be a Christian and Religious must be also content that his Teacher alone be saved But then he must not be the Teacher of such a damning way But by Pride I mean a plain over-valuing of his own understanding and Conceits and Reasoningâ— quite above all the Evidences of their worth and an undervaluing and contempt of the judgements and reasonings of far wiser men that had evidence enough to have evinced his folly and â—rror to a sober and impartial man Undoubtedly it is the Pride of Priests and people that hath so lâ—mensably in all ages â—orn the Church He that readeth the Histories of Schisms and Church-confusions and marketh the effects which this age hath shewed will no more doubt whether Pride were the cause than whether it was the wind that blew down Trees and houses when he seeth them one way overturned by multitudes where the tempest came with greatest force Therefore a Bishop must be no Nâ—vice lâ—st being lifted up with pride 〈◊〉
be observed 1. That you keep not his sword for your benefit and advantage nor claim a propriety in it but give it his friends or deliver it to the Magistrate 2. That you do nothing without the Magistrate in which you may safely stay for his Authority and help But if two be fighting or thieves be robbing or murdering a man or anothers life be in present danger you must help them without staying for the Magistrates authority 3. That you make not this a pretence for the usurping of Authority or for resisting or deposing your lawful Prince or Magistrate or Parent or Master or of exercising your own will and passions against your Superiours pretending that you take away their swords to save themselves or others from their rage when it is indeed but to hinder justice § 21. Quest. 14. May I not then much more take away that by which he would destroy his own or other Quest. 14. mens souls As to take away Cards or Dice from Gamesters or heretical or sâ—diâ—ious books or Play-books and Romances or to pull down Idols which the Idolaters do adore or are instruments of Idolatry Answ. There is much difference in the cases though the soul be more precious than the body For 1. Here there is supposed to be so much leisure and space as that you may have time to tell the Magistrate of it whose duty primarily it is Whereas in the other case it is supposed that so much delay would be a mans death Therefore your duty is to acquaint the Magistrate with the sin and danger and not to anticipate him and play the Magistrate your self Or in the case of Cards and Dice and hurtful books you may acquaint the persons with the sin and perswade them to cast them away themselves 2. Your taking away these instruments is not like to save them For the love of the sin and the Will to do it remaineth still and the sinner will but be hardened by his indignation against your irregular course of charity 3. Men are bound to save mens bodies whether they will or not because it may be so done But no man can save anothers soul against his will And it is Gods will that their salvation or damnation shall be more the fruit of their own wills than of any others Therefore though it 's possible to devise an instance in which it is lawful to steal a poysonous book or idol from another when it is done so secretly as will encourage no disobedience or disorder nor is like to harden the sinner but indeed to do him good c. yet ordinarily all this is A Wife or near friend that is under no suspicion of alienating the thing to their own commodity nor of ill designes may go somewhat further in such cases than an inferiour or a stranger unlawful for private men that have no Government of others or extraordinary interest in them § 2. Quest. 15. May not a Magistrate take the subjects goods when it is necessary for their own preservation Quest. 15. Answ. I answered this question once heretofore in my Political Aphorisms And because I repent of medling with such subjects and of writing that Book I will leave such cases hereafter for fitter persons to resolve Quest. 16. But may I not take from another for a holy use As to give to the Church or maintain the Quest. 16. Bishops If David took the hallowed bread in his necessity may not hallowed persons take common bread much more Answ. If holy persons be in present danger of death their lives may be saved as other mens on the terms mentioned in the first case Otherwise God hath no need of theft or violence nor must you rob the Laity to cloath the Clergy But to do such evil on pretence of piety and good is an aggravation of the sin CHAP. XIX General Directions and particular Cases of Conscience about Contracts in general and about Buying and Selling Borrowing and Lending Usury c. in particular Tit. 1. General Directions against injurious Bargaining and Contracts BEsides the last Directions Chap. 18. take these as more nearly pertinent to this case § 1. Direct 1. See that your hearts have the two great principles of Iustice deeply and habitually Direct 1. innaturalized or radicated in them viz. The true Love of your neighbour and the Denyal of your self which in one precept are called The Loving of your neighbour as your self For then you will be freed from the Inclination to injuries and fraud and from the power of those temptations which carry men to these sins They will be contrary to your habitual will or inclination and you will be more studious to help your neighbour than to get from him § 2. Direct 2. Yet do not content your self with these habits but be sure to call them up to act Direct 2. when ever you have any bargaining with others and let a faithful Conscience be to you as a Cryer to proclaim Gods Laws and say to you Now remember Love and Self-denyal and Do as you would be done by If Alexander Severus so highly valued this saying Quod tibi fieri non vis alteri ne feceris as to make it his Motto and write and engrave it on his doors and buildings having learned it of some Christians or Jews saith Lampridius What a crime and shame is it for Christs own profest Disciples neither to learn or love it Put home the question when you have any bargaining with others How would I be dealt with my self if my case were the same with his § 3. Direct 3. When the Tempter draweth you to think only of your own commodity and gain remember Direct 3. how much more you will lose by sin than your gain can any way amount to If Acan Gehezi Ahab Iudas c. had foreseen the end and the greatness of their loss it would have curbed their covetous desires Believe Gods Word from the bottom of your heart that you shall lose things eternal if you sinfully get things temporal and then you will not make haste to such a bargain to win the world and lose your souls § 4. Direct 4. Understand your neighbours case aright and meditate on his wants and interest You Direct 4. think what you want your self but you think not whether his wants with whom you deal may not be as great as yours Consider what his commodity costeth him or what the toil of the workmans labour is What house rent he hath to pay and what a family to maintain and whether all this can be well done upon the rates that you desire to trade with him And do not believe every common report of his riches or of the price of his commodity For same in such cases is frequently false § 5. Direct 5. Regard the publick good above your own commodity It is not lawful to take up Direct 5. or keep up any oppressing monopoly or Trade which tendeth to enrich you
and endeavours do contain the seed of life eternal and are such a preparation for it as cannot be in vain Would God concurr thus with any word which is not true and holy and good to make it effectual for the renovation of so many millions of souls Have you not found that his work of Grace is earryed on by heavenly Wisdom Love and Power and is a witness of his special providence and containeth his own Image upon the soul And shall we then question the Author of the seal when we see that the Image and superscription which it imprinteth is Divine And have you not had such experiences your 5. self of the fulfilling of this word in the answer of prayers manifest both on mens souls and bodies which are enough to confute the Tempter that would shake your faith when he seeth you in your weakness unfit to call up all those Evidences which at another time you have discerned For my own part I must bear this witness to the truth that I have known and felt and seen and heard such wonders wrought upon servent prayer as have many a time convinced me of the truth of the promises and the special providence of God to his poor petitioners I have oft known the Acute and Chronical Diseases of afflicted ones relieved by prayer without any natural means Some of the most violent cured in an hour and some by more slow degrees Besides the effects upon mens souls and estates and publick affairs which plainly demonstrated the means and cause And shall a promise thus sealed to us be ever questioned again Nay have you not the Witness in your self 6. 1 John 5. 10 11 12. Even the Spirit of Christ which is the pledge and earnest of your inheritance and the seal and mark of God upon you In a word it is an unquestionable truth that the rational 7. world neither is nor ever was nor can be governed agreeably to its nature without an End to move and rule them which is beyond this life and without the Hopes and fears of a Reward and Punishment hereafter Were this but taken out of the world man would no longer live like man but as the most odious noxious creature upon earth And it is as sure that it agreeth not with the Omnipotence Wisdom and Goodness of God to Govern so noble a Creature by a lye and to make a Nature that must be so governed And it is as certain that all other Revelation is defective and that Life and Immortality the end and the way were never so brought to light as they are in the Gospel by 2 Tim. 1. 10. Christ and by his Spirit Say then to the malitious Tempter The Lord rebuke thee O Satan even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke theâ— Zech. 3. 2. O full of all subtilty and mischief thou enemy of God and righteousness Wilt thou not cease to be a lying Spirit and to pervert the truth and right wayes of the Lord Act 13. 10. Lift up your soul to God and say I believe Lord help mine unbelief Though Satan stand to resist me at my right hand am I not a brand pluckt out of the fire Am I not thine and have I not resigned this soul to thee and didst thou not accept it in thy holy Covenant O then defend it as thine own Plead thou my Cause and confirm thy work and justifie both thy truth and me against the malitious enemy of both O let the intercession of my Saviour prevail that my faith fail not And take away the filthy garments from me Zech. 3. 3 4. and cause mine iniquities to pass away And though my soul be troubled what shall I say Father save me from this hour But then what passage shall I have into thy presence I was born a mortal wight John 12. 23 27 28. John 17. 1. and go but the way as all Generations have gone before me and follow my Lord and all his Saints Father receive and glorifie thy servant that thy servant may glorifie thy name for ever Receive O Father the soul which thou hast made Receive O Saviour the soul which thou hast so dearly bought and loved to the death Acts 7. 59. and washed in thy blood Receive the soul which thou hast regenerated by thy Spirit and in some measure quickned Psal. 39. 5 7 8 11. Psal. 32. 1 2 3. Rom. 4. 7 8. 24. Psal. 25. 7. Psal. 19. 12 13. 1 Pet. 2. 22. Matth. 3. 15. Heb. 9. 26. Isa. 53. 10. 3 4 6 7 8 9. Matth. 3 17. 17. 5. 12. 18. Rom. 5. 1 2 3 5 10. Ephes. 2. 14. Heb. 10. 10 12 14 18. Heb 7. 26 2â— Ephes. 1. 6 7 11 13. 1 Pet. 2. 24. Phil. 3. 9 10 11. Eph. 5. 26 27. Psal. 139. 16 17 18. Psal. 16. 6 7. Psal. 6â— 9. Psal. 46. 4. Psal. 42. 3 4. Psal. 89. 15. Psal. 36. 8. John 4. 10 13 14. Psal. 42. 4. Psal. 107. 6. 13. Psal. 107. 17 14. by the immortal seed Behold thou hast made my dayes as an hand breadth my age before thee is as nothing and every man at his best estate is vanity When thy rebukes correct us for iniquity thou makest our beauty to câ—nsume as a nâ—oth And now O Lord what wait I for Is not my hope alone in thee Deliver me from my transgressions and impute not to me the sins which I have done Remember not against me the sins of my youth and forgive the iniquities of my riper years Charge not upon me my grieving of thy Spirit and neglects and resistances of thy grace Forgive my sins of ignorance and of knowledge my sins of slâ—thfulness rashness and presumption especially those which I have wilfully committed against thy warnings and the warnings of my Conscience Who can understand his errors Cleanse thou me from secret sins O pardon my unprofitableness and abuse of thy mercies and my sluggish loss of pretious time that I have served thee no better and loved thee no more and improved no better the day of grace Though folâ—y and sin have darknâ—d my light and blemished my most holy services and my transgressions have been multiplyed in thy sight yet is the Sacrifice sufficient which thou hast accepted from our great High Priest who made his soul an offering for sin In him thou art well pleased He is our peace In him I trust He was holy harmless undefiled and separate from sinners He did no iniquity He fulfilled all Righteousness and by once offering of himself he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified He is able to save to the utmost them that come to God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them Accept me O Father in him thy well beloved Let my sinful soul be healed by his stripes who bare our sins in his body on the Cross. Let me be found in him not having any Legal righteousness of my own but that which