acceptance with God or in a condition of spiritual life that is the forerunner and earnest of a life of glory 2. But again if you consider the nature of the drink which he hath appointed it is wine and not water By it may be signified thus much that as there is no sort of drink so grateful to the palate so reviving and strengthning to the spirits so that spiritual life that the Soul is raised to by the Death of Christ is a life of the greatest pleasure and joy that is conceivable for as no liquor like Wine doth chear a sad drooping spirit so nothing doth so glad and chear the Soul as Faith in a Crucified Christ according to that of the Apostle Peter in whom though we have not seen 1 Pet. 1.8 yet believing we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory Thus much for the Duty this do 2. The end of the Duty and that is in remembrance of me Here are two things to be inquired into I. What reason was there for the instituting an Ordinance for his remembrance II. Why of all the acts and expressions of his love to sinners above all he would be remembred in his sufferings for us which is the special signification of this Supper 1 To the first I say you must call to mind that the time of instituting this supper was the night before that day he died Now the consequent of his Death was to be this that he should be taken from Earth to Heaven there to be personally present till the day of judgment Now that his Church on Earth might not forget him in this long absence he therefore appointed this supper for a frequent quickning them to the remembrance of him till he came again 2 To the other Question I Answer That the reasons why Jesus would have this act of his love to be especially remembred above all other may be these 1. Because his dying for his Church was the greatest act of love he ever shewed his Church Greater love saith Christ hath no man than this John 15.13 1 John 3.16 that a man lay down his life for his friends Again saith the Apostle Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us If a man should part with his liberty and suffer bonds or lay down his estate and become poor or leave his Country and become an exile for his friend these were all expressions of great love but none of them are comparable to laying down life and shedding ones blood for a friend This last is that wherein Christ hath eminently demonstrated his love to his Church this he glorieth in and this is that which he would never have his Church forget but frequently remember in this supper 2. Because that though he gave and still doth give very great testimonies of his love to us as in his Resurrection Ascension Intercession preparing Glory and lastly in his coming again to raise us justifie us and to take us to himself to behold and enjoy that Glory that he had with the Father before the World was yet this Ordinance is rather for the remembrance of his bloody Death for us than for the remembrance of any of the other blessings and why Because that all these other depend on this Christ could never have risen to our justification had he not died for the satisfaction of the Law and his Fathers Justice Nor would he have been admitted as an Intercessor nor have been allowed one mansion in Glory for any of us nor would his Father have suffered him to have returned again to take any one of us to himself if he had not by his death made our peace opened the new way into the Holy of Holies and purchased a glorious Resurrection and an Ascension to the Heavenly and eternal glory for us So that since all his other acts of love to his Church depend on this of his dying no wonder if he appointed this Supper for the remembrance of his death rather than any thing else he either did or promised to do for us The Conclusion is that since that the end of this Ordinance is so glorious and that is the remembrance of the greatest love that ever God the Father or Son shewed to us it cannot but cast a Lustre and Glory upon the duty of coming to this Supper and engage us to a chearful participation thereof 3. The Obligation to this duty and that is Christ's Command this is implied in the Text but exprest in the foregoing verse what saith the Apostle Paul I have received of the Lord that which also I declare unto you The Apostle doth but declare the Command is Christ's he is the Author of it It is Christ not Paul that said This do in remembrance of me Christ's Commands are the bonds by which we are tied up to Obedience if we break his bonds we are transgressors Remember who they were that conspired together saying Let us break his bonds asunder and cast away his cords from us they were such that the Lord hath in derision to whom he will one day speak in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure The commands of superiors set out all duty to inferiors and punish for neglect and the higher or greater the superior is the more authority hath the command and the greater punishment will be inflicted on the disobedient If disobedience to the word spoken by Angels received a just recompence of reward of how much sorer punishment shall they be thought worthy that disobey the command of Jesus Christ If a Child's disobedience deserves the rod or a Servants the cudgel or a Subjects the axe or halter what doth disobedience to the Lord Jesus deserve that is greater than Father or Master or any earthly Soveraign whatever Take heed then my brethren of being found guilty of neglect of this duty that is bound upon you by the command of so great an authority as this of the Lord Jesus that hath said This do in remembrance of me 4. In the next place is to be considered the persons obliged and those are the Church of Christ so far as by Scriptural Qualifications they are capacitated to a participation thereof who are 1. Those that can discern the Lord's body in this supper the want of this the Apostle gives as the reason of unworthy receiving it 1 Cor. 10.29 and tells us they eat damnation to themselves Now there are two ways wherein the Lord's body may be said to be discerned in this supper 1. When the Understanding is spiritually enlightned to perceive the true nature and ends of this supper and thereby is enabled to see a greater difference between this and our ordinary meals for he that shall for want of knowledg therein come to this Table with no better preparations or to no other intents than when he goes to his own Table he doth certainly pervert the ends of the institution and prophanes the Ordinance and therefore cannot chuse
Cant. 3. This is to call the day Honourable Thirdly Then we call it Honourable when we have a precious esteem of every moment of Sabbath-time and jealous lest any drop of it should run waste even the filings of Gold and the dust of Diamonds are pretious No man can call the Sabbath Glorious that sets light by an hour or minute or moment of so Divine a creation Time is a ring of Gold but the Sabbath is the rich sparkling Diamond in it Davids heart smote him for cutting off but a lap of Sauls Royal coat So should ours for profaning or unprofitably wasting any part of Christ's day It is like his seamless coat and cannot be divided without sacriledge Fourthly The day is honourable when we have a singular esteem of all the Institutions and Ordinances of the day When Prayer is precious and the word Read Preached is precious when singing of Psalms is precious the Sacraments precious when every one in its time and order is observed with such due regard that none do justle out or exclude the other but one doth catch in the other as the links in a chain of Gold Fifthly When it is the grief of our souls that we can keep Sabbaths no better and strive cordially and conscientiously to keep the next better than we did the last Sixthly and lastly when we are careful that all ours as well as our selves keep Sabbaths this is a main clause in our obedience to the 4th commandment Thou thy Son and thy Daughter thy man-servant and thy maid-servant c. Every one in their several capacities must keep the Sabbath To be strict our selves in the duties of a Sabbath and careless what the rest of our Families do whether our children or servants steep or be idle dance or play at cards sing idle songs or take Gods name in vain c. This is not to call the Sabbath Honourable Deut. 5.14 Gen. 8.19 I know Abraham that he will command his children and his houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord. And shalt honour him or glorifie him From Cabad honorare The verb in the Hebrew Vecibbactto may be rendred It or Him but the sence seems to incline to the latter Him rather than It the day having had its title of veneration put upon it before honourable this may more properperly belong to God even to the whole blessed and glorious Trinity requiring at the hands of every one that enjoyeth this blessed priviledge of a Sabbath that they ascribe the honour and glory of it unto God and that is done 1. When we make divine Authority the sole ground of our separating and sanctifying the whole day to his peculiar Service and Worship without alienating any part or parcel of that holy time to our own carnal uses and purposes Keep the Sabbath day to sanctifie it there 's the duty as the Lord thy God commanded thee there 's the Authority 2. When as we make Gods command our ground so we make Gods glory our end When we make it our design to set up God Father Son and Holy Ghost in all his glorious and infinite perfections in our Adorations and Admirations upon that his holy day And that is done in a special manner when we make it the great business of a Sabbath To ascribe to each glorious Person in the Trinity the glory of his proper work and operation whereby he challengeth a title to and interest in the Sabbath ex gra 1. When we ascribe to God the Father the glory of the stupendious work of Creation and that is done by a due contemplation of all his glorious Attributes shining forth in this beautiful structure of heaven and earth celebrated by the Royal Psalmist in Psal 19. v. 1. The heavens declare the glory of the Lord and the firmament sheweth his handy work the transcendent excellencies of the glorious Jehovah are conspicuous and illustrious in this admirable Theatre of the world that is to say 1. His Power 1. In creating all things out of nothing 2. And that by a word of his mouth 2. His Wisdom In making all things in such a beautiful and exact manner and order Galen l. de usu partium As the great Physitian said of the body of man no man can come after God and say this might have been better so in the Fabrick of Heaven and Earth neither man nor Angels can say here is a Defect and there is a redundancy it had been better there had been more Suns and fewer stars more land and less Sea c. No when the divine prophet had stood and in his most serious contemplation looked through the Creation he could spye out nothing that could have been otherwise but breaks out in admiration O Lord how manifold are thy works In wisdom hast thou made them all he could see nothing from one end of the Universe to the other but what speaks infinite perfection In wisdom hast thou made them all and as the Omnipotency and wisdom of God is magnified in the Creation so also 3. His bounty in bestowing all this visible creation upon man for his use and benefit as one saith God made man last that he might bring him as a father brings his son into an house ready furnished This is one branch of our honouring God when we ascribe to God the Father the glory of the work of Creation Secondly When we ascribe to God the Son the glory of his most glorious work of Redemption wherein these particulars are wonderful 1. His inessable incarnation 1 Tim. 3.16 Without controversie great is the mystery of godliness God manifest in the flesh i. e. The invisible God made visible in a bâ—dy of flesh This was a Mystery indeed A Son in Heaven without a Mother Gal 4.4 And a Son on Earth without a Father Secondly Christ his stupendious being made under the Law Behold he that made the Law was made under the Law under the Ceremonial Law that he might abolish it under the Moral Law The preceptive power of it that he might fulfill it that so every believer might have a Righteousness which he may call his own Rom. 10.4 The maledictive power of it that he might take it away Gal. 3.13 3. Christ his work of Redemption was principally transacted by his death and passion for therein he laid down pretium Redemptionis Acts 20.28 the price of Redemption which was his own precious blood 1 Pet. 1.18 19 20. 4. This great work and mystery of our Redemption was perfectly consummated in Christ his glorious Resurrection Col. 2.15 wherein he spoiled principalities and powers and made a shew of them openly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some render it in it and would refer it to his Cross but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be understood here in the masculine gender not in the neuter and so to be translanted in himself Christ rising from the dead like a conqueror lead
Saints but 't is by the permission of the universal Soveraign who hath the hearts of all in his hands and suffers their rage for holy ends The enemy designes against their Faith but God's aim is to make them change their lives Now if either through strong fears or the stinging sense of troubles upon the account of Religion our Courage fails we are presently in danger of falling away and denying our Master The faint-hearted person is usually false-hearted and for want of resolution being frighted out of his Conscience and duty chooses sin rather than suffering and thereby justly deprives himself of the Crown of life that is promised only to those who are Faithful unto the death Besides not only the loss of heaven but the torments of hell are threaten'd against those who withdraw from the service of God to avoid temporal evils Rev. 21.8 The fearful and unbelieving are in the front of those that shall have part in the lake of fire and brimstone which is the second death Now what folly is it when two evils are propounded to choose the greatest that is eternal death rather than temporal and of two goods to prefer the less a short life with its Conveniencies on earth before that which is eternally glorious in heaven By which it appears how much it concerns us to fortifie and fix our minds by a stedfast belief of God's supporting presence with us in all troubles and of his gracious promise that in due time we shall reap if we faint not in well-doing 2. They are incapable of the Comforts proper to an afflicted state Those arise from the apprehension that God loves whom he chastens Rev. 3. for the least sin is a greater evil than the greatest trouble and his design is to take that away and from the expectation of a happy issue Hope is the anchor within the vail that in the midst of storms and the roughest seas preserves from shipwrack The character of Christians is Rom. 12.12 that they are rejoycing in hope But when the afflicted are under fearful impressions that God is an irreconcileable enemy and sadly conclude their miseries are past redress those divine Comforts that are able to sweeten the most bitter sufferings to believers are of no efficacy their deep sorrows are not like the pains of a travelling woman that end in a joyful birth but the killing tortures of the stone that are fruitless to the patient An obstinate grief and rejecting the Consolations of God is the beginning of sorrows the first payment of that sad arrear of mourning that shall be exacted in another world The Use shall be to excite us to those duties that are directly contrary to the extremes forbidden viz. to demean our selves under the chastenings of the Lord with a deep reverence and humble fear of his displeasure and with a firm hope and dependance upon him for a blessed issue upon our complying with his holy Will 1. With a humble reverence of his hand This temper is absolutely necessary and most congruous with respect to God upon the account of his Soveraignty Justice and Goodness declar'd in his chastenings and with respect to our frailty our dependance upon him our obnoxiousness to his Law and our obligations to him that he will please to afflict us for our good This is the reason of that expostulation Will the Lion roar in the forrest when he hath no prey Shall God's threatenings and judgments have no effect Who ever hardened himself against him and prospered Amos 3.4 Do we provoke the Lord to jealousie the most sensible and severe attribute when it is incens'd Are we stronger than he Can we encounter offended Omnipotency Can we with an army of lusts oppose myriads of mighty Angels 'T is not courage but such a prodigious degree of folly and fury that one would think 't were impossible a reasonable creature were capable of it Yet every sinner unreformed by afflictions is thus desperate Job 15.25 26 He stretches out his hand against God and strengthens himself against the Almighty he runneth upon him even on his neck upon the thick bosses of his bucklers Such a furious rebel was Ahaz who in the time of his distress did trespass more against the Lord This is that King Ahaz But God hath most solemnly declared that he will be victorious at last over the most fierce obdurate enemies 2 Chron. 28. As I live saith the Lord every knee shall bow to me His power is infinite and anger puts an edge upon his power and makes it more terrible If our subjection be not voluntary it must be violent 'T is our wisdom to prevent acts of vengeance by humble submissions The duty of the afflicted is excellently exprest by Elihu Job 34.31 32 Surely it is meet to be said to God I have born chastisements I will not offend any more that I know not teach thou me if I have done iniquity I will do so no more Add further upon another account reverence is due to God's chastenings for when love is the motive that incites one to give us counsel though it be mixt with reproofs and his prudence is not great yet a respect is due to the affection Now God who is only wise chastises men from a desire to make them better and happy he intends primarily to refine not to consume them by afflictions so that a serious regard to his hand is the most just and necessary duty of the creature Briefly every chastisement should leave deep and permanent impressions upon us the sense of God's displeasure should make our hearts mournful and mollified broken and contrite that his will may be done by us on earth as 't is in heaven 2. Let us alway preserve an humble dependance and firm hope on God for a blessed issue out of all our troubles The support and tranquillity of the soul ariseth from hence Christian patience suffers all things as well as charity being encouraged by a continual expectation of good from him Patience confirms all other graces and is to the whole armour of God what the temper is to material weapons that keeps them from breaking in the combat Now to maintain a constant hope in affliction 't is necessary to consider the reason of the Exhortation as 't is admirably amplified by the Apostle 1. The relation God sustains when he afflicts believers He is a Judge invested with the quality of a Father The Covenant of grace between God and Jesus Christ our true David contains this observable cause If thy children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments if they break my statutes Psal 89.30 31 32. and keep not my commandements then will I visit their transgressions with a rod and their iniquity with stripes The love that ariseth from this relation though it cannot hate yet it may be displeased and chastise them for their follies Moses tells the Israelites Thou shalt consider in thy heart Deut. 8.5 that as
or other make them ashamed and so will the hopes of the Hypocrite too but the hopes of pardoned persons which they have of future blessedness have an excellency in them beyond the hopes of all others and they shall never be ashamed of them The happiness they hope for they shall certainly have none can deprive them of it men cannot deprive them they may take away their earthly Inheritance but they cannot touch their Heavenly Inheritance Devils cannot deprive them they may attempt it but they cannot effect it Death cannot deprive them death will bereave of whatever riches of the world any of them have but it will put them into the possession of their Treasures in Heaven none can deprive them but God and God will not do it as hath been already proved and therefore their hopes are of a certain thing which they shall not fail of and withal they know that the happiness of Heaven will exceed all their expectations even the highest which ever they have had of satisfaction and contentment there that they shall find more sweetness and joy there than ever hath entred into their hearts to conceive and therefore their hopes shall not make them ashamed yea in their very hopes of Heaven especially at some times they find more real satisfaction than ever was found by any in the fullest and sweetest enjoyment which they have had of the good things of this life 3. Pardoned persons have the beginnings of future blessedness here in this life in the Work of Grace and sometimes foretasts and first fruits of it through the witness seal and earnest of the Spirit and this renders them blessed in this life 1. They have the beginnings of Heaven in the work of Grace upon their hearts Grace is the beginning of Glory Grace is Glory in the bud Glory is Grace in the flower and when the work of Grace is carried on the Scripture saith that they proceed from Glory to Glory 2 Cor. 3.18 But we all with open face beholding as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord They are happy here as they have some degrees of that Holiness and likeness unto God in the perfection of which hereafter in Heaven their perfect happiness doth consist 2. They have the beginnings of Heaven in the first fruits and foretasts of it through the witness seal and earnest of the Spirit God sometimes gives them first fruits of the Heavenly Canaan he sends in a few bunches of those sweet Grapes that are there and lets them have some foretasts of those Soul-ravishing Heavenly joys which hereafter will be full and for ever abiding he sometimes takes them up into the Mount and gives them a Pisgah-sight of the Land of promise through the prospective-Glass of his Ordinances he brings some even to the Gate of the New Jerusalem in their Heavenly Contemplations and le ts out such beams of that Glorious Heavenly light and drops into their hearts such taste of future joys through the sudden elapses of the Spirit of Glory upon them that they are rapt up into an extasie and such a sweetness they feel in their Spirits as is ineffable such as words cannot utter nor the minds of any conceive but those that have had the like when God giveth them the witness of his Spirit that they shall assuredly attain eternal life and sealeth them up by his Spirit to the day of Redemption he doth commonly give the earnest also of the Spirit in some Soul-ravishing joys in comparison of which the softest pleasures of the flesh and the sweetest delights that can arise from any objects of sense are most vain thin empty and not worthy to be named with them And thus the Eternal blessedness which pardoned persons shall have doth render them blessed here in this life beyond all others whatever confluence of good things they be surrounded withal The fore-sight first fruits hopes and sweet fore-tastes of this future blessedness do sweeten their life but especially they do sweeten their death they knowing that death will be their friend and prove an out-let to all earthly misery and an in-let to their heavenly glory that death will open the prison doors of this world unto them and usher them into the palace of the great King they know their death will be like a Ship to convey them over Sea as it were from the far strange and Enemies Countrey unto the heavenly Countrey where their glorious Jehovah their heavenly Father where the Lord Jesus Christ their elder Brother and dear Saviour and where the departed Saints their chief kinred are together and where their inheritance doth lye and where they shall take up their Eternal abode Where pardoned persons have a clear fore-sight and strong hope of this death is no more to them than a sleep they can as willingly put off their flesh and go into their graves as they can put off their clothes at night to go into their beds they can as willingly compose themselves to die as they can compose themselves to sleep after a weary day Thus much for the proof of the blessedness of forgiveness or of all those persons whose sins are pardoned Quest 2. The second Question wherein I must be more short is How this blessedness of forgiveness may be attained That this blessedness of forgiveness may be attained there are some things must be known and believed and there are some things must be done and practised 1. Some things must be believed I shall instance in one or two chief Doctrines of the Gospel which all sinners must know and believe if they would attain forgiveness of sin The First is The Doctrine of Christ's satisfaction unto God's Justice for the sins of men The Second is The Doctrine of justification by the righteousness of Christ 1. Sinners must know and believe the Doctrine of Christ's satisfaction unto the Justice of God for the sins of Men. To discourse fully of this great Doctrine of Christ's satisfaction would require a Treatise which might fill a great volume but I must comprize it within a little room who am to speak of it only in the direction of a Sermon Briefly 1. That there is absolute need of satisfaction to God's justice for the sins of men without which forgiveness of sins would be impossible and utterly unattainable is evident both from the nature of God's justice which doth oblige him to punish all sinners Eternally without it and from the truth of God's threatnings wherein he hath revealed that he will thus punish them without it 2. That there is need of the satisfaction of Christ is evident because sinners themselves being finite cannot give that satisfaction unto God which shall bear any proportion to the demands of his infinite justice and if any be in a capacity to give it it must be such a one as is both innocent and so cannot suffer for his own faults and
quoad modum tendâ—nd in objectam 1 Cor. 13.8 Voet. ibid. Love never faileth the same kind of love the same Numerical love that was in gracious Persons on Earth shall be continued in Heaven and receive it's perfection presently after its delivery from the Body of Death There will be a greater change in all our Graces than in our Love A great part of our Life is taken up in the Exercise of those Graces that I may in some respect say dye with us The one half of our Life is or should be spent in Mortification The whole of our time needs the exercise of our Patience Our Life at best is but a Life of Faith much of our sweet Communion with God is fetch'd in by secret Prayer But now in Heaven there shall be no sin to be mortifi'd nothing grievous to be endured Faith shall be swallow'd up in Enjoyment and your Petitions shall be all answer'd So that now Christians set your selves to love God and you shall no way lose your labour Other Graces are but as Physick to the Soul desirable for something else which when obtained they are useless but Love to God is the healthful Constitution of the Soul there 's never any thing of it in any sence useless Most of the Graces of the Spirit do by our Souls as our Friends by our Bodies who accompany them to the Grave and there leave them But now love to God is the alone Grace that is to our Souls the same that a good Conscience our best Friend in both Worlds 4. This Divine Love is so unknown to the World that when they behold the Effects and flames of it in those that love God in an extraordinary manner they are ready to explode it as meer Vanity Folly Madness Ostentation and Hypocrisie When Paul manag'd his Audience more like a Sermon than a Defence Festus cries out upon him as mad (h) Acts 26.24 Yea when Christ himself in love to God and Souls is more hungry after Converts than Food his nearest Relations think him craz'd and the multitude cometh together again Mark 3.20 21 32. so that they could not so much as eat bread and when his Friends heard of it they went out to lay hold on him for they said he is beside himself But were they any other but his carnal and graceless Relations that did this See behold thy Mother and thy Brethren without seek for thee (i) 1 John 3.13 No marvel then that Enemies reproach you Friend forsake you Relations slight you and the World hate you Christ tells us (k) Joh. 15.18 23. if the World hate you ye know that it hated me before it hated you But how can the World hate Christ who in love to it came to dye for it Christ tells his Hearers the true Reason (l) Joh. 5.40 42. I know you this is no groundless surmise nor censorious rashness but I know you that you have not the love of God in you Let what will appear at the top this lies at the bottom And therefore judge I pray you who more phanatick those that hate God when they pretend to love him or those that are counted phrantick for their serious Love to God I shall neither name more nor enlarge further on this first rank of Characters but be brief also in the second The Absolute Properties of Love to God are among many some of them such as these 1. It is the most ingenious of all Graces In poor inconsiderable Loves not worth the mentioning how do persons contrive wayes for the expressing and exciting of Love and there 's no way to prevent it Oh how much more when the Soul loves God there 's nothing meliorates the parts like Grace Divine Love makes the best improvement of Wit Parts Time when a Person loves to pray though he can scarce speak sence to men he can strenuously plead with God a person that loves to meditate though he knows not how to make his thoughts hang together in other things they multiply on his hand with a spiritual and profitable consistency In short to do any thing that may engage the Heart to God what gracious stratagems doth Love abound with That (m) Nieremberg de art Vol. p. 114. as he that beholds his Face in a Glass makes the Face which he sees his very look is the Pensil the Colour the Art so he that loves God sees such a Reflexion of God's love to him that a proud person doth not more please her self in her own fancyed beauty than this gracious Soul is graciously delighted in the mutual dartings of Divine Love Keep from Will-worship and humane Inventions in the things of God especially from imposing upon others your Prudentials of Devotion and then I will commend it to you to try all the Experiments which the Scripture will warrant to encrease the flame of your Divine love 2. Love to God is the most bold strong constant and daring Grace of all the Graces of the Spirit of God (n) Cant. 8.6 Love is strong as Death every one knows what work Death makes in the World It is not the Power of Potentates nor the Reverence of Age nor the usefulness of Grace can prevent its stroke it conquers all So doth love to God Nothing can stand before it what dare not love to God attempt It designs impossibilities viz. Perfection and is restless for the want of it I may in some sence say it would fain have contradictions true viz. to be without the Body while in it the Body's being a clog is so wearisome Love to God not only baffles Satan but through God's gracious condescension it even prevails with God himself that God will deny nothing to the Soul that loves him 3. Love to God is the onely self-emptying and satisfying Grace (o) Nieremb p. 322 c. spaâ—siâ— Love 't is self's egress 't is a kind of Pilgrimage from self he that loves is absent from himself thinks not of himself provides not for himself But oh how great is the gain of renouncing our selves and thereby receiving God and our selves we are as it were dead to our selves and live to God nay more by love we live in God (p) 1 John 4.16 God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him By Faith we live upon God by Obedience we live to God but by Love we live in God It is herein alone that we can give something like a carnal though 't is indeed an highly spiritual answer to Nicodemus his question (q) Joh. 3.4 How can a man be born when he is old can he enter the second time into his mothers Womb and be born We have our Soulâ— immediately from the Father of Spirits by Regeneration we return to God again from whom by Sin we are estranged and by love we live in him in some little resemblance to the Child's living in the Mother's womb what the mother loves the
so he must minister the same to the souls and bodies of others 1 Pet. 4.10 Jam. 2.15.16 1 Joh. â— 13 If a brother or a sister be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you say unto them Go in peace he you warmed and filled notwithstanding you give them not the things that are needful to the body what doth it profit A man would find little profit in it himself if he should feed himself only with good words and wishes True love is not in Word and Tongue only but in Deed and in Truth Contrary to this endeavouring others good is to stand up in the way and stop the passage wherein good should flow in upon them and to be (a) Invidentia est aeg iâ—udo iuscepta p opter alterius res secundas quae nihil nocent invidenti Cic. Tuâ—t qu. l. 4. envious at the prosperity of others if they be able without our help to attain it Many men think themselves not well unless it be ill with others (b) Novum ac inaestimabile nunc in plutimis malum est parum alicui est si ipse sit felix nisi alter sec in infelix Salvianus de Gub. Dei it is not enough for them to be happy unless they see their brethren miserable 2. We have seen now in what things we do and may shew love to our selves we come now to speak of the manner of loving our selves and to shew that after the same manner we ought to love others also 1. We do or should love our selves holily i. e. in and for God we may not have a divided interest from God though God allows us to love our selves it must be in order to him and to his Glory Our love to our selves as it must be regulated by the will of God and extended or restrained according to that So God must be our utmost end in it whether it be exercised about the obtaining things temporal or spiritual for body or soul Salvation it self although it be our end must not be our last or utmost end but that God by it as by all things else may be glorified Therefore in this manner we must love others as God hath an interest in them and is or may be glorified by them and there is no man in the world but God is or may be glorified by him Every man is a creature upon whose Soul there is in a sort the Image of God and doth him some service in the place wherein he stands Isa 44.28 and 45.1 God calleth Cyrus a heathen his Shepherd and his Anointed and he did him eminent service in his generation The same may be said of every other man in some degree and proportion God hath given him some gifts whereby he is and may be serviceable to him at least in the affairs of his providential kingdom Besides all men having immortal souls within them are capable of blessedness with God for ever in the kingdom of Glory they who are at present enemies to God may be reconciled and made friends what was the most glorious Saint now in heaven but an enemy to God once when here on earth We our selves saith the Apostle were sometime foolish disobedient deceived Tit. 33.4 serving divers lusts and pleasures living in malice and envy hateful and hating one another but after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost Obj. How could David then say do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee and am I not grieved with these that rise up against thee Psal 139.21.22 I hate them with a perfect hatred He says that he hated them perfectly and approves himself to God in the thing Do not I hate them O Lord Ans There is a twofold hatred Odium simplex Odium redundans in personam as the Schooles speak a simple hatred and a hatred redounding to the person A simple hatred which is of the Sin of any man is our duty Psal 97.10 ye that love the Lord hate evil but to hate the Person of the sinner would be our sin as we are to abhor that which is evil Rom. 12.9 so we must cleave to that which is good David who was a man after Gods own heart knew how to distinguish between the sin and the person See how he expresseth himself elsewhere I hate the work of them that turn aside not them but the work of them Psal 101.3 he hated their sin saying it shall not cleave to me Hear him again I hate every false way this shews us plainly Psal 119.104 that he hated sin perfectly he hated sin so as that it should not cleave to him he hated it where ever he found it Every false way For what is perfect hatred Austin describes it very well He est perfecto odio odisse ut nec homines propter vitia oderis nec vitia propter homines diligas This is to hate with perfect hatred not to hate men for their Sins sake nor to love the sin for the mens sake This is one manner how we ought to love our Neighbour as our selves it must be holily 2. Our love to our selves is or should be orderly we must first and chiefly love our souls and then our bodies The Soul is of far greater worth than the body A world of things for the body will stand a man in no stead if his soul be lost and where the soul goes either to a place of bliss or torment the body must follow after and therefore when we are charged to take heed to our selves we are charged to keep our souls diligently only take heed to thy self Deut. 4 9. and keep thy soul diligently if the soul be safe all is safe if the soul be lost all is lost In like manner we ought to love our Neighbour we must desire and endeavour that it may be well with him in every respect both as to his body and outward estate but chiefly that his Soul may prosper and his outward concerns as they may be consistent with that third Epistle John ver 2. I wish above all things that thou mayst prosper and be in health as thy soul prospereth 1. We must seek the conversion of those that are unconverted lest their souls be lost for ever If we can be instrumental in this we shew the greatest love imaginable to give a man bread when he is hungry or cloathing when he is naked is somthing but to convert a soul to God is a greater kindness by much Brethren Jam. 5 19.20 if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him let him know that he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death He speaks of it as a great thing when he says Let him know that he
instruct us to a present improvement of it and that especially for these two reasons 1. Because it being the accepted time or time of free-grace and good will we must for the present improve it upon the account of gratitude and ingenuity 2. Because it being the accepted time and the day of God's free-grace in accepting of sinners we must presently improve it upon the account of real self-interest 1. Upon the account of ingenuous gratitude The terms upon which reconciliation is bestowed are all free 't is free not only in respect of the persons upon whom 't is bestowed who are weak and unworthy and polluted and opposite to God but in respect of the terms on which it is bestowed The terms are free terms The old friendship between God and man was kept up by Doing but restoring to friendship or reconciliation is bestowed in the way of believing We do not buy the favour of God 'T is not afforded Secundum pretium but Secundum pactum It is not by laying down any valuable consideration for the meriting and purchasing of it but it is in the way of doing that which God appoints and by his free grace is pleased to condescend unto and that is humble and thankful acceptation If we buy it it is with another's purse Jesus Christ only bought it We part with nothing for the favour of God but what is our bane if we keep it We may keep all but what will kill and damn us Nor doth our obedience to God when we accept of reconciliation with him through Christ make our reconciliation less free For the pardon of a Traytor may be free though it be under the condition of future Loyalty Now then what is more suitable to ingenuous gratitude than to embrace the season of God's bestowing so free a favour Surely the least we can do is to accept of that God that accepteth of us to accept of him that is so full of loveliness and rewards we having nothing to bring him but deformity and beggery Not to accept his favour presently argues the height of proud ingratitude concerning which God may say have I this for my good will for my free grace what not so much as accept of my favour that shall cost thee nothing surely the least spark of holy ingenuity would prompt us to say with him in a case of infinitely lower concernment Lord we accept it always with all thankfulness what thou offerest freely I accept it readily What beggar doth not accept of a free alms without delay or disputation 2. As the season of Grace is the accepted time or the time of God's free acceptation of sinners it engageth us to a present improvement of this season of grace upon the account of self-interest for the neglecting of free grace makes the divine vengeance 1. Vnavoidable and secondly Insupportable 1. Neglecting of free of grace makes vengeance unavoidable If grace be neglected what shall save you if grace shall not save thee works cannot save thee The neglecter of grace concludes himself under a necessity of damnation He rendeth the book of mercy He throweth away the remedy the cordial that serveth for his reviving He that accepts not of life and Salvation by free gift must have it by earning must have it by working and earn it we cannot Thou canst not obtain reconciliation with God upon easier terms for thy self than Christ obtained it for believers and what terms were those but even perfect and to thee impossible obedience You cannot dig perfect doing is impossible you are lost if asham'd to beg at the door of free grace for the dole of mercy 2. The neglecting of free grace makes Divine vengeance insupportable It discovereth the malignity of the heart against that which by free grace is bestowed for if we cannot dislike the price which is to bring neither money nor price you must then dislike the wares which are Heaven with holiness And how great a scorn do we then put upon the Lord Jesus the purchaser of free grace It was Christ's payment that made all free to us Who can excuse the contempt of such both love and cost at once there is no liquor that scalds so tormentingly in hell as the Oil of mercy Grace turned into fury is the most killing Enemy Freeness invites all worldly customers Who loveth not costly things that cost him nothing who shunneth an interest in a thousand pounds a year to be had for taking up at the Court and why alone my Brethren should Jesus Christ want customers are there any commodities so rich as his are there any commodities to us so cheap as his Why should they alone be slow that go to take the favour and love of God through him especially considering that they have paid so dear for that which is not bread yea for that which is their bane Free grace tendered and neglected is condemnation heightned You cannot have the favour of God by doing what will you not have it for receiving neither you will not then have it at all It is that hell of hells that free grace is despised hath been neglected Thus much for the first branch of the second Argument the season of grace is a time of acceptation and therefore in respect of that advantage it requires our present improving thereof For the second branch of this second Argument The season of grace is also called Sect. 16 the day of Salvation But why doth this second branch put us upon the present improving of the season of grace For answer take these considerations 1. It is a day of Salvation and Salvation is a work that must be regarded 't is a matter of absolute necessity Other things are may-be s at the best matters of mere conveniency but Salvation is a business of peremptory and indispedsible necessity A fair day is convenient to ride in but the journey it self being of life and death is absolutely necessary You may be excused at the day of judgment for leaving any thing in the world undone besides the getting of Salvation You may be excused if you never had time to get the riches or honours of the world or great endowments or employments but what shall excuse you if you have not looked after Eternal life Can you say we had another imployment more or as necessary can you say we were taken up about something more needful more useful no you cannot Now remember that which must be done should be most done and first done First attend necessaries and then look after circumstantials first seek the Kingdom of God Here 't is no measuring cast whether you should obtain Salvation it is a must-be Tempus perdimus dum aeternitatem non â—quaerimus You lose all that time that is not spent in looking after a happy Eternity First get bread for thy starving Children and then if thou hast time look after rattles for them A work of necessity must not be put off to a time of uncertainty If thou delayest delay
such a prayer as this O that the Lord would lengthen this triumphant day and the (c) Jos 10.12 Lord heard his voice The tribes beyond Jordan in a (d) 2 Chr. 5 23. battel with the Hagarites Jehoshaphat in a sore strait (e) 18.31 at Ramoth Gilead Sampson ready to perish at Lehi (f) Judg. 15.18 16 28. with thirst and when blind exposed to contempt in the Temple of Dagon David near (g) 1 Sam. 30.6 stoning at Ziglag and when flying from Absalom in the ascent of (h) 2 Sam. 15.31 Mount Olivet Elisha at Dothan compast with a Syrian host (i) 2 King 6.17 Lord open the young man's eyes In the midst of lawful and laborious callings Boaz to the reapers (k) Ruth 2.4 the Lord be with you we may pray that our Oxen (l) Psal 129.8 may be strong to labour no breaking in or going out nor no complaining in our streets It sanctifies the plow as Jerom said of the fields of Bethlehem quocunque te verteris Psal 144.14 ad Marcellum p. 129 T. 1. arator stivam teneus Alleluja decantat c. The tillers of the field and the dressers of vineyards sang David's psalms it keeps the shop and inclines the hearts of customers it bars the doors it quenches fire it blesseth thy children (m) Psal 147.13 within thee it preserves thy going out and coming in (n) 128.1 Jacob found it to rest upon his children going a journey (a) Gen. 43.14 to Egypt it closes the eyes with (b) Psal 3.5.4 8. sweet sleep it (c) Job 3â— 10 Psal 139.18 given Songs in the night and wakens the soul in the arms of mercy It sits at the helm when a (d) Psal 107.28 Jon. 1.6 storm rises at sea it gives strength to Anchors in roads and prosperous gales to the venturous Merchant When in the palace at dinner Nehemiah presents the cup to his prince he presents also a Michtam a golden (e) Neh 3.4 2 Chro. 34 27 Luke 17.5 Gen. 49.18 2 Chron. 2 4. Act. 7 60. prayer to the King of Heaven at the reading of the law Josiah was heard as to some secret cries to Heaven At a holy conference in a journey the Disciples occasionally pray Lord increase our faith Jacob on his dying pillow predicting future events to his children falls into a holy rapture I have wait ed for thy salvation O Lord. At sacred death in martyrdom Zechariah cries out the Lord look upon it and require it and Stephen under a showr of stones melts in prayers for the stony hearts that slung them Lord lay not this sin unto their chage and our blessed Saviour in his greatest agonies makes a tender hearted prayer Father forgive them they know not what they do Luke 23 34. 1 Sam. 1.17 and lastly in the distresses of others Eli puts a sudden petition for Hannah the God of Israel grant thee thy petition In these and many like cases the holy word stores us with patterns for ejaculation in all extremities which I cannot now digest and improve only in a few words lets take a view of the usefulness of such a sudden flight of the soul to Heaven 1. It helps us to a speedy preparative for all duties Lam. 3 4â— with such an ejaculation le ts lift our hearts with our hands to God in the Heavens 2. It is a guard against secret sins in the first risings and the first assaults of temptation 3. It suffers not divine mercies to slip by unobserved in a wakeful Christian and proves a fruitful mother of gratitude and praise 4. It sanctifies all our worldly imployments 1 Tim 4. â— 5. it fastens the stakes in the hedge of divine protection and turns every thing to a blessing 5. It s a Saints buckler against sudden accidents a present antidote against frights and evil tidings It s good at all occasions and consecrates to us not only our meals but every gasp of air c. 6. It s a sweet companion that the severest enemies can't abridge us of Outward ordinances and closet duties they may cut off the little (a) Ezr. 9 8. nail in the holy place they may pluck out But no labyrinth no prison not the worst of company can hinder this coelo restat iter in the very face of adversaries we may lift our souls to God No more of this le ts briefly conclude with some uses Vse Vse Cant. 4 12. To convince such of their dangerous state that neglect sacred duties that have no heart-communion that draw no water out of this sealed fountain But all they do is in publick only it 's a suspicious token of hypocrisie since the kernel and soul of religion lies so much in the heart and closet mark the phrase in the text how it varies thy Father that is in secret be sees in secret God's eye is open upon thee in the closet and if thy eye be open upon his thou mayst see a glorious beauty The excellency of grace lies in making conscience of secret sins and secret duties 2. To examine such as perform secret duty but not from a sincere principle like Amaziah 2 Chron. 25.2 that prays but not with a perfect heart like Ahab they mourn but with Crocodile tears such as do it only because they find precept or example for it and therefore to quiet conscience will into secret but converse only in the shell and trunk of a duty that rest in the naked performance but matter not whether they tast of the sweet streams that flow in from heaven in the golden pipe of an ordinance what account can such render that go into their closets but like Domitian to catch flies only Sueton. in Domit. c. 3. and when the doors are shut to the world their hearts are shut to heaven and communion with God He that sees in secret beholds the evil frame of such a heart and will one day openly punish it 3. To excite and awaken all to this excellent duty and to manage it in an excellent manner Would ye live delightfully would ye translate heaven to earth then keep up communion in secret prayer to know him to discern his face to behold the lustre of his eye that shines in secret Remember the glorious person that meets in your closets all the world yields not such a glittering beauty as a gracious person sees when he is in a happy frame at secret prayer Shut your eyes when ye come out for all other objects are but vile and fordid and not worth the glances of a noble soul O the sweetness the hidden manna that the soul tasts when in lively communion with God! Psal 31.19 Part of that which is laid up for Saints in glory let us a little relish our spirits with it 1. Consider what amorous agonies the soul delights to conflict with in serret fears that raise confidence humility that exalts tremblings that embolden bright clouds
not men nor creatures and if you do depend on him and want his help to supply your wants your own indigency should bring you upon your knees to pray to him as the Heathen Poet's Verse which Melancthon said was the best Verse in all Homer doth express 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. Od. l. 3. All men need God therefore should Prayers use Reason 4. 4. You should pray in your Families DAILY because of your Families daily employments and labours (4) Ad candem q o â—dianis operibus promovendis permovemur Every one that puts his hand to work his head to contrive should set his heart to pray for will not your trading be in vain and your labouring and working your carking and projecting for the world be to no purpose without the blessing of God Will you be convinced if God himself doth tell you Then read Psal 127.1 Except the Lord build the house Panis multis laboribus cuâ—Ãsque conquisitus Geierus Panis plenus aerumnarum maximis molestiis parâ—u Vatablus Nec ita fidendum industriae ut divinam opem negligamus nec ita rursum pendendum ab illa ut nostrum praetermittamâ—â— officium Erasmus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hierocles in aureo comment in aurea Pythagor carmina p. 233. c. they labour in vain that build it v. 2. It is in vain for you to rise up early to sit up late to eat the bread of sorrows Bread of sorrows What bread is that Bread gotten with much care and labour and toil is bread of sorrows Without God you labour to get bread for your selves and Families in vain you might miss of it after all your labours and without God's blessing if you eat it when you have got it with much toil and care you eat it in vain for without him it cannot nourish your Bodies And yet is it not necessary to pray to God to prosper and succeed you in your Callings Prayer and labour should both promote what you aim at To pray and not to do the works of your Callings would be to expect supplies wh le you are negligent to labour and trade and not to pray would be to hope for encrease and provision without God Religion that puts you upon holy duties doth not teach you to neglect your Callings nor yet to trust to your own endeavours without praying unto God but both are to keep their place and have a share of your time Prayer is a middle thing betwixt God's giving and our getting How can you receive if God do not give And why do you expect that God will give if you do not ask Jam. 4. Ye have not because ye ask not What ye work for pray fâ—r and what ye pray for work and labour for and this is the true conjunction of labour and prayer Or will you be like to them the Apostle speaks to Jam. 4.13 Go to now ye that say to day or to morrow we will go into such a City and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain You will but will you not ask leave from God whether you shall or no You will go What! though God cast you upon a bed of sickness or into your graves do if you can You will continue there a year What! if death drag you out as soon as you come there if death fetch your bodies to the dust and grave and Devils fetch your souls to Hell after this will you continue in such a City for a year If one part of you be in the grave and the other part in Hell what is left of you to continue in the City You will buy and sell will you What if God give you neither money nor credit With whom I wonder And you will get gain you are resolved upon it you will thrive and prosper and grow rich What if God curse your endeavours and say you shall not You will all this and you would have your Will but your power is not equal to your Will Here is much Will but not a word of Prayer A Heathen will teach you a better lesson and that is that you should not go unto your work nor to your Shops and Callings till you have first prayed unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pythagoras Nullius est foelix conatus utilis unquam Consilium si non détque juvétque Deus Reason 5. You should pray to God in your Families daily (5.) Ad candem ab hostibus animarum nostrarum diabolique insidiis urgemur because you are all every day liable to temptations As soon as you wake the Devil will be striving for your first thoughts and when you are risen he will be urgent with you to do him the first service and attend you all the day to draw you into some hainous sin before night and is the Devil a subtil watchful powerful enemy and unwearied and do you not all need to get together in the morning that Sathan might not prevail against any of you before night till you come to God together again How many temptations might you meet with in your Callings and your company which without God you will not be able to resist And how might you fall and dishonour God discredit your profession defile your souls disturb your peace and wound your consciences This Origen bewailed in his lamentation for that day he omitted prayer he hainously sinned But I O unhappy creature skipping out of my bed at the dawning of the day could not finish my wonted devotion neither accomplish my usual prayer folded and wrapped my self in the snares of the Devil Euseb Eccl. Hist lib. 7. cap. 1. Reason 6. 6. You should pray in your Families daily (6.) Ad candem variis casibus imminentibus instigamur because all in your Families are liable to daily hazards casualties and afflictions and prayer might prevent them or obtain strength to bear them and prepare you for them Do you know what affliction might befall your Family in a days time or in a nights time either in regard of sickness death or outward losses in your estate Might not you hear of one man's breaking in your debt and gone away with so much and another gone away with so much and are you indeed so vveaned from the World that this shall not put you into a passion and cause you to sin against God or that you can bear it without murmuring and discontent that you need not pray for a composed frame of heart if such things befall you Do you know if you go abroad your self or send a Son or Servant that you or they may return alive again though you go out alive you may be brought back again dead had you not then need to pray to God in the morning that he would keep you in your goings forth and comings in and bless him together in the evening if he do How many evils is man exposed to whether he be at home or
him and so in his own sense he was not wiser than others But will gold go in Heaven or in Hell There it is nothing worth When you have got much by your trading which keeps you from praying will it not make you loth to dye having laid up no better treasure elsewhere and vex you to the heart that for this you have lost God and Christ and Heaven and your souls and your riches too at last As Mr. Latimer in a Sermon before King Edward the Sixth relates of a rich man that was sick and one coming to him and seeing how he was told him he thought he could not recover but was a dead man who presently flew into a rage saying Must I die Send for the Physician wounds sides heart Must I die must I die wounds sides heart Must I die and leave all my riches and so continued crying out in this language till he dyed and are these the things you are so earnest for that you can find no time to pray for better A like passage Mr. Jeremy Burroughs on Psal 17.14 relates of one that once lived near to him that being sick call'd for his bags of silver and hugging them in his arms said Must I leave you must I leave you Pray for an interest in God and Christ and when you die being his and he yours you shall not leave him but be taken into fuller enjoyment of him Consider again as you cannot take them with you when you die so these things cannot comfort you in your Sickness As the same Author mentions another that on his sick bed call'd for his bags of gold which being brought he laid to his brest as near his heart as he could but after a while said Here take them again take them again these will not do these will not do What will not bags of gold do No they are trash and dirt to a dying man What will they not do They will not procure health to a sick man nor prolong life to a dying man nor speak peace to a troubled man nor procure Heaven for a graceless man No no it will not do it will not do and you shall find it will not do And are these the things you are so bent upon that you have no time for looking after these to pray to God for something that would do you good while you live when you die and after death Consider and be wiser 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theocrit Epig. It is a great mistake that Prayer will hinder you in your worldly Callings To drive a trade for Heaven and on Earth may both be done You cannot love both with a predominate love nor serve both as principal Masters but you may work for one and pray for the other When you are in a Journey doth it hinder you to stay and bait If you were travelling far if you bait daily you may come there in time but if you did not bait at all you would never get thither It is a true Proverb Prayer and Provender hinder no man Surely you forget that the success of all your labours depends upon the blessing and providence of God Cannot God blast your endeavours and blow upon your estates and cause you to put it into a bag with holes Hag. 1.6 Nothing is more likely to further you than Prayer 5. Tell me in good earnest and let thy Conscienee speak Non exiguum temporis habemus sed multum perdiâ—us sâ—tis longa vita in maximarum rerum consummationem largè data est si tota bene collocaretur sed ubi per luxum negligentiam defluit ubi nulli rei bonae impenditur ultima demum necessitate cogente quam ire non intelleximus transisse sentimus ità est non accepimus brevem vitam sed fecimus nec inopes ejus sed prodigi sumus Senec de brev vita dost thou not mispend more time every day than this duty would take up Art thou not longer in some impertinent company and longer in some unnecessary business or lingring and loytering at home or abroad or at some Club or other longer than Family Prayer may be profitably performed and yet say thou hast no time 6. What if God should visit thy Family with some lasting sickness and take thee and thy Servants too from your work and callings and make you spend that time in sickness in your beds from your labour which you would not spend in Prayer Must you find a time to be sick and dye and yet find no time to pray Ab quid respondere velit Châ—isto venturo de coelis Cum à te poscet rationem Ob boni remissionem Et mali commissionem Dies illa dies irae Quam conemur praevenire Obviáâ—que deo ire 7. Wilt thou tell God so when thou standest at his Judgment Seat Which of you is the man Stand forth that shall be accused at the Bar of God that he did not pray to God in his Family that will now say he will give God this answer then Lord I was so employed in the World and my Family too that we had no leisure for thy Service No not to look after Heaven nor to seek my favour and my love nor to beg for pardon and salvation Go get you gone Go get you down to a place of torment though you could find no time to pray to me I will find an eternity to plague and punish you Quantus tremor esi futurus Quando Judex est venturus Cuncta strictè discussuruâ— Quid tum miser tum dicturus Quem patronum rogaturus Quam vix justus sit securus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epict. Enchir. cap. 66. 8. Are you the better for your riches when you have by this labour got them or do you work so hard and spend your time even all your time for such things that when you have them you are no better You account him the best man in the Parish that hath the most riches and is the greatest but so doth not God no the Heathens would not neither but he that is most holy and loves God best and serves him most Those are goods indeed that make you good indeed but you are the worse by how much you spend your time more precious than all in time you get with the neglect of your duties unto God Nolo tollas cupiditatem sed mutes nolo perdas sed lucreris avarum cupiditas argentei nummi incitat ad cupiendum aureum pro quo relinquit argenteum namque ipse valor argentei est in aureo ideo plures aereos atque argenteos pro uno commutat aureo O locupletissimum qui ita suas cupiditates contrahitâ— Commutanda omnia pro Deo sunt totum gaudium nostrum latissimum in uno colligendum Nolo aliquid nimis severum nolo ut consumas cupiditates omnes sed ut resumas omnes in una sumas Nieremb de art volunt p. 369. 9. What if thou
reverence her Husband This is the Dictate of our Creator both by the Light of Nature and of Scripture This is the constant language both of the Old Testament and of the New And is more purposely handled and prest by the two great Apostles of the Jews and Gentiles that so all Christians however descended should submit unto it The Apostle Paul Ephes 5.22 c. Col. 3.18 c. The Apostle Peter 1 Pet. 3.1 c. Not that these are all their respective Duties but these are specified either 1. (n) Mr. Byfield on Col p. 111. Because in these are the most frequent failings Husbands too commonly being defective in their Love and Wives most defective in their Reverence and Subjection Or 2. Because these two are the sum of the rest and no other Duties are either Possible or Acceptable without them And my present Work is to digest and urge these in a solemn and impartial manner that it may appear Our Religion doth not only propound Rewards to make us happy in the world to come but doth also direct the methods of setling our quiet and comfort in this present world For certainly it is not the Having of Husbands or Wives that brings contentment but the mutual Discharge of both their Duties and this makes their Lives though never so poor an Heaven upon Earth But herein I can but draw up an Abstract and send you where you may be far better provided In the mean time let us all in the prosecution hereof sadly reflect on our former failings and sincerely resolve on future amendment according to that whereof we shall be convinced by the word of Truth And here I shall indeavour these Four things 1. To propound the Mutual or Common Duties of Both. 2. The special Duty of every Husband 3. The special duty of every Wife 4. Directions how to accomplish them That so they may most certaily be Blessings to each oher First let us see what are those Mutual Duties that lie common between Husband and Wife wherein Both of them are equally at least according to the place and power of each concern'd and oblig'd And they are These following 1. Mutual Cohabitation For the man he (o) Gen. 2.24 must leave father and mother and cleave to his Wife And the Woman she (p) Psal 45.10 must forget her kinred and her fathers house The Husband (q) 1 Pet. 3.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he must dwell with the Wife and the Wife (r) 1 Cor. 7 10. she must not depart from the Husband though he be an Infidel And indeed the Ends and Duties of marriage are such as will not ordinarily dispense herewith For Example 1 Cor. 7.3 4.5 Let the husband render unto the Wife due benevolence and likewise also the wife unto the husband The wife hath not power of her own body but the husband and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body but the wife Defraud you not the one the other except it he with consent for a time that you may give your selves to fasting and prayer and come together again that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency Which plainly shews that even the sober use of the Marriage-bed is such (s) The wife of Galeac Caracciola denying this debt upon the direction of her Confessor on pain of Excommunication was judg'd a sufficient Reason of Divorce In vita a mutual debt that it may not be intermitted long without Necessity and Consent Nay in the †Deut. 24 5. Old Law the greatest necessity should not send the husband from his wife the first year that their affections might be throughly settled and that he might chear up his Wife which he hath taken * For the man is the head the Woman is as the body for the head and body to be sundered it is present death to either Gataker Serm. p. 203. Neither indeed can any of the following Duties towards each others Souls or Bodies be throughly performed nor many grievous snares avoided without dwelling together And therefore neither desire of Gain nor Fear of Trouble no occasional Distasts nor pretence of Religion should separate those from Conjugal converse and (t) Alibi fluctuare sese existimet in domo autem apud uxorem suum tanquam in portu optat◠conquiescere Daven in Col. Cohabitation unless with consent and that but for a time whom God hath joyned together 2. Mutual Love This though in a peculiar manner it be the Duty of the Husband Col. 3.18 Husbands love your Wives yet it is required also of the Wife Tit. 2.4 they must love their Husbands Indeed this is the (u) First you must choose your Love and then you must love your choice Smith Serm. Conjugal Grace the great Reason and the great Comfort of Marriage Not a sensual or doting Passion but genuine conjugal and constant out of a pure heart fervently Not grounded on beauty wealth or interest for these may soon wither and fail nor only upon Graoe and Piety for this may decay to the least degree and in the opinion of both parties quite disappear but it must be grounded upon the Command and Ordinance of God whereby of Two they are made * Vna caro non nexu amoris nec commixtione corporum nec procreatione liberorum sed vinculo conjugii Zanch. One flesh So that though either of them be poor deform'd froward though unregenerate wicked Infidels yet in Obedience to God and in Conscience of the Marriage-Vow which obligeth for better and for worse they ought to love each other with a (x) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys in Eph. hom 29. superlative Love and when the sacred knot is once tyed every man should think his wife and every wife her husband the fittest for them of any in the world And hereupon the (y) Cael. Rhodig l. 28. p. 1575. Heathens took the Gall from their nuptial Sacrifices and cast it behind the Altar to intimate the removing of all bitterness from the Marriage-state there should be nothing but Love And this Love must be as durable and constant as are the grounds of it to the Persons of each other until death and to the memory and posterity of each other when they are dead and gone and thus the good wife is understood by some to do her husband good (z) Prov. 31.12 all the days of her life not only of his life but when he is dead to his Posterity What strange instances of this lasting love former (a) Portia the wife of Brutus A ria the wife of Cecinna Pae us In Valer. Max. Ages hath given and some (b) The Bannyon Wives among the Indians burn themselves to ashes at the funeral of their husbands Herbert in his Travels Pagans at this day is in History both evident and admirable This true-hearted Love will bring true Content and constant Comfort into that Condition will make all counsels and reproofs acceptable will
keep out Jealousie that bane of marriage comfort will keep the thoughts fixt and the heart chaste for it is not the Having an Husband or Wife but the Loving of them that preserves from Adultery This will prevent or soon quiet those storms within doors as we see the Mother that dearly loves her Child though it cry all night and disturb her quiet yet Love to it makes them very good friends in the morning If Love be eclipsed for a day or an hour between husband and wife they are (c) Mr. Baxter's Direct p. 520. like a bone out of joynt there is no ease nor order nor work well done till it be restored again 3. Mutual Fidelity especially to the Marriage-bed and also in each others secrets And this is directed 1 Cor. 7.2 Let every man have his Own wife and let every woman have her Own husband By which Rule the thoughts desires and actions of each of them are confin'd to their (d) Choose whether Adam thou wilt imitate the Old or the New the one hath but one Wife the other hath but one Church Hierome cited by Gataker own lawful yoke-fellow as the dearest sweetest and best Object in the world and this by vertue of the Covenant of their God The least Aberration herein if it be not speedily and sincerely mortified will strangely get ground and fester in the Soul and never rest till it come to plain Adultery (e) See of this largely and excellently Lud. Viv. de Christ foemin p. 699. And then the Comfort of their lives the quiet of their consciences and the credit of their families lye bleeding and without true Repentance their eternal happiness shipwrack't Yea this virtually dissolves the Bond of marriage and if the (f) Deut. 22.22 Divine Law were executed brings the offender to a severe Death And though some greater Shame and other Inconveniences do follow the unfaithfulness of the Wife yet man and wife being One flesh and equal power granted to them over the bodies of each other the guilt of this sin is equal unless the wisdom and strength of the man do make his fault the greater And therefore all possible care must be used to avoid all occasions and incentives of wandring desires from home and the rather because he or she that is not content with one will not be content with more for sin is boundless and nothing but Grace and the Grave can limit the desires of the Heart The same Faithfulness is necessary in the wise concealment of each others secrets whether Natural Moral or Civil unless in such cases wherein a superior Obligation doth release them For there cannot be a more unnatural treachery than when Husband or Wife the nearest of Friends make one another obnoxious to shame or harm Bad when it is done by Inadvertence worse when in their Passion worst of all when it is through ill will and malice 4. Mutual Helpfulness Hence they are called Yokefollows And of the Woman it was said at her Creation that she should be an (g) Gen 2.18 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Help meet for him which may be rendred an Help like him for they should be both of them Helps to each other There are Three Yokes which they must joyntly carry 1. The Yoke of Cares This all people must expect to bear in a married condition and for the most part that of Labour also And these lying always on one shoulder will overload but when some help comes in the husband takes care without the wife takes care within the husband travels abroad the wife is busie at home then the burden is easier To this end it behoves the Wife to read often the last Chapter of Proverbs and the husband the rest of that Book for their quickning hereunto 2. The Yoke of Crosses and troubles For such as are married though they expect nothing but pleasure yet (h) 1 Cor. 7.28 must have trouble in the flesh losses in their estates afflictions in their children crosses both from friends and enemies Now every man and woman should chuse such yoke-fellows as may be Friends as well as Relations and may comfort support and advise each other with all faithfulness and sympathy 3. The Yoke of Jesus Christ For they should (i) 1 Pet. 3.7 live as heirs together of the Grace of Life And it is the highest end of their Relation to promote one the others everlasting happiness The Knowledg of the husband must help the wife and the Zeal of the wife must help the husband When (k) Cael. Rhodig l. 28. the Sun shines the Moon absconds when that is set this appears When the husband is at home then it is his work to instruct and pray with his Family and sanctifie the Sabbath but in his absence the wife is his stated Deputy and must look to it And both must study both in Prudence and Conscience to be of One mind incouraging reproving or correcting their Inferiors lest their Authority be weakened their spirits distempered and their indeavours frustrateâ— 5. Mutual Patience c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quomodo probabit homo animam suam si pâ—ssit tolerare uxorem malam Buxt ex Miphcah Happen This Grace we are bound to exercise towards all men how much more to such near and dear Relations Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking be put away with all malice And be kind one to another tender-hearted forgiving one another as God doth for Christ's sake forgive us Eph. 4.31 32. Innumerable are the l Occasions that may minister Contention in the daily affairs wherein they are concerned and Satan is ever ready to blow the coal and they have corrupt and froward Natures and therefore there is a flat necessity of this blessed Grace Alas a civil War within doors is the most intolerable The soul the body the worship of God the affairs the Family are all disordered by it No good can come of it passion reforms nothing but (m) Magis vâ—remur prudâ—ntes quam i acundos plus cogit qu etum imperium quam vehemens imperiosior concitatione quies Lu. Viv. de Christ Foem p. 729. patience may the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God The married Couple therefore must study and pray for a meek and quiet spirit mortifie pride learn self-denial and sometimes wisely (n) Thus Albuâ— us lived with his Terentiana 25 years and P. Rubrius Celer with his Ennia 44 years without a quarrel So Mr. Smith in his Sermons tels of a cholerick couple that kept the peace by each keeping silence when the other was angry withdraw till the storm be over and hold their peace to keep the peace They must consider as Holy Mr. Bolton saith that two Angels are not met together but too sinful children of Adam from whom little can be expected but weakness and waiwardness They must reckon the greatest worth and honour to be first in Overtures of Peace
requires more from Christians than he doth from other men Mat. 5.47 What do ye more than others Christians must be free from the Vices of other men Eph. 4.17 This I say therefore and testifie in the Lord that ye walk not as other Gentiles walk So Luke 22.25 26. The Kings of the Gentiles Exercise Lordship they are Proud Ambitious Imperious But it shall not be so among you Christians must be in the World like Lights shining in a dark place They must have all the Vertues that others have and they must be clean from all the Vices and Lusts in which others Live Now the very Heathens have condemned this Practice of Reproaching and traducing others Detractors were infamous amongst them and therefore it is a shame this should be practised by Christians 3. This is a sin against the whole design and scope of the Scriptures These are as I may say the two Poles upon which the Heavenly Globe of the Scripture turns the Love of God and the Love of our Neighbour Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart and thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self Mat. 22.37 c. Rom. 13.10 Love is the fulfilling of the Law and the Law is enforced by Christ Joh. 13.34 A new Commandment give I unto you that ye love one another So then all the Scripture hath but one Neck and this the Detractor cuts off and so makes himself the greatest Anti-Scripturist in the World 3. This is a great injury to God because it is a Confederacy with God's greatest Enemy the Devil God judgeth of men's Relations by their Works and not by their talks John 8.39 If ye were Abraham 's Children you would do the Works of Abraham And verse 44. Ye are of your Father the Devil and the Lusts of your Father ye will do Now this among others is the Devil 's great Work and Office who is hence called the Accuser of the Brethren Rev. 12.10 And from whence he hath his Name Diabolus which is a Calumniator a Slanderer a Reproacher And these Men as they do the Devil's Work so they are called by the Devil's name 1 Tim. 3.12 Not Slanderers in the Greek not Devils And as they do the Devil's Work so they serve the Devil 's great Design God is Love and therefore his design is to promote Love in the World The Devil is a malignant and hateful Spirit and his work is to promote hatred contention and strife among men And that is effectually done by this way 2. This is an injury to thy self in these particulars 1. Hereby thou dost contract guilt the worst of all evils A man's sin may injure another Man but the greatest and the worst part of it falls upon his own head Wickedness saith Seneca drinketh up the greatest part of it 's own poyson Prov. 8.36 He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own Soul Thou woundest another Man's Fame but thou woundest thy own Conscience which of these is the worst He whom thou reproachest gets a blot before men and thou dost procure to thy self a blot before God Thou accusest him before other Men and thy Conscience will accuse thee for it before God 2. Hereby thou dost expell or weaken that excellent Grace of Love that necessary and fundamental Grace that sweet and amiable Grace As all Virtue is a reward to it self so is this in a more special manner Infinite is the pleasure of the Holy Soul in loving God and loving all Men and loving Enemies O this is a most delightful Work And on the contrary Hatred and Malice and Envy as they are most sinful so are they very miserable works and a great Torment to him that hath them while the mind of a wicked malicious man is like the raging Sea continually casting up mire and dirt and is its own Tormentor The mind of a good Man exercising it self in love is as it were a Sea of Glass like unto Crystal calm and serene it enjoys God and it self and other men yea even a man's Enemies By this Holy Art a Man may get comfort out of his Enemies whether they will or no. 3. Hereby thou dost lay a Foundation for thy own Reproach Mat. 7.1 2. Judge not that ye be not judged for with what Judgment ye judge ye shall be judged and with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again Methinks this Text should strike a terrour into all Persons who are guilty of this sin The Law of Retaliation prescribed by God is frequently inflicted by him also James 2.13 He shall have Judgment without Mercy that hath shewed no mercy So that thou dost ingage the great God against thee to pour contempt upon thy Name and to make thee a Reproach in the World 3. It is a great injury to the Person whom thou dost censure and reproach and that in these particulars 1. Thou dost rob him of the best Treasure which he hath in the World Prov. 22.1 A good Name is rather to be chosen than Riches and consequently thou art more Criminal than he that dyeth by the hands of Justice for taking away another Man's Goods Thou robbest him of that which thou art not able to give him thou robbest him of the most lasting good which he hath and that which alone will abide after Death So that thy cruelty extends beyond the Grave and tends to this to make his Name rot above ground while his Body rots in it And this injury is the greater because it cannot be prevented there is no Fence against this Vice it is the Arrow that flyes by Night which no man can either observe or avoid and it is an Injury which can hardly be repaired Breaches in mens Estates may be made up Liberty lost may be recovered a Conscience wounded may be healed but a Reputation can hardly ever be restored Calumnia re fortiter aliquid adhaerebit Slander a man resolutely and something to be sure will stick 2. Hereby thou dost disenable him from getting good both as to his outward and as to his inward man As to his outward Man Who knows not the necessity of a good fame for the successful management of a man's Worldly concernments By one Act of this sin thou mayst possibly undo a man and all his Family It hinders him also from receiving inward good as to the state of his Soul At least he is not likely to get any good from thee Whereas it is thy duty to rebuke thy Neighbour and not to suffer sin to rest upon him Levit. 19.17 This is the way to make that work altogether unsuccessful it stops his Ear against thy Counsels it hardens his heart against thy admonitions and many times such Reproaches make men careless and by degrees impudent and when once they have lost their Reputation by thy Calumnies they are not careful to regain it and it may be judge it impossible 3. Hereby thou dost hinder him from doing of good in the World It is certain a
Certainty the greatest Consent and the greatest Necessity will honour it self and its Author in the world if it be rightly represented in the Lives of them that do profess it But when mens over-doing shall pretend that all this is too little and shall seek to raise it as to more perfection by their own Inventions or uncertain Opinions in Doctrine Worship Church-Discipline or Practice they presently cast it as a Foot-ball before the Boys in the Streets and make it a matter of doubtful endless Disputations of multiplied Sects of pernicious Contentions and cruel Persecutions And then the Reverence and Glory of it is gone and every Philosopher will vie with it in subtilty and every Stranger will presume to censure it if not to blaspheme it and deride it And thus Over-doers are the Scandals of the World II. The Christian that will glorifie God and his Profession must be conscionable in the smallest matters but he must ever describe and open the Nature of his Religion as consisting in great and certain things and not talk too much of smaller matters as if it were those that men were to be saved by Tell men of the necessity of believing fearing obeying trusting and loving God and of coming to him by Jesus Christ the Great Mediator between God and Man Tell them of the intrinsick evil of sin and of God's Justice and of Man's Corruption and of the Nature and Excellency of Holiness and of the necessity of being New-born of the Holy Spirit and of mortifying the desires and deeds of the Flesh and tell them of Judgment Heaven and Hell especially the certainty and excellency of the everlasting promised Glory perswade them to believe all this to think much of all this and to be true to what they know and to make it the work of Life to be always prepared for Death Let this be your discourse with sinners as I told you in the first Character it must be your own Religion and then men will perceive that Religion is a matter that doth indeed concern them and that they are indeed great and necessary things in which you differ from ungodly men But the Scandalous Christian talketh most of external Church-orders and Forms and Opinions and Parties and thereby maketh the ignorant believe that the difference is but that one will sit when the other kneeleth and one will pray by the Book and the other without Book and one is for this Church Government and another for that and one for praying in White and the other in Black And talking too much of such things as these deceiveth the hearers some it maketh formal hypocrites who take up this for their Religion and the rest it hardeneth and maketh them think that such people are only more humourous and self-conceited and giddy and factious than others but no whit better III. The Genuine Christian hath an humble and cautelous understanding sensible when he knoweth most how little he knoweth and how much he is still unacquainted with in the great mysterious matters of God His Ignorance is his daily grief and burden and he is still longing and looking for some clearer Light Not a new word of Revelation from God but a clearer understanding of his Word He knoweth how weak and slippery Man's understanding is and he is humbly conscious of the darkness of his own Therefore he is not conceitedly wise nor a boaster of his knowledge but saith as Paul 1 Cor. 8.2 He that thinketh that he knoweth any thing that is is proudly conceited of his own knowledge knoweth nothing as he ought to know And hence it is that though he daily grow in the firmer apprehension of necessary Truths yet he is never confident and peremptory about uncertain doubtful things And therefore he is not apt to be Quarrelsome and contentious nor yet censorious against those that differ from him in matters of no greater moment And hence it is that he runneth not into Sects nor burneth with the scaverish dividing Zeal nor yet is scandalously mutable in his Opinions because as one that is conscious of his Ignorance he doth not rashly receive things which he understands not but suspendeth his judgment till Evidence make him fit to Judge and joyneth with neither of the contending Parties till he is sure or know indeed which of them is right And thus he avoideth that dishonouring of Religion which the scandalous Christian is wofully guilty of who with an unhumbled understanding groweth confident upon quick and insufficient information and Judgeth before he understandeth the case and before he hath heard or read and considered what on both sides may be said and what is necessary to a true understanding And thus either by audacious prating of what he never understood or reviling and censuring Men wiser than himself or by making himself a Judge where he hath need to be many years a Learner or making a Religion of his own mistakes and setting up dividing Sects to propagate them or else by shameful mutability and unsettledness he becometh a scandal to harden unbelievers and a Disease to the Church and a shame to his profession Read James 3. Conceited Wisdom kindleth a contentious Zeal and is not of God but from beneath v. 15.16 17. IV. The Christian who Glorifieth God by his Religion is one that so Liveth that men may perceive that his carnal Interest is not the End and Ruler of his Life but that God is his End and to please him is his Work and his Reward in which he is comforted though the Flesh and World be never so much displeased And that the perfect Light and love of God in the unseen Glory of another Life is the satisfying sum of all his hopes for which all the World must be forsaken To talk much of Heaven and to be as much and as eager for the World as others is the way by which the scandalous Hypocrite doth bring Religion into Contempt It is no high nor very honourable Work to talk of the vanity of the World but to Live above it and to be out of the power of it Nor is it any great matter to speak honourably of Heaven but to Live as believing-seekers of it and as those that have there their Treasure and their hearts Mat. 6.20 21. and are comforted more by the Hopes of the Life to come than by all their possessions or pleasures in the World If we will glorifie God our Lives must perswade Men that he will certainly be our Everlasting Portion and the sure and plentiful Rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11.6 It is much of the use of a true Christian's Life to convince Unbelievers that there is a Heaven for Saints and the scandalous worldling perswadeth them that there is none Mat. 5.5 11 12. Phil. 3.26 21. Col. 3.1 2 3 4 5. V. Therefore it Glorifieth God and our Religion when Christians Live in greater Joy or at least greater contentedness and Peace than other Men when they can answer
preparation and introduction to it a valley never to be fill'd up the Gospel doth by no means allow of Self-Exaltation no flesh must glory in his presence 1 Cor. 1.29 we must still seem vile in our own eyes 2. Of God and of his mercy which is two-fold 1. Privative which is a total privation of the habit root or principle of true saving hope as in all unbelievers 2. Negative a cessation of the acts of hope which is twofold A total cessation at least as to our sense and discerning of the actings of Hope for a time this is temporary Despair Gradual arising from a weakness in the actings of Hope which is Despair in opinion counted so by weak doubting Christians both these last mentioned are incident to true Believers and occasion much sorrow and sadness to them But this Privation or negation of hope doth not fully set forth the nature of despair in which there seems to be somewhat positive recessus a re desiderata as the Schools speak an actual with-drawing from Christ the heart falls off from the Promises doth act against them puts them from us despair argues and reasons the soul out of its hope puts in a caveat against it self cannot think that a person under such circumstances can be within the meaning of the promise and so sinks and faints away Job 17.15 This is more than meer privation or negation there is an evil disposition wrought in the heart by unbelief which fills the soul with many prejudices against the truth makes it pertinaciously to adhere unto its own erroneous judgment so that it can do nothing now but quarrel dispute and except against all that may be said on t'other side These things premis'd I now come to shew the difference between Despair and Hope 1. Despair is the result of strong legal convictions urging the sentence of the Law against us without any consideration of Gospel-Grace for our relief and succour This works great consternation fills the soul with amazing fears shuts it up in a dark dungeon claps it in irons binds it hand and foot and so leaves it under a fearful expectation of fiery indignation to devour it But Hope deals in the promises is begotten by them and bears up the soul under the condemnation of the Law 2. Despair indisposes the soul from hearkning to the free grace of the Gospel when 't is offered because it still retains those strong impressions and dreadful apprehensions which the Law hath wrought and will not be comforted But Hope allayes these fears makes the soul willing to debate the matter to hear what the Gospel sayes to see what may be done in so dangerous a cause 3. Despair sees more in sin than in Christ and supposes the wound incurable my sin is greater than can be forgiven But Hope sees Grace superabounding large enough to cover all our sins 4. Despair is very peremptory and positive in concluding against it self 't is resolv'd upon nothing but death greater than can be forgiven a lost undone creature to all eternity it cannot be otherwise As in the highest decree of faith and hope there is assurance of salvation so here there is a dismal uncomfortable assurance of damnation But Hope though it may be accompanied with many fears and doubts yet there is some expectation of good a patient looking for and sollicitous waiting though sometimes with trembling for salvation the soul doth not give over its pursuit after life and pardon but when 't is at the lowest ebb doth apprehend some possibility of escape through Christ it may be for all this we shall be hid in the day of the Lords anger Zeph. 2.3 it may be we shall be delivered from the wrath to come Thus Hope draws on the soul to Christ encouraging it to come forward Directions how to avoid both extreams 1. Against Presumption whether of our selves or of God 1. Against that Presumption that is of our selves take these following Directions 1. Take up so much of a sense of sin into the mount of Hope as may keep thy hope from swelling into presumption or from feeding upon any thing in thy self 2. Be much in proving thy hope in giving thy self and others a reason of it 1 Pet. 3.15 this is the way to keep it right consider what that reason is whether it be a true Gospel-ground of hope as natural affections in a man must be guided by reason so spiritual affections in a Christian must be regulated and influenced by Faith I believed and therefore have I spoken 2 Cor. 4.13 so it holds here I believe and therefore do I hope 3. Suspect those acts of Hope that have their rise from any thing else but Christ and the promises the heart of man is deep and very deceitful 't is no easie matter to understand our hope at all times and to manage it aright we are apt to forget our selves flesh will be putting in and contributing something from its self towards the support of our hope it will be casting in something into the scale with Christ to make better weight This we must carefully watch against keeping our eye only upon Christ as David Psal 62.5 6. When we find our hearts pleasing themselves with any self-reflections upon our own personal worth in any kind we should fear lest those thoughts should gather too fast and puff us up in a vain conceit of our selves we should see nothing but meanness vileness and unworthyness in our selves under the highest actings of our hope in Christ Though I were perfect yet would I not know my soul Job 8.21 4. Begin thy Hope with an act of humble holy despair of thy self that thy hope may be discharged on that hand forc't to quit all expectations from thence and not be tempted to any sinister aspect that way upon so poor empty insufficient a thing as thou knowest thy self to be We know not what to do but our eyes are upon thee 2 Chron. 20.12 Our hope though it look never so directly upon Christ yet it is too too apt to take in some collateral encouragements from self which do cause a further dilation in the heart and make some secret and if we observe our own spirit some sensible additions to the joy and complacency we have in our hope we bless our selves the more and though we are pleased with Christ yet we are pleased with something besides Christ and this spoils all it poysons our hope is like a Canker eats like a Gangrene and is a great blemish to our hope 5. If all this will not do but still thy proud heart is big with expectation of something from God upon its own account and thou canst not separate self from Christ in the out-goings of thy hope then my advice is Answer thy foolish heart for once in its folly and take its supposed worth into thy serious consideration weigh it well prove it examine all its pretences that the truth may appear and that you may do this
and righteous judge the case is thine and mine infinitely more dreadful than between a malefactor and a magistrate my sins are innumerable the least is mortal God is judge and hell is the prison wrath horrour fire the worm and all endless that is the punishment the judge is and cannot be otherwise than most true and righteous what comfort can I think to find now from God absolute i. e. without relation to Christ behold instead of comfort a devouring flame and instead of joy a consuming fire I speak this because of abundance of our people they say God is merciful and they do their best they hope God will be their comfort and they serve him and all this while they think not of Jesus Christ we are all naturally Socinians those that never heard their names much less read their books live in their heretical and blasphemous principles O the amazing stupidity of the world called Christian that we can smile and laugh and hug our selves in deceiving comforts upon the brink of hell there can be nothing comfortable to us without the God of all comfort and no comfort can be to us from God but by the Lord Jesus and no Jesus to us without Faith we rejoyce in God saith the Apostle but how by Jesus Christ why by him we have received the attonement he hath made it by his blood and we receive it by Faith Rom. 5.11 he is the Salvation of God Luke 2.30 and the consolation of Israel verse 25. he is our comfort by being God's Salvation That the business of Christ in the world was to teach us no more humbling precepts than Plato or Moses and then to seal them with his death there is little comfort this comfort and joy is the affections 't is wrought by the blessed Spirit joy in or by the Holy Ghost Rom. 14.17 the fruit of the Spirit is joy Gal. 5.22 't is joy in the Father by the Mediator through the Comforter this tells that joy and comfort are noble and divine goods they are not little debonnaires or complacency with some facetious or gentle garb that is but thin and beggarly nor are they friends to a sowr face and cloudy countenance 't was inward comfort that made Stephen's face to shine as an Angel this joy is not a joy in the face and not in the heart as some did rejoyce who put on a good face under the strokes of an angry conscience and reproached Paul for a frantick 2 Cor. 5.13 Neither is this comfort a floating thing in the mouth when persons without good cause are prating their assurance and comfort it seems to argue too much froth and lightness res severa saith Seneca est verum gaudium the richest mines lye deep and the deepest rivers minimo labuntur sono make the least noise but it is marrow and fatness to the soul the joy of the Lord is your strength I cannot express the excellency of it the Text saith it is joy unspeakable and full of glory The sum is this a Christian that would live comfortably must live holily if he will live holily he must live so primarily by the faith of the Son of God and he must endeavour after such a degree of faith as to say Christ loved me and gave himself for me Gal. 2.20 that comfort in life and to and in death is the joy of Faith the victory of Faith the triumph of Faith all joy and peace in believing Rom. 15.13 a special application of the righteousness of Christ to a man 's own soul there is the rise and origine of joy and comfort if the Scripture may take place Object I see an objection which it will not be unseasonable nor impertinent to refute viz. here is a noise of Faith Faith believing and the righteousness of another is the way to drive all good works out of the world Answ Answ The clean contrary is most true it is the only way to bring all good works and all comfort into the world a man not sanctified by Faith in Christ cannot do a good work but spoils it in the doing neither can he see a comfortable day while he is such this objection is hugely irrational a man may as well argue against marriage and say that marriage is the ready way to drive all lawful seed out of the world and bring in bastards it is the same case Rom. 7.4 or he might as well plead against the riseing of the Sun and say it was the way to drive all light out of the world and to bring in darkness 't is the same case 2 Cor. 4.6 he may as well say that eating of bread is the way to drive out all vigour and strength of the body out of the world the way to bring in starvedness it is still the same case Joh. 6.54 the truth is Children before marriage are spurious the world without the Sun is darkness and without eating no living so without union to and interest in Christ Jesus who is Jehovah our righteousness there is no holiness or comfort in the world To set up any thing for righteousness in the sight of God but the righteousness of Jesus that is the way indeed to drive the Doctrine of the Church of England and all the Reformed Churches with all their most eminent Doctrines out of the world nay to drive all good works and all comfort out of the world nay to drive the Gospel and Christ and Salvation by him out of the world if the Galatians that were professed believers received Paul as an Angel received the Spirit shall turn aside to their own works and make them concurrent with Christ though but as a less principal part which was their case then mark the issue the grace of the Father is frustrated the death of Christ is in vain frustra sine fructu Gal. 2.21 Christ is of none effect they are fallen from Grace Christ profits them nothing and all this Paul doth testifie with a great deal of vehemence and Solemnity once and again and with such Apostolical majesty as seldom occurs Behold I Paul testifie unto you Gal. 5.2 3 4. I suppose that no man that understands Paul will say that he disputes only against the ceremonial Law therefore I will leave it and conclude this with that 1 Joh. 5.12 he that hath the Son hath life he that hath not the Son hath not life and this is written to them that believe that they might know that they have eternal life and they that know it cannot altogether want this in my Text joy unspeakable and glorious The second thing in the question is supposed viz. that a Christian may have Faith that is saving in the end which is not comforting in the way I Answ 1. You must not so understand it as though saving Faith and comforting were two kinds of Faith nor secondly as if saving Faith in the close were in some believers altogether and always void of all light and comfort but how a
inordinate desires after more wealth do proceed 2. By a deep conviction of the greatness of the sin of Covetousness as also of the greatness of the folly that accompanieth that sin 3. By frequent and serious meditation upon death and the eternity which follows upon it 4. By the getting true notions of the vanity of riches and all things here be low 5. By the turning the desires into the right channel and the placing of them upon their proper Objects God and Christ and Spiritual things 6. By Considering how well others do who have but a slender proportion of these things and how thankful they are for that little which God measures out to them I do not at all enlarge on these things both because this is not that notion of Contentment which I most design as also because I shall have cccasion to speak more to them in what will follow How as it lies in the quietness of the mind c. 3. Therefore we are to consider Contentment as it imports a calmness and composedness of mind in every condition stilness and sedateness of spirit under all occurrences of Providence When a man likes whatsoever God doth to him or with him doth quietly submit unto and acquiesce in God's dispose of him this is contentment And so there is a great affinity though not a perfect identity 'twixt it and Patience so 't is opposed to all vexing fretting and murmuring to all undue perturbations of mind under God's dispensations towards us though they be never so cross to our natural desires Unquestionably this was one thing if not the main intended by our Apostle when he saith I have learned in every state to be content 'T is as if he had said I am brought to this alwaies to think well of God and of every state into which he is pleased to bring me whatever pleases him pleaseth me be it imprisonment poverty sickness reproach death it self let but God's will be done and I am content I am taught to bear all things with great * A. Christo omnia aequanimiter ferre Sum edoctus Hieron equanimity or eavenness of Spirit The Question then will come to this How may we and Others get this excellent frame to have the heart in every state calm and quiet without being disturbed and discontented under any thing that doth befall us the resolving of this Question will be my present work Three Helps to Contentment For answer to it I will reduce all to these three Helps or Means Consideration Grace or Godliness Prayer He that would learn and live Contentment must be a Considering man a godly man a praying man Consideration will do much Godliness will do more Prayer will do most of all In the former we have what Reason and Judgment can do In the second we have what a Divine Principle can do in the third we have what God himself can do In consideration we have the strength of the Man In grace the strength of the Christian In prayer the strength of God all of which being united they must needs do the work effectually Now as to these three Directions it is with me as it sometimes is at the head of a spring where the stream at first is so narrow that with ease any may stride over it but afterwards it doth very much widen and dilate it self in so much that the little stream is turned into a vast river So here take these three Heads in the General and at the first naming of them so my work seems to lie in a very small compass but when I come to make a further and more distinct inquiry into them truly there is a vast sea before me where 't is hard to find any bounds or limits I shall go over them with as much brevity as the Subject will admit of and as may best conduce to the great end the furtherance of Contentment The first means is Consideration By which I understand Of the past help viz. Consideration not only that which is rational and proper to a Man as a Man but that which is religious and divine both together but especially the latter have a great influence upon contentment Few do live Contentation because few do act consideration we are passionate because we are inconsiderate Were there but more considering doubtless there would be less murmuring David said in his haste All Men are liers Men are hasty and sudden and indeliberate Psal 116.11 they do not duly weigh and ponder things and thereupon passion and discontent prevail over them 'T Is good advice that in Eccles 7.14 In the Day of adversity consider when we meet with any thing which runs cross to our desires which makes it a day of adversity did we but sit down and consider about the matter this vvould much tend to the quieting of our spirits Consideration is an excellent help to Contentation He who is not thoughtful vvill never learn the lesson of the Text. Discomposures of mind are not to be kept off by any Spells or Charms but by solid and judicious consideration But vve must leave the General and come to Particulars and novv I am going out of the Straits and lanching out into the main Ocean The enquiry is How is a Christian to manage consideration in order to his attaining of contentment For your direction in this I vvill 1. Set before you that special Matter Directions how to manage Consideration in order to Contentment which you are to consider upon for this end 2. Instance in some of those common Cases wherein Contentment or Discontent are usually acted and shew what those considerations are which are proper to each for the promoting of the one and the preventing of the other 3. Speak a little to the Manner wherein Consideraion is to be managed For the first Of the special matter of it Would you knovv vvhat is that special and proper Matter which your Consideration is to work upon to further contentment in every state then bring it to to these three Heads Consider 1. Who it is that orders the State 2. What there is in the State it self 3. The excellency of a contented frame Who orders the state and how 't is ordered 1. Who it is that orders the estate surely the Supreme Sovereign all disposing God My times are in thy hands Psal 31.15 'T is so with every man in the world and with every thing about every man all is in God's hands There is an hand above which directs all Events here below He that numbers our hairs orders our state Good and Evil do not come by chance or happen in a casual and fortuitous way but both are disposed by God's Providence and according to his Will This we seem to give a full assent unto and yet in practice we do either wholly forget it or flatly deny it My advice therefore is this when at any time your hearts begin to storm and fret at your condition pray
fed with these comforts have no losses or crosses in the world we are apt to grow proud secure wanton to forget God to cast off Duty to dream of an earthly paradise to say it's good being here to neglect spiritual and divine things 't is high time therefore for God by these waies to cut us short thereby to reduce us to a little better temper of soul If the sap run out too much into the branches there 's no way to preserve the root but by the cutting off the luxuriant branches God will have a thousand Estates to be lost rather than that one soul should be lost the burning of Cities is nothing if that be necessary to the saving of souls 4. Suppose all be lost in that All we lost but little for the All of this world is but one remove from a mere Nothing Perdidit infoelix totum nil is applicable to the losses of the rich as well as of the poor Is there any thing in this but what might be expected from the nature of the thing therefore there should be no disturbance about it Who will be concern'd at the melting of snow what wise man will be moved for the breaking of a glass 'T is strange that a Jonah should be in such a pet for the withering of a gourd Prov. 27.24 Riches are not for ever and doth the Crown endure to every generation 1 Cor. 7.31 The fashion of this world passeth away All the estate here is made up of Moveables that usual distinction which is good in Law is not so in Divinity 5. Again thou sayest all is lost perdiderat omnia quae dederat Deus sed hahuit ipsem qui omnia dederat Deum August but if thou beest a child of God the best is yet secure God and Christ and Grace and Heaven are yet thine and no loss is very considerable so long as these are safe O believer in all thy losses be quiet and chearful God who is thy portion is the same for ever Job lost all he had from God but God himself he did not lose and in him he had all that he had lost Never complain till God be lost Fas tibi non est de fortunâ conqueri salvo Caesare said Seneca to Polybius Let the stars disappear if we may have the Sun who will be troubled let earthly things vanish so long as God abides 't is enough Had we the whole world to lose one God would abundantly recompense the loss of all of it Many are inward gainers by their outward losses by having the less of the Creature they have the more of God O happy exchange the worse their condition is without the better it is within in respect of grace and comfort 6. 'T is an excellent frame of spirit under losses to be patient and contented All the possessions of Job when he was in the height of them did not reflect so much glory upon him as his blessed submission when he was deprived of them then God blessed him now in another sense he blessed God All are convinced they should do this when God gives but 't is very rare for any to do it when God takes away Micah's mother had some shekels of silver taken from her and she falls a cursing Judg. 17.2 this precious Saint had all taken from him yet no cursing as Satan had belied him no nothing but blessing God 'T is an excellent temper comfortably to enjoy outward blessings whilst God shall continue them contentedly to part with them when God shall remove them Suave est si quid dás parvus dolor hoc ubi tollis When I see any carrying it thus I conclude that earthly things are not too fast rivetted in their hearts as 't is a sign the tooth is loose which is drawn out without much pain and that they are duly affected towards God heaven and heavenly things These are some of the things the due consideration whereof would much help on Contentment under Losses And so much for the using of this Means towards the furtherance of tranquillity of mind with respect to what may disturb it in and about the Estate How Consideration ought to be acted in order to Contentment under cr ssâ—s in Relations 2. Secondly I 'le instance in Relations In and about whom there is as much of mercy or affliction of comfort or discomfort and consequently of content or discontent as in any one thing whatsoever The Discontent usually is occasioned and vented in these three Cases The want of Relations much desired The death of Relations much beloved The uncomfortableness of Relations who are spared Now Consideration wisely and faithfully managed would be of great use to allay all storms and to keep the heart even and calm in all these Cases and therefore my next work is to shew what we are under each of them to consider in order to the promoting of this frame But I must of necessity be briefer under this Head than I was under the former that I may not draw out this Discourse to too great a length Wherefore I will but shortly set the Particulars before you that you are to consider of and leave the enlargement of them to your selves in your consideration 1. When Relations are much desired but denied and withheld there is too often discontent How as to the want of Relations desired As to instance only in Children what daily inquietudes of spirit are there in some because of the want of these they have many other Comforts but the not having of this imbitters all Abraham himself was much troubled about it Gen. 15.2 3. Lord God what wilt thou give me seeing I go childless Behold to me thou hast given no seed and lo one born in my house is mine heir But Rachel's passion rose very high Give me Children saith she to her husband or else I die Gen. 30.2 Children are very great blessings they are promised as such Psal 128.3 4. and in other places and indeed they are one of the sweetest flowers that grow in the garden of earthly comforts hence 't is hard for persons contentedly to bear the want of them But whoever you are upon whom this affliction lies pray labour after a contented mind under it and in order thereunto Consider 1. It is the Lord who withholds this mercy for he gives it or withholds it as seems good to him Providence is not more seen in any of the affairs and Concerns of men than in this of Children that there shall be many or few some or none Gen. 32. all falls under the good pleasure and dispose of God When Rachel was so passionate under the want of these Jacob rebuked her sharply am I in God's stead who hath withheld from thee the fruit of thy womb Psal 127.9 Lo children are an inheritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward Psal 113.9 He maketh the barren woman to keep house and to be a joyful Mother of
Christianity calls for quietly and readily to resign up all our comforts to God's dispose Christian 't is a great part of thy religion to be content under these crosses not to have thy comforts ‖ Omnia ista nobis accedant non haereant ut si abducantur fine ullâ nostri lacetatione discedant Senec. Ep. 74. torn from thee as the plaister is from the flesh but to come off easily as the glove doth from the hand 5. Where there is ground of hope that the everlasting state of dead Relations is secured as there is for the Adult who lived in the fear of God for Children descending from Parents in covenant with God there 't is mere self-love which must cause discontent For had we true love to the dead we should rejoyce in their advancement as Christ saith Joh. 14.28 if ye loved me ye would rejoyce because I go to my Father You are troubled because they are not with you but you should joy in this that they are with Christ which is far better Phil. i. 21. 8. Think how others have undergone this tryal Aaron had his sons cut off by a dreadful Judgment but 't is said of him he held his peace Levit. 10.3 Job 1.21 2 Sam. 12.15 c. See Val. Max. l. 5. c. 10. So it was with Job and yet he blessed the Lord So long as there was hope of the life of the child David prayed and fasted but when he saw God's will was done he rose up and eat and afflicted himself no more Nay I might recite several examples of Heathens who did to the shame of us Christians bear the death of dear Relations with great equanimity and undisturbedness of spirit Well I hint these several things to you when any of you are thus tryed I allow you a due and regular grief and sense of God's afflicting hand but there must be no vexing or discontent under it which the Considering of the forementioned particulars may very much prevent or remove 3. Thirdly Wben Relations continued prove uncomfortable How as to uncomfortable Relations this occasions daily risings of heart and much discontent O the sad fires of passion which hereby are kindled in many too many hearts and houses The comfort of Relations is grounded upon suitableness where that is not the rose is turned into a briar or thorn What is unsuitable is uncomfortable as the yoke that doth not suit or fit the neck is alwaies uneasie Now this unsuitableness refers either to the natural temper or to something of an higher nature in both 't is very afflictive but especially in the latter There is an unsuitableness in respect of the natural temper or disposition I intend in this principally Husband and Wife the one is loving mild gentle of an even and calm spirit sweet and obliging in his or her converse the other is quite contrary froward passionate cholerick hard to be pleased alwayes quarelling c. Here 's a cross now and a heavy cross too but what 's to be done by them that bear it so as that they may learn Contentment under it why let them be often in considering these things 1. That God hath a special hand in this affliction 'T is he who brings persons together in this relation he made the match in Heaven before it was made on earth and therefore he is to be eyed in all the Consequences that attend it if it be comfort he is to be blessed for it if it be discomfort he is to be submitted to under it 2. Though this be a sharp tryal yet 't is for good where it 's sanctified It drives many nearer to God weans them more from the world keeps them humble draws out their graces gives them experience of supporting mercy learns them to be more pitiful to others and the like 3. May be this is the only affliction with which some are exercised In all things else 't is mercy only in this thing God sees it good to afflict surely such have little reason to be discontented What under such variety of signal mercies canst thou not bear contentedly one signal affliction 4. The Cross is heavy but patience and contentedness will make it lighter Levius fit patientiâ quod corrigere est nefas The more the Beast strives the more the yoke pinches the more quiet he is the less it hurts him and so it is in that Case which I am upon 5. Possibly more suitable Relations were once enjoyed but forfeited So that if you will be angry it must be with your selves not with God 6. Death will soon put an end to this Cross and we shall shortly be in that state wherein we shall have nothing unsuitable to us But 2. There is an unsuitableness in higher things such as do more immediately concern the honour of God and the everlasting condition of Souls as Grace and no Grace Holiness and sin Godliness and Vngodliness Here now I principally intend Parents and Children though other Relations may be included also Here is a Parent that fears God that lives an holy and godly life that owns the good wayes of God and walks in them c. But his Child or Children are of a quite other Spirit and take a quite other course oh they live in sin and wickedness in open enmity to God carrying it as the Sons of Belial they curse swear drink defile their bodies profane Sabbaths neglect duties scoff at Godliness puff at all good counsel discover a Spirit obstinately set against God c. This is an affliction of a very great stature taller by the head and shoulders than several that have been spoken unto before yet many godly Parents groan under it whose head and hearts are broken by ungodly Children and never was this affliction more common than now when youth is so much debauched I verily believe many good Parents could with much less grief bear the death of their Sons were they but fit for it than that which they daily undergoe through the wickedness of their lives Truly these are much to be pitied yet I would desire them to labour to be contented and submissively to bear this heavy cross In order to which frame let them consider 1. That 't is no new thing for good Parents to have bad Children Sometimes it so happens that when the Father is bad the Son is good but it more frequently happens and God suffers it to be so that the world may see Grace doth not run in a blood that when the Father is good the Son is bad It hath been so from the beginning Adam had his Cain Noah his Cham Abraham his Ismael Isaac his Esau David his Amnon and so in many others and it will be so to the end of the world Pray think of this though 't is a cutting yet but common affliction 2. Children are ungodly yet there is hope at last they may be reclaimed As stubborn as they are God can make them yield he can change
you lay foundations right and deep How can it be imagined much less expected that unprepared and estranged Souls from God and Christ should face the challenges and terrors or escape the dangers of a dying day vvhat can support the confidence of that man vvho is dispirited by the deserved rebuke buffettings of an exasperated because a guilty conscience for conscience is the mouth of God and speaks his mind and vvhat speaks othervvise in point of charge or censure is rather ignorance than conscience and by his order and commission and in his name and Majesty vvhips the careless soul It is impossible to still the cryes of guilt and vvrath It is far more easie for us to charm and stupifie the man than truely cure him He that is negligent of the main affair is like to bear the smartings of his ovvn voluntary vvounds and the more voluntary our negligence appears to be to our awakened consciences when startled by gripes and fears of death the less cause will there be for help and pity All fears arising from an unconverted state have God to back and sharpen them because they are truly grounded on God's professed resolution and legal comminations to bring those fears on them by vvhom they are deserved So that our only vvay to cure and quell these fears is to remove their Cause by giving up our selves to God the Father to knovv him love him and live to him and to delight our selves in God's Image Presence and Favour in his Son Jesus Christ more than in all the treasures and delights of lovver things to knovv the Lord that bought us and to serve him in righteousness peace and joy in the holy Ghost vvith confidence to commit our selves to his tendred conduct government and protection and entertain him vvith all sutableness of apprehension affection and conversation to all his excellencies offices and appearances to ansvver all his kindnesses cost and care with all such faithful fruitful chearful conversations as God Christ determined and designed in man's Redemption Eph. 1.4 Yea to be ruled assisted and refreshed by vvhat the Spirit of Grace and Holiness and Wisdom hath done for us and is sent from the Father and the Son to perfect and compleat in us to live the Life of Faith and Holiness and endeavour to spend our daies in the delightful hopes and fore-tasts of and ripenings for and hasting to or hastning as the vvord imports * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet. 3.12 your everlasting state of Joys and Glory to make the unseen vvorld the exercise poise and spring of your most vehement desires most vigorous pursuit and most inviolable satisfaction and in a vvord to vvalk in all due conscience of your trust and charge to God the Father Son and Holy Spirit to others and your selves in all things to think and speak and do as in the sight of God relation to him and special interest and delight in him and not through ignorance enmity and sloth to let the Devil Flesh or World mortifie your delight in God your motions tovvards affections to and resolutions for God And hearken not to those discouraging thoughts and jealousies of God and Christ vvhich your grand enemy the Prince of lies and darkness is ready to abuse you vvith Where hath God told you that the vvilling thoughtful painful Soul though much distemper'd and imperfect shall be rejected by him For vvhen the Son protests so solemnly against rejecting such as come he speaks his Father's heart Jo. 6.37 40. And I profess vvhen I most seriously consider the terms tenour of the covenant of Grace I am much confirmed in this that all grounded jealousies suspitions discouragements as to our hopes of everlasting happiness can only fix upon our voluntary rejecting of God and Christ and holiness and Heaven And though many things may humble us and ought to do it yet nothing can implead our Title to the purchased possession nor our comfortable hopes at death vvhen once our vvills are sixt on Christ and vvell resolved for him and prevail upon our lives for vvalking vvorthy of our great Vocation We have no impossible conditions imposed on us especially if vve consider Gospel-assistances indulgence and encouragements for vvhen vve knovv our vvay as God hath shevved it us in Christ and have our hearts inclined and fixt for God vve are but to exert vvhat strength and povver vve have to serve and please our God and proportionably to our abilities and advantages to vvait upon God for more according to his instituted vvays and methods Improvements are but required to be proportionable to our Talents and he that brought ten Talents to his Lord had more than one or tvvo at first to make improvement of I do indeed believe the Lavv * By the Law of the Nature I â— ean God's revealed will as Ruler objectively signified in the nature of things within us and without us concerning our Duty and Rewards or Punishments and this Law is written upon and discovered by our own capacity constitution our relations to God and others and our fâ—rniture and advantages from what we are encompâ—ssed and intrusted with in the whole firme of Nature of Nature yet in force though novv incorporated into the Lavv of Christ and that the Decalogue is yet in force to bind and rule us and never look to see its abrogation proved till they that hold this abrogation can demonstrate that the Father lost his Right Throne of Government by the appearance of his Son and that Christ acted not as his Fathers Delegate and for his Glory and that Grace vvas not designed and directed to the reparation of declined Religion in the vvorld but that God was so prodigal of his Pardon and Indulgence as to grow regardless of his Government But yet that Law is one thing and this Covenant another thing For the Covenant of Grace respected those distempers perplexities disadvantages and supposed them and was suited to them in its Tenders and Provisions for which it did design Relief And now our terms of Life are not so strict as those on vvhich God dealt vvith healthful sound and innocent Adam for novv sincere and prevalent Faith and Love and Holiness shall reach those Consolations after Death vvhich once viz. antecedently to Christ's undertaking and compleating satisfaction they could not do and therefore if your insincerity and fundamental unpreparedness for your change be that which starts and feeds your fears labour to be sincere and faithful in Covenant-making and Covenant-keeping and you may be sure of this that Death will lose its sting and victory and thereupon its fearful looks when Sin hath lost its Throne and when God and Christ have got your hearts and life-to come concernments influence and rule your purposes projects and pursuits It is with relation to our manifold temptations wants and weaknesses and all despondencies and discouragements consequent thereupon that Christ hath undertaken to be our great High
consolations proper for that hour O! what refreshments do oft times issue and arise from those discoveries of God's image in us presence with and favour for us which are made by us when we are forced to retire within when all things round about us fail and lose their interest in and favour with us because our flesh decays and wasts through pains and rottenness to which the bewitching dotages of time could make their easiest and most successful applications And it oft-times happens that our fears exceed our pains and that the King of Terrors doth not gripe so hard nor stab so painfully as we are apt to think and look for but when the stroke is given indeed and the pains are gone how easily and quickly do the first openings of our eternal morning even swallow up all the remembrances of our dying sorrows Oh when the joys and visions of our God invade and exercise our departed Souls then comes the great prelusion and welcome pledge of our eternal conquest of this last enemy and after a short sleep of Bodies in the dust whilst Souls retire and go to God the Trump will found the Lord will come the World shall perish or be refined by the flames and the dead rise again and die no more 3. Is it because you fear a change of state to your great disadvantage when you are dead that you are loath and dread to die If so then it is because either 1. You credit not or question the certainty and excellency of the world to come Or 2. Because you do not understand and value it Or 3. You do suspect your interest in and fitness for it If it be the first concoct those Arguments and Intimations which God hath given you by diligent enquiries sober pauses faithful meditation reflect upon the first and second Propositions and those more cogent useful Treatises which are written on this Subject and wherewith the world abounds and let not the bribes and flatteries of a vain world divert you nor the malignant influences of a wanton Fancy corrupt and mortifie the Faculties which God hath given you for this end for here the light is ready for the prepared eye 2. If you do not understand its excellence and so have no value for it compare both states together that so your choice and value may result from wisdom and be the product of true and sober judgment Is it so good to dwell delight and perish in the flames of smart contention betwixt God and you or to have your breath and spirits expended in dreadful groans and ecchoes to the Apostle's deep complaints and cries in Rom 7.18 21 23 24. Is there no melody like heart-reproaches for practical despising and displeasing God Psal 51.3 4. Is there such harmony and advantage in the sluggish exercises motions of diseased souls Is there such pleasure in dark and difficult discoveries which are but one remove from the thick darkness of damning Ignorance and Blindness as that your aversation to be sent away unto that Element of clearer views and visions in the other world may well be fixed there Can you delightfully be exposed to temptations to injurious and unworthy thoughts of God and dwell where God is little discerned prized and served What! is an Hospital such a desirable habitation that you are loth to quit it Are the distractions pains and vanities of a forsaken world such Charms and Loadstones to your hearts as to set you on building Tabernacles and fixing there Who ever loved to be exposed to miseries or to build his Palace on the sands or hasty Streams and what is this state of Life but the true Theatre and Center of all these woes and miseries But of this see more in Prop. 2. But if you look above and pierce the Heavens there you will meet with clear discoveries and vehement flames of Love and all desirable unconceivable vigour liberty and satisfaction in an immortal state 4. Is it because you do suspect your interest in and fitness for the life to come If so then know the terms of Life and try your state thereby Do you not know what God is believe what he saith accept what he tenders and do what he commands Know you not who Christ is what he hath done what he expects what he promises and will do Are you an enemy to the Graces Truths and motions of the Spirit and to his directing quickning and comforting influences Are ye not dead to sin alive to God through Christ Is not another Life the exercise and object of your chief desire pursuit and satisfaction have you no prevalent inclinations affections and resolutions to renounce the World Flesh Devil and to discharge all your Duties to God yourselves and others with wisdom holiness activity and courage And to do all this as in the sight of God and with delight as in the hopes and prospect of a better world and to expect what God hath promised in the ways which he commands If these things be in you and abound your hearts are right condition safe and title good If you be wanting here this is your way of reparation and security Do these things and Death is yours and when these things are done all your discouraging doubts fears are answered and dispelled by being clearly understood For 1. It is one thing to be fit to die and another thing to know it 2. It is one thing to have your Title good another thing to be sinless and so fully ripe for Heaven immediately 3. It is one thing to have a serious fixed heart and will for God and another thing to have passionate affections which depend more upon the temper of the Body than the power and ripeness of the Grace of God upon the heart 4. It is one thing what we cannot be though we would be with strength and readiness of will another thing what we have little or no will to be 5. It is one thing to love and hate proportionably to what God and sin are and deserve and 't is another thing to love and hate as God requires in proportion to our strength and with reference to our Work and Joy And 6. It is one thing to have Corruption dwell in us and another thing to have it rule 7. It is one thing to be tempted of the Devil and another thing to yield thereto And 8. It is one thing to have ground of Hope and Joy and another to have the sense thereof 9. Joy is also considerable as our Duty and God's Gift And these 9 Distinctions well observed rightly applied and carefully improved will go exceeding far towards answering all those Doubts which animate unwarrantable Fears of Death in those whose hearts are right whilst their hopes are low their jealousies great their Spirits faint and so their Lives uncomfortable through their own ignorant and sad Mistakes Infer 1. Christian Religion at the worst is better than a course of wickedness at the best Inf. 2.
Mens carriages will be answerable to the truth and power of their Faith and Hope in reference to the comforts of the unseen world Inf. 3. All the dejectedness of thorow-Gracious Christians arises from their inconsiderateness Inf. 4. To understand the regular measures of Fear and Love is of considerable concernment in our Christian Course Inf. 5. To look and act for joys to come and to make them quickning arguments to our obedience and preparations is an essential part of our Religion 2 John 8. Inf. 6. Immoderate love of Life and fear of Death is sinful and of dangerous consequence Inf. 7. It is of great use to understand the truth and worth of the Comforts of a well-finished Course Inf. 8. Infidelity in whole or in part as far as it reaches cannot but mortifie those noble dispositions and necessary preparations which Christianity calls us to for it is impossible to be religious any further than God's existence and rewarding excellencies and resolutions are credited Heb. 1-1 6 Inf. 9. The want or distance of pertinent and smart temptations is the only reason of perseverance in the formality of Godliness amongst Professors whose hearts and aims are not upon and for the joys of Heaven Inf. 10. To have our Faith and Hope well fixt and exercised is the best Method and Expedient for Chearfulness Constancy and Courage in the whole frame of Christian sufferings and duty This makes exalted active Souls in Godliness and for it Inf. 11. Then what considerable friends are God and Christ to Christianity and serious Christians who have furnished us with hopes and arguments drawn from the certainty and transcendent excellence of joys to come Inf. 12. No man hath cause to quarrel with what he is called to do and suffer for the Christian Cause nor reason to decline Religion because of difficulties in the way These Inferences should and might be enlarged upon but that the determined Bounds of a single Sermon must not be exceeded Close with the Truth delivered here and with the Author lament and pray for the heightning of his too mean accomplishments and furniture What Gifts of Grace are chiefly to be exercised in order to an actual preparation for the coming of Christ by Death and Judgment SERMON XXXI Matth. 25.10 And while they went to buy the Bridegroom came and they that were ready went in with him to the Marriage and the door was shut WE have two large and weighty discourses of Jesus Christ to his Disciples newly before his Death Joh. 14 15 16. the one to comfort them against his departure out of the world the other to prep re both them and us against his return to judge the World of which the present Chapter treateth and part of the precedent In the former Chapter we have Christ's Exhortation unto watchfulness against his second coming Chap. 24.42 urged from the uncertainty of the time of his return And this Exhortation is continued in this 25th Chapter in which there are these three parts The first is contained in the Parable of the Ten Virgins from the first to the fourteenth Verse The second in that of the several Talents given by the Master to his Servants to be employed and improved by them against his return from the fourteenth to the thirty first Verse The third containeth the Description of the Coming of Christ to judge the world from Verse 31 to the end of the Chapter My Text lieth in the first Parable viz. That of the Ten Virgins of which five were wise and five were foolish And whereas Christ very often opened his mouth in Parables none of them comes closer to the Consciences of men than this as I may have occasion to shew hereafter I shall not insist in opening the whole Parable seeing the following Discourse will take in most thereof I will hasten therefore to that part thereof which I have now read unto you Now as for these Ten Virgins they professed alike and who were the wise and who the foolish lay undiscovered till the Midnight-cry was heard Behold the Bridegroom cometh go ye out to meet him behold he cometh with Clouds he cometh to judge the Earth he shall judge the world in righteousness and his People with equity This was an awaking Cry to slumbring Virgins in the midst of the dark and black night who little dream'd that Christ was so near at hand but wise and foolish are startled and raised with it all of them betake themselves forthwith to the trimming of their Lamps when the foolish finding theirs extinguished desire the wise to communicate of their Oil unto them they speak like persons not well awaked For though there is a Communion of Saints in the exercise of their Graces mutually among themselves yet there is no communication of personal Graces to each other and moreover the just shall live by his own and not by another's Faith What therefore say the Wise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nequaquam By no means say they lest there be not enough for us and you we have no Oil to spare but go ye rather to them that sell and buy for your selves Salsa derisio non cohortatio saith Beza The Wise answer the Foolish wisely yea wittily upbraid them for their Folly for was this a time to get Grace when the Bridegroom was come and time was slipt Is that a time to have Oil to buy when we should have Oil to burn Or is this Oil to be bought with money and price which is most freely given in the day of Grace and Mercy What therefore do the foolish do As if they foolishly understood an Exprobration for an Exhortation they are thinking now of buying but while they went to buy the Bridegroom came and they that were ready went in with him and the Door was shut In which words you have 1. The going of the Foolish to buy 2. The coming of the Bridegroom to the Marriage 3. The preparedness of the Wise to enter with him 4. The shutting of the Door after them But not to insist upon these things distinctly let me gather up the principal scope of our Saviour in the words which is to shew us Obs That very miserable is the condition of such especially Professors of the Gospel who have Grace to seek and get at the coming of Jesus Christ Observ and as happy is the state of such who are ready to enter with him into the Bride-Chamber of eternal Rest and Peace This is the Point that I shall insist upon which in the Application will lead me to the Question that is to be spoken to 1. I say Very miserable is the condition of such i. e. of such in general and not only of such as profess to Christ but of others also that profess not to him at all as to any shew of Godliness in their lives such as are the far greatest part of men yea and commonly too where the Gospel is preached who are sure enough to seek not
and therefore the Blessing is null and moreover what the meaning of this Providence is that my Brother should come forth against me in this hostile manner I knovv not Wherefore I humbly beg thy Blessing and the confirmation of that Title vvhich hath so great an error in it Thus God brought an old reckoning to his remembrance in an evil day and set it on his conscience and put him to repent and mourn for he wept and made supplication to the Angel Hos 12.4 He came not off so easily but was fain to vvrestle hard all night to lose his rest and to struggle and sweat and pray and vveep and shed many a tear and to go halting aftervvard upon his Thigh unto his dying day Take heed therefore of old Reckonings undischarged look back and consider hovv it hath been and omit not a day vvithout revievving your Actions and Repentings I say as duly as the day determineth let not the Sun go dovvn upon any guilt contracted that so your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and exercise your self to have always a Conscience void of offence towards God and men and this vvill the better prepare you for the coming of Jesus Christ both by Death and Judgment Fifthly Be much in the exercise of Goodness Mercy and works of Liberality towards Christ in his needy Members according to your opportunity and power For though you shall be saved by your Faith yet you shall be judged according to your Works And it greatly concerneth us to be laborious in that Service upon vvhich the judgment shall pass at Christ's appearance Mat. 25.35 36. Call your self therefore to an account what you have done in this way for Christ as how you have fed cloathed visited relieved him in his Members here on earth And if this were more considered such as profess to Christ would be more active for him in ought wherein they might be more serviceable to him but when we see but little activity in the exercise of this Grace we may well fear there is but little Oil in the Vessel for rich anointings will make men agile and ready for every good work inasmuch as the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and they that hope for eternal Life when Christ shall come by Death and Judgment must seek for Glory Honour and Immortality not only in well-doing but in continuance in it Beware of Omissions and among others of this great duty The Judgment will reach unto all sins In the Narrative of his Life and Death and to omissions in a special manner Mat. 25.37 38. For which that learned and holy Vsher was humbled upon his death-bed The Nobleman hath put a Pound into your hand saying Occupy till I come yea he hath given you many Pounds in a literal sense with which you must trade as well as with the Talents of your Parts and Gifts of Grace And I know you would be glad to find Mercy with Onesiphorus in the day of Christ Remember therefore Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy Mat. 5.7 But He shall have judgment without mercy who hath shewed no mercy whereas mercy rejoyceth against judgment A merciful man is so far from fearing judgment at Christ's coming that he rather rejoyceth at the thoughts of it Sixthly Exercise diligence and faithfulness in your particular Calling For when Christ speaketh of his Coming saith he Be ye ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh What followeth Who then is a faithful and wise servant whom his Lord hath made Ruler over his houshold to give them meat in due season Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing Mat. 24.44 45 46. When Christ was speaking to this Point saith Peter Lord speakest thou this Parable to us or even unto all Luke 12.41 Truly Christ spake it unto all though in a special manner to such as Peter for Christ will have an account how every one of us have managed our particular Callings But they that are Stewards in the House of God which is his Church have a very great account to give and it is required of them in a special manner that a man be found faithful and of all Christ's servants his Stewards have most to answer for that if a dispensation of the Gospel and the care of souls were not committed to them he that understandeth the weight of Stewardship would dread to undertake it but a necessity is laid upon them and wo unto them if they Preach not the Gospel It is said of Calvin that when Nature began to decline in him Melch. Adam in vit Calv. and the symptoms of a dying man appeared on him he would be diligent at his Studies from which his friends disswading him saith he Nunquid me Dominus inveniet otiosum Shall my Master find me idle Let such therefore and all be diligent and faithful in their respective place and employments And indeed every man is a Steward more or less You know what the Master saith of the slothful Servant Take him and cast him into outer darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Such slothful servants shall be under the tribute of eternal pains Prov. 12.24 when the good and faithful Servant shall be made ruler over many things and enter into the joy of his Lord Mat. 25.23 Would you stand before Christ at his coming Oh dread Idleness and unfaithfulness in your Callings as you desire to be sound of him in peace at his appearance Fill up your days with Duty and give your time to him who gave it to you Paul was a great lover of Christ and his Appearance and who more abundant in his Labours for him For he had the Conscience of his indefatigable industry and fidelity in his work for his Master Saith he I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the Faith 2 Tim 4.7 8. He meaneth especially his military faith and oath in fighting a good fight for Christ And wherefore do we hear him groaning so earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with his house which is from Heaven It was because he laboured ambitiously that whether present or absent he might be accepted of him For saith he We must all appear before the Judgment-Seat of Christ that every one might receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5 2. with 9.10 Lastly That I might not multiply particulars let me add what Christ hath joined together Sobriety Watchfulness and Prayer Luk. 21 34.36 And therefore take heed to your selves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfetting and drunkenness and cares of this Life and that Day come upon you unawares Gird up therefore the loins of your minds be sober and hope to the end for the Grace that is to be brought