his hand or the Fornicator to cure his lust than to put out his eyes it were a cheap remedy A cheap and easy superficial Repentance may skin over the sore and deceive an Hypocrite but he that would be sure of pardon and free from fear must go to the bottom DIRECT XX. Live as with Death continually in your eye and spend every day in serious preparation for it that when it cometh you may find your work dispatcht and may not then cry out in vain to God to try you once again PRomise not your selves long life Think not of death as at many years distance but as hard at hand Think what will then be needful to your peace and comfort and order all your life accordingly and prepare that now which will be needful then Live now while you have time as you will resolve and promise God to live when on your death-bed you are praying for a little time of tryal more It is a great work to die in a joyful assurance and hope of everlasting life and with a longing desire to depart and be with Christ as best of all Phil. 1.21 23. O then what a burden and terror it will be to have an unbelieving or a worldly heart or a guilty Conscience Now therefore use all possible diligence to strengthen Faith to increase love to be acquit from guilt to be above the World to have the mind set free from the Captivity of the flesh to walk with God and to obtain the deepest most delectable apprehensions of his love in Christ and of the heavenly blessedness which you expect Do you feel any doubts of the state of immortality or staggering at the Promise of God through unbelief Presently do all you can to conquer them and get a clear resolution to your souls and leave it not all to do at the time of sickness Are the thoughts or God and Heaven unpleasant or terrible to you Presently search out the cause of all and labour in the cure of it as for your lives Is there any former or present sin which is a burden or terror to your Consciences Presently seek out to Christ for a Cure by Faith and true Repentance and do that to disburden your Consciences now which you would do on a sick-bed and leave not so great and necessary a 〈◊〉 to so uncertain and short and unfit a time Is there any thing in this World that is swâ—â—tâ—r tâ— your thoughts than God and Heaven 〈◊〉 which you cannot willingly let go Mâ—rtiâ—iâ— it without delay consider of its vanity compare it with Heaven Crucifie it by the Cross of Christ cease not till you account it loss and â—â—ung for the excellent knowledg of Christ and life eternal Phil. 3.7 8 9. Let not death surprize you as a thing that you never seriously expected Can you do no more in preparation for it than you do If no why do you wish a death to be tryed once again and why are you troubled that you lived no better But if you can when think you should it be done Is the time of uncertain painful sickness better than this O how doth sensuality besot the World and inconsiderateness deprive them of the benefit of their reason O Sirs if you know indeed that you must shortly die live then as dying men should live Choose your condition in the World and manage it as men that must shortly dye Use your Power and Command and Honour and use all your Neighbours and especially use the Cause and Servants of Christ as men should do that must shortly die Build and plant and buy and sell and use your Riches as those that must die remembring that the fashion of all these things is passing away 1 Cor. 7.29 30. Yea pray and read and hear and meditate as those that must die Seeing you are as sure of it as if it were this hour in the name of God delay not your preparations It is a terrible thing for an immortal Soul to pass out of the body in a carnal unregenerate unprepared state and to leave a World which they loved and were familiar with and go to a World which they neither know nor love and where they have neither heart nor treasure Matth. 6.19 20 31. The measure of Faith which may help you to bear an easie cross is not sufficient to fortifie and encourage your souls to enter upon so great a change So also bear all your wants and crosses as men that must shortly die Fear the cruelties of men but as beseemeth those that are ready to die He that can die well can do any thing or suffer any thing And he that is unready to die is unfit for a fruitful and comfortable life What can rationally rejoyce that man who is sure to die and unready to dye and is yet unfurnished of dying comforts Let nothing be now sweet to you which will be bitter to your dying thoughts Let nothing be much desired now which will be unprofitable and uncomfortable then Let nothing seem very heavy or grievous now which will be light and easy then Let nothing now seem honourable which will then seem despicable and vile Consider of every thing as it will look at death that when the day shall come which endeth all the joyes of the ungodly you may look up with joy and say Welcome Heaven This is tho day which I so long expected which all my dayes were spent in preparation for which shall end my fears and begin my felicity and put me into possession of all that I desired and prayed and laboured for when my Soul shall see its glorified Lord For he hath said John 12.26 If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be If any man serve me him will my Father honour Even so Lord Jesus remember me now thou art in thy Kingdom and let me be with thee in Paradise Luke 23.42 43. O thou that spakest those words so full of unexpressible comfort to a sinful woman in the first speech after thy blessed Resurrection Joh. 20.17 GO TO MY BRETHREN AND SAY VNTO THEM I ASCEND UNTO MY FATHER AND YOUR FATHER AND TO MY GOD AND YOVR GOD. Take up now this Soul that is thine own that it may see the Glory given thee with the Father Joh. 17.24 and instead of this life of temptation trouble darkness distance and sinful imperfection I may delightfully Behold and Love and Praise thy Father and my Father and thy God and my God Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Luke 2.29 Acts 7.59 And now I have given you all these Directions I shall only request you in the close that you will set your very hearts to the daily serious practise of them For there is no other way for a ripe confirmed state of Grace And as ever you regard the glory of God the honour of your Religion the welfare of the Church and those
for it till it surprize him and therefore when it cometh it findeth him prepared and he gladly entertaineth it as the messenger of his Father to call him to his everlasting home It is not a strange unexpected thing to him to hear he must die He died daily in his daily sufferings and mortified contempt of worldly things and in his daily expectation of his change He wondereth to see men at a dying time surprized with astonishment and terrour who jovially or carelesly neglected it before as if they had never known till then that they must die Or as if a few years time were reason enough for so great a difference For that which he certainly knoweth will be he looketh at as if it were even at hand and his preparation for it is more serious in his health than other mens is on their death-bed He useth more carefully to bethink himself what graces he shall need at a dying time and in what case he shall then wish his soul to be and accordingly he laboureth in his provisions now even as if it were to be tomorrow He verily believeth that it is incomparably better for him to be with Christ than to abide on earth and therefore though Death of it self be an enemy and terrible to nature yet being the only passage into happiness he gladly entertaineth it Though he have not himself any clear and satisfactory apprehensions of the place and state of the happiness of departed souls yet it quieteth him to know that they shall be with Christ and that Christ knoweth all and prepareth and secureth for him that promised Rest Joh. 12.26 2 Cor. 5.1 7 8. Phil. 1.21 23. Luke 23.43 Though he is not free from all the natural fears of death yet his belief and hope of endless happiness doth abate those fears by the joyfull expectation of the gain which followeth See my Book called The last enemy and the last work of a Believer and that of self-denial against the fears of death But especially he loveth and longeth for the coming of Christ to judgement as knowing that then the Marriage-day of the Lamb is come and then the desires and hopes of all Believers shall be satisfied Then shall the Righteous shine as Stars in the Kingdom of their Father and the hand of violence shall not reach them Every enemy then is overcome and all the Redeemers work is consummated and the Kingdom delivered up unto the Father Then shall the ungodly and the unmercifull be confounded and the righteous filled with overlasting joy when their Lord shall throughly plead their cause and justifie them against the accusations of Satan and all the lies of his malicious instruments O blessed glorious joyfull day when Christ shall come with thousands of his Angels to execute vengeance on the ungodly world and to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that now believe 2 Thes. 1.8 9 10 When the patient followers of the Lamb shall behold him in glory whom they have believed in and shall see that they did not pray or hope or wait in vain When Christ himself and his sacred truth shall be justified and glorified in the presence of the world and his enemies mouths for ever stopped When he shall convince all that are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him Jude 14 15. Where then is the mouth that pleadeth the cause of infidelity and impiety and reproached the serious holiness of Believers and made a jest of the Judgements of the Lord Then what terrours and confusion and shame what fruitless repentings will seize upon that man that set himself against the holy ones of the Lord and knew not the day of his visitation and imbraced the image and form of godliness while he abhorred the power The Joys which will then possess the hearts of the Justified will be such as now no heart can comprehend When Love shall come to be glorified in the highest expression to those that lately were so low when all their doubts and fears and sorrows shall be turned into full contenting sight and all tears shall be wiped away and all reproaches turned into glory and every enemy overcome and sin destroyed and holiness perfected and our vile bodies changed and made like the glorious body of Christ Phil. 3.20 21. Col. 3.3 4. Then will the Love and work of our Redemption be fully understood And then a Saint will be a Saint indeed when with Christ they shall judge the Angels and the world 1 Cor. 6.2 3. and shall hear from Christ Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Mat. 25.34 Enter ye into the joy of your Lord Mat. 25.21 Then every knee shall bow to Christ and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father Phil. 2.9 10 11. Then sin will fully appear in its malignity and holiness in its luster unto all The proud will then be abased and the mouths of all the wicked stopped when they shall see to their confusion the Glory of that Christ whom they despised and of those holy ones whom they made their scorn In vain will they then knock when the door is shut and cry Lord Lord open unto us Mat. 25.10 11 12. And in vain will they then wish O that we had known the day of our visitation that we might have died the death of the righteous and our latter end might have been as his Numb 23.10 Rom. 3.19 Job 5.16 Psal. 107.42 31.23 13.6 8. The day of Death is to true Believers a day of Happiness and Joy But it is much easier for them to think with joy on the coming of Christ and the day of Judgement because it is a day of fuller joy and soul and body shall be conjoyned in the blessedness and there is nothing in it to be so great a stop to our desires as Death is which naturally is an enemy God hath put a love of life and fear of death into the nature of every sensible creature as necessary for the preservation of themselves and others and the orderly Government of the world But what is there in the blessed day of Judgement which a Justified child of God should be averse to O if he were but sure that this would be the day or week or year of the coming of his Lord how glad would the confirmed Christian be and with what longings would he be looking up to see that most desired sight 2. And the weak Christian is so far of the same mind that he had rather come to God by Death and Judgement than not at all except when temptations make him fear that he shall be condemned He hath fixedly made choice of that Felicity which till then he cannot attain He would not take all the pleasures of this world for his hopes of the happiness of
purified and zealous of good works Tit. 2.14 He called you a chosen Generation a Royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar people that ye should shew forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light ye are as lively stones built up a spiritual house an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 2.5 9. You are born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible 1 Pet. 1.23 and are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light God hath delivered you from the power of darkness and translated you into the Kingdom of his dear Son in whom you have redemption through his bloud the remission of sins Col. 1.12 13 14. The spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God and if children then Heirs Heirs of God and joynt Heirs with Christ Rom. 8.16 17. All things shall work together for your good He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Vers. 28.32 Nothing but the illuminated Soul can discern the riches of the glory of Gods inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the work of his mighty power Eph. 1.18 19. When we were dead in sins he hath quickned us together with Christ and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding Riches of his Grace in his kindness towards us through Jesus Christ. He hath brough us nigh that were far off so that by one spirit we have access to the Father by Christ and are now no more strangers and forreigners but fellow Citizens of the Saints and of the houshold of God Eph. 2.5 6 7 13 17 18 19. We are members of the body of Christ we are come to Mount Zion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant Heb. 12.22 23 24. Brethren shall the Lord speak all this and more than this in the Scripture of your Glory and will you not prove your selves glorious and study to make good this precious word Doth he say The righteous is more excellent than his Neighbour Prov. 12.26 and will you not study to shew your selves more excellent indeed Shall all these high things be spoken of you and will you live so far below them all What a hainous wrong is this to God He sticks not in boasting of you to call you his jewells Mal. 3.17 and tells the world he will make them one day discern the difference between the Righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not verse 18. He tells the World that his coming in Judgment will be to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in them that believe 2 Thess. 1.10 It 's openly Professed by the Apostle John We know that we are of God and the whole World lyeth in wickedâ—â—â—â— 1 John 5.19 He challengeth any to condemn you or lay any thing to your charge professing that it is he that justifieth you casting the Saints into admiration by his love What shall we say to these things if God be for us who can be against us Rom. 8.31 He challengeth Tribulation Distress Persecution Famine or Nakedness Peril or Sword to separate you if they can from the Love of God He challengeth Death and Life Angels Principalities and Powers things present and things to come height and depth or any other Creature to separate you if they are able from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom. 8.35 37 38 39. Shall the Lord of Heaven thus make his boast of you to all the World and will you not make good his boasting Yea I must tell you he will see that it be made good to a word and if you be not careful of it your selves and it be not made good in you then you are not the people that God thus boasteth of He tells the greatest Persecutors to their faces that the meek the humble little ones of his Flock have their Angels beholding the face of God in Heaven Matth. 18.10 and that at the great and dreadful day of Judgment they shall be set at his right hand as his Sheep with a Come ye blessed inherit the Kingdom when others are set at his left hand as Goats with a Go ye cursed into everlasting Fire Matth. 25. He tells the world that he that receiveth a Converted man that is become as a little Child receiveth Christ himself and that whoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in him it were better for him that a Milstone were hanged about his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the Sea Matth. 18.3 4 5 6. Mark 9.42 Luke 17.2 O Sirs must God be thus wonderfully tender of you and will you not now be very tender of his interest and your duty Shall he thus difference you from all the rest of the world and will you not study to declare the difference The ungodly even gnash the teeth at Ministers and Scriptures and Christ himself for making such a difference between them and you and will you not let them see that it is not without cause I intreat you I require you in the Name of God see that you answer these high commendations and shew us that God hath not boasted of you beyond your worth 9. Consider this as the highest Motive of all God doth not only magnify you and boast of you but also he hath made you the living Images of his blessed self his Son Jesus Christ his Spirit and his holy Word and so he hath exposed himself his Son his Spirit and his Word to be censured by the World according to your lives The express Image of the Fathers person is the Son Heb. 1.3 The Son is declared to the World by the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost hath endited the Holy Scriptures which therefore bear the Image of Father Son and Holy Ghost This holy Word both Law and Promise is written on your hearts and put into your inner parts by the sâ—me spirit 2 Cor. 3.3 Heb. 8.13 and 10.16 So that as God hath imprinted his holy nature in the Scripture so hath he made this word the Seal to imprint again his Image on your hearts And you know that common eyes can better discern the Image in the Wax than on the Seal Though I know that the hardness of the Wax or somthing lying between or the imperfect application may cause an imperfection in the Image on the
resignation of your selves to him Of which I warned you in the former Directions O this is it that makes our people fall so fast in a day of tryal some shrink in adversity and some are enticed away by prosperity Greatness and honour deceiveth one and riches run away with another and fleshly pleasure poison a third and his Conscience Religion Salvation and all he Sacrificeth to his belly and swalloweth it down his throat and all the Love and goodness of God the Bloud of Christ the workings of the Spirit the Precepts and Promises and Threatnings of the Word and the joy and torments which once they seemed to believe all are forgotten or have lost their force And all because the Foundation was not laid well at the first But because this was the very business of the former Directions I will dismiss it now DIRECT II. Think not that all is done when once you are Converted but remember that the work of your Christianity then comes in and must be as long as the time of your lives OF this also I shall say but little because it is the drift of all the moving Considerations before-going I doubt it is the undoing of many to imagine that if once they are sanctified they are so sure in the hands of Christ that they have no more care to take nor no more danger to be afraid of and at last think that they have no more to do as of necessity to Salvation and thus prove that indeed they were never sanctified I confess when a man is truly Converted the principal part of his danger is over he is safe in the love and care of Christ and none can take him out of his hands But this is but part of the truth the other part must be taken with it or we deceive our selves There is still a great deal of work before us and Holiness is still the way to happiness and much care and diligence is required at our hands And it is no more certain that we shall be saved by Christ than it is that we shall be kept in Faith and love and holy obedience by him It is as true that none can separate us from the Love of God and from a care to please him and from a holy diligence in the work of our Salvation as that none can take us out of his hands and bring us into a state of condemnation He that is resolved to bring us to Glory is as much resolved to bring us to it by perseverance in Holiness and diligent obedience for he never decreeth one without the other and he will never save us by any other way Indeed when we are Converted we have escaped many and grievous dangers but yet there are many more before us which we must by care and diligence escape We are translâ—ted from death to life but not from earth to heaven We have the life of Grace but yet we are short of the life of Glory And why have we the life of Grace but to use it and to live by it Why came we into the Vineyard but to work And why came we into the Army of Christ but to fight Why came we into the race but to run for the prize or why turned we into the right way but to travel in it We never did God faithful service till the day of our Conversion and then it is that we begin And shall we be so sottish as to think we have done when we have but begun Now you begin to live that before were dead Now you begin to awake that were before asleep And therefore now you should begin to work that before did nothing or rather a thousand fold worse than nothing Work is the effect of life it is the dead that lye still in darkness and do nothing If you had rather be alive than dead you should rather delight in action than in idleness It 's now that you set to Sea and begin your voyage for the blessed Land many a storm and wave and tempest must you yet expect Many a combat with temptations must you undergo many a hearty prayer have you yet to pour forth Many and many a duty to perform to God and man Think not to have done your care and work till you have done your lives Whether you come in at the first hour or at the last you must work till night if you will receive your wages And think not this a grievous doctrine It is your priviledge it is your joy your earthly happiness that you may be so employed that you that till now have lived like swine or moles or earthly vermine may now take wing and fly to God and walk in heaven and talk with Saints and be guarded by Angels is this a life to be accounted grievous Now you begin to come to your selves to understand what you have to do in the world to live like men that you may live like Angels And therefore now you should begin accordingly to bestir you I would not have you retain the same measure of fear of Gods displeasure nor the same apprehensions of your misery nor the doubts and perplexities of mind which you were under at your first conversion for these were occasioned by the passage in your change and the weakness of your grace in that beginning and your former folly made them necessary for a time But I would have you retain your fear of sinning and be much more in the love of God and in his service than you were at first Temptations will haunt you to the last hour of your lives If therefore you would not fall by these temptations you must watch and pray to the last Give not over watching till Satan give over tempting and watching advantages against you The promise is still but on condition that you persevere and abide in Christ and continue rooted and stedfast in the faith and overcome and be faithful to the death as you may see in Joh. 15. throughout Joh. 8.31 Rev. 2. 3. Col. 1.22 23. Work out therefore your salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2.12 If you have begun resolvedly proceed resolvedly It 's the undoing of mens souls to think that all the danger is over and lose their apprehensions of it when they are yet but in the way when their care and holy fears abate their watch goes down the soul 's laid open as a common wilderness and made a prey to every lust And therefore still know your work 's not done till your life be done DIRECT III. Be sure that you understand wherein your establishment and growth consisteth that you may not miscarry by seeking somewhat else instead of it nor think you have it when you have it not or that you want it when you have it and so be needlessly disquieted about it FOr your assistance in this I shall further shew you wherein your confirmation and growth consisteth in its several parts both as it is subjected or exercised in your understandings
sorrow fetch not your comfort from any hopes of deliverance here on Earth but from the place of your final full deliverance If you feel any strangeness and backwardness on your minds to Heavenly contemplations do not make light of them but presently by Faith get up to Christ who must make your thoughts of Heaven familiar and seek remedy before your estrangedness increase The soul is in a sad condition when it cannot fetch comfort and encouragement from Heaven for then it must have none or worse than none When the thoughts of Heaven will not sweeten all your crosses and relieve your minds against all the encombrances of earth your souls are not in a healthful state It 's time then to search out the cause and seek a cure before it come to worse There are three great causes of this dark and dangerous state of soul which make the thoughts of Heaven uneffectual and uncomfortable to us which therefore must be overcome with the daily care and diligence of your whole lives 1. Unbelief which maketh you look towards the life to come with doubting and uncertainty And this is the most common radical powerful and pernicious impediment to a heavenly life The second is the Love of present things which being the vanity of a poor low fleshly mind the reviving of Reason may do much to overcome it but it 's the sound Belief of the life to come that must indeed prevail The third is the inordinate Fear of Death which hath so great advantage in the constitution of our nature that it is commonly the last enemy which we overcome as Death it self is the last enemy which Christ overcometh for us Bend all your strength and spend your daies in striving against these three great impediments of a heavenly conversation And remember that so far as you suffer your heart to retire from Heaven so far they retire from a life of Christianity and peace DIRECT VII In the work of Mortification let SELF-DENYAL be the First and Last of all your study care and diligence UNderstand how much of the fallen depraved state of man consisteth in the sin of SELFISHNESS How he is sunk into Himself in his fall from the Love of God and of his Neighbour of the publick or private good of others And how this inordinate Self-love is now the grand enemy of all true Love to God or Man and the root and heart of Covetousness Pride Voluptuousness and all iniquity Let it be your work therefore all your dayes to mortifie it and watch against it When you feel your selves partial in your own cause and apt to be drawing from others to your selves in point of reputation precedency or gain and apt to make too great a matter of every word that is spoken against you or every little wrong that is done you observe then the pernicious root of Selfishness from whence all this mischief doth proceed Read more of this in my Treatise of Self-denyal DIRECT VIII Take your corrupted fleshly Desires for the greatest enemy of your Souls and let it be every day your constant work to mortify the Flesh and to keep a watch upon your lusts and appetite and every sense REmember that our senses were not made to govern themselves but to be governed by right Reason And that God made them at the first to be the ordinary passage of his Love and mercy to our hearts by the means of the Creatures which represent or manifest him unto us But now in the depraved state of man the Senses have cast off the Government of Reason and are become the Ruling power and so man is become like the Beasts that perish Remember then that to be sensual is to be bruitish And though Grace doth not destroy the appetite and sense yet it subjecteth it to God and Reason Therefore let your appetite be pleased in nothing but by the allowance of right Reason And think not that you have reason to take any meats or drink or sport meerly because your flesh desireth it but consider whether it will do you good or hurt and how it conduceth to your ultimate end It is a base and sinful state to be in servitude to your appetite and sense When by using to please it you have so increased its desires that now you know not how to deny it and displease it When you have taught it to be like a hungry dog or swine that will never be quiet till his hunger be satisfied Whereas a well-governed appetite and sense is easily quieted with a rational denyal Rom. 8.1 6 7 8 13. and 13.13 14. 1 Pet. 2.11 1 Johnâ— 16 DIRECT IX Take heed lest you fall in love with the World or any thing therein and lest your thoughts of any place or condition which you either possess or hope for do grow too sweet and pleasing to you FOr there is no one perisheth but for loving some Creature more than God And complacency is the formal act of Love Love not the World nor the things that are in the World for if any man love the World the love of the Father is not in him 1 John 2.15 Value all earthly things as they conduce to your Masters Service or to your Salvation and not as they tend to the pleasing of your Flesh It is the commonest and most dangerous folly in the World to be eager to have our houses and lands and provisions and every thing about us in the most pleasing and amiable state when as this is the acknowledged way to Hell and the only poyson of the Soul Are you not in more danger of overloving a pleasing and prosperous condition than a bitter and vexatious state and of overloving Riches honour and sensual fulness and delights rather than Poverty reproach and mortification And do you not know that if ever you be damned it will be for loving the World too much and God too little Is it for nothing that Christ describeth a Saint to you as a Lazarus in poverty and sores and a damned wretch as one that was clothed in Purple and Silk and fared sumptuously every day Luke 16. Did not Christ know what he did when he put the rich man upon this tryal to part with all his worldly riches and follow Christ for a treasure in heaven Luke 18.22 13. All things must be esteemed as loss and dung for the knowledg of Christ and the hopes of heaven if ever you will be saved Phil. 3.6 7 8. You must so live by Faith and not by sight as not to look at the temporal things that are seen but at the things eternal which are unseen 2 Cor. 4.17 18. and 5.7 8. And one that is running in a race for his life would not so much as turn his head to look back on any one that called to him to stay or to look aside to any one that would speak with him in his way Thus must we forget the things that are behind as counting them not worthy a thought
of him shall be much required and to whom men have committed much of him they will ask the more Luke 12.48 DIRECT XVII Redeem your Time and highly value every minute and spare for no labour in the work of your salvation Dream not of an easie idle sluggish life as sufficient to your high and glorious ends Nor rest not in a customary and outside way of duty without regard to the Life and the success IF any thing in all the World require all our power and time it is that for which all our powers and time are given us and which we are sure will a thousand fold recompense us for all O what a sottish kind of stupidity is it for a man to trifle in the way to eternity that hath an endless life of joy or sorrow depending on the preparations of so short a life How little doth he know the worth of his Soul the Joyes of Heaven the terrors of Hell the malicious diligence of Satan or the difficulty of Salvation that can idle and play away whole hours of time and pray as if he prayed not and seem to be Religious when he is not in good earnest and bestireth not himself so much to escape Hell fire and to obtain everlasting Joyes with Christ as he would do to escape a temporal death or misery or to obtain some dignity or riches in the World 1 Cor. 7.29 30. O therefore as ever you care what becometh of your Souls and as ever you will have comfort in the review of your present life make not a jest of Heaven and Hell Trifle not in your race and warfare Dally not with God and Conscience Play not and dream not away your Time Know the worth of an hours Time for the sake of your work and of your Souls as it is commonly known by dying men But of this I have spoke already in my NOW or NEVER and a Saint or a Bruite and in the third part of the Saints Rest. DIRECT XVIII Sit down and count what it may cost you to be Christians indeed and to be saved Reckon not on prosperity or a cheap Religion but resolve to take up the Cross and follow Christ in suffering and to be Crucified to the World and by many tribulations to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Luke 14.26 27 28 30 33. Gal. 6.14 Acts 14.22 1 Thes. 3.4 and 2 Thess. 1.6 7 8. Mal. 5.10 11 12. 2 Tim. 3.12 ALL that will live godly in Christ shall suffer Persecution It is not All that are Baptized and called Christians but All that will live godly in Christ Jesus It is Godliness and not the bare name of Christianity which the Serpents Seed have so great an enmity to I have elswhere cited an excellent saying of Dr. Th. Jacksons to prove that this is to be expected under Christian as well as Heathen Governments and that it is not through the goodness of the Great ones of the World but the cowardliness of our hearts that the Ministers of Christ are not ordinarily Martyrs Though God may possibly exempt you from any notable suffering for his Cause yet it is not wise or safe to expect such an exemption For that will hinder your preparation for Suffering And a mind prepared to suffer is essential to true Christianity And no man that is not a Martyr in Resolution and disposition can be saved If the fiery tryal come upon you let it not seem a strange unexpected thing 1 Pet. 4.12 13 14 17. When Persecution ariseth because of the Word the unrooted unfound unsetled Christian is presently offended and falls away Mat. 13.21 Mark 4.17 Then they will fall to distinguishing and carnal reasoning and prove any thing lawful which is necessary to their Peace Gal. 6.12 As many as desire to make a fair shew in the Flesh they constrain you to be Circumcised only lest they should suffer Persecution for the Cross of Christ Gal. 6.12 Shrink not for Sufferings Fear not them that can but kill the body Luke 12.4 Never doth the Spirit of God and Glory so much rest upon Believers as in their greatest Sufferings for Righteousness sake 1 Pet. 4.14 and never have they cause of more exceeding joy Matth. 5.11 12. Prosperity doth not so well agree with a life of Faith as Sufferings and Adversity Our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory while we look not at the temporal things which are not seen but at the things eternal which are not seen 2 Cor. 4.17 18. Read Rom. 8.33 to the end DIRECT XIX If you fall into any sin rise speedily by a through Repentance and take heed both of delay and of a palliate Cure Luke 13.3 5. and 22.32 TAke heed of trusting to a General Repentance or a Converted state instead of a particular Repentance and Conversion from any known sin especially which is more than the ordinary unavoidable infirmities of a Saint For it is not General Repentance indeed which reacheth not to every known particular If temptation have cast you down take heed of lying there but presently get up again What the Apostle saith of Wrath Eph. 4.26 the same I may say of other falls Let not the Sun go down upon them But go out with Peter and weep with him if you have sinned with him If your bones be out of joynt or broken get them set presently before they settle in their dislocation And let the Cure be through and spare not for a little pain at first Let as open confession as the case requireth and as full restitution signify the sincerity of your Repentance For a gentle handling of your selves may undo you And palliation is the Hypocrites cure O take heed lest you presume to sleep one night in your unrepented sin and take heed lest Delay encourage the Tempter to offer you the bait again and again and to say Why not once more Why may you not be as well pardoned for twice as for once and for thrice as for twice c. It 's dangerous playing or sleeping at the brink of Hell Away from the temptation and occasion of your sin stand not disputing but Resolve and be gone And sin no more lest a worse thing come unto you John 5.14 Stick not man at the shame or loss or suffering which confession restitution or reformation may bring but remember that you can never escape damnation at too dear a rate This is Christs meaning when he speaketh of cutting off a Right hand or plucking out a right eye if it offend that is ensnare and tempt you unto sin Matth. 5.29 30. Not that you should do so indeed for you have an easier way to avoid the sin but that this is far the lesser of the two evils to lose a hand or eye than to lose the Soul and therefore to be chosen if there were no other remedy If the thief had no other way to forbear stealing than to cut off
fear the Lord and that he keepeth all the tears of his servants till the reckoning day And if judgement begin at the house of God and the righteous be saved through so much suffering and labour what then shall be their end that obey not the Gospel and where shall the ungodly and sinner appear 1 Pet. 4.17 18. Eccl. 8.12 Prov. 11.31 13.6 Psal. 56.8 Deut. 32.35 Jam. 5.9 2. And the weak Christian is one that will forsake all for the sake of Christ and suffer with him that he may be glorified with him and will take his treasure in heaven for all Luk. 14.26 33. Luk. 18.22 But he doth it not with that easiness and alacrity and joy as the confirmed Christian doth He hearkens more to the flesh which saith favour thy self suffering is much more grievous to him And sometimes he is wavering before he can bring himself fully to resolve and let go all Mat. 16.22 3. But the seeming Christian looketh not for much suffering He reads of it in the Gospel but he saw no probability of it and never believed that he should be called to it in any notable degree He thought it probable that he might well escape it And therefore though he agreed verbally to take Christ for better and worse and to follow him through sufferings he thought he would never put him to it And indeed his heart is secretly resolved that he will never be undone in the world for Christ Some reparable loss he may undergo but he will not let go life and all He will still be religious and hope for heaven But he will make himself believe and others if he can that the Truth lieth on the safer side and not on the suffering side and that it is but for their own conceits and scrupulosity that other men suffer who go beyond him and that many good men are of his opinion and therefore he may be good also in the same opinion though he would never have been of that opinion if it had not been necessary to his escaping of sufferings what flourish soever he maketh for a time when persecution ariseth he is offended and withereth Mat. 13.21 6. Unless he be so deeply engaged among the suffering party that he cannot come off without perpetual reproach and then perhaps Pride will make him suffer more than the belief of heaven oâ— the love of Christ could do And all this is because his very belief is unrooted and unsound and he hath secretly at the heart a fear that if he should suffer death for Christ he should be a loser by him and he would not reward him according to his promise with everlasting life Heb. 3.12 XXIX 1. A Christian indeed is one that followeth not Christ for company nor holdeth his belief in trust upon the credit of any in the world and therefore he would stick to Christ if all that he knoweth or converseth with should forsake him If the Rulers of the Earth should change their religion and turn against Christ he would not forsake him If the multitude of the people turn against him nay if the professors of Godliness should fall off yet would he stand his ground and be still the same If the learnedest men and the Pastors of the Church should turn from Christ he would not forsake him Yea if his nearest relations and friends or even that Minister that was the means of his conversion should change their minds and forsake the truth and turn from Christ or a holy life he would yet be constant and be still the same And what Peter resolved on he would truly practise Mat. 26 33 35. Though all men should be offended because of thee yet would not I be offended Though I should die with thee yet will I not deny thee And if he thought himself as Elias did left alone yet would he not how the knee to Baal Rom. 11.3 If he hear that this eminent Minister falleth off one day and the other another day till all be gone yet still the foundation of God standeth sure he falleth not because he is built upon the rock Mat. 7.22 23. His heart saith Alas whither shall I go if I go from Christ Is there any other that hath the word and spirit of eternal life Can I be a gainer if I lose my soul Joh. 6.67 68. Mat. 16.26 He useth his Teachers to bring him that light and evidence of truth which dwelleth in him when they are gone And therefore though they fall away he falleth not with them 2. And the weakest Christian believeth with a Divine faith of his own and dependeth more on God than man But yet if he should be put to so great a tryal as to see all the Pastors and Christians that he knoweth change their minds I know not what he would do For though God will uphold all his own whom he will save yet he doth it by means and outward helps together with his internal grace and keepeth them from temptations when he will deliver them from the evil And therefore it is a doubt whether there be not degrees of grace so weak as would fail in case the strongest temptations were permitted to assault them A strong man can stand and go of himself but an infant must be carried and the same and sick must have others to support them The weak Christian falleth if his Teacher or most esteemed company fall If they run into an error sect or schisme he keeps them company He groweth cold if he have not warming company He forgeteth himself and letteth loose his sense and passion if he have not some to watch over him and warn him No man should refuse the help of others that can have it and the best have need of all Gods means But the weak Christian needeth them much more than the strong and is much less able to stand without them Luk. 22.32 Gal. 2.11 12 13 14. 3. But the seeming Christian is built upon the sand and therefore cannot stand a storm He is a Christian more for company or he credit of man or the interest that others have in him or the encouragement of the times than from a firm Belief and love of Christ and therefore falleth when his props are gone Mat. 7.24 XXX 1. A strong Christian can digest the hardest Truths and the hardest works of Providence He seeth more of the reason and evidence of truths than others And he hath usually a more comprehensive knowledge and can reconcile those truths which short sighted persons suspect to be inconsistent and contradictory And when he cannot reconcile them he knoweth they are reconcileable For he hath laid his foundation well and then he reduceth other truths to that and buildeth them on it And so he doth by the hardest Providences Whoever is high or low whoever prospereth or is afflicted however humane affairs are carried and all things seem to go against the Church and cause of Christ he knoweth yet that God is good to Israel Psal.
that day But yet he thinketh not of it with so strong a faith and great consolation nor with such boldness and desire as the confirmed Christian doth but either with much more dull security or more perplexity and fear His thoughts of God and of the world to come are much more dark and doubtfull and his fears of that day are usually so great as make his desires and joys scarce felt Only he thinketh not of it with that contempt or stupidity as the Infidel or hardened sinner nor with the terrours of those that have no God no Christ no hope except when temptation bringeth him near to the borders of despair His death indeed is unspeakably safer than the death of the ungodly and the joys which he is entring into will quickly end the terrour but yet he hath no great comfort of the present but only so much trust in Christ as keepeth his heart from sinking into despair 3. But to the Hypocrite or seeming Christian Death and Judgement are the most unwelcome daies and the thoughts of them the most unwelcome thoughts He would take any tolerable life on earth at any time for all his hopes of Heaven and that not only through the doubts of his own sincerity which may sometime be the case of a tempted Christian but through the unsoundness of his belief of the life to come or the utter unsuitableness of his soul to such a blessedness which maketh him look at it as less desirable to him than a life of fleshly pleasures here All that he doth for Heaven is upon meer necessity because he knoweth that Die he must and he had rather be in Heaven than in Hell though he had rather be in prosperity on earth than either And as he taketh Heaven but as a reserve or second good so he seeketh it with reserves and in the second place And having no better preparations for Death and Judgement no marvel if they be his greatest terrour He may possibly by his self-deceit have some abatement of his fears and he may by Pride and Wit seem very valiant and comfortable at his death to hide his fear and pusillanimity from the world But the 〈◊〉 of all his misery is that he sought not first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and laid not up a treasure in Heaven but upon earth and loved this world above God above the world to come and so his heart is not set on Heaven nor his affections on the things above and therefore he hath not that Love to God to Christ to Saints to perfect Holiness which should make that world most desirable in his eyes and make him think unfeignedly that it is best for him to depart and live with Christ for ever Having not the Divine Nature nor having lived the Divine Life in walking with God his complacency and desires are carnal according to the nature which he hath And this is the true cause and not only his doubts of his own sincerity of his unwillingness to die or to see the day of Christs appearance Matth. 6.33.19.20 21. 1 Joh. 2.15 Col. 3.1 2 3 4. Rom. 8.5 6 7 8. 1 Cor. 2.13 14. 2 Pet. 1.4 And thus I have shewed you from the Word of God and the Nature of Christianity the true Characters of the confirmed Christian and of the weak Christian and of the seeming Christian. The Vses for which I have drawn up these Characters and which the Reader is to make of them are these I. Here the weak Christian and the Hypocrite may see what manner of persons they ought to be Not only how unsafe it is to remain in a state of Hypocrisie but also how uncomfortable and unserviceable and troublesome it is to remain in a state of weakness and diseasedness what a folly and indeed a sign of Hypocrisie is it to think If I had but grace enough to save me I would desire no more or I would be well content Are you content if you have but Life here to difference you from the dead If you were continually Infants that must be fed and carried and made clean by others or if you had a continual Gout or Stone or Leprosie and lived in continual want and misery you would think that Life alone is not enough and that non vivere tantum sed valere vita est that Life is uncomfortable when we have nothing but Life and all the delights of life are gone He that lyeth in continual pain and want is weary of his life if he cannot separate it from those calamities He that knoweth how necessary strength is as well as life to do any considerable service for God and how many pains attend the diseases and infirmities of the weak and what great dishonour cometh to Christ and Religion by the faults and childishness of many that shall be pardoned and saved would certainly bestir him with all possible care to get out of this sick or infant state II. By this you may see who are the strong Christians and who are the weak It is not alwaies the man of Learning and free expressions that can speak longest and wiseliest of holy things that is the strong confirmed Christian But he that most excelleth in the Love of God and man and in a heavenly mind and holy life Nor is it he that is unlearned or of a weak memory or slow expression that is the weakest Christian But he that hath least Love to God and man and the most Love to his carnal self and to the world and the strongest corruptions and the weakest grace Many a poor day-labourer or woman that can scarce speak sense is a stronger Christian as being stronger in Faith and Love and Patience and Humility and Mortification and Self-denial than many great Preachers and Doctors of the Church III. You see here what kind of men they be that we call the Godly and what that Godliness is which we plead for against the malicious Serpentine Generation The lyars would make men believe that by Godliness we mean a few affected strains or hypocritical shews or heartless lip-service or singular opinions or needless scrupulosity or ignorant zeal yea a schism or faction or sedition or rebellion or what the Devil please to say If these sixty Characters describe any such thing then I will not deny that in the way that such men call heresie faction schism singularity so worship we the God of our Fathers But if not the Lord rebuke thee Satan and hasten the day when the lying lips shall be put to silence Psal. 131.18 120.2 109.2 Prov. 12.19 22. 10.18 IV. By this also you may see how unexcusible the enemies of Christianity and Godliness are and for what it is that they hate and injure it Is there any thing in all this Character of a Christian that deserveth the suspicion or hatred of the world what harm is there in it or what will it do against them I may say to them of his servants