head-strong Horse that must be kept in at first and is hardly restrained if it once break loose and get the head If you are bred up in temperance and modesty where there are no great temptations to gluttony drinking sports or wantonness you may think a while that your natures have little or none of this concupiscence and so may walk without a guard But when you come where baits of lust abound where Women and Playes and Feasts and Drunkards are the Devils snares and tinder and bellows to enflame your lusts you may then find to your sorrow that you had need of watchfulness and that all is not mortified that is asleep or quiet in you As a man that goeth with a Candle among Gunpowder or near Thatch should never be careless because he goeth in continual danger so you that are young and have naturally eager appetites and lusts should remember that you carry fire and Gunpowder still about you and are never out of danger while you have such an enemy to watch § 2. And if once you suffer the fire to kindle alas what work may it make ere you are aware James 1. 14 15. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Little knoweth the Fish when he is catching or nibling at the bait that he is swallowing the hook which will lay him presently on the bank When you are looking on the cup or gazing on alluring beauty or wantonly dallying and pleasing your senses with things unsafe you little know how far beyond your intentions you may be drawn and how deep the wound may prove how great the smart or how long and difficult the cure As you love your souls observe Pauls counsel 2 Tim. 2. 22. Flee youthful lusts Keep at a full distance Come not near the bait If you get a wound in your consciences by any wilful heinous sin O what a case will you be in How heartless unto secret duty afraid of God that should be your joy deprived of the comforts of his presence and all the pleasure of his wayes How miserably will you be tormented between the tyranny of your own concupiscence the sting of sin the gripes of conscience and the terrors of the Lord How much of the life of faith and love and heavenly zeal will be quenched in a moment I am to speak more afterwards of this and therefore shall only say at present to all young Converts that care for their salvation Mortifie the flesh and alwayes watch and avoid temptations Direct 15. BE exceeding wary not only what Teachers you commit the guidance of your souls unto Direct 15. Nam si falsi solo nomine tumidi non modo non consulendi sed vitandi sunt quibus nihil est importunius nihil insu siâ—s c. Pâ—tâ—a câ— Dâ—al 117. li. 2. but also with what company you familiarly converse That they be neither such as would corrupt your minds with error or your hearts with viciousness profâ—neness lukewarmness or with a feavorish factious zeal But choose if possible judicious holy heavenly humble unblameable self-denying persons to be your ordinary companions and familiars but especially for your near Relations § 1. It is a matter of very great importance what Teachers you choose in order to your salvation In this the free grace of God much differenceth some from others For as poor Heathens and Infidels have none that know more than what the Book of Nature teacheth if so much so in the several Nations of Christians it is hard for the people to have any but such as the Sword of the Magistrate forceth on them or the stream of their Countreys Custom recommendeth to them And it is a wonder Scientiâ— est posse dâ—cere Provâ—â—b Sub indocto tamen doctus evadâ—re potes â—fflaâ—u aliquo divino ut Ciâ—â—ro loquitur Augustinus de seipso testatur cui non omnia credere nefas est quod Aristotelicas Categorias quae inter difficillima numerantur artes liberales quas singulas a praeceptoribus didicisse magnum dicitur nullo tradeâ—te omnes intellexit â—â—â—â—ardus item vir doctrina sanctitate clarissimus omnes suas literas quarum inter cunctos sui temporis abundantissimus fuâ—â— in sâ—lvis in agris didicit non hominum magisterio sed meditando orando nec ullos unquam alios praeceptores habuit quam quercus sagos Pâ—trâ—â—ch li. 2. Dialog 40. if pure Truth and Holiness be countenanced by either of these But when and where his mercy pleaseth God sendeth wise and holy Teachers with compassion and diligence to seek the saving of mens souls so that none but the malignant and obstinate are deprived of their help § 2. Ambitious proud covetous licentious ungodly men are not to be chosen for your Teachers if you have your choice In a Nation where true Religion is in credit and hath the Magistrates countenance or the Major Vote some graceless men may joyn with better in preaching and defending the purity of doctrine and holiness of life And they may be very serviceable to the Church herein especially in expounding and disputing for the truth But even there more experienced spiritual Teachers are much more desirable They will speak most feelingly who feel what they speak And they are fittest to bring others to faith and love who believe and love God and holiness themselves They that have life will speak more lively than the dead And in most places of the world the ungodliness of such Teachers makes them enemies to the Truth which is according to godliness Their natures are at enmity to the life and power of the doctrine which they should preach And they will do their worst to corrupt the Magistrates and make them of their mind And if they can but get the Sword to favour them they are usually the cruellest persecutors of the sincere As it is notorious among the Papists that the baits of Power and Honour and Wealth have so vitiated the body of their Clergy that they conspire to uphold a worldly Government and Religion and in express contradiction to Sense and Reason and to Antiquity and the judgement of the Church and to the holy Scriptures they captivate the ignorant and sensual to their tyranny and false worship and use the seduced Magistrates and multitude to the persecuting of those that will not follow them to sin and to perdition Take heed of proud and worldly Guides § 3. And yet it is not every one that pretendeth Piety and Zeal that is to be heard or taken for a Teacher But 1. Such as preach ordinarily the substantial Truths which all Christians are agreed in 2. Such as make it the drift of their preaching to raise your souls to the Love of God and to a holy heavenly life and are zealous against confessed sins 3. Such as contradict not the
believeth a Testimony that is not to be believed So that you see by what is said that the diseases of the Mind to be cured are 1. Meer ignorance 2. Error thinking truth to be falshood and falshood truth 3. Unbelief 4. Disbelief and 5. Misbelief But as the Goodness is of chief regard in the object so the discerning of the Truth about Good and â—â—m 8. 5 6 7. Evil is the chiefest office of the understanding And therefore its Disesteem of God and Glory and Grace and its Misesteem of the fleshly pleasure and worldly prosperity wealth and honour is the principal malady of the mind § 5. 2. The diseases of the Will are in its Inclination and its Acts 1. An inordinate Inclination to the pleasing of the fleshly appetite and fantasie and to all Carnal baits and Temporal things that tend to please it and inordinate acts of desire accordingly 2. An irrational backwardness to God and grace and spiritual good and a Refusal or Nolition in act accordingly These are in the will 1. Because it is become much subject to the sensitive appetite and hath debased it self and contracted by its sinful acts a sensual inclination the flesh having the dominion in a corrupted soul. 2. Because the Intellect being also corrupted oft times mis-leadeth it by over-valuing transient things 3. Because the Will is become destitute in its corrupted state of the power of Divine Love or an Inclination to God and holy things which should countermand the seduction of carnal objects 4. And the understanding is much destitute of the Light that should lead them higher 5. Because the rage of the corrupted appetite is still seducing it Mark therefore for the right understanding of this our greatest malady § 6. 1. That the will never desireth evil as evil but as a carnal or a seeming good 2. Nor doth it hate good as good but as a seeming evil because God and grace do seem to be his enemies and to hurt him by hindering him of the good of carnal pleasure which he now preferreth 3. Nay at the same time that he loveth evil as it pleaseth the flesh he hath naturally as a man some averseness to it so far as he apprehendeth it to be Evil And when he hateth God and holiness as evil for hindering him of his carnal pleasure he naturally loveth them so far as he apprehendeth them to be good So that there is some love to God and good and some hatred to evil in the ungodly For while Man is Man he will have Naturally an Inclination to good as good and against evil as evil 4. But the apprehension of sensitive good is the strongest in him and the apprehension of spiritual good is weakest and therefore the will receiving a greater impress from the Carnal Appetite and Mind than from the weak apprehensions of spiritual good is more inclined to that which indeed is worst and so things carnal have got the dominion or chief commanding interest in the soul. 5. Note also that sin receiveth its formality or moral evil first in the will and not in the Intellect or sensitive appetite For it is not sin till it be positively or privatively immediately or mediately voluntary But the first motions to sin are not in the will but in the sensitive appetite Though there as first it be not formally sin 6. Note that neither Intellect Object Appetite or Sense necessitate naturally the will to sin but it remaineth the first in the sin and guilt § 7. It is a matter of great difficulty to understand how sin first entred into the innocent soul And it is of great importance because an error here is of dangerous consequence Two sorts seem to me to make God so much the necessitating cause of Adams first sin and so of all sin as that it was as naturally impossible for Adam to have forborn it according to their doctrine as to have conquered God 1. Those that assert the Dominican immediate Physical pre-determining pre-motion which no created power can resist 2. And those that say the Will acts as Necessitated by the Intellect in all its Acts and so is necessitated in all its Omissions and that the Intellect is necessitated by Objects as no doubt it is unless as its acts are sub imperio voluntatis and all those objects are caused and disposed of by God But it is certain that God is not the cause of sin and therefore this certainty over-ruleth the case against these Tenets § 8. At present it seemeth to me that sin entred in this method 1. Sense perceiveth the forbidden thing 2. The appetite desireth it 3. The imagination thinketh on its desirableness yet further 4. The intellect conceiveth of it truly as good by a simple apprehension 5. The Will accordingly willeth it by a simple complacency or volition Thus far there was no sin But 6. The Will here adhered to it too much and took in it an excess of Complacency when it had power to do otherwise And here sin begun 7. And so when the Cogitations should have been called off 8. And the Intellect should have minded God and his Command and proceed from a simple apprehension to the comparing Act and said The favour of God is better and his will should rule it omitted all these acts because the will omitted to command them yea and hindered them 9. And so the intellect was next guilty of a non-renuo I will not forbid or hinder it and the will accordingly 10. And next of a positive deception and the will of consent unto the sin and so it being finished brought forth death If you say The wills first sinful adhaesion in the sixth instance could not be unless the Intellect first directed it so to do I deny that because the will is the first principle in mens actions quoad exercitium though the Intellect be the first as to specification And therefore the will could suspend its exercise and its excitation of the mind In all this I go upon common principles But I leave it to further enquiry 1. How far the sensitive appetite may move the Locomotive faculty without the Wills command while the will doth not forbid And whether Reason be not given man as the Rider to the Horse not to enable him to move but to Rule his motion so that as the Horse can go if the Rider hinder not so the sensitive appetite can cause the actions of eating drinking thinking speaking sensually if Reason do but drop asleep or not hinder 2. And so whether in the first sin and ordinarily the sensitive appetite fantasie and passion be not the active mover and the Rational powers first guilty only by omitting their restraining Government which they were able to have exercised 3. And so whether sin be not ordinarily a brutish motion or a voluntary unmanning of our selves the Rational powers in the beginning being guilty only of omission or privation of restraint but afterwards brought over to subserve the sensitive
it § 52. Direct 14. If God so much regard us as to make us and preserve us continually and to become Tempt 14. our Governour and make a Law for us and judge us and Reward his servants with no less than Heaven than you may easily see that he so much regardeth us as to observe whether we obey or break his Laws He that so far careth for a Clock or Watch as to make it and wind it up doth care whether it go true or false What do these men make of God who think he cares not what men do Then he cares not if men beat you or râ—b you or kill you for none of this hurteth God And the King may say if any murder your friends or children why should I punish him he hurt not me But Iustice is to keep order in the world and not only to preserve the Governour from hurt God may be wronged though he be not hurt And he will make you pay for it if you hurt others and smart for it if you hurt your self § 53. Tempt 15. The Tempter laboureth to extenuate the sin and make it seem a little one and if Tempt 15. every little sin must be made such a matter of you 'll never be quiet § 54. Direct 15. But still remember 1. There is deadly poyson in the very nature of sin as Direct 15. there is in a Serpent be he never so small The least sin is worse than the greatest pain that ever man selt and would you choose that and say its little The least sin is odious to God and had a hand in the death of Christ and will damn you if it be not pardoned and should such a thing be made light of And many sins counted small may have great aggravations such as the knowing deliberate wilful committing of them is To love a small sin is a great sin specially to love it so well that the remembrance of Gods Will and Love of Christ and Heaven and Hell will not suffice to resolve you against it Besides a small sin is the common way to greater James 1. 14 15. When lust hath conceived it brings forth sin and sin when it is finished brings forth death James 3. 5. Behâ—ld how great a matter a little fire kindleth The horrid sins of David and Peter had small beginnings Mortal sicknesses seem little matters at the first Many a thousand have sinned themselves to Hell that began with that which is accounted small § 55. Tempt 16. Also the Devil draweth on the sinner by promising him that he shall sin but once Tempt 16. or but a very few times and then do so no more He tells the Thief and the Fornicator that if they will do it but this once they shall be quiet § 56. Direct 16. But O consider 1. That one stab at the heart may prove uncurable God may Direct 16. deny thee time or grace to repent 2. That it is easier to forbear the first time than the second For one sin disposeth the heart unto another If you cannot deny the first temptation how will you deny the next When you have lost your strength and grieved your helper and strengthened your enemy and your snare will you then resist better wounded then now when you are whole § 57. Tempt 17. But when the Devil hath prevailed for once with the sinner he makes that an argument Tempt 17. for a second He saith to the Thief and Drunkard and Fornicator It is but the same thing that thou hast done once already and if once may be pardoned twice may be pardoned and if twice why not thrice and so on § 58. Direct 17. This it is to let the Devil get in a foot A spark is easier quenched than a flame Direct 17. but yet remember that the longer the worse the oftner you sin the greater is the abuse of the Spirit of God and the contempt of grace and the wrong to Christ and the harder is repentance and the sharper if you do repent because the deeper is your wound Repent therefore speedily and go no further unless you would have the Devil tell you next It 's now too late § 59. Tempt 18. The Tempter maketh use of the greater sins of others to perswade men to venture Tempt 18. upon less Thou hearest other men curse and swear and rail and dost thou stick at idle talk How many in the world are enemies to Christ and persecute his Ministers and Servants and dost thou make so great a matter of omitting a Sermon or a prayer or other holy duty § 60. Direct 18. As there are degrees of sin so there are degrees of punishment And wilt thou Direct 18. rather choose the easiest place in Hell than Heaven How small soever the matter of sin be thy wilfulness and sinning against conscience and mercies and warnings may make it great to thee Are great sinners so happy in thy eyes that thou wouldst be as like them as thou darest § 61. Tempt 19. Also he would embolden the sinner because of the Commonness of the sin and Tempt 19. the multitude that commit either that or worse as if it were not therefore so bad or dangerous § 62. Direct 19. But remember that the more examples you have to take warning by the more Direct 19. unexcusable is your fall It was not the number of Angels that fell that could keep them from being Devils and damned for their sin God will do Justice on many as well as on one The sin is the greater and therefore the punishment shall not be the less Make the case your own Will you think it a good reason for any one to abuse you beat you rob you because that many have done so before He should rather think that you are abused too much already and therefore he should not add to your wrongs If when many had spit in Christs face or bufletted him some one should have given him another spit or blow as if he had not enough before would you not have taken him to be the worst and cruellest of them all If you do as the most you 'll speed as the most § 63. Tempt 2â— â—â— is a dangerous Temptation when the Devill propâ—seth some very good end and â—â—â—â—t 2â— mâ—kâ—t◠〈…〉 the 〈◊〉 or the necessary means to accomplish it when he blindâ—th men sâ— farr as tâ—â—â—â—â—k tâ—â—â—â— it is necessary tâ— their salvation or to other mens or to the wellfare of the Church or pro 〈…〉 oâ— the pleasing of God then sâ—n will be commited without regret and continued in â—â—â—â—â—◠〈…〉 Oâ— this account it is that â—â—reâ—â—e and will-worship and superstition are kept up â—â—â—â— 2. 18 21 22 23. Having a shew of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglecting the body It is for God that much of the wickedness of the world is done against God It s for the Church aâ—â— Truth that Papists have murdered and persecuted so
of Christs Body and Blood aright But besides all these what a deal of duty have you to perform to Magistrates Pastors Parents Masters and other superiours to subjects people children servants and other inferiours to every neighbour for his soul his body his estate and name and to do to all as you would be done by And besides all this how much have you to do directly for your selves for your souls and bodies and families and estates Against your ignorance infidelity pride selfishness sensuality worldliness passion sloth intemperance cowardize lust uncharitableness c. Is not here matter for your thoughts § 15. Direct 15. Overlook not that life full of particular mercies which God hath bestowed on your Direct 15. selves and you will find pleasant and profitable matter for your thoughts To spare me the labour of 15. All our particular Mercies repeating them look back to Chap. 3. Dir. 14. Think of that mercy which brought you into the world and chose your Parents your place and your condition which brought you up and bore with you patiently in all your sins and closely warned you of every danger which seasonably afflicted you and seasonably delivered you and heard your Prayers in many a distress which hath yet kept the worst of you from death and Hell and hath Regenerated justified adopted and sanctified those that he hath fitted for eternal life How many sins he hath forgiven How many he hath in part subdued How many and suitable helps he hath vouchsafed you From how many Enemies he hath saved you how oft he hath delighted you by his word and grace what comforts you have had in his Servants and ordinances in your relations and callings His mercies are innumerable and yet do your meditations want matter to supply them If I should but recite the words of David in many thankful Psalms you would think Mercy found his Thoughts employment § 16. Direct 16. Foresee that exact and righteous judgement which shortly you have to undergo Direct 16. and it will do much to find you employment for your thoughts A man that must give an account to 16. The account at Judgement God of all that he hath done both good and evil and knoweth not how soon for ought he knows before to morrow me thinks should find him something better than vanity to think on Is it nothing to be ready for so great a day To have your justification ready your accounts made up Your Consciences cleansed and quietted on good grounds To know what answer to make for your selves against the accuser To be clear and sure that you are indeed Regenerate and have a part in Christ and are washed in his blood and reconciled to God and shall not prove hypocrites and self-deceivers in that trying day when it is a sentence that must finally decide the question whether we shall be saved or damned and must determine us to Heaven or Hell for ever and you have so short and uncertain a time for your preparation will not this administer matter to your Thoughts If you were going to a Judgement for your lives or all your estates you would think it sufficient to provide you matter for your thoughts by the way How much more this final dreadful judgement § 17. Direct 17. If all this will not serve the turn it 's strange if God call not home your thoughts Direct 17. by sharp afflictions and methinks the improvement of them and the removal of them should find some 17. Our Afflictions employment for your thoughts It 's time then to search and try your ways and turn again unto the Lord Lam. 3. 4. To find out the Achan that troubleth your peace and know the voice of the rod and what God is angry at and what it is that he calleth you to mind To know what root it is that beareth these bitter fruits and how they may be sanctified to make you conformable to Christ and partakers of his holiness Heb. 12. 10. Besides the exercise of holy patience and submission there is a great deal of work to be done in sufferings to exercise faith and honour God and the good cause of our suffering and to humble our selves for the evil cause and to get the benefit And if you will not meditate of the Duty you shall meditate of the pain whether you will or not and say as Lam. 3. 17 18 19 20. I forgate prosperity and I said My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord Remembring mine affliction and my misery the wormwood and the gall My soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me Put not God to remember you by his spur and help your meditations by so sharp a means Psal. 78. 33 34 35. Therefore did he consume their days in vanity and their years in trouble when he â—lew them then they sought him and they returned and enquired early after God and they remembred that God was their Rock and the high God their Redeemer § 18. Direct 18. Be diligent in your callings and spend no time in idleness and perform your labours Direct 18. with holy minds to the glory of God and in obedience to his commands and then your thoughts will 18. The business of your Calling have the less leisure and liberty for vanity or idleness Employments of the body will employ the Thoughts They that have much to do have much to think on For they must do it prudently and skillfully and carfully that they may do it successfully and therefore must think how to do it And the urgency and necessity of business will almost necessitate the thoughts and so carry them on and find them work Though some employments more than others And let none think that these Thoughts are bad or vain because they are about worldly things For if our Labours themselves be not bad or vain then neither are those thoughts which are needful to the well-doing of our work Nor let any worldling please himself with this and say My thoughts are taken up about my calling For his calling it self is perverted by him and made a carnal work to carnal ends when it should be sanctified That the thoughts about your labours may be good 1. Your Labours themselves must be good performed in obedience to God and for the good of others and to his glory 2. Your Labours and thoughts must keep their bounds and the higher things must be still preferred and sought and thought on in the first place And your Labours must so far employ your thoughts as is needful to the well-doing of them but better things must be thought on in such labours as leave a vacancy to the Thoughts But diligence in your calling is a very great help to keep out sinful thoughts and to furnish us with thoughts which in their place are good § 19. Direct 19. You have all Gods spiritual helps and holy ordinances to feed your meditations Direct 19. and
for your Lord and King and Father and yielded up your selves as his own as his Subject and as his Child to be disposed of Ruled and provided for by him And this Covenant is essential not only to your Christianity but to your taking him for your God And do you repent of it or will you break it and forfeit all the benefits of the Covenant If you will needs have the disposal of your selves you discharge God of his Covenant and Fatherly care for you and then what will become of you if he so forsake you § 10. Direct 8. Bethink you how unmeet you are to be the choosers of your own condition You Direct 8. foresee not what that person or thing or place will prove to you which you so eagerly desire For ought you know it may be your undoing or the greatest misery that ever befell you Many a one hath cryed with Rachel Give me Children or else I dye that hath dyed by the wickedness and unkindness Gen. 30. 1. of their Children Many a one hath been violent in their desires of a Husband or a Wife that afterwards have broken their hearts or proved a greater affliction to them than any enemy they had in the world many a one hath been eager for riches and prosperity and preferment that hath been ensnared by them to the damnation of his soul. Many a one hath been earnest for some office dignity or place of trust which hath made it a great increaser of his sin and misery And it is flesh and self that is the eager desirer of things that are against the will of God and nothing is so blind and partial as self and flesh You think not your Child a competent judge of what is best for him and make not his desires but your own understanding the guide and rule of your dealings with him or disposals of him And are you fitter choosers for your selves in comparison of God than your Child is in comparison of you Either you take God for your Father or you do not If you do not call him not Father and hope not for Mercy and Salvation from him If you do is he not wise and good enough to dispose of you and to determine what is best for you and to choose for you § 11. Direct 9. Remember that it is one of the greatest plagues on this side Hell to be given up to Direct 9. our own Desires and that by your eagerness and discontents you provoke God thus to give you up Psal. 81. 12 so I gave them up to their own hearts lust and they walked in their own Counsels O that my people had hearkened to me c. Rom. 1. 24 26. wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts c. For this cause God gave them up to vile affections vers 28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient 2 Thes. 2. 10 11 12. God may give you that which you so eagerly desire as he gave Israel a King even in his anger Hos. 13. 10 11. or as he gave the Israelites their own desire even flesh which he rainâ—d upon them as dust and feathered fowles as the Sand of the Sea they were not â—â—â—â—ranged from their lust But while their meat was yet in their mouths the wâ—ath of Gâ—d came upon them and slew the fattest of them Psal 78. 27 29 30 31. They lusted exceedingly in the Wilderness and tempted God in the desert and he gave them their request but sent leanness into their souls Pâ—al 1â—6 14 15. God may say Follow your own lust and if you are so eager take that which you desire take that person that thing that dignity which you are so earnest for but take my curse and vengeance with it Never let it do you good but be a snare and torment to you Let a fire câ—me out of the bramble and devour you Judg. 9. 15. § 12. Direct 10. Take heed lest concupiscence and partiality entise you to justifie your sinful desires Direct 10. and â—â—â—â— them to bâ— lâ—wful For if you do so you will not repent of them you will not confess them to God â—or beg pardon of them nor beg help against them nor use the means to extinguish them but will cherish them and be angry with all that are against them and love those tempâ—ers best that encourage them And how dangerous a case is this And yet nothing is more ordinary among sinners than to be blinded by their own affections and think that they have sufficient reason to desire that which they do desire And affection maketh them very witty and resolute to deceive themselves It setteth them on studying all that can be said to defend their enemy and put a deceitful gloss upon their cause Try your Desires well as I before directed you Q. 1. Is the thing that you desire a thing that God hath bid you desire or promised in his word to give you as grace Christ and Heaven If it be so then Desire it and spare not But if not so Q. 2. Why then are you so eager for it when you should at most have but a submissive conditional desire after it Q. 3. Nay is it not something which you are forbidden to desire If so dare you excuse it § 13. Direct 11. Remember that Concupiscence or sinful desire is the beginning of all sin of commission Direct 11. and leadeth directly to the act Theft Adultery Murder Fraud Contention and all such mischiefs begin in inordinate desires For every one is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and entiâ—ed Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Jam. 1. 14 15. By lust is meant any fleshly desire or will Therefore when the Apostle forbiddeth gluttâ—ny and drunkenness chambering and wantonness strife and envying he Rom. 13. 13 14 strikes at the root of all in this one word Make no privision for the flesh to satisfie its lusts or wills § 14. Direct 12. Pull off the deceiving vizor and see that which you so eagerly desire as it is Direct 12. What will it be to you at the last It is now in its Spring or Summer but see in it its fall and winter It is now in its youth but see it withered to skin and bone in its decrepit age It is now in its clean and curious ornaments but see it in its uncleanness and in its homely dress Cure your deceit and your Desire is cured § 15. Direct 13. Promise not your selves long life but live as dying men with your grave and Direct 13. winding sheet alwayes in your eye and it will cure your thiâ—st after the creature when you are sensible hâ—w short a time you must enjoy it and especially how near you are unto
Princes are restrained so much as from unseasonable eating Eccles. 10. 16. If it was one of the great sins that Sodom was burnt with fire for judge whether England be in no danger by it Read O England and know thy self and tremble Ezek. 16. 49. Behold this was the iniquity of thy Sister Sodom PRIDE FULNESS of bread and abundance of IDLENESS was in her and in her daughters neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy IV. The Directions or Helps against it § 37. Direct 1. Mortifie the flesh according to the Directions Chap. 4. Part 7. Subdue its inclinations Direct 1. and desires and learn to esteem and use it but as a servant Think what a pitiful price a Saith Plato God is the temperate mans Law and pleasure the intemperate mans Gal. 5. 24. little gluttonous pleasure of the Throat is for a man to sell his God and his salvation for Learn to be indifferent whether your meat be pleasing to your appetite or not and make no great matter of it Remember still what an odious swinish damning sin it is for a mans heart to be set upon his belly All that are Christs have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts § 38. Direct 2. Live faithfully to God and upon spiritual durable delights And then you will Direct 2. fetch the measure of your eating and drinking from their tendency to that higher end There is no Heb. 13. 9. using any inferiour thing aright till you have first well resolved of your end and use it as a means thereto and mark how far it is a means § 39. Direct 3. See all your food as provided and given you by God and beg it and the blessing of Direct 3. it at his hand and then it will much restrain you from using it against him He is a wretch indeed that will take his food as from his Fathers hand and throw it in his face though perhaps a petulant child would do so by a fellow-servant He that thinketh he is most beholden to himself for his plenty will say as the fool Luke 12. 19 20. Soul take thy ease eat drink and be merry thou hast enough laid up for many years But he that perceives it is the hand of God that reacheth it to him will use it more reverently It is a horrid aggravation of the Gluttony of this age that they play the Hypocrites in it and first for custom crave Gods blessing on their meat and then sit down and sin against him with it Such are the prayers of Hypocritical sensualists But a serious discerning 1 Cor. 10. 31. of God as the Giver would teach you whether you eat or drink to do all to his glory from whom it comes § 40. Direct 4. See by faith the blood of Christ as the purchasing cause of all you have and then Direct 4. sure you will bear more reverence to his blood than to cast the fruit of it into the sink of sensuality and to do worse than throw it on the dunghill What! Must Christ be a sacrifice to God and dye to recover you the mercies which you had forfeited and now will you cast them to the Dogs and please a sinful appetite with them Did he dye to purchase you provision for your lusts and to serve the flesh with § 41. Direct 5. Forget not how the first sin came into the world even by eating the forbidden Direct 5. fruit And let the slain creatures whose lives are lost for you remember you of that sin which brought the burden on them for your sakes And then every piece of flesh that you see will appear to you as with this caution written upon it O sin not as your first Parents sinned by pleasing of your appetite for this our death and your devouring the flesh of your fellow-creatures is the fruit of that ☞ sin and warneth you to be temperate Revell not to excess in your fellow-creatures lives § 42. Direct 6. Keep an obedient tender Conscience not scrupulously perplexing your selves about Direct 6. every bit you eat as melancholy persons do but checking your appetite and telling you of Gods Commands and teaching you to fear all sensual excess It is a graceless disobedient senseless heart that maketh men so boldly obey their appetite When the fear of God is not in their hearts no wonder if they feed and feast themselves without fear Jude 12. Either they make a small matter of sin in the general or at least of this sin in particular It is usually the same persons that fear not to spend their time in idleness sports or vanity and to live in worldliness or fleshly lusts who live in Gluttony to feed all this The belly is a Bruit that sticks not much upon Reason Where Conscience is asleep and scared Reason and Scripture do little move a sensual belly-god And any thing will serve instead of Reason to prove it lawful and to answer all that 's said against it There is no disputing the case with a man that is asleep especially if his Guts and Appetite be awake You may almost as well bring Reason and Scripture to keep a Swine from over-eating or to perswade a hungry Dog from a Bone as to take off a Glutton from the pleasing of his throat if he be once grown blockish and have mastered his conscience by unbelief or stilled it with a stupifying opiate His taste then serveth instead of Reason and against Reason Then he saith I feel it do me good that is he feeleth that it pleaseth his Appetite as a Swine feeleth that his meat doth him good when he is ready to burst and this answereth all that can be said against it Then he can sacrifice his time and treasure to his Belly and make a jeast of the Abstinence and Temperance of sober men as if it were but a needless self-afflicting or fit only for some weak and sickly persons If the constant fear and obedience of God do not rule the soul the Appetite will be unruled And if a tender conscience be not Porter the Throat will be common for any thing that the Appetite requireth One sight of Heaven or Hell to awaken their Reason and sleepy Consciences would be the best remedy to convince them of the odiousness and danger of this sin § 43. Direct 7. Understand well what is most conducible to your health and let that be the ordinary Direct 7. measure of your diet for quantity and quality and time Sure your Nature it self if you are yet Socrates â—deo parce temperate vixit ut cum Athenas pettis saepenumero vastaret solus ipse nunquam aegrotaverit Laertius iâ— Socrate men should have nothing to say against this measure and consequently against all the rest of the Directions which suppose it Nature hath given you Reason as well as Appetite and Reason telleth you that your health is more to be regarded than your
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
keeping a good house and a good table tipling is called drinking a cup with a friend Lust and filthiness is called Love worldliness is called thriftiness and good husbandry Idleness and loss of Time is called the leasure of a Gentleman slothfulness is called a nâ—t being too worldly Time wasting sports are called Recreations Pride is called Decency and Handsomness Proud revenge is called Honour and Gallantry Romish cruelty and persecution and 〈…〉 ing the Church is called keeping up order obedience and unity Disobedience to superiors is câ—llâ—d not â—â—aâ—ing mâ—n Church-divisions are called strictness and zeal 2. Specially if a sâ—n be not iâ— dis 〈…〉 among the stricter sort it greatly prepareth men to commit it As breaking the Lords day beyond sâ—â— in many râ—fâ—rmâ—d Churches And at home spiritual pride cens riousâ—â—ss baâ—kâ—iting disobedience â—â—d Church-divisions are not in half that disgrace among many professors of strictness as they deserve and as swearing c. is § 100. Direct 38. Remember that what ever be the Name or Cloak God judgeth righteously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the truth Names may deceive us but not our Iudge And sin is still in disgrace with God however it be with men Remember the comlier the paint and cover is the greater is the danger and the more watchful and cauâ—â—lous we should be It is not imperfect man but the perfect Law of God which must be our Rule The great succâ—ss of this Temptation should deterr uâ— from entertaining it What abundance of mischief hath it done in the world § 101. Tempt 39. Sometime the Devil tempteth men to some â—â—ynous sin that if he prevail not at Tempt â—9 lâ—â—st he may draw them into a less As cheating chafferers will ask twice the price of their commodity that by abating much they may make you willing to give too much He that would get a little must ask a great deal He will tempt you to drunkenness and if he draw you but to tipling or time-wasting he hath got something If he tempt you to fornication and he get you but to some filthy thoughts or immodest lascivious talk or actions he hath done much of that which he intended If he tempt you to sâ—me horrid cruelâ—y and you yield but to sâ—me less degree or to some unjust or uncharitable censures you think you have conquered when it 's he that conquereth § 102. Direct 39. Remember that the least degree of sin is sin and death the wages of it Direct 39. Romans 6. 23. Think not that you have scapt well if your heart have taken any of the infection â—r if you have been wounded any where though it might have been worse If the Tempter had tempted you no further but to a lustful malicious or proud thought or word you would perceive that if he prevail he conquereth so may you whâ—n he getteth this much by a shameless asking more § 103. Tempt 40. He tempteth us sometime to be so fearful and carefull against one sin or Tempt 40. about sâ—me â—ne danger as to be mindless of some other and lie open to his temptation Like a Fâ—â—â—â—r that will seem to aime all at one place that he may strike you in another while you are guarding that Or like an enemy that giveth all the allarm at one end of the City that he may draw the people thither while he stormeth in another place So Satan makes some so afraid of worldliness that they watch not against Idleness or so fearful of hard-heartedness and deadness and hypocrisie that they watch not against Passion neglect of their callings or dejectedness or so fearful of sinning or being deceived about their salvation that they fear not the want of Love and Joy and Thankfulness for all the mercy they have received nor the neglect of holy Praise to God § 104. Direct 40. Remember that as obedience must be entire and universal so is Satans Direct 41. temptation against all parts of our obedience and our care must extend to all if we will escape It would cure your inordinate fear in some one point if you extended it to all the â—â—â—â—t § 105. Tempt 41. Sometime by the suddenness of a temptation he surprizeth men before they are Tempt 41. aware § 106. Direct 41. Be never unarmed nor from your watch especially as to Thoughts Direct 41. or sudden Passions or rash words which are used to be committed for want of deliberation § 107. Tempt 42. Sometime he useth a violent earnestness especially when he getteth Passion on Tempt 42. his side So that Reason is born down and the sinner saith I could not forbear § 108. Direct 42. But remember that the very eager unruliness of your passion is a sin it self Direct 42. and that none can compel you to sin and that Reason must deliberate and rule or else any murder or wickedness may have the excuse of urgent passions § 109. Tempt 43. Sometime he useth the violence of men They threaten men to frighten them Tempt 43. into sin § 110. Direct 43. But is not God and his threatnings more to be feared Do men Direct 43. threaten imprisonment or death or ruine And doth not God threaten everlasting misery And can he not defend you from all that man shall threaten if it be best for you See the portion of the fearful Rev. 21. 8. § 111. Tempt 44. Sometime variety of temptations distracteth men that they do not look to all at Tempt 44. once § 112. Direct 44. Remember that one part of the City unguarded may lose the whole in a general Direct 44. assault § 113. Tempt 45. Sometime he ceaseth to make us secure and lay by our armes and then Tempt 45. surpriseth us § 114. Direct 45. Take heed of security and Satans ambushments Distinguish between cessation Direct 45. and conquest You conquer not every time that you have rest and quietness from temptation Till the sin be hated and the contrary grace or duty in practice you have not at all overcome And when that 's done yet trust not the Devil or the flesh nor think the warr will be shorter than your lives For one assault will begin where the former ended Make use of every cessation but to prepare for the next encounter § 115. Tempt 46. He will tempt you to take striving for overcoming and to think because Tempt 46. you pray and make some resistance that sin is conquered And because your Desires are good all is well § 116. Direct 46. But all that fight do not overcome If a man strive for Masteries yet is he Direct 46. not crowned except he strive lawfully 1 Tim. 2. 5. Many will seek to enter and shall not be able Luke 13 24. § 117. Tempt 47. He followeth the sinner with frequency and importunity till he weary him and Tempt 47. make him yield § 118. Direct 47. Remember that Christ is as importunate with thee to
if he be not Loved better than fleshly lust Object 3. But it seems that most or all men love God practically best For there are few if any but would rather be annihilated than there should be no God or no world Therefore they Love God better than themselves Answ. 1. They know that if there were no God or no world they could not be themselves and so must also be annihilated 2. But suppose that they would rather be annihilated than continue in prosperity alone were it possible without a God that is but for the worlds sake because the world cannot be the world without a God which proveth but that they are so much men as to Love the whole world better than themselves But could the world possibly be what it is without a God I scarce think they would choose annihilation rather than that there should be no God 3. But suppose they would yet I say that some sensual men love their Lusts or sensuality better than their being and had rather be annihilated for ever so they might but spend their lives in Pleasure than to live for ever without those pleasures And therefore they will say that a short life with pleasure is better than a long one without it And when they profess to believe the life to come and the danger of sinning yet will they not leave their sinful pleasures to save their souls Therefore that man that would rather be annihilated than there should be no God may yet love his Lusts better than God though not his Being 4. And I cannot say that every one shall be saved that Loveth God under a false idea or image better than himself No more than that it will save a distracted melancholy Venereous Lover if he Loved his Paramour or Mistress better than himself For God is not Loved as God if he be not loved as Infinitely Great and Wise and Good which containeth his Holiness and also as the Owner and Holy Governour and End of man If any therefore should love God upon conceit that God loveth him and will indulge him in his sins or if he love him only for his Greatness and as the fountain of all natural sensible Good and love him not as Holy nor as a Holy and Just Governour and End it is not God indeed that this man loveth or he loveth him but secundum quid and not as God Object 4. But suppose I should love God above all as he is only Great and Wise and Good in the production of all sensible natural Good without the Notion of Holiness and hatred of sin would not this Love it self be holy and saving Answ. Your Love would be no holier or better than the object of it is conceived to be If you conceive not of God as Holy and Pure you cannot love him with a pure and holy Love If you conceive of him but as the Cause of Sun and Moon light and heat and life and health and meat and drink you will love him but with such a Love as you have to these which will not separate you from any sin as such but will consist with all sensuality of heart and life And it is not all in God that Nature in its corrupted state doth hate or is fallen out with But if you love him not so well as your lusts and pleasure nor love him not as your Most Holy Governour and End you love him not as God or but secundum quid But if you love him Holily you love him as Holy Object 5. God himself loveth the substance or person more than the Holiness for he continueth the persons of men and Devils when he permitteth the holiness to perish or giveth it not Answ. As the existence and Event and the Moral Goodness must be distinguished so must Gods meâ—r Volition of Event and his Complacency in Good as Good God doth not Will the Existence of a reasonable soul in a Stone or Straw And yet it followeth not that he loveth a Stone or Straw for its substance better than Reason in a man For though God willeth to make his Creatures various in degrees of Goodness and taketh it to be good so to do and that every Creature be not of the Best yet still this Goodness of them is various as one hath more excellency in it than another The Goodness of the whole may require that each part be not Best in it self and yet best respectively in order to the beauty of the whole As a Peg is not better than a Standard and yet is better to the Building in its place And a Finger is not better than a Head and yet is better to the body in its place than another Head would be in that place The Head therefore must be loved comparatively better than the Finger and the Finger may be cut off to save life when the Head must not So God can see meet to permit men and Devils to fall into misery and Thieves to be hanged and use this to the beauty of the whole and yet love a true man better than a Thief and a good man better than a bad And either you speak of Goodness or Holiness existent or non-existent In a Devil there is substance which is Good in its natural kind and therefore so far loved of God But there is no Holiliness in him And that which is not is not Amiable But if you mean existent Holiness in a Saint then it is false that God loveth the person of a Devil better than the Holiness of a Saint Nor is it a proof that he loveth them equally because he equally willeth their existence For he willeth not they shall be equal in Goodness though equally existent And it is complacency and not meer Volition of existence which we mean by Love Otherwise your arguing is as strong if it run thus That which God bringeth to pass and not another thing he willeth and loveth more than that other But God bringeth to pass mens sickness pain death and damnation and not the Holiness Ease or Salvation of those persons Therefore he loveth their pain death and damnation better than their Holiness Therefore we should love them better and the Devils or miserable men should love their misery better than Holiness God sheweth what he loveth oft by commanding it when he doth not effect it He loveth Holiness in esse cognito and in esse existente respectively as his Image Object But at least it will follow that in this or that person as the Devils God loveth the substance better than Holiness For what he Willeth he Loveth But he Willeth the substance without the Holiness Therefore he Loveth the substance without the holiness Answ. It is answered already Moreover 1. God willed that Holiness should be the Duty of all men and Devils though he willed not insuperably and absolutely to effect it 2. The word without meaneth either an Exclusion or a meer non-inclusion God willeth not the Person excluding the Holiness For he excludeth
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
and appear before the Holy God When the Bell is ready to toll for thee and thy Winding-â—heet to be fâ—tcht out and thy Coffin prepared and the Bier to be fetcht to carry thee to tâ—â— Grave and leave thee in the dark with worms and rottenness Wilt thou then be proud Where then â—re your high looks and lofty minds and splendid ornaments and honours Then will you be climbing into higher rooms and seeking to be revenged on those that did eclipse your honour Saith David even of Princes and all the sons of men Psal. 146. 3 4. His breath goeth forth he returneth to his earth in that very day his thoughts perish § 100. Direct 19. Look on the lamentable effects of Pride about you in the world and that will help Direct 19. you to see the odiousness and perniâ—â—ous nature of it Do you not see how it setâ—eth the whole world on 〈…〉 â—ow it raisâ—r Wars and ruineth Kingdoms and draweth out mens blood and filleth the world with malice and haâ—â—ed and cruelty 〈…〉 nd injustice and treasons and rebellions and destroyeth mercy truth and honesty and all that is 〈◊〉 of God upon the mind of man Whence is all the confusion and calamity all the câ—nsoriousneâ—â— reviliâ—gs and cruelties which we have seen or felt or heard of but from Pride What is it that hath trampled upon the Intâ—â—â—â—st of Christ and his Gospel through the world but pride What else is it that hath burnt his Martyrs and made havock of his sâ—â—vants and distracted and divided his Church with Schisms and set up so many Sect-masters and Sects and câ—usâ—d them almost all to set against others but this cursed unmorâ—â—fied Pride He that hath seen but what Pride hath been doing in England in this age and yet discerneth not its hatefulness and perniciousness is strangely blind Every proud man is a plague or burden to the place he liveth in If he get high he is a Nabal a man can scarce speak to him He thinks all under him are made but to serve his will and honour as inferiour creatures are made for man If he be an iâ—â—â—â—riour he scorneth at the honour and government of his Superiours and thinks they take too much upon them and that it is below him to obey If he be rich he thinks the poor mu 〈…〉 bow to him as to 〈…〉 Golden Calf or Nebuchadnezzars Golden Image If he poor he envieth the rich and is impatâ—â—nt of the state that God hath set him in If he be learned he thinks himself an Oracle â—â— uâ—learned he dâ—spiseth the knowledge which he wanteth and scorneth to be ta 〈…〉 What staâ—â— soâ—ver he is in he is a very Salamander that liveth in the fire he troubleth House a 〈…〉 own and Counâ—â—â—â— if his power be answerable to his heart he is an unpolished stone that will never lye even in any building he is a natural enemy to quietness and peace § 101. Direct 20 Consider well how God hath designed the humbling of all that he will save in his Direct 20. â—â—â—â—le con 〈…〉 nce of the work of our Redemption He could have saved man by keeping him in his prâ—â—itive innocency if he had pleased Though he causeth not sin he knoweth why he permitteth it He thought it 〈◊〉 enough that man should have the thought of creation to humble him as being taken from the dust and made of nothing but he will also have the sense of his moral nothingness and sinfulness to humble him He will have him beholden to his Redeemer and Sanctifier for his new life and his salvation as much as to his Creator for his natural life He is permitted first to undo himself and bring himself under condemnation to be a child of death and near to Hell before he is ransâ—med and delivered that he may take to himself the shame of his misery and ascribe all his hopes and recovery to God No flesh shall be justified by the works of the Law or by a righteousness of his own performance but by the satisfaction and merits of his Redeâ—mer that so all boasting may be excluded and that no flesh might glory in his sight and that man Rom. 3. 19 20 â—â— 27 4. â— 1 Cor. 1. 29. â—phes 2. 9. might be humbled and our Redeemer have the praise to all eternity And therefore God prepareth men for faith and pardon by humbling works and forceth sinners to condemn themselves before he will justifie them § 102. Direct 21. Read over the character which Christ himself giveth of his true Disciples and you will Direct 21. see what great self-denyal and humility he requireth in all In your first conversion you must become as little children Matth. 18. 3. Instead of contending for superiority and greatness you must be ambitious of being servants unto all Matth. 23. 11. 20. 27. You must learn of him to be meek and lowly of heart Matth. 11. 28 29. and to â—â—oop to wash your brethrens feet Iohn 13. 5. 14. Instead of revenge or unpeaceable contending for your right you must rather obey those that injuriously Luke 22. 26. Mark 10. 44. Maâ— 9 35 36 2 Tim. 2. 24. command you and turn the other cheâ—k to him that smiteth you and let go the rest to him that hath injuriously taken from you and bless them that curse you and pray for them that huâ—t and persecuâ—e you and dâ—spightfully use you Matth. 5. 39 40 41 44. These are the followers of Christ. § 103. Direct 22. Remember how Pride contradicteth it self by exposing you to the hatred or contempt Direct 22. of all All men abhor that Pride in others which they cherish in themselves A humble man is well thought of by all that know him and a proud man is the mark of common obloquy The rich disdain him the poor envy him and all hate him and many deride him This is his success § 104. Direct 23. Look still unto that dismal end which Pride doth tend unto It threatneth Apostasie Direct 23. If God forsake any one among you and any of you forsake God his Truth and your Consciences and be made as Lots Wife a monument of his vengeance for a warning unto others it will be the proud and self-conceited person It maketh all the mercies of God your duties and parts and objectively your very graces to be its food and fewel It is a sign you are near some dreadful fall or heavy judgement For God hath given you this prognostick Luke 14. 11. 1. 51. Prov. 15. 25. 16. 5. Isa. 2. 11 12. An Ahab is safer when he humbleth himself and an Hezekiah is falling when he is lifted up They are the most hardned sinners scorning reproof and therefore ordinarily forsaken both by God and man and left to their self-delusion till they perish § 105. Direct 24. Converse with humbled and afflicted persons and not with proud secure worldlings Direct 24. Be much in the house of
this to encrease and multiply your pleasure Is not health and friends and food and convenient habitation much sweeter as the â—ruit of the Love of God and the fore-tastes of everlasting mercies and as our helps to Heaven and as the means to spiritual comfort than of themselves alone All your mercies are from God He would take nâ—ne from you but sanctifie theâ— and give you more § 26. Direct 5. See that Reason keep up its authority as the Governour of sense and appetite And Direct 5. so take an accounâ— whatâ—ver the Appetite would have of the Ends and Reasons of the thing and to what it doth câ—â—duce Take nothing and do nothing meerly because the sense or appetite would have it but because you have Reason so â—â— do and to gratifie the appetite Else you will deal as Brutes if Reason be laid by in humane acts § 27. Direct 6. Go to the Gâ—ave and see there the end of fleshly pleasure and what is all that it Direct 6. will do for you at the last One would think iâ— should cure the mad desire of plenty and pleasure to see where all our wealth and mirth and sport and pleasure must be buryed at last § 28. Direct 7. Lastly be still sensible that flesh is the grand Enemy of your souls and flesh-pleasing Direct 7. the greatest hinderance of your salvation The Devils enmity and the worlds are both but subordinate to this of the Flesh For its Pleasure is the End and the world and Satans temptations are both but the means to attain it Besides the malignity opened before consider 1. How contrary a voluptuous life is to the blessed example of our Lord and of his servant Paul The enmity of the Flesh. and all the Apostles Paul tamed his body and brought it into subjection left having preached to others himself should be a castaway 1 Cor. 9. 27. And all that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof Gal. 5. 24. This was signified in the antient manner of baptizing and so is still by Baptism it self when they went over head in the water and then rose out of it to signifie that they were dead and buried with Christ Rom. 6. 3 4. and rose with him to newness of life This is called our being Baptized into his death And seems the plain sense of 1 Cor. 15. 29. of being Baptized for the dead that is for dead or to shew that we are dead to the world and must dye in the world but shall rise again to the Kingdom of Christ both of Grace and Glory 2. Sensuality sheweth that there is no true belief of the life to come and proveth so far as it prevaileth the absence of all grace 3. It is a home-bred continual traytor to the soul A continual tempter and nurse of all sin The great withdrawer of the heart from God and the common cause of Apostacy it self It still fighteth against the Spirit Gal. 5. 17. And is seeking advantage from all our Liberties Gal. 5. 13. 2 Pet. 2. 10. 4. It turneth all our outward mercies into sin and strengthneth itself against God by his own benefits 5. It is the great cause of our afflictions For God will not spare that Idol which is set up against him Flesh rebelleth and flesh shall suffer 6. And when it hath brought affliction it is most impatient under it and maketh it seem intollerable A flesh-pleaser thinks he is undone when affliction depriveth him of his pleasure 7. Lastly It exceedingly unfitteth men for Death For then Flesh must be cast into the dust and all its pleasure be at an end O doleful day to those that had their good things here and their portion in this life When all is gone that ever they valued and sought and all the true felicity lost which they brutishly contemned If you would joyfully then bear the dissolution and ruine of your flesh O master it and mortifie it now Seek not the ease and pleasure of a little walking breathing clay when you should be seeking and fore-tasting the everlasting pleasure Here lyeth your danger and your work Strive more against your own flesh than against all your Enemies in Earth and Hell If you be saved from this you are saved from them all Christ suffered in the flesh to tell you that it is not pampering but suffering that your flesh must expect if you will reign with him CHAP. V. Further Subordinate Directions for the next great duties of Religion necessary See the Directions how to spend every day Tom. 2. Chap. 17. to the right performance of the former Directions for REDEEMING or well improving TIME § 1. TIME being Mans opportunity for all those works for which he liveth and which his Creator doth expect from him and on which his endless life dependeth the REDEEMING or well improving of it must needs be of most high importance to him And therefore it is well made by holy Paul the great mark to distinguish the Wise from fools Ephes. 5. 15 16. See then that ye walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise Redeeming the time So Col. 4. 5. I shall therefore give you special Directions for it when I have first opened the nature of the duty to you and told you what is meant by Time and what by Redeeming it § 2. Time in its most common acception is taken generally for all that space of this present life What 's meant by Time which is our opportunity for all the works of life and the measure of them Time is often taken more strictly for some special Opportunity which is fitted to a special work which we call the season or the fittest time In both these senses Time must be Redeemed § 3. As every work hath its season which must be taken Eccles. 3. 1. So have the greatest works What are the special seasons of duty assigned us for God and our souls some special seasons besides our common time 1. Some Times God hath fitted by Nature for his service So the Time of Youth and health and strength is specially fit for holy work 2. Some Time is made specially fit by Gods Institution As the Lords Day above all other dayes 3. Some Time is made fit by Governours appointment as the hour of publick Meeting for Gods Worship and Lecture-dayes and the hour for family-worship which every Master of a family may appoint to his own houshold 4. Some Time is made fit by the temper of mens Bodies The Morning hours are best to most and to some rather the Evening and to all the Time when the Body is freest from pain and disabling weaknesses 5. Some Time is made fit by the course of our necessary natural or civil business as the day is fitter than the sleeping time of the night and as that hour is the fittest wherein our other imployments will least disturb us 6. Some Time is made fit by a special showr of Mercy publick
and let them find that thou art not to be spoken with nor at leisure to do nothing but wilt rather seem uncivil and morose than be undone And wouldst thou do thus for a transitory prosperity or life and doth not life eternal require much more will thy weighty business in the world resolve thee to put by thy friends thy play-fellows and sports and to shake off thy idleness and should not the business of thy salvation do it I would desire no more to confute the distracted Time-wasters when they are disputing for their idle sports and vanities and asking what harm is in Cards and Dice and stage-plays or tedious feasts or complementing adorning idleness than if I could help them to one sight of Heaven and Hell and make them well know what greater business they have to do which is staying for them while they sleep or play If I were just now in disputing the case with an idle Lady or a sensual belly-slave or gamester and he were asking me scornfully what hurt is in all this if one did but knock at his door and tell him The King is at the door and calls for you it would make him cast away his game and his dispute Or if the house were on fire or a Child faln into fire or water or Thieves breaking in upon them it would make the Ladies cast by the other Lace or Ribband Or if there were but a good bargain or a Lordship to be got they could be up and going though sports and game and gawdery were cast off And yet the foresight of Heaven and Hell though one of them is even at the door will not do as much with them Because Heaven is as nothing to an unbeliever or an inconsiderate sensless wretch And as it is nothing to them when it should move them it shall be nothing to them when they would enjoy it Say not Recreation must be used in its season I know that necessary whetting is no letting But God and thy own Conscience shall tell thee shortly whether thy Recreation feastings long dressings and idleness were a necessary whetting or refreshment of thy Body to fit it for that work which thou wast born and livest for or whether they were the Pastimes of a voluptuous fleshly bruit that lived in these pleasures for the love of pleasure Verily if I lookt but on this one unreasonable sin of Time-wasting it would help me to understand the meaning of Luk. 15. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Prodigal is said to Come to himself and that conversion is the bringing a man to his wits § 9. Direct 2. Be not a stranger to the condition of thy own soul but look home till thou art acquainted Direct 2. what state it is in and what it is in danger of and what it wanteth and how far thou art behind hand in thy provisions for immortality and then be an idle Time-waster if thou canst Could I but go down with thee into that dungeon Heart of thine and shew thee by the light of truth what is there could I but let in one convincing beam from Heaven which might fully shew thee what a condition thou art in and what thou hast to do with thy remaining Time I should have no need to dispute thee out of thy childish fooleries nor to bid thee be up and doing for thy soul no more than to bid thee stir if a Bear were at thy back or the house in a flame about thy ears Alas our ordinary Time-wasters are such as are yet unconverted carnal wretches and are all the while in the power of the Devil who is the chief master of the sport and the greatest gainer They are such as are utter strangers to the regenerating sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost and are yet unjustified and under the guilt of all their sins and certain to be with Devils in Hell for ever if they die thus before they are converted This is true sinner and thou wilt shortly find it so by grace or vengeance though thy blind and hardened heart now rise against the mention of it And is this a case for a man to sit at cards and dice in or to sport and swagger in The Lord have mercy on thee and open thy eyes before it is too late or else thy Conscience will tell thee for ever in another manner than I am telling thee now that thou hadst need to have better improved thy Time and hadst greater things to have spent it in What for a man in thy case in an unrenewed unsanctified unpardoned state to be thus casting away that little Time which all his hopes lie on and in which if ever he must be recovered and saved O Lord have mercy on such sensless souls and bring them to themselves be fore it be too late I tell thee man an enlightened person that understandeth what it is and hath escaped it would not for all the Kingdoms of the world be a week or a day in thy condition for fear lest death cut off his hopes and shut him up in Hell that very day He durst not sleep quietly in thy condition a night lest death should snatch him away to Hell and canst thou sport and play in it and live securely in a sensual course O what a thing it is to be hoodwinkt in misery and to be led asleep to Hell who could perswade men to live thus awake and go dancing to Hell with their eyes open O if we should but imagine a Peter or a Paul or any of the blessed to be again brought into such a case as one of these unsanctified sinners and yet to know what now they know what would they do would they feast and game and play and trifle away their time in it or would they not rather suddenly bewail their former mispent time and all their sins and cry day and night to God for mercy and fly to Christ and spend all their time in Holiness and obedience to God! Alas poor sinner do but look into thy heart and see there what thou hast yet to do of greater weight than trimming and playing I almost tremble to think and write what a case thou art in and what thou hast to do while thou livest as if thou hadst Time to spare If thou know not I will tell thee and the Lord make thee know it Thou hast a hardened heart to be yet softened and an unbelieving heart to be brought to a lively powerful Belief of the word of God and the unseen world Thou hast an unholy Heart and life to be made Holy if ever thou wilt see the face of God Heb. 12. 14. Matth. 18. 3. Ioh. 3. 3 5 6. Thou hast a Heart-full of sins to be mortified and subdued and an unreformed life to be reformed And what abundance of particulars do these Generals contain Thou hast a pardon to procure through Jesus Christ for all the sins that ever thou didst commit and all the duties which ever thou
the men on earth with all their power and all their wit are not able to recall one minute that is gone All the riches in this world cannot redeem it by reversing one of those hours or moments which you so prodigally cast away for nothing If you would cry and call after it till you tear your hearts it will not return Many a thousand have tryed this by sad experience and have cryed out too late O that we had now that Time again which we made so light of But none of them did ever attain their wish No more will you Take it therefore while you have it It is now as liberal to the poorest beggar as to the greatest Prince Time is as much yours as his Though in your youth and folly you spend as out of the full heap as if Time would never have an end you shall find it is not like the widdows oyl or the loaves and fishes multiplyed by a Miracle But the hour is at hand when you will wish you had gathered the fragments and the smallest crums that nothing of so precious a commodity had been lost even the little minutes which you thought you might neglect and be no losers Try whether you can stop the present moment or recall that which is gone by already before you vilifie or loiter away any more lest you repent too late § 17. Direct 10. Think also how exceeding little Time thou hast and how near thou allway standest Direct 10. to eternity Job 7. 1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth Are not his days also like the Ex ipsà vitâ discedimus tanquam ex hospitio non tanquam ex domo Commorandi enim nobis natura diversorium non habitandi domum dedit Cic. i◠Cat. Maj. days of an hireling Job 14. 1 2. Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down He fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not Job 9. 25 26. Now my days are swifter than a post they flee away they see no good they are passed away as the swift ships as the Eagle that hasteth to the prey O what is this inch of hasty Time How quickly will it all be gone Look back on all the Time that 's past If thou have lived threescore or fourscore years what is it now Doth it not seem as yesterday since thou wast a child Do not days and nights wheel on apase O man how short is thy abode on earth How small a Time will leave thee in eternity What a small and hasty moment will bring thee to the state in which thou must remain for ever Every night is as the death or end of one of the few that are here allotted thee How little a while is it till thy mortal sickness Till thou must lie under languishing decays and pain Till thy vital powers shall give up their office and thy pulse shall cease and thy soul shall take its silent undiscerned flight and leave thy body to be hid in darkness and carried by thy friends to the common earth How short a Time is it betwixt this and the digging of thy grave Betwixt thy pleasures in the flesh and thy sad farewel when thou must say of all thy pleasures They are gone Betwixt thy cares and businesses for this world and thy entrance into another world where all these vanities are of no esteem How short is the Time between thy sin and thy account in judgement Between the pleasure and the pain And between the patient holiness of the Godly and their full reward of endless joys And can you spare any part of so short a life Hath God allotted you so little Time and can you spare the Devil any of that little Is it not all little enough for so great a work as is necessary to your safe and comfortable death O remember when sloth or pleasure would have any how little you have in all And out of how small a stock you spend How little you have for the one thing necessary The providing for eternal life And how unseasonable it is to be playing away time so neer the entrance into the endless world § 18. Direct 11. Remember also how uncertain that little Time is which you must have As you Direct 11. know it will be short so you know not how short You never yet saw the day or hour in which you were sure to see another And is it a thing becoming the Reason of a man to slug or cast away that day or hour which for ought he knows may be his last You think that though you are not certain yet you are likely to have more But nothing that is hazardous should be admitted in a business of such moment Yea when the longest life is short and when so frail a body liable to so many hundred maladies and casualties and so sinful a soul do make it probable as well as possible that the thred thy of life should be cut off ere long even much before thy natural period When so many score at younger years do come to the grave for one that arriveth at the ripeness of old age is not then the uncertainty of thy Time a great aggravation of the sinfullness of thy not-redeeming it If you were sure you had but one year to live it would perhaps make you so wise as to see that you had no Time to spare And yet do you wast it when you know not that you shall live another day Many a one is this week trifling away their Time who will be dead the next week who yet would have spent it better if they had thought but to have dyed the next year O man what if death come before thou hast made thy necessary preparation Where art thou then When Time is uncertain as well as short hast thou not work enough of weight to spend it on If Christ had set thee to attend and follow him in greatest holiness a thousand years shouldst thou not have gladly done it And yet canst thou not hold out for so short a life Canst thou not watch with him one hour He himself was provoked by the nearness of his death to a speedy dispatch of the works of his life And should not we Matth. 26. 18. He sendeth to prepare his last communion feast with his Disciples thus My time is at hand I will keep the passover at thy house with my Disciples And Luke 22. 15. With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer So should you rather say My time is short my death is at hand and therefore it concerneth me to live in the knowledge and communion of God before I go hence into his presence especially when as Eccles. 9. 12. Man knoweth not his time Many thousands would have don◠better in their preparations if they had known the period of their time Matth. 24. 43. But know this
reason when we mourn not for sin as sin but as one sin hindereth another or as it marred some ill design 2. And by the effect when it doth but sink men in despair or torment th 〈…〉 and not at all separate them from the sin 3. When it cometh not at all from any love to God or care to please him but only an unwillingness to be damned and so it is lâ—mented only as a means of damnation which though it be a sorrow positively neither good nor â—â—il yet it is evil privatively § 5. But it is the Passion of Grief as in its excess that I am now to speak against And it is in 〈…〉 maâ—h 〈…〉 and heaviness â—â— an enemy to Christianâ—ty and to the Spirit of God excess 1. When we grieve for that which we ought not at all to grieve for that is either for some gâ—od or for a thing indifferent that is neither good or bad Both which come from the error of the mind a. When we grieve too much for that which we may grieve for lawfully in some measure that is for our own afflictions or penal suffering 3. When we grieve too much for that which we are bound to grieve for in some measure As 1. For our sin 2. For our loss of the favour of God or of his Grace and Spirit 3. For other mens sin and suffering 4. For the sufferings of the Church and calamities of the world 5. For Gods dishonour § 6. Though it is not easie to have too much sorrow for sin considering it Estimatively that is we can hardly take sin for a worse evil than it is and accordingly grieve for it yet it is oft too easie to have too much sorrow for sin or any other evil intensively as to the greatness of the Passion And thus sorrow for sin is too great 1. When it distracteth the mind and overturneth reason and maketh us unfit for the ends of sorrow 2. When it so cloudeth and clotheth the soul in grief that it is made unfit to see and consider of the promise to rellish mercy or believe it to acknowledge benefits or own Grace received or be thankful for it to feel the Love of God or love him for it to praise him or to mind him or to call upon him when it driveth the soul from God and weakneth it to duty and teacheth it to deny mercy and sinketh it towards despair all this is too much and sinful sorrow and so is all that doth the soul more hurt than good For sorrow is not good of it self but as it doth good or sheweth good § 7. Direct 1. Keep your hearts as true and close to God as possible and make sure of his love Direct 1. that you may know you have not an unregenerate miserable soul to mourn for and then all other grief is the more curable and more tollerable Be once able to say that God is on your side that Christ and the Spirit and Heaven is yours and then you have the greatest Cordial against excessive grief that this world affords If you say How should this be done I answer that is opened in its proper place No marvail if sorrow overwhelm that soul that is in the chains of sin under the Curse of God as soon as awakened conscience comes to feel it And it is most miserable when it hath the smallest sorrow there being some hope that sorrow may drive it home to Christ. Therefore it thou have been a secure unhumbled carnal wretch and God be now beginning to humble thee by shewing thee thy sin and misery take heed as thou lovest thy soul that thou drive not away necessary healing sorrow and repentance under precence of driving away melancholy or over much sorrow Thy smart tendeth to thy hopes of Cure § 8. Direct 2. Renew not the wounds of Conscience by renewed willful gross sin For sin will bring Direct 2. sorrow especially if thou have any life of grace to feel it Even as falls and breaking the bones brings pain Obey carefully if thou wouldst have peace § 9. Direct 3. Be well acquainted with the General grounds of hope in the Mercy of God the Office Direct 3. and Death of Christ and the free universal offer of pardon grace and life in the New Covenant Abundance of grief doth dwell in many humbled souls through the ignorance of these General grounds of comfort which would vanish away if these were known § 10. Direct 4. Know well the true nature and use of godly sorrow how it is but a means to higher Direct 4. grace and a thing which may exceed and not a thing that we should stop in or think we can never have too much of it Desire is but in its place and to its proper ends § 11. Direct 5. Know well the nature and excellency of those higher graces which sorrow tendeth Direct 5. to Even Love and Thankfulness and Delight in God and fruitful Obedience And then you will be carried after these and will learn to hate the sorrow that hindereth them and to cherish that sorrow which leadeth you up to them and to value it but as a means to them § 12. Direct 6. Manage all your affairs especially those of your souls with prudent foresight and Direct 6. look not only on things as they appear at hand Judge not by Sense but by Reason for Sense cannot 〈◊〉 sâ—ntentiâ—â—â—â—â— Pruâ—â—n â—â—m viroâ—um esse prius quam adversa câ—ntingant praeviâ—â—re â—â— venâ—â—nt â—â—â—â—iuâ— vero cum iâ—â—a contigeâ—â—r aequo animo sâ—râ—e I aâ—â—t in Pâ—ttaâ— fâ—resee but pleaseth it self at present with that which must be bitterness in the end Thus carnal delight is the common way to overwhelming sorrow He that would not have the pain and sickness of a Surfeit to morrow must not please his appetite against reason to day Poyson will gripe and kill nevertheless for tasting sweet You must fore-know how that which you take will work and what will be the effects of it and not only how it tasteth if you would escape the pain The Drunkard thinketh not of his vomiting and poverty or shame or sickness and therefore causeth them There is no sorrow so intollerable as that of a guilty soul that 's passing in terror to the Bar of God and thence to everlasting pain Foresee this sorrow in your most pleasant sin and remember that when you are tempted to sin you are tempted to sorrow and then you may prevent it And in all your particular actions use a foreseeing judgement and ask what is like to be the end before you enter on the beginning Most of our sorrows come for want of this and express themselves by Had I known or Had I thought of this I had prevented it Do nothing which you may foresee must be repented of for Repentance is sorrowful and the weightier the case the deeper the sorrow How easie and comfortable a life and death might men attain if
Gluttonous either in quantity or in quality eating raw Fruits and things unwholsom and so when Gluttony hath bred the disease or laid in the matter than all the temperance that can be used is little enough to keep it under all their life after And abundance that have been brought to the doors of death by excess have been preserved after many years to a competent age by abstinence and many totally freed from their diseases Read Cornario's Treatise of himself and Lessius and Sr. William Vaughan c. Though yet I perswade none without necessity to their exceeding strictness Judge now what a murderer Gluttony is and what an enemy to mankind § 18. 3. Gluttony is also a deadly enemy to the mind and to all the noble employments of Reason As smoak â—â—â—â—eth away the â—ees from their Hive â—aith Basil â—â— Iâ—jâ—â— Sâ— glâ—ttoâ—y expâ—â—â—â—th aâ—â—â—â—iritual gifts and excellent endowments of mind both Religious Civil and artificial It unfits men for any close and serious studies and therefore tends to nourish ignorance and keep men fools It greatly unfits men for hearing Gods Word or reading or praying or meditating or any holy work and makes them have more mind to sleep or so undisposeth and dulleth them that they have no life or fitness for their duty but a clear head not troubled with their drowsie vapours will do more and get more in an hour than a full bellied Beast will do in many So that Gluttony is as much an enemy to all Religious and manly studies as drunkenness is an enemy to a Garrison where the drunken Souldiers are disabled to resist the Enemy § 19. 4. Gluttony is also an enemy to diligence in every honest Trade and Calling for it dulleth Saith Basil A Ship heavy laden is unfit to sail so a full belly to any duty the Body as well as the Mind It maketh men heavy and drowsie and slothful and go about their business as if they carried a Coat of Lead and were in Fetters They have no vivacity and alacrity and are fitter to sleep or play than work § 20. 5. Gluttony is the immediate symptome of a carnal mind and of the damnable sin of flesh-pleasing before described And a carnal mind is the very summ of iniquity and the proper name of an unregenerate state It is enmity against God and neither is nor can be subject to his Law so that they that are thus in the flesh cannot please God and they that walk after the flesh shall dye Rom. 8. 6 7 8 13. The filthiest sins of Leachers and Misers and Thieves are but to please the flesh And who serveth it more than the Glutton doth § 21. 6. Gluttony is the breeder and feeder of all other lusts Sine Cerere Bacchâ— friget venus Semper saâ—uriâ—atâ— juncta est â—aâ—â—ivia Hiâ—â—on It pampereth the flesh to feed it and make it a sacrifice for lust As dunging the ground doth make it fruitful especially of Weeds so doth Gluttony fill the mind with the Weeds and Vermine of filthy thoughts and filthy desires and words and deeds § 22. 7. Gluttony is a base and beastly kind of sin For a man to place his happiness in the pleasure Ventri obedientes animalium numero computantur not â—ominum Sâ—nec of a Swine and to make his Reason serve his throat or sink into his Guts as if he were but a Hogshead to be filled and emptyed or a Sink for Liquor to run through into the chanel or as if he were made only to carry meat from the Table to the Dunghill how base a kind of life is this yea many beasts will not eat and drink excessively as the Gluttonous Epicure will do § 23. 8. Gluttony is a Prodigal consumer and devourer of the creatures of God What is he worthy of that would take meat and drink and cast it away into the chanell nay that would be It is Chrysostoms saying iâ— Hebr. Hom. 29. at a great deal of cost and curiosity to get the pleasantest meat he could procure to cast away The Glutton doth worse It were better of the two to throw all his excesses into the Sink or Ditch for then they would not first hurt his body And are the Creatures of God of no more worth Are they given you to do worse than cast them away Would you have your Children use their provisions thus § 24. 9. Gluttony is a most unthankful sin that takes Gods mercies and spews them as it were in his face and carryeth his provisions over to his enemy even to the strengthening of fleshly lusts Jer. 5. 7. and turneth them all against himself You could not have a bit but from his liberality and blessing and will you use it to provoke him and dishonour him § 25. 10. Gluttony is a sin which turneth your own mercies and wealth and food into your Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter Sâ—â—ec snare and to your deadly ruine Thou pleasest thy throat and poysonest thy soul. It were better for thee a thousand times that thou hadst lived on scraps and in the poorest manner than thus to have turned thy plenty to thy damnable sin Deut. 6. 11 12. When thou shalt have eaten and be full then beware lest thou forget the Lord. Prov. 30. 9. Feed me with food convenient for me lest I be full and deâ—y thee and say Who is the Lord Psal. 75. 29 30. So they did eat and were well filled for he gave them their own desire they were not estranged from their lust § 26. 11. Gluttony is a great Time-wasting sin What a deal of time is spent in getting the money that is laid out to please the throat and then by servants in preparing for it and then in long sitting at meat and feastings and not a little in taking Physick to carry it away again or to ease or cure the diseases which it causeth besides all the time which is lost in languishing sickness or cut off by untimely death Thus they live to eat and eat to frustrate and to shorten life § 27. 12. It is a Thief that robbeth you of your estates and devoureth that which is given When a friâ—â—d of Socrates complained to him What a dear place is this Wine will cost so much and Honey so much and Purple so much Socrates took him to the Meal-Hall Lo saith he you may buy here half a Seâ—tare of good Meal for a half peny which boyled in water was hiâ— meat God be thanked the Market is very cheap Then he took him to an Oyl-shop where a measure Chaenix was sold for two brass dodkins Then he led him to a Brokers shop where a man might buy a Suit of Clothes for â—en drams You see quoth he that the penny worths are reasonable and things good cheap throughout the City Plâ—â—arch de Traâ—quil Anim. pag. 153. you for better uses and for which you must give account to God It is
terrible hand appeared writing upon the Wall to King Belshazzar in his carousing to signifie the loss of his Kingdoms and that very night he was also sâ—ain Thou seest God spareth not Kings themselves that one would think might be allowed more pleasure and will he spare thee Prov. 31. 4 5. It is not for Kings to drink wine nor for Princes strong drink and is it then for thee mark the dreadful fruits of it even to the greatest Hos. 7. 3 4 5. They make the King glad with their wickedness and the Princes with their lyes They are all Adulterers as an Oven heated In the day of our King the Princes have made him sick with bottles of wine he stretched out his hand with sâ—â—râ—â—rs Thou seest that be they great or small both soul and body is cast by tipling and drunkenness into greater danger than thou art in at Sea in a raging tempest Thou puttest thy self in the way of the vengeance of God and art not like to scape it long § 47. Quest. 6. Didst thou ever measure thy sin by that strange kind of punishment commanded by Quest. 6. God against iâ—â—â—â—rrigible gluttons and drunkards Deut. 21. 18 19 20 21. If a man have a stuâ—â—â—â—rn and rebellious Son which will not obey the voice of his Father or the voice of his mother and that when they have chastened him will not hearken to them Then shall his Father and his mother â—â—y â—â—ld on him and bring him out unto the Elders of his City and to the gate of his place And they shall sâ—y unto the Elders of his City This our Sâ—n is stubborn and rebellious he will not obey our voice he is a Glutton and a Drunkard And all the men of his City shall stone him with stones that he dye so shalt thâ—u put away evil from among you and all Israel shall hear and fear Surely Gluttony and Drunkenness are heynous crimes when a man 's own Father and Mother were bound to bring him to the Magistrate to be put to death if he will not be reformed by their own correction And you see here that youth is no excuse for it though now its thought excusable in them § 48. Quest. 7. Dost thou think thy drink is too good to leave at Gods command Or dost thou think Quest. 7. that God dâ—th grudge thee the sweetness of it or rather that he forbids it thee for thy good that thou maist sâ—ape the hurt And tell me Dost thou love God better than thy drink and pleasure or dost thou not If not thy own Conscience must needs tell thee if thou have a Conscience not quite feared that there is no hope of thy salvation in that state But if thou say thou dost will God or any wise man believe thee that thou lovest him better and wilt not be so far ruled by him nor leave so small a matter for his sake 1 Joh. 5. 3. For this is the Love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous So 2 Ioh. 6. § 49. Quest. 8. Dost thou remember that thy Carkâ—ss must lye rotting in the grave and how loathsome Quest. 8. a thing it must shortly be And canst thou make so great a matter of the present satisfying of so vile a body and dung the earth at so dear a rate § 50. Quest. 9. Wouldst thou have all thy friends and children do as thou dost If so what would Quest. 9. become of thy estate It would be a mad world if all were drunkards wouldst thou have thy Wife a Drunkard If she were thou wouldst scarce be confident of her Chastity Wouldst thou have thy Servants Drunkards If they were they might set thy house on fire and they would do thee little work or do it so as it were better be undone Thy house would be a Bedlam if all were Drunkards and much worse than Bedlam for there are some wise men to govern and correct the mad ones But if thou like it not in wife and Children and Servants why dost thou continue it thy self Art thou not neerest to thy self Dost thou love any others better than thy self Hâ—dst thou rather thy own soul were damned than theirs Or canst thou more easily endure it I have wondered sometimes to observe some Drunkards very severe against the same sin in their Children and very desirous to have them sober But the reason is because the sobriety of their Children is no trouble to them nor puts them not to deny the pleasure of their appetites as their own sobriety must do § 51. Quest. 10. Wouldst thou have thy Physicion drunk when he should cure thee of thy sickness Quest. 10. or thy Lawyer drunk when he should plead thy cause or the Iudge when he should judge it Iâ— not why wilt thou be drunken when thou shouldst serve thy God and mind the business of thy soul If thou wouldst not have thy servant be potting in an Alehouse when he should be about thy work wilt thou sit potting and prating there when thou hast a thousand fold greater work to do for thy everlasting happiness § 52. Quest. 11. If one do but lame or spoile thy Beast and make him unfit for thy service wouldst Quest. 11. thou be pleased with it And wilt thou unfit thy self for the service of God as if thy work were of less concernment than thy Beasts § 53. Quest. 12. Would it please you if your servants poured all that drink in the Chanel If Quest. 12. not I have before proved to thee that it should displease thee more to pour it into thy belly for thou wilt find at last that it will hurt thee more § 54. Quest. 13. What relish hath thy pleasant liquor the next day will it then be any sweeter than Quest. 13. wholsome abstinence All the delight is suddenly gone there is nothing left but the slime in thy guts and the Ulcer in thy Conscience which cannot be cured by all thy Treasure nor palliated long by all thy pleasure And canst thou value much so short delights As all thy sweet and merry cups are now no sweeter than if they had been Wormwood so all the rest will quickly come to the same end and relish As Plato said of his slender supper compared to a Rich mans feast Yours seemeth better to night but mine will be better to morrow so thy Conscience telleth thee that Temperance and holy obedience will be better to morrow and better to Eternity though gluttony and drunkenness seem better Now. § 55 Quest. 14. Dost thou consider how dear thou payest for hell and buyest damnation aâ— a Quest. 14. harder rate than salvation might be attained at What shame doth i 〈…〉 thee what sickness is it like to cost thee what painful vomitings or worse dost thou undergoe How much dost thou suffer in thy estate And is Hell worth all this adoe § 56. Quest. 15. Dost thou not think in thy heart that
children speaking of them when thou â—ittest in thy house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou lyest down and when thou risest up and thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thy house and upon your Gates that your dayes may be multiplyed and the dayes of your children The like words are in Deut. 6. 6 7 8. where it is said And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children So Deut. 4. 9. Teach them thy sons and thy sons sons Here there is one part of Family Duty viz. Teaching children the Laws of God as plainly commanded as words can express it Arg. 2. From these texts which commend this Gen. 18. 18 19. All the Nations of the Earth shall be blessed in him for I know him that he will command his children and his houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord and it was not only a command at his death what they should do when he was dead For 1. It cannot be imagined that so holy a man should neglect a Duty all his life time and perform it but at death and be commended for that 2. He might then have great cause to question the efficacy 3. As God commandeth a diligent inculcating precepts on Children so no doubt it 's a practice answerable to such precepts that is here commended And it is not bare teaching but commanding that is here mentioned to shew that it must be an improvement of Authority as well as of knowledge and elocution So 2 Tim. 3. 15. Of a child Timothy knew the Scripture by the teaching of his Parents as appeareth 2 Tim. 1. 5. Arg. 3. Eph. 6. 4. Bring them up in the nurture and admontion of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated nurture signifieth both Instruction and Correction shewing that Parents must use both Doctrine and Authority or force with their Children for the Matters of the Lord and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated admonition signifieth such Instruction as putteth Doctrine into the mind and chargeth it on them and fully storeth their minds therewith And it also signifieth chiding and sometimes correction And it 's to be noted that Children must be brought up in this The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying carefully to nourish importeth that as you feed them with milk and bodily food so you must as carefully and constantly feed and nourish them with the nurture and admonition of the Lord. It is called the nurture and admonition of the Lord because the Lord commandeth it and because it is the Doctrine concerning the Lord and the Doctrine of his teaching and the Doctrine that leadeth to him Arg. 4. Prov. 22. 6. Train up a child in the way where he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it Arg. 5. From all those places that charge Children to hearken to the instructions of their Parents Prov. 1. 8. My Son hear the Instruction of thy Father and forsake not the law of thy Mother Prov. 6. 20. is the like and 3. 22. with many the like Yea the Son that is stubborn and rebellious against the Instruction and Correction of a Father or Mother in Gluttony Drunkenness c. was to be brought forth to the Magistrate and stoned to death Deut. 21. 18 19 20. Now all the Scriptures that require Children to â—ear their Parents do imply that the Parents must teach their Children for there is no hearing and learning without teaching But lest you say that Parents and Children are not the whole family though they may be and in Abrahams case before mentioned the whole houshold is mentioned the next shall speak to other relations Arg. 6. 1 Pet. 3. 7. Likewise ye Husbands dwell with them your wives according to knowledge and Eph. 5. 25 26. Love your Wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it And this plainly implies that this knowledge must be used for the Instruction and sanctification of the Wife 1 Cor. 14. 34 35. Women must keep silence in the Church for it is not permitted unto them to speak but they are to be under obedience as also saith the Law If they will learn any thing let them ask their Husbands at home Which shews that at home their Husbands must teach them Arg. 7. Col. 3. 22 23 24 25. Eph. 6. 5 6 7 8. Servants must be obedient unto their Masters as unto Christ and serve them as serving the Lord Christ and therefore Ministers must command in Christ. Arg. 8. A fortiori fellow Christians must exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin much more must the Rulers of families do so to Wives Children and Servants 1 Pet. 4. 11. If any speak it must be as the Oracles of God much more to our own Families Col. 3. 16. Let the Word of God dwell in you richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another and much more must a man do this to Wife Children and Servants than to those more remote Arg. 9. Those that are to be chosen Deacons or Bishops must be such as Rule their own Children and their own houshold well 1 Tim. 3. 4 12. Now mark 1. That this is one of those Christian virtues which they were to have before they were made Officers therefore other Christians must have and perform it as well as they 2. It is a Religious Holy Governing such as a Minister is to exercise over his flock that is here mentioned which is in the things of God and salvation or else the comparison or argument would not suit ver 5. For if a man know not how to rule his own house how shall he rule the Church of God But of this more before I would say more on this point but that I think it is so clear in Scripture as to make it needless I pass therefore to the next Prop. 3. Family Discipline is part of Gods solemn Worship or Service appointed in his Word This is Prop. 3. not called Worship in so near a sense as some of the rest but more remotely yet so it may well be called in that 1. It is an Authoritative Act done by commission from God 2 Upon such as disobey him and as such 3. And to his Glory yea and it should be done with as great solemnity and reverence as other parts of worship The Acts of this discipline are first denying the ungodly entrance into the family 2. Correcting 3. Or casting out those that are in I shall be but brief on these 1. The first you have 2 Ioh. 10. If there come any to you and bring not this Doctrine receive him not into your house neither bid him God speed for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds 2. The Duty of correcting either by corporal sensible punishment or by withdrawing some benefit is so commonly required in Scripture especially towards Children that
some notable yea or ordinary providence which did lately occurr 5. Or of some examples of good or evil that are fresh before you 6. Or of the right doing of the duty that you are about or any such like helps Direct 5. § 7. Direct 5. Talk not of vain unprofitable controversies nor often of small circumstantial matters that make but little to edification For there may be idle talking about matters of Religion as well as about other smaller things Especially see that the quarrells of the times engage not your thoughts and speeches too far into a course of unprofitableness or contention § 8. Direct 6. Furnish your selves before hand with matter for the most edifying discourse and never Direct 7. go abroad empty And let the matter be usually 1. Things of weight and not small matters 2. Things of certainty and not uncertain things Particularly the fittest subjects for your ordinary discourse are these 1. God himself with his Attributes Relations and Works 2. The great mysterie of mans Redemption by Christ His person office sufferings doctrine example and work His resurrection ascension glory intercession and all the priviledges of his Saints 3. The Covenant of Grace the promises the duties the conditions and the threatnings 4. The workings of the Spirit of Christ upon the soul and every grace of the Spirit in us with all the signs and helps and hinderances of it 5. The wayes and wiles of Satan and all our spiritual enemies the particular temptations which we are in danger of what they are and how to avoid them and what are the most powerful helps against them 6. The corruption and deceitfulness of the heart The nature and workings effects and signs of ignorance unbelief hypocrisie pride sensuality worldliness impiety injustice intemperance uncharitableness and every other sin with all the helps against them all 7. The many duties to God and man which we have to perform both internal and external and how to do them and what are the chiefest hindrances and helps As in reading hearing meditating prayer giving alms c. And the duties of our Relations and several places with the contrary sins 8. The Vanity of the world and deceitfulness of all earthly things 9. The powerful Reasons used by Christ to draw us to holiness and the unreasonable madness of all that is brought against it by the Devil or by wicked men 9. Of the sufferings which we must expect and be prepared for 10. O◠death and the preparations that will then be found necessary and how to make ready for so great a change 11. Of the day of judgement and who will be then justified and who condemned 12. Of the joyes of Heaven the employment the company the nature and duration 13. Of the miseries of the damned and the thoughts that then they will have of their former life on earth 14. Of the state of the Church on earth and what we ought to do in our places for its welfare Is there not matter enough in all these great and weighty points for your hourly meditation and conference § 9. Direct 7. Take heed of proud self-conceitedness in your conference Speak not with supercilious Direct 7. censorious confidence Let not the weak take on them to be wiser than they are Be readier to speak by way of Question as Learners than as Teachers of others unless you are sure that they have much more need to be taught by you than you by them It 's ordinary for novices in Religion to cast all their discourse into a Teaching strain or to make themselves Preachers before they understand It is a most loathsome and pitiful hearing and yet too ordinary to hear a raw self-conceited ungrounded unexperienced person to prate magisterially and censure confidently the doctrine or practices or persons of those that are much better and wiser than themselves If you meet with this proud censorious spirit rebuke it first and read to them Iam. 3. and if they go on turn away from them and avoid them for they know not what manner of spirit they are of they serve not the Lord Jesus whatever they pretend or think themselves but are proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and making divisions in the Church of God and ready to fall into the condemnation of the Devil 1 Tim. 3. 6. 6. 3 4 5 Rom. 16. 17. Luk. 9. 55. Direct 8. § 10. Direct 8. Let the wisest in the company and not the weakest have most of the discourse But yet if any one that is of an abler tongue than the rest do make any determinations in doubtful controverted points take heed of a hasty receiving his judgement let his reasons seem never so plausible or probable but put down all such opinions as doubts and move them to your Teachers or some other impartial able men before you entertain them Otherwise he that hath most wit and tongue in the company might carry away all the rest into what errour or heresie he please and subvert their faith when he stops their mouths § 11. Direct 9. Let the matter of your speech be suitable to your end even to the good of your Direct 9. selves or others which you seek The same subject that is fit for one company is very unfit for others Learned men and ignorant men pious men and prophane men are not fit for the same kind of discourse The medicine must be carefully fitted to the disease § 12. Direct 10. Let your speech be seasonable when prudence telleth you it is not like to do more Direct 10. harm than good There is a season for the prudent to be silent and refrain even from good talk Amos 5. 17. Psal. 39. 1 2. Cast not Pearls before Swine and give not holy things to Dogs that you know will turn again and rend you Matth. 7. 6. Yea and among good people themselves there is a time to speak and a time to be silent Eccles. 3. 7. There may possibly be such excess as tendeth to the tiring of the hearers and more may be cram'd in than they can digest and surfetting may make them loath it afterwards You must give none more than they can bear And also the matters of your business and callings must be talkt of in their time and place § 13. Direct 11. Let all your speech of holy things be with the greatest seriousness and reverence Direct 11. that you are able Let the words be never so good yet levity and rudeness may make them to be prophane God and holy things should not be talkt of in a common manner But the gravity of your speech should tell the hearers that you take them not for small or common matters If servants and others that live near together would converse and speak as the Oracles of God how holy and heavenly and happy would such families or societies be CHAP. XVII Directions for each particular member of the Family how to spend every ordinary day of
grace and hopes which he hath given you through Christ I know that a pained languishing body is undisposed to express the comforts of the soul But yet as long as the soul is the Commander they may be expressed in some good measure though not with such vivacity and alacrity as in health Behave your selves before all as those that are going to dwell with Christ If you shew them that you take Heaven for a real felicity it will do much to draw them to do so too Shew them the difference between the death of the righteous and of the wicked and that may so draw them to desire to dye the death of the Righteous that it may draw them also to resolve to live their lives How many souls might it win to God if they saw in his dying servants such confidence and joy as beseemeth men that are entering into a world of joy and peace and blessedness If we went out of the body as from a Prison into liberty and from a tedious journey to our desired home it would invite sinners to seek after the same felicity and be a powerful Sermon to convert the inconsiderate § 4. Direct 3. Now tell poor sinners of the vanity of the world and of all its glory wealth and pleasure Direct 3. and of the mischief and deceitfulness of sin Say to them O Sirs you may see in me what the world is worth If you had all the wealth and pleasure that you desire thus it would turn you off and forsake you in the end It will ease no pain It will bring no peace to a troubled soul It will not lengthen your lives an hour It will not save you from the wrath of God It maketh your death the sadder because you must be taken from it Your account will be the more dreadfull O Love not such a vain deceitful world Sell not your souls for so poor a price Forsake it before you are forsaken by it O make not light of any sin Though the wanton flesh would have you take it for a harmless thing you cannot imagine when the pleasure is gone how sharp a sting is left behind Sin will be then no jeasting matter when your souls are going hence into the dreadful presence of the Most Holy God § 5. Direct 4. Now tell those about you of the Excellency and Necessity of the Love of God of Heaven Direct 4. of Christ and of a holy life Though these may be made light of at a distance yet a soul that is drawing near them will be more awakened to understand their worth say to them O friends I find now more than ever I did before that it is only God that is the end and happiness of souls Nothing but his favour through Iesus Christ can comfort and content a dying man And none but Christ can reconcile us to God and answer for our sins and make us acceptable And no way but that of faith and holiness will end in happiness Opinions and customary forms in Religion will not serve the turn To be of this or that Party or Church or Communion will not save you It is only the soul that is justified by Christ and sanctified by his Spirit and brought up to the Love of God and holiness that shall be saved What ever Opinion or Church you are of without Holiness you shall never see God to your comfort as without faith it is impossible to please him Heb. 12. 14. 11. 6. Rom. 8. 6 7 8 9. O now what a miserable case were I in if I had all the wealth and honour in the world and had not the favour of God and a Christ to purchase it and his Spirit to witness it and prepare me for a better life Now I see the difference between spending time in Holiness and in sin between a godly and a worldly fleshly careless life Now I would not for a thousand worlds that I had spent my life in sensuality and ungodliness and continued a stranger to the life of faith Now if I had a world I would give it to be more holy O Sirs believe it when you come to dye sin will be then sin indeed and Christ and Grace will be better than riches and to dye in an unregenerate unsanctified state will be a greater misery than any heart can now conceive § 6. Direct 5. Endeavour also to make men know the difference between the godly and the wicked Direct 5. Tell them I nâ—w see who maketh the wisest choice O happy men that choose the joyes which have no end and lay up their treasure in Heaven where rust and moths do not corrupt and thieves do not break through and steal and labour for the food that never perisheth Matth. 6. 19 20. John 6. 27. O foolish sinners that for an inch of fleshly filthy pleasure do lose everlasting Rest and joy What shall it profit them that win all the world and lose their souls § 7. Direct 6. Labour also to convince men of the pretiousness of Time and the folly of putting off Direct 6. Repentance and a holy life till the last Say to them O friends it is hard for you in the time of health and prosperity to judge of Time according to its worth But when Time is gone or near an end how pretious doth it then appear Now if I had all the Time again which ever I spent in unnecessary sleep or sports or curiosities or idleness or any needless thing how highly should I value it and spend it in another manner than I have done Of all my life that is past and gone I have no comfort now in the remembrance of one hour but what was spent in obedience to God O take Time to make sure of your salvation before it s gone and you are left under the tormenting feeling of your loss § 8. Direct 7. Labour also to make them understand the sinfulness of sloth and of loytering in the Direct 7. matters of God and their salvation and stir them up to do it with all their might Say to them I have often heard ungodly people deride or blame the diligence and zeal and strictness of the godly But if they saw and felt what I see and feel they could not do it Can a man that is going into another world imagine that any thing is so worthy of his greatest zeal and labour as his God and his salvation Or blame men for being loth to burn in Hell Or for taking more pains for their souls than for their bodies O friends let fools talk what they will in their sleep and frenzy as you love your souls do not think any care or cost or pains too great for your salvation If they think not their labour too good for this world do not you think yours too good for a better world Let them now say what they will when they come to dye there is none of them all that is not quite forsaken of
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.
Covenant of Grace When a man Receiveth the Lords Supper unworthily in scorn in drunkenness or impenitency much more without any right as Infidels he doth eat and drink damnation or judgement to himself and maketh his sin greater Therefore he that gets a Child Baptized unworthily and without right doth not therefore infallibly procure his salvation 7. Because the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 7. 14. Else were your Children unclean but now are they holy and the Scripture giveth this priviledge to the Children of the faithful above others whereas the contrary opinion levelleth them with the seed of Infidels and Heathens as if these had right to salvation by meer Baptism as well as the others 8. Because else it would be the greatest act of Charity in the world to send Souldiers to catch up all Heathens and Infidels Children and Baptize them which no Christians ever yet thought their duty Yea it would be too strong a temptation to them to kill them when they had done that they might be all undoubtedly saved Obj. But that were to do evil that good might come by it Answ. But God is not to be so dishonoured as to be supposed to make such Laws as shall forbid men the greatest good in the World and then to tempt them by the greatness of the benefit to take it to be no evil As if he said If Souldiers would go take up a million of Heathens Children and Baptize them it will put them into an undoubted state of salvation But yet I forbid them doing it And if they presently kill them lest they sin after they shall undoubtedly be saved but yet I forbid them doing it I need not aggravate this temptation to them that know the power of the Law of nature which is the Law of Love and good works and how God that is most Good is pleased in our doing good Though he tryed Abraham's obedience once as if he should have killed his Son yet he stopt him before the execution And doth he ordinarily exercise mens obedience by forbidding them to save the souls of others when it is easily in their power Especially when with the adult the greatest labour and powerfullest Preaching is frequently so frustrate that not one of many is converted by it 9. Because else God should deal with unaccountable disparity with Infants and the Adult in the same ordinance of Baptism It is certain that all Adult persons Baptised if they dyed immediately should not be saved Even none that had no right to the Covenant and to Baptism such as Infidels Heathens Impenitent persons Hypocrites that have not true Repentance and faith And why should Baptism save an Infant without title any more than the Adult without title I still suppose that some Infants have no title and that now I speak of them alone Obj. But the Church giveth them all right by Receiving them Answ. This is to be farther examined anon If you mean a particular Church perhaps they are Baptized into none such Baptism as such is a Reception only into the Universal Church as in Eunuchs case Act. 8. appeareth If you mean the Universal Church it may be but one single ignorant man in an Infidel Countrey that Baptizeth And he is not the Universal Church Yea perhaps is not a lawfully called Minister of that Church However this is but to say that Baptism giveth Right to Baptism For this Receiving is nothing but Baptizing But there must be a Right to this Reception if baptism be a distinguishing Ordinance and all the world have not right to it Christ saith Matth. 28. 19. Disciple me all Nations baptizing them They must be initially made Disciples first by Consent and then be Invested in the visible state of Christianity by Baptism 10. If the Children of Heathens have right to baptism and salvation thereby it is either 1. As they are men and all have right or 2. Because the parents give them right 3. Or because remote ancestors give them right 4. Or because the universal Church gives them right 5. Or because a particular Church giveth them right 6. Or because the Sponsors give them right 7. Or the Magistrate 8. Or the Baptizer But it is none of all these as shall anon be proved II. But as to the second question I answer 1. It will help us to understand the case the better if we prepare the way by opening the case of the Adult because in Scripture times they were the most famous subjects of Baptism And it is certain of such 1. That every one outwardly Baptized is not in a state of salvation That no hypocrite that is not a true penitent believer is in such a state 2. That every true penitent believer is before God in a state of salvation as soon as he is such And before the Church as soon as he is baptized 3. That we are not to use the word Baptism as a Physical term only but as a moral Theological term Because words as in Law physick c. are to be understood according to the art or science in which they are treated of And Baptism taken Theologically doth as Essentially include the Wills consent or Heart-Covenanting with God as Matrimony includeth marriage consent and as a man containeth the soul as well as the body And thus it is certain that all truly Baptized persons are in a state of salvation that is All that sincerely consent to the Baptismal Covenant when they profess consent by Baptism but not hypocrites 4. And in this sense all the Ancient Pastors of the Churches did concur that Baptism did wash away all sin and put the baptized into a present right to life eternal as he that examineth their Writings will perceive not the outward washing and words alone but when the inward and outward parts concur or when by true faith and repentance the Receiver hath right to the Covenant of God 5. In this sense it is no unfit language to imitate the Fathers and to say that the truly baptized are in a state of Justification adoption and salvation unless when mens misunderstanding maketh it unsaâ—e 6. The sober Papists themselves say the same thing and when they have said that even ex opere operato Baptism saveth they add that it is only the meet Receiver that is the penitent believer and no other of the adult So that hitherto there is no difference 2. Now let us by this try the case of Infants concerning which there are all these several opinions among Divines 1. Some think that all Infants baptized or not are saved from Hell and positive punishment but are not brought to Heaven as being not capable of such joyes 2. Some think that all Infants dying such are saved as others are by actual felicity in Heaven though in a lower degree Both these sorts suppose that Christs death saveth all that reject 〈…〉 not and that Infants reject it not 3. Some think that all unbaptized Infants do suffer the poenam damni and are shut out
thing as Mine by which I may justly have it possess it use it and dispose of it This Dominion or Propriety is either Absolute and that belongeth to none but God or subordinate respective and limited which is the only Propriety that any creature can have Which is such a Right which will hold good against the claim of any fellow creature though not against Gods And among men there are Proprietors or Owners which are Principal and some who are but dependant subordinate and limited The simple Propriety may remain in a Landlord or Father who may convey to his Tenant or his child a limited dependant propriety under him Injuriously to deprive a man of this Propriety or of the thing in which he hath propriety is the sin which I speak of in this Chapter which hath no one name and therefore I express it here by many Whether it be Theft Robbery Cousenage Extortion or any other way of depriving another injuriously of his own These General Directions are needful to avoid it § 2. Direct 1. Love not the world nor the things that are in the world 1 John 2. 15. Cure covetousness Direct 1. and you will kill the root of fraud and theft As a drunkard would easily be cured of his drunkenness if you could cure him of his thirst and love to drink so an extortioner thief or deceiver would easily be cured of their outward sin if their hearts were cured of the disease of worldiness The love of money is the root of all this evil Value these things no more than they deserve § 3. Direct 2. To this end acquaint your hearts with the greater riches of the life to come Direct 2. And then you will meet with true satisfaction The true hopes of Heaven will cure your greedy desires of earth You durst not then forfeit your part in that perpetual Blessedness for the temporal supply of some bodily want You durst not with Adam part with Paradise for a forbidden bit nor as Esau prophanely sell your birthright for a morsel It is the unbelief and contempt of Heaven which maketh men venture it for the poor commodities of this world § 4. Direct 3. Be contented to stand to Gods disposal and suffer not any carking discontented Direct 3. thoughts to feed upon your hearts When you suffer your minds to run all day long upon your necessities and straits the Devil next tempteth you to think of unlawful courses to supply them He will shew you your neighbours money or goods or estates and tell you how well it would be with you if this were yours He shewed Achan the Golden Wedge He told Gehezi how unreasonable it was that Naamans money and Rayment should be refused He told Balaam of the hopes of preferment which he might have with Balak He told Iudas how to get his thirty pieces He perswaded Ananias and Saphira that it was but reasonable to retain part of that which was their own Nay commonly it is discontents and cares which prepareth poor wretches for those appearances of the Devil which draweth them to Witchcraft for the supplying of their wants If you took God for your God you would take him for the sufficient disposer of the world and one that is fitter to measure out your part of earthly things than you your selves And then you would rest in his wisdom will and fatherly providence and not shift for your selves by sinful means Discontentedness of mind and distrust of God are the cause of all such frauds and injuries Trust God and you will have no need of these § 5. Direct 4. Remember what Promises God hath made for the competent supply of all your wants Direct 4. Godliness hath the promise of this life and of that to come All other things shall be added to you if you seek first Gods Kingdom and the righteousness thereof Matth. 6. 33. They that fear the Lord shall want nothing that is good Psal. 37. All things shall work together for good to them that love God Rom. 8. 28. Let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as ye have for he hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee Heb. 13. 5. Live by faith on these sufficient promises and you need not steal § 6. Direct 5. Overvalue not the accommodation and pleasure of the flesh and live not in the sins Direct 5. of gluttony drunkenness pride gaming or ryotous courses which may bring you into want and so to seek unlawful maintenance He that is a servant to his flesh cannot endure to displease it nor can â—ear the want of any thing which it needeth But he that hath mastered and mortified his flesh can endure its labour and hunger yea and death too if God will have it so Large revenues will be too little for a fleshly minded person But a little will serve him that hath brought it under the power of reason Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter saith Seneca A well nurtured fair-conditioned belly is a great part of a mans liberty because an ill-taught and ill-conditioned belly is one of the basest slaveries in the world As a Philosopher said to Diogenes If thou couldst flatter Dionysius thou needest not eat herbs But saith Diogenes If thou couldst eat hearbs thou needest not flatter Dionysius He took this for the harder task So the Thief and deceiver will say to the poor If you could do as we do you need not fare so hardly But a contented poor man may better answer him If you could fare hardly as I do you need not deceive or steal as you do A proud person that cannot endure to dwell in a Cottage or to be seen in poor or patcht apparel will be easily tempted to any unlawful way of getting to keep him from disgrace and serve his pride A Glutton whose Heaven is in his throat must needs fare well how ever he come by it A Tipler must needs have provision for his guggle by right or by wrong But a humble man and a temperate man can spare all this and when he looketh on all the proud mans furniture he can bless himself as Socrates did in a Fair with Quam multa sunt quibus ipse non egeo How many things be there which I have no need of And he can pity the sensual desires which others must needs fulfill even as a sound man pitieth another that hath the itch or the thirst of a sick man in a Feavor that cryeth out for drink As Seneca saith It is Vice and not Nature which needeth much Nature and necessity and duty are contented with a little But he that must have the pleasure of his sin must have provision to maintain that pleasure Quench the fire of pride sensuality and lust and you may spare the cost of fuel Rom. 13. 13 14. 8. 13. § 7. Direct 6. Live not in Idleness or sloth but be laborious in your Callings that you may