decent and editying determination of the outward circumstances of Religion and the right ordering of Worship is a needless thing or sinful or that a form of prayer in it self or when imposed is unlawful But let the Soul and Body of Religion go together and the alterable adjuncts be used as things alterable while the life of Holiness is still kept up Direct 19. PRomise not your selves long life or prosperity and great matters in the world lest it entangle Direct 19. your hearts with transitory things and engage you in ambitious or covetous designs and steal away your hearts from God and destroy all your serious apprehensions of Eternity § 1. Our own experience and the alterations which the approach of death makes upon the most doth sensibly prove that the expectation of a speedy change and reckoning upon a short life doth greatly help us in all our preparation and in all the work of Holiness through our lives Come to a man that lyeth on his death-bed or a prisoner that is to dye to morrow and try him with Nemini exploratum potest esse quomodo seâe habiturum sit corpus non dico ad annum sed ad vesperum Câceâo 2. de fit Dii boni quid est in hominis vita diu Mihi ne diuturnum quidem quicquam videtur in quo est aliquid extremum Cum enim id advenit tum illud praeterâit eâfluxit tan tum remanet quod virtute recte factis fit consecutus hoâae quidem âedunt diââ meâses anni nec praeteritum tempus unquam revertitur nec quid sequatur sciri potest Cic. in Cat. Maj. Quem saepe transit casus aliquando invenâ discourse of riches or honours or temptations to lust or drunkenness or excess and he will think you are mad or very impertinent to tell him of such things If he be but a man of Common Reason you shall see that he will more easily vilifie such temptations than many religious persons will do in their prosperity and health O how serious are we in repenting and perusing our former lives and casting up our accounts and asking What we shall do to be saved when we see that death is indeed at hand and time is at an end and we must away Every sentence of Scripture hath then some life and power in it Every word of Exhortation is savoury to us Every reproof of our negligence and sin is then well taken Every thought of sin or Christ or Grace or Eternity goes then to the quick Then time seems precious and if you ask a man whether it be better spent in Cards and Dice and Playes and Feastings and needless recreations and idleness or in prayer and holy conference and reading and meditating on the Word of God and the life to come and the holy use of our lawful labours How easily will he be satisfied of the truth and confute the Cavils of voluptuous time-wasters Then his judgement will easilier be in the right than Learning or Arguments before could make it In a word the expectation of the speedy approach of the soul into the presence of the Eternal God and of our entring into an unchangeable endless life of joy or torment hath so much in it to awaken all the powers of the soul that if ever we will be serious it will make us serious in every thought and speech and duty And therefore as it is a great mercy of God that this life which is so short should be as uncertain and that frequent dangers and sicknesses call to us to look about us and be ready for our change so usually the sickly that look for death are most considerate and it is a great part of the duty of those that are in youth and health to consider their frailty and the shortness and uncertainty of their lives and alwayes live as those that wait for the coming of their Lord. And we have great reason for it when we are certain it will be ere long and when we have so many perils and weaknesses to warn us and when we are never sure to see another hour and when time is so swift so quickly gone so unrecoverable and Nothing when it is past Common reason requireth such to live in a constant readiness to dye § 2. But if youth or health do once make you reckon of living long and make you put away the Nihil tam sirmum cââ periculum ãâã sââ etiam ââââvilido day of your departure as if it were far off this will do much to deceive and dull the best and take away the power of every truth and the life of every good thought and duty and all will be apt to dwindle into customariness and form You will hardly keep the faculties of the soul awake if you do not still think of death and judgement as near at hand The greatest Certainty of the greatest Change and the greatest Joy or Misery for ever will not keep our stupid hearts awake unless we look at all as near as well as certain This is plain in the common difference that we find among all men between their thoughts of death in health and when they see indeed that they must presently dye They that in health could think and talk of death with laughter or lightly without any awakening of soul when they come to dye are oftentimes as much altered as if they had never heard before that they are mortal By which it is plain that to live in the house of mirth is more dangerous than to live in the house of mourning and that the expectation of long life is a grievous enemy to the operations of grace and the safety of the soul. § 3. And it is one of the greatest strengtheners of your temptations to luxury ambition worldliness and almost every sin When men think that they shall have many years leisure to repent they are apt the more boldly to transgress when they think that they have yet many years to live it tempteth them to pass away Time in idleness and to loiter in their race and trifle in all their work and to over-value all the pleasures and honours and shadows of felicity that are here below He that hath his life in his House or Land or hath it for inheritance will set more by it and bestow more upon it than if he thought he must go out of it the next year To a man that thinks of liveing many years the favour of great ones the raising of his estate and name and family and the accommodations and pleasing of his flesh will seem great matters to him and will do much with him and will make self-denyal a very hard work § 4. Therefore though Health be a wonderful great mercy as Enabling him to duty that hath a heart to use it to that end yet it is by accident a very great danger and snare to the heart it self to turn it from the way of duty The best life
works of charity the other is covetous and is alwayes hindring them § 37. Direct 12. Lastly It is a great part of the duty of Husbands and Wives to be helpers and Direct 12. comforters of each other in order to a safe and happy death 1. In the time of Health you must often and seriously remember each other of the time when death will make the separation and live together in your daily converse as those that are still expecting the parting hour Help to awaken each others souls to make ready all those graces which then will prove necessary and to live in a constant preparation for your change Reprove all that in one another which will be unsavoury and ungrateful to your review at death If you see each other dull and slow in your preparations or to live in vanity worldliness or sloth as if you had forgotten that you must shortly dye stir up one another to do all that without delay which the approach of such a day requireth 2. And when Death is at hand O then what abundance of tenderness and seriousness and skill and diligence is needful for one that hath the last office of love to perform to the departing soul of so near a friend O then what need will there be of your most wise and faithful and diligent help When nature faileth and the pains of flesh divert the mind and temptations are strongest while the body is weakest when a languishing body and a doubting fearful troubled mind do call for your compassion and help O then what skill and holy seriousness will be necessary O what a calamity is it to have a carnal unsanctified Husband or Wife which will neither help you to prepare for death nor can speak a serious word of counsel or comfort to you at a dying hour that can do nothing but stand by and weep over you but have not a sensible word to say about the life that you are going to nor about the duty of a departing soul nor against the temptations and fears which then may be ready to overwhelm you They that are utterly unprepared and unfit to dye themselves can do little to prepare or help another But they that live together as the heirs of Heaven and converse on earth as fellow-travellers to the Land of Promise may help and encourage the souls of one another and joyfully part at death as expecting quickly to meet again in life eternal § 38. Were it not lest I be over tedious I should next speak of the Manner how Husbands and Wives must perform their duties to each other As 1. That it should be all done in such entire Love as maketh the case of one another to you as your own 2. That therefore all must be done in Paâience and mutual forbearance 3. And in familiarity and not with strangeness distance sowerness noâ affected complement 4. And in secresie where I should have shewed you in what cases secresie may be broken and in what not 5. And in confidence of each others fidelity and not in suspicion jealousie and distrust 6. And in prudence to manage things aright and to foresee and avoid impediments and inconveniences 7. And in holiness that God may be the first and last and all in all 8. And in constancy that you cease not your duties for one another until death But necessary abbreviation alloweth me to say no more of these CHAP. VIII The special Duties of Husbands to their Wives § 1. HE that will expect Duty or Comfort from his Wife must be faithful in doing the duty of a Husband The failing of your selves in your own duty may cause the failing of another to you or at least will some other way as much afflict you and will be bitterer to you in the end than if an hundred failed of their duty to you A good Husband will either make a good Wife or easily and profitably endure a bad one I shall therefore give you Directions for your own part of duty as that which your happiness is most concerned in § 2. Direct 1. The Husband must undertake the principal part of the Government of the whole family Direct 1. even of the Wife her self And therefore I. He must labour to be fit and able for that Government which he undertaketh This ability consisteth 1. In holiness and spiritual wisdom that he may be acquainted with the End to which he is to conduct them and the Rule by which he is to guide them and the principal works which they are to do An ungodly irreligious man is both a stranger and an enemy to the chiefest part of family-government 2. His ability consisteth in a due acquaintance with the works of his Calling and the labours in which his servants are to be employed For he that is utterly unacquainted with their business will be very unfit to govern them in it unless he commit that part of their government to his Wife or a Steward that is acquainted with it 3. And he must be acquainted both with the common temper and infirmities of mankind that he may know how much is to be born with and also with the particular temper and faults and virtues of those whom he is to govern 4. And he must have Prudence to direct himself in all his carriage to them and Iustice to deal with every one as they deserve and Love to do them all the good he can for soul and body II. And being thus able he must make it his daily work and especially be sure that he govern himself well that his example may be part of his government of others § 3. Direct 2. The Husband must so unite Authority and Love that neither of them may be omitted Direct 2. or concealed but both be exercised and maintained Love must not be exercised so imprudently as to destroy the exercise of Authority And Authority must not be exercised over a Wife so Magisterially and imperiously as to destroy the exercise of Love As your Love must be a Governing Love so your Commands must all be Loving Commands Lose not your Authority for that will but disable you from doing the Office of a Husband to your Wife or of a Master to your servants Yet must it be maintained by no means inconsistent with Conjugal Love and therefore not by fierceness or cruelty by threatnings or stripes unless by distraction or loss of reason they cease to be uncapable of the carriage otherwise due to a Wife There are many cases of equality in which Authority is not to be exercised but there is no case of inequality or unworthiness so great in which Conjugal Love is not to be exercised and therefore nothing must exclude it § 4. Direct 3. It is the duty of Husbands to preserve the Authority of their Wives over the Children Direct 3. and Servants of the family For they are joint-governours with them over all the inâeriors And the infirmities of women are apt many times to expose
when the next sickness cometh to remember that they were unthankful for their last recovery and how falsly they dealt with God in the breaking of their promises Foresee this that you may prevent it Tit. 3. Directions for a Comfortable or Peaceable Death COmfort is not desirable only as it Pleaseth us but also as it strengtheneth us and helpeth us in our greatest duties And when is it more needful than in sickness and the approach of death I shall therefore add such Directions as are necessary to make our departure comfortable or peaceful at the least as well as safe Direct 1. Because I would make this Treatise no longer than I needs must in order to overcome Direct 1. the fears of Death and get a chearful willingness to dye I desire the sick to read over those twenty Considerations and the following Directions which I have laid down in my Book of Self-denyal And when the fears of death are overcome the great impediment of their comfort is removed § 2. Direct 2. Misunderstand not sickness as if it were a greater evil than it is but observe how Direct 2. great a mercy it is that Death hath so suitable a harbinger or fore-runner That God should do so much before he taketh us hence to wean us from the world and make us willing to be gone that the unwilling flesh hath the help of pain and that the senses and appetite languish and decay which did draw the mind to earthly things and that we have so lowd a call and so great a help to true Mr. Vinâs Mr. Capell Mr. Holli gâorth Mr Aâhhâost Mr A bâosâ M ãâ¦ã Bâraell c. repentance and serious preparation I know to those that have walked very close with God and are alwayes ready a sudden death may be a mercy as we have lately known divers holy Ministers and others that have dyed either after a Sacrament or in the Evening of the Lords Day or in the midst of some holy exercise with so little pain that none about them perecived when they dyed But ordinarily it is a mercy to have the flesh brought down and weakned by painful sickness to help to conquer our natural unwillingness to dye § 3. Direct 3. Remember whose Messenger sickness is and who it is that calleth you to dye It is Direct 3. he that is the Lord of all the world and gave us the Lives which he taketh from us And it is he that must dispose of Angels and Men of Princes and Kingdoms of Heaven and Earth and therefore there is no reason that such Worms as we should desire to be excepted You cannot deny him to be the Disposer of all things without denying him to be God It is he that Loveth us and never meant us harm in any thing that he hath done to us that gave the life of his Son to Redeem us and therefore thinketh not Life too good for us Our sickness and death are sent by the same Love that sent us a Saviour and sent us the powerful Preachers of his Word and sent us his Spirit and secretly and sweetly changed our hearts and knit them to himself in Love which gave us a life of pretious mercies for our souls and bodies and hath promised to give us life eternal And shall we think that he now intendeth us any harm Cannot he turn this also to our good as he hath done many an affliction which we have repined at § 4. Direct 4. Look by faith to your dying buryed risen ascended glorified Lord. Nothing will Direct 4. more powerfully overcome both the poyson and the fears of Death than the believing thoughts of him that hath triumphed over it Is it terrible as it separateth the soul from the body So it did by our Lord who yet overcame it Is it terrible as it layeth the body in the grave So it did by our Saviour though he saw not corruption but quickly rose by the power of his Godhead He dyed to teach us believingly and boldly to submit to death He was buried to teach us not overmuch to fear a grave He rose again to conquer death for us and to assure those that rise to newness of life that they shall be raised at last by his power unto glory and being made partakers of the first resurrection the second death shall have no power over them He liveth as our Head that we might live by him and that he might assure all those that are here risen with him and seek first the things that are above that though in themselves they are dead yet their life is hid with Christ in God and when Christ who is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in glory Col. 3. 1 2 4 5. What a comfortable word is that John 14. 19. Because I live ye shall live also Death could not hold the Lord of life Nor can it hold us against his will who hath the keyes of death and Hell Rev. 1. 18. He loveth every one of his sanctified ones much better than you love an eye or a hand or any other member of your body which you will not lose if you are able to save it When he ascended he left us that message full of comfort for his followers John 20. 17. Go to my Brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father to my God and your God which with these two following I would have written before me on my sick-bed John 12. 26. If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there also shall my servant be And Luke 23. 43. Verily I say unto thee to day shalt thou be with me in Paradise O what a joyful thought should it be to a Believer to think when he is dying that he is going to his Saviour and that our Lord is risen and gone before us to prepare a place for us and take us in season to himself Iohn 14. 2 3 4. As you believe in God believe thus in Christ and then your hearts will be less troubled Ver. 1. It is not a stranger that we talk of to you but your Head and Saviour that loveth you better than you love your selves whose office it is there to appear continually for you before God and at last to receive your departing souls and into his hand it is that you must then commend them as Stephen did Acts 7. 59. § 5. Direct 5. Choose out some Promises most suitable to your condition and roll them over and over Direct 5. in your mind and feed and live on them by faith A sick man is not usually fit to think of very many things and therefore two or three comfortable promises to be still before his eyes may be the most profitable matter of his thoughts such as those three which I named before If he be most troubled with the greatness of his sin let it be such as these Joh. 3. 16. God so loved the world
that be gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Act. 13. 39. And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses Heb. 8. 12. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more If it be the weakness of his grace that troubleth him let him choose such passages as these Isa. 40. 11. He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bâsom and shall gently lead those that are with young Gal. 5. 17. The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would Matth. 26. 41. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak Joh. 6. 37. All that the father giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out Luk. 17. 5. The Apostles said unto the Lord Increase our faith If it be the fear of death and strangeness to the other world that troubleth you remember the words of Christ before cited and 2 Cor. 5. 1 2 4 5 6 8. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens For in this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from Heaven For we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened not for that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon that mortality might be swallowed up of life we are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. Phil. 1. 23. For I am in a strait between two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Rev. 14. 13. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them 1 Cor. 15. 55. O Death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory Act. 7. 59. Lord Iesus receive my spirit Fix upon some such word or promise which may support you in your extremity § 6. Direct 6. Look up to God who is the Glory of Heaven and the Light and Life and Ioy of souls Direct 6. and believe that you are going to see his face and to live in the perfect everlasting fruition of his fullest Love among the glorified If it be delectable here to know his works what will it be to see the Cause of all All Creatures in Heaven and Earth conjoyned can never afford such content and joy to holy souls as God alone O if we knew him whom we must there behold how weary should we be of this dungeon of mortality and how fervently should we long to see his face The Chicken that cometh out of the shell or the Infant that newly cometh from the womb into this illuminated world of humane converse receiveth not such a joyful change as the soul that is newly loosed from the flesh and passeth from this mortal life to God One sight of God by a blessed soul is worth more than all the Kingdoms of the earth It is pleasant to the eyes to behold the Sun But the Sun is as darkness and useless in his Glory Rev. 21. 23. And the City had no need of the Sun nor of the Moon to shine in it For the Glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb is the Light thereof Rev. 22. 3 4 5. And there shall be no more curse but the Throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it and his servants shall serve him and they shall see his face and his name shall be in their foreheads and there shall be no night there and they need no candle nor light of the Sun for the Lord God giveth them Light and they shall reign for ever and ever If David in the Wilderness so impatiently thirsted to appear before God the living God in his Sanctuary at Ierusalem Psal. 42. How earnestly should we long to see his Glory in the Heavenly Ierusalem The glimpse of his back-parts was as much as Moses might behold Exod. 34. yet that much put a shining glory upon his face v. 29 30. The sight that Stephen had when men were ready to stone him was a delectable sight Act. 7. 55 56. The glimpse of Christ in his transfiguration ravished the three Apostles that beheld it Mat. 17. 2 6. Pauls vision which rapt him up into the third Heavens did advance him above the rest of mankind But our Beatifical sight of the Glory of God will very far excell all this When our perfected bodies shall have the perfect Glorious Body of Christ to see and our perfected souls shall have the God of Truth the most perfect uncreated Light to know what more is a created understanding capable of And yet this is not the top of our felicity For the Understanding is but the passage to the Heart or Will and Truth is but subservient to Goodness And therefore though the Understanding be capable of no more than the Beatifical Vision yet the Man is capable of more even of receiving the fullest communications of Gods Love and feeling it poured out upon the heart and living in the returns of perfect Love and in this entercourse of Love will be our highest Ioyes and this is the top of our heavenly felicity O that God would make us foreknow by a lively faith what it is to behold him in his Glory and to dwell in perfect Love and Ioy and then death would no more be able to dismay us nor should we be unwilling of such a blessed change But having spoken of this so largely in my Saints Rest I must stop here and refer you thither § 7. Direct 7. Look up to the Blessed Society of Angels and Saints with Christ and remember their Direct 7. blessedness and joy and that you also belong to the same society and are going to be numbred with them It will greatly overcome the fears of death to see by faith the Joyes of them that have gone before us and withall to think of their relation to us As it will encourage a man that is to go beyond Sea if the far greatest part of his dearest friends be gone before him and he heareth of their safe arrival and of their Joy and happiness Those Angels that now see the face of God are our special friends and guardians and entirely Love us better than any of our friends on earth do They rejoiced at our Conversion and will rejoice at our Glorification And as they are better and Love us better so therefore our Love should be greater to them than to any upon earth and we should more desire to be with them Those blessed souls that are now with Christ were once as
works of charity both because the Tythes are now more appropriate to the maintenance of the Clergy and because as is aforesaid the people give them not out of their own I confess if we consider how Decimation was used before the Law by Abraham and Iacob and established by the Law unto the Iews and how commonly it was used among the Gentiles and last of all by the Church of Christ it will make a considerate man imagine that as there is still a Divine Direction for one day in seven as a necessary proportion of Time to be ordinarily consecrated to God besides what we can spare from our other dayes so that there is something of a Divine Canon or direction for the Tenth of our revenews or increase to be ordinarily consecrated to God besides what may be spared from the rest And whether those Tythes that are none of your own and cost you nothing be now to be reckoned to ârivate men as any of their Tenths which they themselves should give I leave to your consideratiââ Amongst Augustines works we find an opinion that the Devils were the Tenth part of the Angels and that man is now to be the Tenth order among the Angels the Saints filling up the place that the Devils fell from and there being nine orders of Angels to be above us and that in this there is some ground of our paying Tenths and therefore he saith that Haec est Domini justissima consuetudo ut si tu illi decimam non dederis tu ad decimam revocaberis id est daemonibus qui sunt decima pars angelorum associaberis Though I know not whence he had this opinion it seemeth that the devoting of a tenth part ordinarily to God is a matter that we have more than a humane Direction for 15. In times of extraordinary necessities of the Church or State or Poor there must be extraordinary bounty in our Contributions As if an enemy be ready to invade the Land or if some extraordinary work of God as the Conversion of some Heathen Nations do require it or some extraordinary persecution and distress befall the Pastours or in a year of famine plague or war when the necessities of the poor are extraordinary The tenths in such cases will not suffice from those that have more to give Therefore in such a time the Primitive Christians sold their possessions and laid down the price at the feet of the Apostles In one word an honest charitable heart being presupposed as the root or fountain and prudence being the discerner of our duty the Apostles general Rule may much satisfie a Christian for the proportion 1 Cor. 16. 2. Let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him And 2 Cor. 8. 12. According to that a man hath though there be many intimations that ordinarily a Tenth part at least is requisite III. Having thus resolved the question of the quota pars or proportion to be given I shall say a little to the question Whether a man should give most in his life time or at his Death Answ. 1. It is certain that the best work is that which is like to do most good 2. But to make it best to us it is necessary that we do it with the most self-denying holy charitable mind 3. That caeteris paribus all things else being equal the present doing of a good work is better than to defer it 4. That to do good only when you dye because then you can keep your wealth no longer and because then it costeth you nothing to part with it and because then you hope that this shall serve instead of true Repentance and Godliness this is but to deceive your selves and will do nothing to save your souls though it do never so much good to others 5. That he that sinfully neglecteth in his life time to do good if he do it at his death from true repentance and Conversion it is then accepted of God though the sin of his delay must be lamented 6. That he that delayeth it till Death not out of any selfishness backwardness or unwillingness but that the work may be the better and do more good doth better than if he hastened a lesser good As if a man have a desire to set up a Free School for perpetuity and the money which he hath is not sufficient if he stay till his Death that so the improvement of the money may increase it and make it enough for his intended work this is to do a greater good with greater self-denial For 1. He receiveth none of the increase of the money for himself 2. And he receiveth in his life time none of the praise or thanks of the work So also if a man that hath no Children have so much Land only as will maintain him and desireth to give it all to charitable uses when he dyeth this delay is not at all to be blamed because he could not sooner give it and if it be not in vain-glory but in love to God and to good works that he leaveth it it is truly acceptable at last So that all good works that are done at death are not therefore to be undervalued nor are they rejected of God but sometimes it falleth out that they are so much the greater and better works though he that can do the same in his life time ought to do it IV. But though I have spent all these words in answering these Questions I am fully satisfied that it is very few that are kept from doing good by any such doubt or difficulty in the case which stalls their judgements but by the power of sin and want of grace which leaveth an unwillingness and backwardness on their hearts Could we tell how to remove the impediments in mens wills it would do more than the clearest resolving all the cases of Conscience which their judgements seem to be unsatisfied in I le tell you what are the impediments in your way that are harder to be removed than all these difficulties and yet must be overcome before you can bring men to be like true Christians rich in good works 1. Most men are so sensual and so selfish that their own flesh is an insatiable gulf that devoureth all and they have little or nothing to spare from it to good uses It is better cheap maintaining a family of temperate sober persons than one fleshly person that hath a whole litter of vices and lusts to be maintained So much a year seemeth necessary to maintain their pride in needless curiosity and bravery and so much a year to maintain their sensual sports and pleasures and so much to please their throats or appetites and to lay in provision for Feavers and Dropsies and Coughs and Consumptions and an hundred such diseases which are the natural progeny of gluttony drunkenness and excess and so much a year to maintain their Idleness and so of many other vices But if one of these persons have the Pride
As the Athenians that condemned Socrates to death and then lamented it and erected a Braâen Statue for his Memorial Acosta saith that he that will be a Pastor to the Indians must not only resist the Devil and the flesh but must resist the custome of men which is grown powerful by time and multitude and must oppose his breast to receive the darts of the envious and malevolent who if they see any thing contrary to their prophane fashion they cry out A Traytor an Hypocrite an Enemy Li. 4. c. 15. p. 404. It seems among Papists and Barbarians the Serpents seed do hiss in the same manner against the good among themselves as they do against us dye Or think whether they will not change their minds when death hath sent them into that world where there is none of these deceits And think whether thou shouldst be moved with that mans words that will shortly change his mind himself and wish he had never spoke such words § 7. 3. Observe well whether their own Profession do not condemn them and whether the very thing that they hate the godly for be not that they are serious in Practising that which these malignants themselves profess as their Religion And are they not then notorious Hypocrites To profess to believe in God and yet scorn at those that diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. To profess faith in Christ and hate those that obey him To profess to believe in the Holy Ghost as the Sanctifier and yet hate and scorn his sanctifying work To profess to believe the day of Judgement and everlasting torment of the ungodly and yet to deride those that endeavour to escape it To profess to believe that Heaven is prepared for the Godly and yet scorn at those that make it the chief business of their lives to attain it To profess to take the holy Scriptures for Gods Word and Law and yet to scorn those that obey it To pray after each of the Ten Commandments Lord have mercy upon us and encline our hearts to keep this Law and yet to hate all those that desire and endeavour to keep them What impudent hypocrisie is joyned with this malignity Mark whether the greatest diligence of the most godly be not justified by the formal profession of those very men that hate and scorn them The difference between them is that the Godly Profess Christianity in good earnest and when they say what they believe they believe as they say But the ungodly customarily and for company take on them to be Christians when they are not and by their own mouths condemn themselves and hate and oppose the serious Practice of that which they say they do themselves believe PART II. The Temptations whereby the Devil hindereth mens Conversion with the proper Remedies against them § 1. THE Most Holy and Righteous Governour of the world hath so restrained Satan and all our enemies and so far given us Free-will that no man can be forced to sin against his will It is not sin if it be not positively or privatively voluntary All our enemies in Hell or Earth cannot make us miserable without our selves nor keep a sinner from true Conversion and Salvation if he do it not himself no nor compell him to one sinful thought or word or deed or omission but by tempting and entising him to be willing All that are Graceless are wilfully Graceless None go to Hell but those that chose the way to Hell and would not be perswaded out of it None miss of Heaven but those that did set so light by it as to prefer the world and sin before it and refused the holy way that leadeth to it And surely man that naturally loveth himself would never take so mad a course if his reason were not laid asleep and his understanding were not wofully deluded And this is the business of the Tempter who doth not drag men to sin by violence but draw and entice them by Temptations I shall therefore take it for the next part of my work to open these Temptations and tell you the Remedies § 2. Tempt 1. The first endeavour of the Tempter is in General to keep the sinner asleep in sin so that Tââpt 1. âe shall be as a dead man that hath no use of any of his faculties that hath eyes and seeth not and ears but heareth not and a heart that understandeth not nor feeleth any thing that concerneth his peace The light Ephes 2. 1. Col 2 13. 1 Coâ 15. 35. 1 Tim. 5. 6. Joeâ 1. 5. that shineth upon a man asleep is of no use to him His work lyeth undone His friends and wealth and greatest concernments are all forgotten by him as if there were no such things or persons in the world You may say what you will against him or do what you will against him and he can do nothing in his own defence This is the case that the Devil most laboureth to keep the world in even in so dead a sleep that their Reason and their Wills their fear and hope and all their powers shall be of no use to them That when they hear a Preacher or read the Scripture or good Books or see the holy examples of the godly yea when they see the Grave and know where they must shortly lie and know that their souls must stay here but a little while yet they shall hear and see and know all this as men asleep that mind it not as if it concerned not them at all never once soberly Considering and laying it to heart § 3. Direct 1. For the Remedy against this deadly sin 1. Take heed of sleepy opinions or Doctrines Direct 1. and conceits which tend to the Lethargie of Security 2. Sit not still but be up and doing Stirring tends to shake off drowziness 3. Come into the light Live under an awakening Minister and in wakening company that will not sleep with you nor easily let you sleep Agree with them to deal faithfully with you and promise them to take it thankfully 4. And meditate oft on wakening considerations Think whether a sleepy soul beseem one in thy dangerous condition Canst thou sleep with such a load of sin upon thy soul Canst thou sleep under the thundering threatnings of God and the Curse of his Law with so many wounds in thy Conscience and Ulcers in thy soul If thy body were sick or in the case of Iob yea if thou hadst but an aking Tooth it would not let thee sleep And is not the guilt of sin a thing more grievous If Thorns or Toads and Adders were in thy Bed they would keep the waking And how much more odious and dangerous a thing is sin If thy body want but meat or drink or covering it will break 2 Tim. 2. 26. thy sleep And is it nothing for thy soul to be destitute of Christ and Grace A condemned man will be easily kept awake And if thou be unregenerate thou art already condemned
is here a great encouragement to the soul to think that Jesus our great High Priest doth make all his Children Priests to God They are a chosen generation a royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar people that they should shew forth the prayses of him that hath called them out of darkness into his marvellâus light An holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Iesus Christ 1 Pet. 2. 5 â Even their broken hearts and contrite Spirits are a sacrifice which God will not despâse Psal. 51. 17. He knoweth the meaning of the Spirits groans Rom. 8. 26 27. § 19. 16. The strength of corruptions which molest the soul and are too often strugling with it and too much prevail doth greatly discourage us in our approach to that God that hateth all the workers of iniquity And here faith may find relief in Christ not only as he pardoneth us but as he hath conquered the Devil and the world himself and bid us be of good cheer because he hath conquered and hath all power given him in Heaven and Earth and can give us victorious grace in the season and measure which he seeth meetest for us We can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth us Go to him then by faith and prayer and you shall find that his grace is sufficient for you § 20. 17. The thoughts of God are the less delightful to the soul because that Death and the Grave do interpose and we must pass through them before we can enjoy him And it is unpleasing to nature to think of a separation of soul and body and to think that our flesh must rot in darkness But against this faith hath wonderful relieâ in Iesus Christ. For asmuch as we were partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part with us that he might destroy through death him that had the power of death even the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage Hâb 2. 14 15. O what an encouragement it is to faith to observe that Christ once dyed himself and that he rose from the dead and reigneth with the Father it being impossible that death should hâld him And having conquered that which seemed to conquer him it no more hath dominion over him but he hath the Keyes of Death and Hell we may now entertain death as a disarmed enemy and say O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory Yea it is sanctified by him to be our friend even an entrance into our Masters joy it being best for us to depart and be with Christ Phil. 1. 23. and therefore death is become our gain v. 21. O what abundance of strength and sweetness may faith perceive from that promise of Christ John 12. 26. If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be As he was dead but now liveth for evermore so hath he promised that because he liveth therefore shall we live also John 14. 19. But of this I have written two Treatises of Death already § 21. 18. The terror of the day of Iudgement and of our particular doom at death doth make the thoughts of God less pleasing and delectable to us And here what a relief is it for faith to apprehend that Iesus Christ must be our Judge And will he condemn the members of his body Shall we be afraid to be judged by our dearest friend by him that hath justified us himself already even at the price of his own blood § 22. 19. The very strangeness of the soul to the world unseen and to the inhabitants and employments there doth greatly stop the soul in its desires and in its delightful approaches unto God Had we seen the world where God must be enjoyed the thoughts of it would be more familiar and sweet But faith can look to Christ and say My head is there he seeth it for me he knoweth what he possesseth prepareth and promiseth to me and I will quietly rest in his acquaintance with it § 23. 20. Nay the Godhead it self is so infinitely above us that in it self it is inaccessible and it is ready to amaze and overwhelm us to think of coming to the incomprehensible Majesty But it emboldneth the soul to think of our Glorified Nature in Christ and that even in Heaven God will everlastingly condescend to us in the Mediator For the Mediation of Redemption and acquisition shall be ended and thus he shall deliver up the Kingdom to the Father yet it seems that a Mediation of fruition shall continue For Christ said to his Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my glory John 17. 24. We shall rejoyce when the marriage of the Lamb is come Rev. 19. 7. They are blessed that are called to his Marriage Supper v. 9. The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple and the Light of the New Ierusalem Rev. 21. 22 23. Heaven would not be so familiar or so sweet to my thoughts if it were not that our glorified Lord is there in whose Love and Glory we must live for ever O Christian as ever thou wouldst walk with God in comfortable communion with him study and exercise this Life of faith in the daily use and improvement of Christ who is our Life and Hope and All. DIRECT III. Gr. Dir. 3. Understand well what it is to believe in the Holy Ghost and see that he dwell To believe in the Holy Ghost and live upon his Grace and operate in thee as the Life of thy soul and that thou do not resist or quench the Spirit but thankfully obey him § 1. EAch person in the Trinity is so believed in by Christians as that in Baptism they enter Scrutari temeritas est credere pietas nesse vita Bernard de consid ad Eâgeâ l. 5. distinctly into Covenant with them which is to Accept the Mercies of and perform the ãâ¦ã each person distinctly As to take God for Our God is more than to believe that there is a God ând to take Christ for Our Saviour is more than barely to believe that he is the Messiah so to Believe in the Holy Ghost is to take him for Christs Agent or Advocate with our souls and for our Guide and Sanctifier and Comforter and not only to believe that he is the third person in the Trinity This therefore is a most practical Article of our Belief § 2. If the Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost be the unpardonable sin then all sin against the Holy Ghost must needs have a special aggravation by being such And if the sin against the Holy Ghost be the greatest sin then our duty towards the Holy Ghost is certainly none of our smallest duties Therefore the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit and our duty towards him and sin against him deserve not the least or
destroying the Kingdom of the Devil and next the purifying his peculiar people and calling home all that are ordained to eternal life § 60. But more particularly he looketh principally at the heart to plant there 1. Holy Knowledge 2. Faith 3. Godlyness or holy devotedness to God and Love to him above all 4. Thankfulness 5. Obedience 6. Humility 7. Heavenly-mindedness 8. Love to others 9. Self-denial and Mortification and contentment 10. Patience And in all these 1. sincerity 2. tenderness of heart 3. âeal and holy strength and resolution And withal to make us actually serviceable and diligent in our masters work for our own and others salvation § 61. II. Christs order in working is direct and not backward as the Devils is He first revealeth saving truth to the understanding and affecteth the will ââ shewing the Goodness of the things revealed And these employ the Thoughts and Passions and Senses and the whole body reducing the inferiour faculties to obedience and casting out by degrees those images which had deceived and prepossessed them § 62. The matter which Christ presenteth to the Soul is 1. Certain Truth from the Father of Lights set up against the Prince and Kingdom of darkness ignorance error and deceit 2. Spiritual and everlasting Good even God himself to be seen and Loved and Enjoyed for ever against the Tempters temporal corporal and seeming good Christs Kingdom and work are advanced by Light He is for the promoting of all useful knowledge and therefore for clear and convincing Preaching for reading the Scriptures in a known tongue and meditating in them day and night and for exhorting one another daily which Satan is against § 63. III. The Means by which he worketh against Satan are such as these 1. Sometime he maketh use of the very temper of the body as a preparative and being Lord of all he giveth such a temperature as will be most serviceable to the soul As a sober deliberate meek quiet and patient disposition But sometime he honoureth his Grace by the conquest of such sins as even bodily disposition doth entertain and cherish § 64. 2. Sometimes by his providence he withdraweth the matter of temptations that they shall not be too strong for feeble souls But sometimes his Grace doth make advantage of them all and leave them for the magnifying of its frequent victories § 65. 3. Sometimes he giveth his cause the major vote among the people so that it shall be a matter of dishonourable singularity not to be a professed Christian and somtime but exceeding rarely it is so with the life of Godliness and practice of Christianity also But ordinarily in the most places of the world Custom and the Multitude are against him and his grace is honoured by prevailing against these bands of Satan § 66. 4. He maketh his Ministers his principal Instruments qualifying disposing and calling them to his work and helping them in it and prospering it in their hands § 67. 5. He maketh it the duty of every Christian to do his part to carry on the work and furnisheth them with Love and Compassion and Knowledge and Zeal in their several measures § 68. 6. He giveth a very strict charge to Parents to devote their Children with themselves to God encouraging them with the promise of his accepting and blessing them and commandeth them to teach them the word of God with greatest diligence and to bring them up in the nurture and fear of God § 69. 7. He giveth Princes and Magistrates their power to promote his Kingdom and protect his servants and encourage the good and suppress iniquity and further the obedience of his Laws Though in most of the world they turn his enemies and he carrieth on his work without them and against their cruel persecuting opposition § 70. 8. His Light detecteth the nakedness of the Devils cause and among the Sons of Light it is odious and a common shame And as wisdom is justified of her children so the judgement of holy men condemning sin doth much to keep it under in the world § 71. 9. His providence usually casteth the sinner that he will do good to into the bosome and communion of his holy Church and the familiar company and acquaintance of the Godly who may help him by instruction affection and example § 72. 10. His providence fitteth all conditions to their good but especially helpeth them by seasonable quickning afflictions These are the means which ordinarily he useth But the powerful inward operations of his Spirit give efficacy to them all Tit. 2. Temptations to particular sins with Directions for preservation and Remedy IN Chapter 1. Part 2. I have opened the Temptations which hinder sinners from Conversion to God I shall now proceed to those which draw men to particular sins Here Satans Art is exercised 1. In fitting his baits to his particular use 2. In applying them thereto § 1. Tempt 1. The Devil fitteth his Temptations to the sinners age The same bait is not suitable Tempt 1. to all Children he tempteth to excess of playfullness lying disobedience unwillingness to learn the things that belong to their salvation and a senselesness of the great concernments of their souls He tempteth youth to wantonness rudeness gulosity unruliness and foolish inconsiderateness In the beginning of manhood he tempteth to lust voluptuousness and luxury or if these take not to designs of worldliness and ambition The aged he tempteth to covetousness and unmoveableness in their error and unteachableness and obstinacy in their ignorance and sin Thus every age hath its peculiar snare § 2. Direct 1. The Remedy against this is 1. To be distinctly acquainted with the Temptations of Direct 1. your own age and watch against them with a special heedfullness and fear 2. To know the special duties and advantages of your own age and turn your thoughts wholly unto those Scripture hath various precepts for the various ages study your own part The young have more time to learn their duty and less care and business to divert them Let them therefore be taken up in obedient learning The middle age hath most vigor of body and mind and therefore should do their masters work with the greatest vigor activity and zeal The Aged should have most judgement and experience and acquaintedness with Death and Heaven and therefore should teach the younger both by word and holy life § 3. Tempt 2. The Tempter also fitteth his Temptations to mens several bodily tempers as I Tempt â shewed § 22. The hot and strong he tempteth to lust The sad and fearful to discouragement and continual self-vexations and to the Fear of Men and Devils Those that have strong appetites to Gluttony and Drunkenness Children and Women and weak-headed people to Pride of Apparel and trifling Complement And masculine wicked-unbelievers to Pride of Honour Parts and Grandeur and to an ambitious seeking of Rule and Greatness The meek and gentle he tempteth to a yieldingness unto the perswasions
not tarry Now the Iust shall live by faith but if any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him § 10. Direct 10. When you are delivered from the power of the Devil himself what cause have you Direct 10. to fear his instruments Can they do more than he If Goliah the Champion and the General be overcome the common Souldiers are not like to overcome us § 11. Direct 11. Are you better than your Lord Look to him and be confirmed Matth. 10. 24. Direct 11. The disciple is not above his Master nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master and the servant as his Lord. If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub how much more shall they call them of his houshold Heb. 12. 1 2 3. Let us run with patience the race that is set before us looking to Iesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds § 12. Direct 12. Be of good cheer our Lord hath overcome the world John 16. 33. And shall we Direct 12. fear mordinately a conquered world Yea he overcame it by suffering to shew us that by suffering we shall overcome it He triumphed over principalities and powers greater than mortals on the Cross Col. 2. 15. And therefore all power in Heaven and Earth is given to him Matth. 28. 19. and he is Lord both of the dead and living Rom. 14. 9. and is made head over all things to the Church Ephes. 1. 21 22. And so though for his sake we be killed all the day long and counted as sheep to the slaughter yet in all these things we are more than conquerours through him that loved us that is we have a nobler victory than if we conquered them by the sword § 13. Direct 13. Think how little your suffering is in comparison of what your sin deserved and Direct 13. your Lord hath freely saved you from Should a man grudge at the opening of a Vein for his health who deserved to have lost his life Can you remember Hell which was your due and yet make a great matter of any thing that man can do against you § 14. Direct 14. Remember that to sin through fear of suffering is to leap into Hell to scape a Direct 14. little pain on earth Are you afraid of man Be more afraid of God Is not God more terrible It is a fearful thing to fall into his hands for he is a consuming fire Heb. 10. 31. 26 27 29. Heb. 12. 29. O hear your Lord Luke 13. 4 5. And I say to you my friends Be not afraid of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear Fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into Hell yea I say unto you fear him It their fire be hot remember that Hell is hotter and that God is the best friend and the dreadfullest enemy § 15. Direct 15. Remember that you shall suffer and it s like as much even here from God if you Direct 15. scape by sin your sufferings from men If you sin to scape death you shall dye when you have done And O how quickly And how much more joyful is it to dye for Christ than a little after unwillingly to part with that life which you denyed to part with for your Lord And what galls will you feel in your guilty conscience both in life and at your death So that even in this life your fear would drive you into greater misery § 16. Direct 16. Think of the dangerous effects of your immoderate fear It is the way with Peter Direct 16. to deny your Lord Yea the way to Apostasie or any wickedness which men shall drive you to by terrors If you were where the Turk is now tyrannizing among Christians if you overcome not your fear he might overcome your fidelity and make you turn from Jesus Christ And that is the sin Qui propter ââââââââââââiââ ãâã ãâã prodââââ est ãâ¦ã Dâalâg de Statu Eccl. which the Apostle so dreadfully describeth Heb. 10. 26 27 29. If we sin wilfully that is wilfully renounce our Lord after the acknowledgement of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin but a fearful looking for of judgement and fire which shall devour the adversary O how many have been drawn by the fear of men to wound their consciences neglect their duties comply with sin forsake the truth dishonour God and undo their souls And often in this life they do as poor Spira did who by sinning through the fear of man did cast himself into melancholy and self-murdering despair Your fear is a more dangerous enemy to you than those that you fear are Prov. 29. 25 26. The fear of man bringeth a snare but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe Many seek the Rulers favour but every mans judgement cometh of the Lord. Fear is given to preserve you Use it not to destroy you § 17. Direct 17. Believe and remember Gods special providence extending to every hair of your Direct 17. head and also the guard of Angels which he hath set over you Matth. 10. 29 30. Are not two Sparrows sold for a farthing and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father But the very hairs of your head are numbered Fear ye not therefore ye are of more value than many Sparrows O that this were well believed and considered Psal. 34. 7. The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them § 18. Direct 18. Think what a vile dishonour it is to God to have his creature even breathing dirt Direct 18. to be feared more than him As if he were less powerful to do good or hurt to you than man and Sâe Isa. 7. 4. 35 4 41. 1â 13. 42. 2 â 54 4. âer 5. 22. were not able or willing to secure you so far as to see that no man shall ever be a loser by him or any thing which he suffereth for his cause Isa. 57. 11. And of whom hast thou been afraid or feared that thou hast lyed and hast not remembred me nor laid it to thy heart Have I not held my peace even of old and thou fearest me not How did Daniel and the three Confessors honour God but by fearing him more than the King and the flaming Fornace Saying We are not careful to answer thee in this ââââs dicam tanto est melius juââe etiam damnari quam injuste ab ãâ¦ã i quanto est pâjus impuniâum crimen quam pumtum in
soon as Isaac had given it to Iacob Answ. When he had sold his birth-right it was too late to recall it for the right was made over to his Brother It seemeth to be Isaac's Repentance which ââaw found no place ââââ But ââ it be spoken oâ the unacceptableness of his own Repentance when it was too late it signifieth not that any mans is too late in this life as to ãâ¦ã and it was not Repentance and cryes and tears that could recal the right he had sold nor recal the words that Isaac had spoken But this doth not prove that our day of grace doth not continue till death or that any man Repenting before his death shall be rejected as Esau's repentance was The Apostle neither saith nor meaneth any such thing The sense of his words are only this much Take heed lest there be any so prophane among you as to set so light by the blessings of the Gospel even Christ and life eternall as to part with them for a base lust or transitory thing as Esau that set more by a morsel of meat than by his birth-right For let them be sure that the time will come even the time mentioned by Christ Matth. 25. 10 11. when the door is shut and the Lord is come when they will dearly repent it and then as it was with Esau when the blessing was gone so it will be with them when their blessing is gone Repentance and cries and tears will be too late For the Gospel hath its justice and terrors as well as the Law This is all in the Text but there is no intimation that our day of Grace is as short as Esau's hope of the blessing was § 15. Obj. 4. Saul had but his time which when he lost he was forsaken of God Obj. 4. Answ. Saul's sin provoked God to reject him from being King of Israel and to appoint another in Answ. his stead But if Saul had Repented he had been saved after that though not restored to the Crown And its true that as God withdrew from him the spirit of Government so many before death by the greatness of their sins cause God to forsake them so far as to withhold those motions and convictions and fears and disquietments in sin which sometime they had and to give them over to a reprobate mind Rom. 1. 28. to commit all uncleanness with greediness and glory in it as being past feeling Eph. 4. 18 19. If it be thus with you you would be no better you would not be recovered you think sin is best for you and hate all that would reform you § 16. Obj. 5. It is said 2 Cor. 6. 2. Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvavation Obj. 5. And Heb. 3. 7 12 13. To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin Answ. This saith no more than that the present time is the hest yea the only certain time and we Answ. are not sure that the day of salvation will continue any longer because death may cut us off But if it do not yet sin is a hardening thing and the longer we sin the more it hardeneth yea God may withhold the motions of his spirit and leave us to our selves to the hardness of our hearts and thus he doth by thousands of wicked persons who are left in impenitency and hatred of the truth But most certainly if those men Repented they might be saved and the very reason why they have not Christ and life is still because they will not consent § 17. Direct 6. Understand by what help and strength it is that the Obedience to the Gospel must be Direct 6. performed not meerly by your own strength but by the help of grace and strength of Christ If he have but made you willing he will help you to perform the rest You are not by this Covenant to be a Saviour and sanctifier to your selves but to Consent that Christ be your Saviour and the Holy Spirit your Sanctifier You might else despair indeed if you were left to that which you are utterly unable to do Though you must work out your own salvation with fear and trembling it is he that worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. 2. 13. § 18. Direct 7. Understand well the difference between mortal sins and Infirmities that you may not Direct 7. think that every sin is a sign of death or gracelesness but may know the difference between those sins which should make you think your selves unjustified and those sins which only call for particular humiliation being such as the justified themselves commit Though in the Popish sense we take no sin to be venial that is which in it self is properly no sin nor deserveth death according to the Law of works yet the distinction between Mortal and Venial sin is of very great necessity that is between sins which prove a man De quâ vide Tract Râb Baâoââââ Of Mortal and Venial sin in a state of death or unjustified and sins which consist with a state of Grace and justification between sins which the Gospel pardoneth not and those which it pardoneth that is all that stand with true Repentance There are some sins which every one that Repenteth of them doth so forsake as to cease committing them And there are some lesser sins which they that Repent of them do hate indeed but yet frequently renew as our defective degrees in the exercise of Repentance it self faith love trust fear obedience our vain thoughts and words some sinful passions omissions of many duties of thought affection word or deed towards God or man some minutes of time over-slip us prayer and other duties have a sinful coldness or remissness in them and such like Many such sins are fitly called Infirmities and Venial because they consist with Life and are forgiven It is of great use to the peace of our Consciences to discern the difference between these two for one sort require a Conversion to another state and the other require but a particular repentance and where they are unknown are forgiven without particular repentance because our general repentance is virtually though not actually particular as to them One sort are cause of judging our selves ungodly and the other sort are only cause of filial humiliation Any one may see the great need of discerning the difference but yet it is a matter of very great judgement doctrinally to distinguish them much more actually to discern them in every instance in your selves The way is to know first what is the condition of the New-Covenant and of absolute necessity to salvation or justification and then every sin that is inconsistent with that condition is mortal and the rest that are consistent and do consist with it are venial or but infirmities As Venial signifieth only that sort of sin which is
ability opportunity and a Call may be excused by Religion from worldly labours as Ministers but not from such spiritual labours for others which they can perform He that under pretence of Religion withdraweth from converse and forbeareth to do good to others and only liveth to himself and his own soul doth make Religion a pretense against Charity and the works of Charity which are a great part of Religion For pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted of the world Jam. 1. 27. Even when sickness imprisonment or persecution disableth to do any more for others we must pray for them But while we can do more we must § 4. Quest. 4. Will not Riches excuse one from labouring in a Calling Answ. No but rather bind Quest. 4. them to it the more For he that hath most wages from God should do him most work Though Wââl not Riches excuse they have no outward want to urge them they have as great a necessity of obeying God and doing good to others as any other men have that are poor § 5. Quest. 5. Why is labour thus necessary to all that are able Answ. 1. God hath strictly commanded Quest. 5. âây Labour is necessary it to all And his Command is Reason enough to us 2 Thess. 3. 10 11 12. For even when we were with you this we commanded you that if any would not work neither should he eat For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly working not at all but are busie-bodies Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Iesus Christ that with quietness Ezek. 46. 1. Deut. 16. 15. Deut. 2. 7. Exod. 34. 21. they work and eat their own bread See vers 6. 14. 1 Thess. 4. 11. We beseech you brethren that ye study to be quiet and to do your own business and work with your hands as we commanded you that ye may walk honestly or decently towards them that are without and that ye may have lack of nothing Gen. 3. 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground And in the fourth Commandment Six dayes shalt thou labour So Ephes. 4. 28. Prov. 31. 31 33. § 6. 2. Naturally action is the end of all our Powers and the Power were vain but in respect to the act To be able to understand to read to write to go c. were little worth if it were not that we may Do the things that we are enabled to § 7. 3. It is for Action that God maintaineth us and our abilities work is the moral as well as the natural End of power It is the act by the power that is commanded us § 8. 4. It is action that God is most served and honoured by not so much by our being able to do good but by our doing it who will keep a servant that is able to work and will not Will his meer ability answer your expectation § 9. 5. The publick welfare or the good of many is to be valued above our own Every man therefore is bound to do all the good he can to others especially for the Church and Commonwealth And this is not done by Idleness but by Labour As the Bees labour to replenish their hive so man being a sociable creature must labour for the good of the society which he belongs to in which his own is contained as a part § 10. 6. Labour is necessary for the preservation of the faculties of the mind 1. The labour of the mind is necessary hereto because unexercised Abilities will decay as Iron not used will consume with rust Idleness makes men fools and dullards and spoileth that little ability which they have 2. And the exercise of the Body is ordinarily necessary because of the minds dependance on the body and acting according to its temperature and disposition It is exceedingly helped or hindered by the body § 11. 7. Labour is needful to our health and life The Body it self will quickly fall into mortal Socrates was mightâly addicted to the exercise of his body as necessary to the health of body and mind Laert. Plâtarch out of Plato saith that soul and body should be equally exercised togâther and driven on as two Houses in a Coach and not either of them overgo the osher Prââ of Health diseases without it except in some very few persons of extraordinary soundness Next to abstinence labour is the chief preserver of health It stirreth up the natural heat and spirits which perform the chief offices for the life of man It is the proper bellows for this vital fire It helpeth all the concoctions of nature It attenuateth that which is too gross it purifieth that which beginneth to corrupt it openeth obstructions it keepeth the mass of blood and other nutritious humours in their proper temperament fit for motion circulation and nutrition it helpeth them all in the discharge of their natural offices It helpeth the parts to attract each one its proper nutriment and promoteth every sermentation and assimilation by which nature maintaineth the transitory still consuming Oyle and mass It excelleth art in the preparation alteration and expulsion of all the excrementitious matter which being retained would be the matter of manifold diseases and powerfully fighteth against all the enemies of health In a word it doth incomparably excell the help of the most skilful Physicions and excellent Medicines in the world for the preventing of most diseases incident to man and consequently to the benefit of the soul it self which cheerfully useth a cheerful and well tempered body and useth a languishing sickly body as the Rider useth a tired Horse or as we use a sick or lazie servant or a blunted Knife or a Clock or Watch that is out of order I speak all this of Bodily labour which is necessary to the Body and consequently to the mind For want of which abundance grow melancholly and abundance grow sluggish and good for nothing and abundance cherish filthy lusts and millions yearly turn to earth before their time For want of bodily labour a multitude of the idle Gentry and rich people and young people that are slothful do heap up in the secret receptacles of the body a dunghill of unconcocted excrementitious filth and vitiate all the mass of humours which should be the fewel and oyle of life and dye by thousands of untimely deaths of Feavors Palsies Convulsions Apoplexies Dropsies Consumptions Gout c. more miserably than if Thieves had murdered them by the High-way because it is their own doing and by their sloth they kill themselves For want of bodily exercise and labour interposed abundance of Students and sedentary persons fill themselves with diseases and hasten their death and causelesly blame their hard studies for that which was caused by their bodily sloth The hardest studies will do
If you be so proud or rash as to reply why should I leave my sport for another mans conceits or judgement I will tell thee that which shall shame thy reply and thee if thou canst blush 1. It is not some humorous odd fanatick that I alledge against thee nor a singular Divine But it is the judgement of the antient Church it self The Fathers and Councils condemn Christians and Ministers especially that use spectacula spectacles or behold Stage-plays and Dicing 2. Even the oldest Canons of our own Church of England forbid Dicing to the Clergy which is because they reputed it evil or of ill report 3. Many Laws of Religious Princes do condemn them 4. Abundance of the most learned holy Divines condemn them 5. The sober learnedest of the Papists condemn them 6. And how great a number of the most Religious Ministers and people are against them of the age and place in which you live you are not ignorant And is the judgement of the antient Church and of Councils and Fathers and of the most learned Protestants and Papists and the most Religious people besides many antient Laws and Canons of no force with you in such a case as this Will you hold to a thing confessedly unnecessary against the judgement of so many that account them sinful Are you and your play-fellows more wise and learned than all these Or is it not extremity of Pride for such unstudied empty men to prefer their sensual conceits before such a concurrent stream of wiser and more ponderous judgements Read but Dr. Io. Reignolds his Treat against Stage-Plays against Albericus Gentilis and you will see what a world of witnesses are against you And if the judgement of Voetius Amesius and other Learned men against all Lusory Lots be of no authority at least it should move you that even Mr. Gataker and other that write for the lawfullness of them in that respect as Lusory Lots do yet lay down the rest of the requisites to make them lawful which utterly condemn our common use of Cards and Dice much more our Gamesters So that all the sober Divines that ever I read or heard condemn all these And are you wiser than all of them § 26. 4. Besides this your Consciences know that you are so far from them using to fit you for your Callings that you either live idly out of a Calling or else you prefer them before your Callings You have no mind of your work because your mind is so much upon your play you have no mind of your home or family but are weary of your business because your sports withdraw your hearts And you are so far from using them to fit you to any holy duty that they utterly unfit you and corrupt your hearts with such a kind of sensual delight as makes them more backward to all that is good insomuch that many of you even grow so desperate as to hate and scorn it This is the benefit it bringeth you § 27. 5. And you cannot but know what a Time-wasting sin it is Suppose the game were never so lawful Is it lawful to lay out so many hours upon it as if you had neither souls nor bodies nor families nor estates nor God nor death nor Heaven to mind § 28. 6. And how much prophaneness or abuse of others is in many of your Stage-plays How much wantonness and amorous folly and representing sin in a manner to entise men to it rather than to make it odious making a sport and mock of sin with a great deal more such evil And your Cards and Dice are the exercise usually of covetousness the occasion of a great deal of idle talk and foolish babble about every cast and every Card and oft-times the occasion of cursing and swearing and railing and hatred of those that win your money and oft it hath occasioned fighting and murder It is one of the Roman Laws 12. tab Prodigo bonârum suorum administratâo interdicta esto it self And even your huntings are commonly recreations so costly as that the charge that keepeth a pack of Hounds would keep a poor mans family that is now in want Besides the Time that this also consumeth So that the case is clear that our Gamesters and licentious sportfull Gallants are a sort of people that have blinded their minds and seared their Consciences and despise the Laws and presence of God and forget death and judgement and live as if there were no life to come neglecting their miserable souls and having no delight in the word or holy worship of God nor the forethoughts of eternal joys and therefore seek for their pleasure in such foolish sports and spend those pretious hours in these vanities which God knows they had need to spend most diligently in repenting of their sins and cleansing their souls and preparing for another world § 29. If yet any impenitent Gamester or idle Time-waster shall Reply I will not believe that my Object Cards or Dice or Plays are unlawful I use them but to fit me for my duty What! would you have all men live like heremites or anchorites without all pleasure I answer you but by this reasonable request Will you set your selves as dying men in the presence of God and the âight of eternity and provide a true answer to these few Questions even such an answer as your Consciences dare stand to at the bar of God § 30. Quest. 1. Dost thou not think in thy Conscience that thy Maker and Redeemer and his work and Quest. 1. service and thy family and calling and the forethoughts of Heaven are not fitter matters to delight a sober mind than Cards or Stage-plays And what can it be but a vain and sinful mind that should make these toys so pleasant to thee and the thoughts of God and Heaven so unpleasant § 31. Quest. 2. Doth not thy Conscience tell thee that it is not to fit thee for thy Calling or Gods Quest. 2. service that thou usest these sports but only to delight a carnal fantasie Doth not Conscience tell thee that it is more the pleasure than the benefit of it to thy soul or body that draws thâe to it Dost thou work so hard or study so hard all the day besides as to need so much recreation to refresh thee § 32. Quest. 3. Doth not thy Conscience tell thee that if thy sensual fantasie were but cured it Quest. 3. would be a more profitable recreation to thy body or mind to use some sober exercise for thy body which is confined to its proper limits of time or to turn to variety of labour or studies than to sit about these idle games § 33. Quest. 4. Dost thou think that either Christ or his Apostles used Stage-plays Cards or Dice Quest. 4. or ever countenanced such a temper of mind as is addicted to them Or was not David as wise as you that took up his pleasure in the word of God and his
he hath in the most dangerous disease which is not desperate For when it is certain that there is no hope without them if they do no good they do no harm So must we try the saving of a poor soul while there is life and any hope For if once death end their time and hopes it will be then too late and they will be out of our reach and help for ever To those that sickness findeth in so sad a case I shall give here but a few brief Directions because I have done it more at large in the first Tome and first Chapter whither I refer them § 5. Direct 1. Set speedily and seriously to the Iudging of your selves as those that are going to Direct 1. be judged of God And do it in the manner following 1. Do it willingly and resolvedly as knowing For Examination that it is now no time to remain uncertain of your everlasting state if you can possibly get acquainted with it Is it not time for a man to know himself whether he be a sanctifiâd believer or not when he is just going to appear before his maker and there be judged as he is found 2. Do it impartially as one that is not willing to find himself deceived as soon as death hath acquainted him with the truth O take heed as you love your souls of being foolishly tender of your selves and resolving for fear of being troubled at your misery to believe that you are safe whether it be true or false This is the way that thousands are undone by Thinking that you are sanctified will neither prove you so nor make you so no more than thinking that you are well will prove or make you well And what good will it do you to think you are pardoned and shall be saved for a few days longer and then to find too late in Hell that you were mistaken Is the ease of so short a deceit worth all the pain and loss that it will cost you Alas poor soul God knoweth it is not needlesly to affright thee that we desire to convince thee of thy misery We do not cruelly insult over thee or desire to torment thee But we pity thee in so sad a case To see an unsanctified person ready to pass into another world and to be doomed unto endless misery and will not know it till he is there Our principal reason of opening your danger is because it is necessary to your escaping it If soul diseases were like bodily diseases which may sometimes be cured without the patients knowing them and the danger of them we would never trouble you at such a time as this But it will not be so done You must understand your danger if you will be saved from it Therefore be impartial with your self if you are wise and be truly willing to know the worst 3. In Iudging your selves proceed by the same Rule or Law that God will judge you by that is by the word of God revealed in the Gospel For your work now is not to steal a little short-lived quiet to your Consciences but to know how God will judge your souls and whether he will doom you to endless joy or misery And how can you know this but by that Law or Rule that God will judge you by And certainly God will judge you by the same Law or Rule by which he Governed you or which he gave you to Live by in the world It will go never the better or worse there with any man for his good or bad conceits of himself if they were his mistakes But just what God hath said in his word that he will do with any man that will he do with him in the day of judgement All shall be justified whom the Gospel justifieth and all shall be condemned that it condemneth and therefore judge your self by it By what signes you may know an unsanctified man I have told you before Tom. 1. Chap. 1. Dir. 8. And by what signes true grace may be known I told you before in Preparation for the Sacrament 4. If you cannot satifie your self about your own condition advise with some Godly able Minister or other Christian that is best acquainted with you that knoweth how you have lived towards God and man or at least open all your heart and life to him that he may know it And if he tell you that he feareth you are yet unsanctified you have the more reason to fear the worst But then be sure that he be not a carnal ungodly worldly man himself For they that flatter and deceive themselves are not unlike to do so by others Such blind deceivers will dawb over all and bid you never trouble your self but even comfort you as they comfort themselves and bid you believe that all is well and it will be well or will make you believe that some forced confession and unsound Repentance will serve instead of true Conversion But a man that is going to the bar of God should be loth to be deceived by himself or others § 6. Direct 2. If by a due examination you find your self unsanctified bethink you seriously of your Direct 2. case both what you have done and what a condition you are in till you are truly humbled and willing of For Humiliation and Repentance any conditions that God shall offer you for your deliverance Consider how foolishly you have done how rebelliously how unthankfully to forsake your God and forget your souls and lose all your time and abuse all Gods mercies and leave undone the work that you were made and preserved and redeemed for Alas did you never know till now that you must dye and that you had all your time to make preparation for an endless life which followeth death Were you never warned by Minister or friend Were you never told of the necessity of a holy heavenly life and of a regenerate sanctified state till now O what could you have done more unwisely or wickedly than to cast away a life that eternal life so much depended on and to refuse your Saviour and his grace and mercies till your last extremity Is this the time to look after a new birth and to begin your life when you are at the end of it O what have you done to delay so great a work till now And now if you die before you are regenerate you are lost for ever O humble your souls before the Lord Lament your folly and presently condemn your selves before him and make out to Him for mercy while there is hope Direct 3. § 7. Direct 3. When you are humbled for your sin and misery and willing of mercy upon any terms For Faith in Christ. believe that yet your case is not Remediless but that Iesus Christ hath given himself to God a sacrifice for your sins and is so sure and allsufficient a Saviour that yet nothing can hinder you from pardon and salvation but your own impenitence and unbelief
Sacrifice for their sins and to make a promise of pardon and salvation to all that will accept him and his gift and he intreateth all that hear the Gospel to accept it And accordingly he will save all that consent unto his Covenant I am a sinful child of Adam and therefore am one that Christ became a Sacrifice for and I consent unto his Covenant and therefore I am one that Christ by that Covenant doth justifie and will save § 29. Tempt 6. Sometime the Tempter troubleth the soul with Temptations to Blasphemy and Tempt 6. Infidelity and asketh him How knowest thou that there is a God or a life to come or that souls are immortal or that the Scripture is true Of this I spake before To this we must then answer I abhor thy suggestions These things I have seen proved long ago and I will not so far gratifie thee in my weakness and extremity as to question and dispute these sealed fundamental truths no more than I will dispute whether there be a Sun or earth § 30. Tempt 7. Sometimes the Tempter will say At best thou hast no Assurance of salvation Tempt 7. and how canst thou choose but tremble to think of dying when thou knowest not whether thou shalt go to Heaven or Hell To this the soul that hath not Assurance must answer It is my own mistake or weakness that keepeth me unassured And I will neither take part with my infirmities nor increase them by their effects My hopes are such as should draw up my desires though I want full assurance The Child delighteth in the company of the Mother and every man of his friend though he is not certain that the Mother or friend will not hurt him or take away his life Why should I trouble my self with improbabilities Or fear that which I have no found reason to fear Rather I should be glad to dye that death may perfect my Assurance and put an end to all my doubts and fears § 31. Tempt 8. But saith the Tempter How strange art thou to God and the life to come Thou Tempt 8. never sawest it Is it not dreadful to enter upon an unchangeable life in a world which thou art so great a stranger to Answ. But Christ is not a stranger to it He seeth it for me and I will implicitely trust him where should my eyes be but in my head I shall never see it till I come thither When I have been there a while this darkness and fear and strangeness will be gone I was as strange to this world before I came into it and more And all those holy souls in Heaven were strange to it once as well as I I should therefore long to be with Christ that I may be strange to him no more § 32. Tempt 9. But saith the Tempter thy fears and unwillingness is a sign that thou hast no Tempt 9. Love to God nor heavenly mind and how then canst thou hope to come to Heaven Answ. My fears come from strangeness and weakness of faith and a natural enmity to death If I could come to Christ in joy and glory and be perfected in holiness without dying I should not be unwilling of it God looketh not that my Nature should be willing to dye but that Grace make me willing to be with Christ and patiently submit to so dark a passage Even Christ himself prayed that if it were possible that Cup might pass from him § 33. Tempt 10. But what will thy Wife and Children do when thou art gone Answ. God hath Tempt 10. more interest in them than I have He will look to his own without my care Doth all the world depend upon him and is he not to be trusted with my Wife and Children § 34. Tempt 11. But thou wilt never more be serviceable to the Church All thy work will for Tempt 11. euer âe at an end And there are many things which thou mighâst have done before thou dyest which will all be lost Answ. 1. I shall have higher and holier and sweeter work whether it will any thing conduce to the good of those on earth I know not but I know it will more conduce to the highest most desirable ends 2. As my work will be done so my trouble and weariness and fears and sufferings from a malignant unthankful world will all be done 3. And when my work is done my Reward and Everlasting Rest begin 4. And God needeth not such a Worm as I The work is his and it is reason that he should choose his workmen § 35. Tempt 12. But when thou hast said all Death will be death the King of terrors Answ. And Tempt 19. when thou hast said all God will be God and Heaven will be Heaven and Christ will be Christ that Mat. 28. 19 20. John 17. 2. Rev. 1. 18. Rom. 10. 9 10 11 12. hath conquered death and hath the keyes or power of Death and Hell and the promise will be sure and those that trust on him shall never be ashamed or confounded And therefore the Spirit is willing though the flesh be weak Tit. 4. Directions for doing Good to others in our Sickness § â THe whole life of a Christian should be a serving of his God And though his body in sickness seem to be unserviceable yet it is not the least or lowest of his services which he is then at last to do Partly by his holy example and partly by his speeches which are both more obsorved in dying men than in any others For now all suppose that if there were before any mask of hypocrisie it is laid aside and the soul that is going to the Barr of God will deal sincerely And now it is supposed that we are delivered much from all the befooling delusions of prosperity and therefore fitter to be Counsellors to others And every Christian should be very desirous to do good to the last and be found so doing § 2. Direct 1. Shew not a distempered impatient mind Though pain will be pain and flesh will Direct 1. he flesh yet shew men that you have also Reason and Spirit And that it calmeth your soul though Heb. 12. 7 8 9. Rom. 8. 28. it ease not your body Speak good of God as beseemeth one that indeed believeth that it is good for us when we are afflicted by him and that all shall work together for good to us Speak not a repining word against him Job 1. 22. In all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly And speak not too pievishly and impatiently to those about you Though weakness incline you to it yet let the power of grace appear § 3. Direct 2. Let those that are about yoâ see that you take the life to come for a reality and that Direct 2. you verily expect to live with Christ in joyes for ever Let them see this in your holy joy and confidence and your thankfulness to God for the
blesseth those that furthered him 1 Sam. 23. 21. Blessed be ye of the Lord for ye have compassion on me He justifieth himself in murdering the Priests because he thought that they helped David against him and Doeg seemeth but a dutiful subject in executing his bloody command 1 Sam. 22. And Shimei thought he might boldly curse him 2 Sam. 16. 7 8. And he could scarce have charged him with more odious sin than to be a bloody man and a man of Belial If the Prophet speak against Ieroboams political Religion he will say Lay hold on him 1 King 13. 4. Even Asa will be rageing wrathful and imprison the Prophet that reprehendeth his sin 2 Chron. 16. 10. Ahab will feed Michaiah in a Prison with the Bread and Water of affliction if he contradict him 1 King 22. 27. And even Ierusalem killed the Prophets and stoned them which were sent to gather them under the gracious wing of Christ Matth. 23. 37. Which of the Prophets did they not persecute Act. 7. 52. And if you consider but what streams of blood since the death of Christ and his Apostles have been shed for the sake of Christ and righteousness it will make you wonder that so much cruelty can consist with humanity and men and Devils should be so like The same man as Paul as soon as he ceaseth to shed the blood of others must look in the same way to lose his own How many thousands were murdered by Heathen Rome in the ten persecutions And how many by the Arian Emperours and Kings And how many by more Orthodox Princes in their particular distasts And yet how far hath the pretended Vicar of Christ out-done them all How many hundred thousands of the Albigenses Waldenses and Bohemians hath the Papal rage consumed Two hundred thousand the Irish murdered in a little space ãâ¦ã o outgo the thirty or forty thousand which the French Massacre made an end of The sacrifices offered by their fury in the flames in the Marian persecution here in England were nothing to what one day hath done in other parts What Volumes can contain the particular Histories of them what a Shambles was their Inquisition in the Low-Countries and what is the employment of it still so that a doubting man would be inclined to think that Papal Rome is the murderous Babylon that doth but consider how drunken she is with the blood of the Saints and the Martyrs of Iesus and that the blood of Saints will be found in her in her day of tryal Rev. 17. 6. 18. 24. If we should look over all the rest of the World and reckon up the the torments and murders of the innocent in Iapan and most parts of the World where ever Christianity came it may increase your wonder that Devils and men are still so like Yea though there be as lowd a testimony in humane nature against this bloodiness as almost any sin whatsoever and though the names of persecutors alwayes stink to following Generations how proudly soever they carryed it for a time and though one would think a persecutor should need no cure but his own pride that his name may not be left as Pilates in the Creed to be odious in the mouths of the Ages that come after him Yet for all this so deep is the Enmity so potent is the Devil so blinding a thing is sin and interest and passion that still one Generation of persecuters doth succeed the others and they kill the present Saints while they honour the dead ones and build them Monuments and say If we had lived in the dayes of our fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the Prophets blood Read well Matth. 23. 29. to the end What a Sea of righteous blood hath malignity and persecuting zeal drawn out § 5. 4. Another cause of Murder is Rash and unrighteous judgement When Judges are ignorant or partial or perverted by passion or prejudice or respect of persons But though many an innocent hath suffered this way I hope among Christians this is one of the rarest Causes § 6. 5. Another way of murder is by oppression and uncharitableness when the poor are kept destitute of necessaries to preserve their lives Though few of them die directly of famine yet thousands of them dye of those sicknesses which they contract by unwholsome food And all those are guilty of their death either that cause it by oppression or that relieve them not when they are able and obliged to it Iam. 5. 1 2 3 4 5. § 7. 6. Another way and cause of murder is by Thieves and Robbers that do it to possess themselves of that which is another mans when riotousness or idleness hath consumed what they had themselves and sloath and pride will not suffer them to labour nor sensuality suffer them to endure want then they will have it by right or wrong what ever it cost them Gods Laws or mans the Gallows or Hell shall not deter them but have it they will though they rob and murder and are hang'd and damn'd for it Alas how dear a purchase do they make How much easier are their greatest wants than the wrath of God and the pains of Hell § 8. 7. Another cause of murder is Guilt and Shame When wicked people have done some great disgraceful sin which will utterly shame them or undo them if it be known they are tempted to murder them that know it to conceal the crime and save themselves Thus many a Whoremonger hath murdered her that he hath committed fornication with And many a Whore hath murdered her Child before the birth or after to prevent the shame But how madly do they forget the day when both the one and the other will be brought to light and the righteous judge will make them know that all their wicked shifts will be their confusion because there is no hiding them from him § 9. 8 Another cause is Furious anger which mastereth Reason and for the present makes them mad And Drunkenness which doth the same Many a one hath killed another in his fury or his drink So dangerous is it to suffer Reason to lose its power and to use our selves to a Bedlam course And so necessary is it to get a sober meek and quiet spirit and mortifie and master these turbulent and beastly vices § 10 9. Another cause of Murder is Malice and Revenge When mens own wrongs or sufferings are so great a matter to them and they have so little learnt to bear them that they hate that man that is the cause of them and boile with a revengeful desire of his ruine And this sin hath in it so so much of the Devil that those that are once addicted to it are almost wholly at his command He maketh witches of some and Murderers of others and wretches of all who set themselves in the place of God and will do Justice as they call it for themselves as if God were not just enough to
appetite actively 4. And so whether the will which is the principium actuâ quoad exercitium were not the first in the omission The intellect having before said This must bâ further considered the will commanded not that further consideration when it could and should However if it be too hard for us to trace our own souls in all their motions it is certain that the will of Man is the first subject of Moral good and evil And uncertainties must not make us deny that which is certain The Reader who understandeth the importance and consequence of these points I am sure will pardon me for this interposition of these difficult controverted points which I purposely avoid where I judge them not very needful in order to the defence or clearing of the plainer common truths And as for others I must bear their censure § 9. The Degree of sinfulness in the will lyeth in a stiffness and obstinacy a tenaciousness of deceitââââ temporal Good and an Eagerness after it and stubborn averseness to spiritual good as it is against ãâ¦ã Non incestum vel aspersione aquae vel dierum numero tollitur Cicero 2. de lâgib that temporal flâshly good This is the wills disease § 10. 3. The sinfulness of the memory is in its Retentiveness of Evil or things hurtful and prohited and its Looseness and Neglect of better spiritual necessary things If this were only as things present have the natural advantage to make a deeper impress upon the fantasie and things unseen and absent have the disadvantage it were then but a natural innocent infirmity or if in sickness age or weakness all kind of memory equally decay But it is plain that if the Bible be open before our eyes and preaching be in our ears and things unseen have the advantage of their infinite greatness and excellency and concernment to us yet our Memories are like walls of stone to any thing that is spiritual and like walls of wax on which you may write any thing of that which is secular or evil Note here also that the faultiness of the memory is only so farr sinful as it is Voluntary It is the will where the sin is as in its Throne or chiefest subject Because men Love carnal things and Love not spiritual things therefore it is that they mind and understand and remember the one and not the other So that it is but as Imperate and Participatively that the memory is capable of sin § 11. 4. The sinfulness of the Imagination consisteth in its readiness to Think of Evil and of common earthly things and its unaptness to Think of any thing that is Holy and Good And when we do force our selves to holy Thoughts they are disorderly confused unskilfully managed with great averseness Here also voluntariness is the Life of the sin § 12. 5. The sin of the Affections or Passions consisteth in this That they are too easily and violently moved by the sensitive interest and appetite and are Habitually prone to such carnal inordinate motions running before the understanding and will some of them and solliciting and urging them to evil and resisting and disobeying the commands of Reason and the Will but dull and backward to things spiritually good and to execute the right dictates of the Mind and Will § 13. 6. The sin of the sensitive appetite consisteth in the inordinate rage or immoderateness to its object which causeth it to disobey the Commands of Reason and to become the Great inciter of Rebellion in the soul violently urging the Mind and Will to consent to its desires Materially this dependeth much on the temper of the body but formally this also is so farr sinful as positively or privatively mediately or immediately it is voluntary To have an Appetite simply to the object of Appetite is no sin But to have a diseased inordinate unruly appetite is a sin not primarily in it self considered but as it is voluntary as it is the Appetite of a Rational free agent that hath thus disordered the frame of its own Nature § 14. 7. The sin of the exteriour parts tongue hand eys feet c. is only in Act and not in Habit or at least the Habits are weak and subject to the will And it is in the execution of the sinful desires of the flesh and commands of the will that the fame consisteth These parts also are not the primary subject of the guilt but the will that either Positively puts them upon evil or doth not restrain them when it ought And so they are guilty but participatively and secondarily as the other imperate faculties are It is not Good or Evil meerly as it is the act of tongue or hand but as it is the act of the tongue or hand of a Rational free agent agreeable or disagreeable to the Law If a mad-man should speak blasphemy or should kill or steal it were no further sin than as he had Voluntarily contracted the ill disposition which caused it while he had the use of Reason If a mans hand were held and forced by another to do mischief utterly against his will it is the sin of the chief agent and not of the involuntary instrument But no force totally excuseth us from Guilt which leaveth the act to our Rational Choice He that saith Take this Oath or I will kill thee or torment thee doth use force as a Temptation which may be resisted but doth not constrain a man to swear For he leaveth it to his Choice whether he will swear or die or be tormented And he may and ought to choose death rather than the smallest sin The will may be tempted but not constrained § 15. Direct 2. Labour clearly to understand the evil of sin both intrinsecal in it self and in Direct 2. its aggravationâ and effects When you have found out where it is and wherein it doth consist find out the malignity and odiousness of it I have heard some Christians complain that they read much to shew them the evil of sin in its Effects but meet with few that shew them its evil in it self sufficiently But if you see not the evil of sin in it self as well as in the effects it will but tempt you to think God unjust in overpunishing it and it will keep you from the principal part of true Repentance and Mortification which lieth in hating sin as sin I shall therefore shew you wherein the intrinsical malignity of sin consisteth § 16. 1. Sin is formally the violation of the perfect holy righteous Law of God 2. It is a denyal or contempt of the Authority or Governing-power of God As if we said Thou shalt not be our Governour in this 3. It is an usurping the Soveraign Power to our selves of governing our selves in that act For when we refuse Gods Government we set up our selves in his stead and so make Gods of our selves as to our selves as if we were self-sufficient independent and had Right hereto 4. It is a
When the Nature and Name of God is so plainly ângraven upon them all It is a great part of a Christians daily busyness to see and admire God in his works and to use them as steps to ascend by to himself Psal 111. 2 3 4. The works of the âârd ââe great sought out of all them that have pleasure therein His work is honâurable and glââiâus and his righteousness endureth for ever He hath made his wonderful works to be remembred Psal. 143. 5 I meditate on all thy works I muse on the works of thy hands Psal. 77. 12. I will meditate also of all thy works and talk of thy dâings Psal. 92. 4 5 6. For thou Lord hast made me glad through thy work I will triumph in the works of thy hands A bruitish man knoweth not neither doth a fâol understand this As the praising of Gods works so the observing of God in his works is much of the work of a holy soul. Psal. 145. 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 17. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised And his greatness is unsearchable One generation shall praise thy works to another and shall declare thy mighty acts I will speak of the glorious honour of his Magisty and of thy wondrâus works And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts and I will declare thy greatness They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great Goodness and shall sing of thy righteousness All thy works shall praise thee O Lord and thy Saints shall bless thee The Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works Rom. 1. 19 20. That which may be known of God is manifest to them For God hath shewed it to them For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made Even his eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse If we converse in the world as believers or rational creatures ought we should as oft as David repeat these words Psal. 107. O that men would praise the Lord for his Goodness and for his wondrâus works to the Children of men And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare his works with rejoyâing They that go down to the sea in ships that do busyness in great waters these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep verse 21 22 23 24. But this is a subject âitter for a Volume of Physicks Theologically handled than for so short a touch What an excellent Book is the visible world for the daily studies of a holy soul Light is not more visible to the eye in the Sun than the Goodness of God is in it and all the creatures to the mind If I Love not God when all the word revealeth his Loveliness and every creature telleth me that he is Good what a blind and wicked heart have I O wonderful Wisdom and Goodness and Power which appeareth in every thing we see In every Tree and Plant and Flower In every Bird and Beast and Fish In every Worm and Fly and creeping thing In every part of the Body of Man or Beast Much more in the admirable composure of the whole In the Sun and Moon and Starrs and Meteors In the Lightning and Thunder the Air and Winds the Rain and Waters the Heat and Cold the Fire and the Earth Especially in the composed frame of all so far as we can see them set together In the admirable order and cooperation of all things In their times and seasons and the wonderful usefullness of all for man O how Glorious is the Power and Wisdom and Goodness of God in all the frame of nature Every creature silently speaks his Praise declaring Him to Man whose office is as the worlds High Priest to stand between them and the Great Creator and expresly offer him the praise of all Psal. 8. 3 4 5 6 9. When I consider the Heavens the work of thy fingers the Moon and the Starrs which thou hast ordained What is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou visitest him For thou hast made him a little lower than the Angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands thou hast put all things under his feet O Lord our Lord how excellent is thy Name in all the earth O that men would praise the Lord for his Goodness and declare his wondrous works to the children of men The earth is full of the Goodness of the Lord Psal. 33. 5 6 7 8 9. Read Psalm 65. Thus Love God as appearing in the works of Nature § 27. Direct 10. Study to know God as he appeareth more clearly to sinners in his Goodness in the Direct 10. works of GRACE especially in his Son his Covenant and his Saints and there to Love him in the admiration of his Love Here Love hath made it self an advantage of our sin and unworthiness of our necessities and miseries of the Law and justice and the flames of Hell The abounding of sin and misery hath glorified abounding Grace That Grace which fetcheth sons for God from among the voluntary vassals of the Devil Which fetcheth Children of Light out of darkness and Living souls from among the dead and heirs for Heaven from the gates of Hell and brings us as from the Gallows to the Throne 1. A believing view of the Nature Undertaking Love Obedience Doctrine Example Sufferings Intercession and Kingdom of JESUS CHRIST must needs inflame the believers hearts with an answerable degree of the Love of God To look on a Christ and not Love God is to have eyes and not to see and to overlook him while we seem to look on him He is the liveliest Image of Infinite Goodness and the messenger of the most unsearchable astonishing Love and the purchaser of the most unvaluable benefits that ever were revealed to the sons of men Our greatest Love must be kindled by the Greatest revelations and communications of the Love of God And Greater Love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends John 15. 13. that is Men have no dearer and clearer a way to express their Love to their friends But that Love is aggravated indeed which will express it self as far for enemies But God commendeth his Love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us And if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life Rom. 5. 8 9 10. Steep then that stiff and heardned heart in the blood of Christ and it will melt Come near with Thomas and by the passage of his wounds get near unto his heart and it will change thy unkind unthankful heart into the very nature of Love Christ is the best Teacher of the lesson of Love that
But the misery is that few of the ignorant and weak have knowledge and humility enough âo pârceive their ignorance and weakness but they think they speak as wisely as the best and are offended if their words be not reverenced accordingly As a Minister should study and labour for a skill and ability to preach because it is his work so every Christian should study for skill to discourse with wisdom and meet expressions about holy things because this is his work And as unfit expressions and behaviour in a Minister do cause contempt instead of edifying so do they in discourse § 31. Direct 10. When ever Gods holy Name or Word is blasphemed or used in levity or jeast Direct 10. or a holy life is made a scorn or God is notoriously abused or dishonoured be ready to reprove it with gravity where you can and where you cannot at least let your detestation of it be conveniently manifested Of Prayer I have spoken aâterwaâd Among those to whom you may freely speak lay open the greatness of their sin Or if you are unable for long or accurate discourse at least tell them who hath said Thou shalt Tom. 2. c. not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain And where your speech is unmeet as to some Superiours or is like to do more harm than good let your departing the room or your looks or rather your tears shew your dislike Directions for the glorifying God in our Lives § 32. Direct 1. Our Lives then glorifie God when they are such as his Excellencies most appear in Direct 1. And that is when they are most Divine or Holy when they are so managed that the world may see that Turâissimum est Philosopho secus docere quam viviâ Paul Scaligâr p. 728. it is God that we have chiefly respect unto and that HOLINESS TO THE LORD is written upon all our faculties and affairs So much of GOD as appeareth in our lives so much they are truly venerable and advanced above the rank of fleshly worldly lives God only is the real glory of every person and every thing and every word or action of our lives And the natural conscience of the world which in despight of their Atheism is forced to confess and reverence a Deity will be forced even when they are hated and persecuted to reverence the appearance of God in his holy ones Let it appear therefore 1. That Gods Authority commandeth you above all the powers of the earth and against all the power of fleshly lusts 2. That it is the Glory and Nam illa quae de regno calorum commâmârantur à nâbââ dâque praesentâum reâum contâmpâu vel non caââunt vel non âaââle sibi peâsuadeât cum sârmo factis evertitur Interest of God that you live for and look after principally in the world and not your own carnal interest and glory And that it is his work that you are doing and not your own and his cause and not your own that you are engaged in 3. That it is his Word and Law that is your Rule 4. And the example of his Son that is your pattern 5. And that your hearts and lives are moved and acted in the world by motives fetcht from the Rewards which he hath promised and the punishments which he hath threatned in the world to come 6. And that it is a supernatural powerful principle sent from God into your hearts even the Holy Ghost by which you are inclined and actuated in the tenor of your lives 7. And that your daily converse is with God and that men and other creatures are comparatively nothing to you but are made to stand by while God is preferred and honoured and served by you and that all your business is with him or for him in the world Acâstaâl 4. c. 18. p. 418. § 33. Direct 2. The more of Heaven appeareth in your Lives the more your Lives do glorifie God Worldly and carnal men are conscious that their glory is a vanishing glory and their pleasure but a transitory dream and that all their honour and wealth will shortly leave them in the dust And Direct 2. therefore they are forced in despight of their sensuality to bear some reverence to the life to come And though they have not hearts themselves to deny the pleasures and profits of the world and to spend their dayes in preparing for eternity and in laying up a treasure in Heaven yet they are convinced that those that do so are the best and wisest men and they could wish that they might dye the death of the righteous and that their last end might be like his As Heaven exceedeth Earth even in the reverent acknowledgement of the World though not in their practical esteem and choice so Heavenly Christians have a reverent acknowledgement from them when malice doth not hide their Heavenliness by slanders though they will not be such themselves Let it appear in your lives that really you seek a higher happiness than this world affordeth and that you verily look to live with Christ and that as Honour and Wealth and Pleasure command the lives of the ungodly so the hope of Heaven commandeth yours Let it appear that this is your design and business in the world and that your Hearts and conversation are above and that whatever you do or suffer is for this and not for any lower end and this is a life that God is glorified by § 34. Direct 3. It glorifieth God by shewing the excellency of faith when we contemn the riches Direct 3. and honours of the world and live above the worldlings life accounting that a despicable thing which he accounts his happiness and loseth his soul for As men despise the toyes of children so a believer must take the transitory vanities of this world for matters so inconsiderable as not to be worthy his regard save only as they are the matter of his duty to God or as they relate to him or the life to come Saith Paul 2 Cor. 4. 18. We look not at the things which are seen they are not worth our observing or looking at but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal The world is under a believers feet while his eye is fixed on the coelestial world He travelleth through it to his home and he will be thankful if his way be fair and if he have his daily bread but it is not his home nor doth he make any great matter whether his usage in it be kind or unkind or whether his Inn be well adorned or not He is almost indifferent whether for so short a time he be rich or poor in a high or in a low condition further than as it tendeth to his Masters service Let men see that you
have a higher birth than they and higher hopes and higher hearts by setting light by that which their hearts are set upon as their felicity When seeming Christians are as worldly and ambitious as others and make as great a matter of their gain and wealth and honour it sheweth that they do but cover the base and sordid Spirit of worldlings with the visor of the Christian name to deceive themselves and bring the faith of Christians into scorn and dishonour the holy name which they usârâ § 35. Dirâct 4. It much hânoureth God when his servants can quietly and fearlesly trust in him Diââct 4. iâ the ââce of all the dangers and threatnings which Devils or men can cast before them and can joyfully sufâer pain or dâath in obedience to his commands and in confidence on his promise of everlasting happinesâ This sheweth that we believe indeed that there is a God and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. and that he is true and just and that his promises are to be trusted on and that he is able to make them good in despight of all the malice of his enemies and that the threats or frowns of sinful Worms are cântemptible to him that feareth God Psal. 58. 11. Sâ that men shall say Verily there is a reward for the righteous Verily there is a God that judâeth in the earth and that at last will judge the world in righteousness Paul glâried in the Thâssal âiaâs for their faith and paâience in all their persecutions and tâibulations which they endured as a mânifest tâken âf the righteous judgement of God that they might be accounted worthy of the Kingdâm ãâ¦ã God fâr which they suffered Seeing it is a righteous thing with Gâd to recompence tribulation to them that trouble us and rest with his Saints to those that are troubled 2 Thess. 1. 4 5 6 7. If ye be rep ãâ¦ã d for the name of Christ happy are ye for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you ââ their part he is evil spâken of but on your part he is glorified 1 Pet. 4. 14. If any man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed but let him glorifie God on this behalf Vers. 16. When confidence in God and assurance of the great reward in Heaven Matth. 5. 11 12. doth cause a believer undâuntedly to say as the three Witnesses Dan. 3. We are not careful O King to answer thee in this mâtter The God whâm we serve is able to deliver us when by faith we can go through the tryal of carnal mâckings and scourgings of bonds and imprisonment to be destitute and afflicted yea and toâtured not accepting deliverance upon sinful terms thus God is glorified by believers List up your voices O ye afflicted Saints and sing fâr the Mâjesty of the Lord Glorifie ye the Lord in the fires even the name of the Lord God of Israel in the Islâs of the Sea Iâa 24. 14 15. Sing to his Praise with Paul and Silas though your feet be in the stocks Iâ God call for your lives remember that you are nât your own you are bought with a price therefâre glorifie God in your bodies and Spiâits which are his 1 Cor. 6. 20. Rejoyce in it if you bear in your bodies the marks of the Lord Iesus Gal 6. 17. And if you alwayes bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Iesus that the life also of Iesus may be manifested in your bodies 2 Cor. 4. 10. And with all boldness see that Christ be magnified in your bodies whether it be by life or death Phil. 1. 20. Hâ dishonoureth and reproacheth Christ and faith that thinks he is not to be trusted even unto the death § 36. Direct 5. It much honoureth God when the hopes of everlasting joyes do cause believers to Direct 5. liâe much more jâyfully than the most prosperous worldlings not with their kind of doting mirth in vain sports and pleasures and foolish talking and uncomely jests But in that constant cheerâulness and gladness which beseemeth the heirs of glory Let it appear to the world that indeed you hope to live with Christ and to be equal with the Angels Doth a dejected countenance and a mournâul troubled and complaining life express such hopes or rather tell men that your hopes are small and that God is a hard Master and his service grievous Do not thus dishonour him by your inordinate dejectedness Do not affright and discourage sinners from the pleasant service of the Lord. § 37. Direct 6. When Christians live in a readiness to dye and can rejoyce in the approach of death Direct 6. and lâve and long for the ay of Iudgement when Christ shall justifie them from the slanders of the woâld and shall judge them to eternaâ joyes this is to the glory of God and our profession When death which is the King of fears to others appeareth as disarmed and conquered to believers when Iudgement which is the terror of others is their desire this sheweth a triumphant faith and that godliness is not in vain It must be something above nature that can make a man desire to depart and be with Christ as best of all and to be absent from the body and present with the Lord and to comfort one another with the mention of the glorious coming of their Lord and the day when he shall judge the world in righteousness Phil 1. 21. 2 Cor. 5. 8. 1 Thess. 4 18. 2. 1 10. § 38 Direct 7. The Humility and Meekness and Patience of Christians much honour God and their Direct 7. holy faith as Pride and Passion and Impatience dishonour him Let men see that the Spirit of God doth cast down the devillish sin of Pride and maketh you like your Master that humbled himself to assume our flesh and to the death of the Cross and to the contradiction and reproach of foolish sinners and made himself of no reputation but endured the shame of being derided spit upon and crucified Phil. 2. 7 8 9. Heb. 12. 2. and stooped to wash the feet of his Disciples It is not stoutness and lifting up the head and standing upon your terms and upon your honour in the world that is the honouring of God When you are as little children and as nothing in your own eyes and seek not the honour that is of men but say Not to us O Lord not to us but to thy Name be the glory Psal. 115. 1. and are content that your honour decrease and be trodden into the dirt that his may increase and his name be magnified this is the glorifying of God So when you shew the world that you are above the impotent passions of men not to be insensible but to be angry and sin not and to give place to wrath and not to resist and avenge your selves Rom. 12. 19. and to be meâk and lowly in heart Matth. 11. 29. It will appear that
that we can use to help them and none but the Almighty can cast him out and deliver them Let Husband or Wife or Parents or the dearest friends intreat a hardned sinner to be converted and he will not hear them Let the learnedst or wisest or holiest man alive both preach and beseech him and he will not turn At a distance he may reverence and honour a great Divine and a learned or a holy man especially when they are dead But let the best man on earth be the Minister of the place where he liveth and intreat him daily to repent and he will either hate and persecute him or neglect and disobey him What Minister was ever so learned or holy or powerful a Preacher that had not sad experience of this When the Prophet Isa. 53. 1. cryeth out Who hath believed our report And the Apostles were fain to shake off the dust of their feet against many that rejected them and were abused and scorned and persecuted by those whose souls they would have saved Nay Jesus Christ himself was refused by the most that heard him And no Minister dare compare himself with Christ. If our Lord and Master was blasphemed scorned and murdered by sinners what better should his ablest Ministers expect St. Augustine found drunkenness so common in Africk that he motioned that a Council might be called for the suppression of it But if a General Council of all the Learned Bishops and Pastors in the world were called they could not convert one hardned sinner by all their Authority Wit or diligence without the power of the Almighty God For will they be converted by Man that are hardned against God What can we devise to say to them that can reach their hearts and get within them and do them good Shall we tell them of the Law and Judgements of the Lord and of his wrath against them Why all these things they have heard so often till they sleep under it or laugh at them Shall we tell them of Death and Judgement and Eternity Why we speak to the posts or men asleep They hear us as if they heard us not Shall we tell them of endless Ioy and Torments They feel not and therefore fear not nor regard not They have heard of all these till they are a weary of hearing them and our words seem to them but as the noise of the Wind or Water which is of no signification If Miracles were wrought among them by a Preacher that healed the sick and raised the dead they would wonder at him but would not be converted For Christ did thus and yet prevailed but with few Iohn 11. 48. 53. And the Apostles wrought Miracles and yet were rejected by the most Acts 7. 57. 22. 22. Nay if one of their old companions should be sent from the dead to give them warning he might affright them but not convert them for Christ hath told us so himself Luke 16. 31. Or if an Angel from Heaven should preach to them they would be hardned still as Balaam and others have been Christ rose from the dead and yet was after that rejected We read not of the Conversion of the Souldiers that watcht his Sepulchâe though they were affrighted with the sight of the Angels but they were after that hired for a little money to lye and say that Christs Disciples stole him away If Magistrates that have power on their bodies should endeavour to bring them to Godliness they would not obey them nor be perswaded King Hezekiahs messengers were but mocked by the people David and Solomon could not convert their hardned subjects Punish them and hang them and they will be wicked to the death Witness the impenitent Thief that dyed with Christ and dyed reproaching him Though God afflict them with rod after rod yet still they sin and are the same Psal. 78. Hâs 7. 14. Amos 4. 9. Ier. 5. 3. Isa. 1. 5. Let death come near and look them in the face and let them see that they must presently go to judgement it will affright them but not convert them Let them know and confess that sin is bad that Holiness is best that death and eternity are at hand yet are they the same and all will not win their hearts to God Till Grace take away their stony hearts and give them tender fleshy hearts Ezek 36. 26. § 8. Direct 6. Take notice of the doleful effects of hard heartedness in the world This fills the Direct 6. world with wickedness and confusion with Wars and bloodshed and leaveth it under that lamentable desertion and delusion which we behold in the far greatest part of the Earth How many Kingdoms are left in the blindness of Heathenism and Mahometanism for hardning their hearts against the Lord How many Christian Nations are given up to the most gross deceits of Popery and Princes and people are enemies to Reformation because they hardned their hearts against the light of truth What vice so odious even beastly filthiness and bitterest hatred and persecution of the wayes of God which men of all degrees and rancks do not securely wallow in through the hardness of their hearts This is the thing that grieves the godly that wearieth good Magistrates and breaks the hearts of faithful Ministers when they have done their best they are fain as Christ himself before them to grieve for the hardness of mens hearts Alas we live among the dead Our Towns and Countreys are in a sadder case than Aegypt when every house had a dead man Even in our Churches it were well if the dead were only under ground and most of our seats had not a dead man that sitteth as if he heard and kneeleth as if he prayed when nothing ever pierced to the quick We have studied the most quickning words we have preached with tears in the most earnest manner and yet we cannot make them feel As if we cryed like Baals worshippers O Baal hear us or like the Irish to their dead Why wouldst thou dye and leave thy house and lands and friends So we talk to them about the death of their souls and their wilful misery who never feel the weight of any thing we say we are left to ring them a peal of lamentation and weep over them as the dead that are not moved by our tears we cast the seed into stony ground Matth. 13. 5 20. It stops in the surface and it is not in our power to open their hearts and get within them I confess that we are much too blame our selves that ever we did speak to such miserable souls without more importunate earnestness and tears and it is because the stone of the heart is much uncured in our selves for which God now justly layeth so many of us by But yet we must say our importunity is such as leaveth them without excuse we speak to them of the greatest matters in all the world we speak it to them in the name of God we shew them his
will at first make you tremble But if you wilfully cast your self ordinarily into such Company by degrees your sense and tenderness will be gone and you will find a very great Hardning power in the company and frequent discourse and practices which your selves condemn § 13. Direct 10. Take heed of wilful sinning against knowledge much more of lying in such sin Direct 10. unrepented of It greatly hardneth to sin against knowledge and much more to commit such sins over and over This grieveth and driveth away the Spirit and dangerously provoketh God to leave men to themselves § 14. Direct 11. Take heed of being customary in the use of those means that must be the means of Direct 11. curing hardned hearts If once the lively preaching and holy living and fervent praying of the servants of God be taken by thee but as matters of course and thou go with them to Church and to prayers but as to eat or drink or kneel with them but for custom thou wilt be as the Smiths Dog that can sleep by the Anvile while the Hammers are beating and the Sparks are flying about his ears It is dangerous to grow Customary and dull under powerful lively helps § 15. Direct 12. Be often with the sick and in the house of mourning and read thy lesson in Direct 21. the Church-yard and let the grave and bones and dust instruct thee When thou seest the End of all the living perhaps thou wilt somewhat lay it to heart Sight will sometime do more than the hearing of greater things Fear may possibly touch the heart that hath not yet so much ingenuity as to be melted by the force of Love And ordinarily the humbling and softning of a hard impenitent heart begins in Fear and ends in Love The work of preparation is in a manner the work of Fear alone The first work of true Conversion is begun in a great measure of fear and somewhat of Love but so little as is scarce perceived because of the more sensible operations of Fear And as a Christian groweth his Love encreaseth till perfect Love in the state of perfection have cast out all tormenting fear though not our Reverence or filial fear of God Look therefore into the grave and remember man that thou must dye thou must dye it is past all controversie that thou must dye And dost thou know where thou must appear when death hath once performed its office Dost thou not believe that after Death comes Judgement Dost thou not know that thou art now in a life of tryal in order to endless Ioy or misery and that this life is to be lived but once and if thou miscarry now thou art undone for ever and that all the hope of preventing thy damnation is Now while this life of tryal doth continue Now is the accepted time this is the day of salvation If Hell be prevented it must be Now prevented If ever thou wilt pray if ever thou wilt be converted if ever thou wilt be made an heir of Heaven it must be Now O man how quickly will patience have done with thee and time be gone and then O then it will be too late Knowest thou not that all the care and labour and hope of the Devil for thy damnation is laid out this way if it be possible to find thee other work or take thee up with other thoughts or keep thee asleep with presumptuous hopes and carnal mirth and pleasures and company or quiet thee by delayes till time be gone and it be too late And wilt thou let him have his will and pleasure him with thy own perdition Dost thou think these are not things to be considered on Do they not deserve thy speediest seriousest thoughts At least use thy Reason and self-love to the awakening and moving and softning thy Hardned heart PART III. Directions against Hypocrisie § HYpâcrisie is the acting the part of a Religious person as upon a stage by one that is not Religious ãâ¦ã sin ââââ obseââaâeque cavârâ ãâã nequid de âe meââââ quam sit coâmendaâe pââ mu fu ãâ¦ã aliqua mââa ãâã bâna quââ insânââpparââe facienâe ac âircumcidââe âociâ on nem fâctionem I ââââ iâââââââ Philosophia âes adâo difficiliâ est uâââm veâ sâmulare magna sit parâ philosophiae Paâl ââââg It was one of the Roman âaws of the 12. tables Impiuââe audeto pâacaâe donis ââam Deârum Let no ungodly person dare to goe about to appeale tâe ââspleasure of the Gods by guifts viz. He must appâase them first bâ râformation Boâa ââââscienâia pâodâre âult cânspâci âââââ nequa ãâ¦ã indeed A seeming in Religion to be what you are not or to do what you do not Or a dissâmâling or câunterfeiting that piety which you have not To counterfeit a state of Godliness is the sin only of the unregenerate who at the present are in a state of misery To cââterfeit some particular act of Godliness or some higher degree is an odious sin but such as a regenâââââ person may be tempted into This act of Hypocrisie doth not denominate the person an Hypocrite but the state of Hypocrisie doth Every Hypocrite therefore is an ungodly person seeming Godly or one that indeed is no true Christian professing himself a Christian. Of Hypocrites there be two sorts some desire to deceive others but not themselves but know themselves to be but dissemblers and these are commonly called Gross Hypocrites And some deceive both themselves and others and think they are no Hypocrites but are as confident of their honesty and sincerity as if they were no dissemblers at all But yet they are as verily Hypocrites as the former because they seem to be Religious and sincere when indeed they are not though they think they are and profess themselves to be true Christians when they are nothing less These are called Close Hypocrites because they know not themselves to be Hypocrites though they might know it if they would This is the commonest sort of Hypocrites § 2. There are also two Degrees of Hypocrites Some of them have only a General profession of Christianity and Godliness which is the professed Religion of the Country where they live and these are Hypocrites because they profess to be what they are not And others make a greater and extraordinary profession of special strictness in their Religion when they are not sincere And these are Eminently called Hypocrites Such as the Pharisees were among the Jews and many Fryers and Jesuits and Nuns among the Papists who by their separating Vows and Orders and Habits profess extraordinarily an extraordinary measure of devotion while they want the life of Godliness § 3. In all Hypocrisie there is considerable 1. The thing pretended 2. The pretence or means of seeming or the cloke of their deceit 1. The thing pretended by common Hypocrites is to be true Christians and servants of God and heirs of Heaven though not to be so zealous in
senâlis Quid ânâm absurdâus quam quo mi ãâ¦ã viae ãâ¦ã stat eo plus vâatici ãâ¦ã ere âi ãâ¦ã âat Maâ thou hast provided So is every one that layeth up Riches for himself and is not Rich towards God If If thou be rich to day and be in another world tomorrow had not poverty been as good Distracted soul Dost thou make so great a matter of it whether thou have much or little for so short a time and takest no more care either where thou shalt be or what thou shalt have to all eternity Dost thou say thou wilt cast this care on God I tell thee he will make thee care thy self and care again before he will save thee And why canst thou not cast the care of smaller matters on him when he commandeth thee Is it any great matter whether thou be Rich or poor that art going so fast unto another world where these are things of no signification Tell me if thou were sure that thou must die tomorrow yea or the next month or year wouldst thou not be more indifferent whether thou be Rich or Poor And look more after greater things Then thou wouldst be of the Apostles mind 2 Cor. 4. 18. We look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal Our eye of faith should be so fixed on invisible eternal things that we should scarce have leisure or mind to look at or once regard the things that are visible and temporal A man that is going to execution scarce looks at all the bussle or business that is done in Streets and Shops as he passeth by because these little concern him in his departing case And how little do the wealth and honours of the world concern a soul that is going into another world and knows not but it may be this night Then keep thy wealth or take it with thee if thou canst § 25. Direct 4. Labour to feel thy greatest wants which worldly wealth will not supply Thou Direct 4. hast sinned against God and money will not buy thy pardon Thou hast incurred his displeasure and money will not reconcile him to thee Thou art condemned to everlasting misery by the Law Prov. 11. 4. Riches ãâ¦ã fiâ not in the âay of wâath and money will not pay thy ransom Thou art dead in sin and polluted and captivated by the flesh and money will sooner encrease thy bondage than deliver thee Thy Conscience is ready to tear thy heart for thy willful folly and contempt of grace and money will not bribe it to be quiet Iudas brought back his money and hanged himself when Conscience was but once awaked Money will not enlighten a blinded mind nor soften a hard heart nor humble a proud heart nor justifie a guilty soul. It will not keep off a Feavor or Consumption nor ease the Gowt or Stone or Tooth-ache It will not keep off ghastly death but dye thou must if thou have all the world Look up to God and remember that thou art wholly in his hands and think whether he will love or favour thee for thy wealth Look unto the day of Judgement and think whether money will there bring thee off or the Rich speed better than the poor § 26. Direct 5. Be often with those that are sick and dying and mark what all their Riches will Direct 5. do for them and what esteem they have then of the world and mark how it useth all at last Then you shall see that it forsaketh all men in the hour of their greatest necessity and distress when they Jer. 17. 11. would cry to friends and wealth and honour if they had any hopes If ever you will help me let it be now If ever you will do any thing for me O save me from death and the wrath of God Jam. 5. 1 2 3. But alas such cryes would be all in vain Then O then one drop of mercy one spark of grace the smallest well gâounded hope of Heaven would be worth more than the Empire of Caesar or Alexander Is not this true sinner Dost thou not know it to be true And yet wilt thou cheat and betray thy soul Is not that best now which will be best then And is not that of little value now which will be then so little set by Dost thou not think that men are wiser then than now Wilt thou do so much and pay so dear for that which will do thee no more good and which thou wilt set no more by when thou hast it Doth not all the world cry out at last of the deceitfulness of riches and the vanity of pleasure and prosperity on Earth and the perniciousness of all worldly cares And doth not thy conscience tell thee that when thou comest to dye thou art like to have the same thoughts Chilon in Laârt p. 43. Damnum potius quam âuâpe lucrum eligendum nam id semel tantum dolori esse hâc semper thy self And yet wilt thou not be warned in time Then all the content and pleasure of thy plenty and prosperity will be past And when its past it s nothing And wilt thou venture on everlasting wo and cast away everlasting joy for that which is to day a dream and shadow and to morrow or very shortly will be nothing The poorest then will be equal with thee And will honest poverty or over-loved wealth be sweeter at the last How glad then wouldst thou be to have been without thy wealth so thou mightst have been without the sin and guilt How glad then wouldst thou be to dye the death of the poorest Saint Do you think that Poverty or Riches are liker to make a man loth to dye or are usually more troublesome to the Conscience of a dying man O look to the end and live as you dye and set most by that and seek that now which you know you shall set most by at last when full experience hath made you wiser § 27. Direct 6. Remember that Riches do make it much harder for a man to be saved and the love Direct 6. of this world is the commonest cause of mens damnation This is certainly true for all that Poverty also hath its temptations and for all that the poor are far more âumerous than the rich For even Socrates dixit Opes nobiâitates non solum nihil in se habere honestatis verum omne malum ex eis oboâiâi Laârt in Socrat the poor may be undone by the love of that wealth and plenty which they never get and those may perish for over-loving the world that yet never prospered in the world And if thou believe Christ the point is out of Controversie For he saith Luke 18. 24 25 26 27. How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God For it is easier for a Camel to go
didst omit Thou hast an offended God to be reconciled to and for thy estranged soul to know as thy Father in Jesus Christ what abundance of Scripture truths hast thou to learn which thou art ignorant of How many holy duties as Prayer Meditation holy conference c. to learn which thou art unskilful in and to perform when thou hast learned them How many works of Justice and Charity to mens souls and bodies hast thou to do How many needy ones to relieve as thou art able and the sick to visit and the naked to cloath and the sad to comfort and the ignorant to instruct and the ungodly to exhort Heb. 3. 13. Heb. 10. 25. Ephes. 4. 29. what abundance of duty hast thou to perform in thy Relations to Parents or Children to Husband or Wife as a Master or a Servant and the rest Thou little knowest what sufferings thou hast to prepare for Thou hast Faith and Love and Repentance and patience and all Gods graces to get and to exercise daily and to increase Thou hast thy accounts to prepare and assurance of salvation to obtain and Death and Judgement to prepare for what thinks thy heart of all this work Put it off as lightly as thou wilt it is God himself that hath laid it on thee and it must be done in time or thou must be undone for ever And yet it must not be thy toyl but thy delight This is appointed thee for thy chiefest recreation Look into the Scripture and into thy Heart and thou wilt find that all this is to be done And dost thou think in thy Conscience that this is not greater business than thy gawdy dressings thy idle visits or thy needless sports which is more worthy of thy Time § 10. Direct 3. Remember how gainful the Redeeming of Time is and how exceeding comfortable Direct 3. in the review In Merchandize or any trading in husbandry or any gaining course we use to say of a man that hath grown rich by it that he hath made use of his Time But when Heaven and communion with God in the way and a life of holy strength and comfort and a death full of joy and hope is to be the gain how cheerfully should Time be Redeemed for these If it be pleasant for a man to find himself thrive and prosper in any rising or pleasing employment How pleasant must it be continually to us to find that in redeeming Time the work of God and our souls do prosper Look back now on the Time that is past and tell me which part is sweetest to thy thoughts However it be now I can tell thee at death it will be an unspeakable comfort to look back on a well spent life and to be able to say in humble sincerity My time was not cast away on worldliness ambition idleness or fleshly vanities or pleasures but spent in the sincere and laborious service of my God and making my calling and election sure and doing all the good to mens souls and bodies that I could do in the world It was entirely devoted to God and his Church and the good of others and my soul What a joy is it when going out of the world we can in our place and measure say with our blessed Lord and pattern John 17. 4 5. I have Glorified thee on earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do and now O Father glorifie me with thy self Or as Paul 1 Tim. 4. 6 7 8. I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous Iudge shall give And 2 Cor. 1. 12. For our rejoycing is this the testimony of our Conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly wisdâm we have had our conversation in the world It s a great comfort in sickness to be able to say with Hezekiah Isa 38. 3. Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight O Time well spent is a precious cordial to a soul that is going to its final sentence and is making up its last and general accounts Yea the reviews of it will be joyful in Heaven which is given though most freely by the Covenant antecedently yet as a Reward by our most righteous judge when he comes to sentence men according to that Covenant § 11. Direct 4. Consider on the contrary how sad the review of ill spent time is and how you will Direct 4. wish you had spent it when it is gone Hast thou now any comfort in looking back on thy despised hours I will not so far wrong thy understanding as to question whether thou know that thou must die But thy sin alloweth me to ask thee Whether at thy dying hour it will be any comfort to thee to remember thy pastimes And whether it will then better please thee to find upon thy account so many hours spent in doing good to others and so many in prayer and studying the Scriptures and thy Heart and in preparing for death and the life to come so many in thy calling obediently managed in order to eternity or to hear so many hours spent in idleness and so many in needless sports and plays hawking and hunting courting and wantonness and so many in gathering and providing for the flesh and so many in satisfying its greedy lusts Which reckoning doth thy Conscience think would be most comfortable to thee at the last I put it to thy own Conscience if thou were to die to morrow how thou wouldst spend this present day Wouldst thou spend it in idleness and vain pastimes Or if thou were to die this day where wouldst thou be found and about what exercises Hadst thou rather death found thee in a Play-house a Gaming-house an A L E house in thy fleshly jollity and pleasure Or in a holy walking with thy God and serious preparing for the life to come Perhaps you 'l say that If you had but a day to live you would lay by the labours of your calling and yet that doth not prove them sinful But I answer There is a great difference between an evil and a small unseasonable Good If death found thee in thy honest calling holily managed Conscience would not trouble thee for it as a sin And if thou rather choose to die in prayer it is but to choose a greater duty in its season But sure thou wouldst be loth on another account to be found in thy Time-wasââing pleasures And Conscience if thou have a Conscience would make thee drâad it as a sân Thou wilt not wish at death that thou hadst never laboured in thy lawful calling though thou wouldst be found in a more seasonable work But thou wilt wish then if thou
think how madly they consumed their lives and wasted the only Time that was given them to prepare for their salvation Do those in Hell now think them wise that are idling or playing away their time on earth O no! their feeling and experience sufficiently confuteth all that Time-wasters now plead for their âottish prodigality I do not believe that thou canst at once believe the Word oâ God concerning the state of damned souls and yet believe that thy idle and vain expence of Time would not vex thy conscience and make thee even rage against thy self if ever sin should bring thee thither O then thou wouldst see that thou hadst greater matters to have spent thy time in and that it deserved a higher estimation and improvement O man beseâch the Lord to prevent such a conviction and to give thee a heart to prize thy time before it is gone and to know the worth of it bââore thou know the want of it Tit. 2. Directions Contemplative for Redeeming Opportunity Seâ the many aggravaâions oââinâul Dâlay in my Dirâctions for âound Convââsion § 28. OPportunity or Season is the flower of Time All Time is precious but the season is most precious The present Time is the season to works of present necâssity And for others they have all their particular seasâns which must not be let slip Direct 1. Remember that it is the great difference between the happy Saint and the unhappy world Direct 1. that one is wise in time and the other is wise too late The godly know while knowledge will do good The wicked know when knowledge will but torment them All those that you see now so exceedingly contrary in their judgement to the godly will be of the very same opinion shortly when it will do them no good Bear with their difference and contradiction for it will be but a very little while There is not one man that now is the furious enemy of holiness but will confess ere long that Holiness was best Do they now despise it as tedious fantastical hypocrisie They will shortly know that it was but the cure of a distracted mind and the necessary duty to God which Religion and right reason do command Do they now say of sin What harm is in it They will shortly know that it is the poyson of the soul and worse than any misery or death They will think mâre highly of the worth of Christ of the necessity of all possible diligence for our souls of the preciousness of Time of the wisdom of the Godly of the excellencies of Heaven and of the Word of God and all holy Means than any of those do that are now reproached by them for being of this mind But what the better will they be for this No more than Adam for knowing good and evil No more than it will profit a man when he is dead to know of what disease he dyed No more than it will profit a man to know what is poyson when he hath taken it and is past remedy The Thief will be wise at the Gallows and the Spendthrift-prodigal when all is gone But they that will be safe and happy must be wise in Time The godly know the worth of Heaven before it is lost and the misery of damnation before they feel it and the necessity of a Saviour while he is willing to be a Saviour to them and the evil of sin before it hath undone them and the preciousness oâ Time before it is gone and the worth of mercy while mercy may be had and the need of praying while praying may prevail They sleep not till the door is shut and then knock and cry Lord open to us as the foolish ones Matth. 25. They are not like the miserable world that will not believe till they come where Devils believe and tremble nor Repent till torment force them to repent As ever you would escape the dear-bought experience of fools be wise in time and leave not Conscience to answer all your cryes and moans and fruitless wishes with this doleful peal Too late Too late Do but know now by an effectual faith what wicked men will know by feeling and experience when it is too late and you shall not perish Do but live now as those enemies of Holiness will wish they had lived when it is too late and you will be happy Now God may be found Seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will âave mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Isa. 55. 6 7. Read but the doleful lamentation of Christ over Ierusalem Luke 19. 41 42. and then bethink you what it is to neglect the season of mercy and salvation He beheld the City and wept over it saying If thou hadst known even thou at lest in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace But now they are hidden from thine eyes § 29. Direct 2. Remember that the neglecting of the season is the frustrating and destroying of the Direct 2. work When the season is past the work cannot be done If you sow not in the time of sowing it will be in vain at another time If you reap not and gather not in harvest it will be too late in Winter to hope for fruit If you stay till the Tide is gone or take not the Wind that fits your turn it may be in vain to attempt your Voyage All works cannot be done at all times Christ himself saith I must walk while it is day the night cometh when none can work John 9. 4. Say not then The next day may serve the turn The next day is for another work and you must do both § 30. Direct 3. Consider that if the work should not be impossible yet it will be difficult out of Direct 3. season when in its season it might be done with ease How easily may you swim with the Tide and sail with the Wind and form the Iron if you hammer it while it is hot How easily may many a disease be cured if it be taken in Time which afterwards is uncurable How easily may you bend a tender Twig and pluck up a Plant which will neither be pluckt up nor bended when it is grown up to be a Tree When you complain of difficulties in Religion bethink you whether your loss of the fittest season and acquainting your selves no sooner with God be not the cause § 31. Direct 4. Consider that your work out of season is not so good or acceptable if you could Direct 4. do it Every thing is beautiful in its season Eccles. 3. 11. To speak a word in season to the weary Numb 9. 2 3 7 13. Exod. 13. 10. is the skill of the faithful messengers of peace Isa. 50. 4. When out of season good may be turned into
be ready to pour out to others and not be silent and lose his Time for want of matter or skill or zeal for in all these three your provision doth consist An ignorant empty person wants matter for his thoughts and words An Imprudent person wants skill to use it A careless cold indifferent person wants life to set his faculties on motion and oyl and poise to set the wheels of his soul and body a going Bethink you in the morning what company you are like to meet and what occasions of duty you are like to have and provide your selves accordingly before you go with matter and resolution Besides the general preparative of habitual Knowledge charity and zeal which is the chief you should also have your particular preparations for the duties of each day A workman that is strong and healthful and hath all his tools in readiness and Act. 6. 5. Matth. 7. 17. Luk. 6 45. Matth. 12 34. order will do more in a day than a sick man or one that wanteth tools or keeps them dull and unfit for use will do in many Psalm 37. 30 31. The mouth of the Righteous speaketh wisdom and his tongue talketh of judgement And no wonder when The Law of his God is in his Heart none of his steps shall slide Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh A good man out of the good Treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things Math. 12. 35. Every Scribe which is instructed to the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man that is an housholder that bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old Matth. 13. 52. § 47. Direct 8. Promise not long life to your selves but live as those that are allwaies uncertain of Direct 8. another day and certain to be shortly gone from hence The groundless expectation of long life is a very great hindrance to the Redeeming of our Time Men will spend prodigally out of a full purse who would be sparing if they knew they had but a little or were like to come to want themselves Young people and healthful people are under the greatest temptation to the loss of Time They are apt to think that they have Time enough before them and that though its possible that they may die quickly yet it is more likely that they shall live long and so putting the day of death far from them they want all those awakenings which the face of death doth bring to them that still expect it and therefore want the wisdom zeal and diligence which is necessary to the Redemption of their time Pray therefore as Psalm 90. 12. So teach us to number our daies that we may apply our hearts to wisdom Dream not of rest and plenty for many years when you have no promise to live till the next morning Luke 12. 19 20. When they perceive death is at hand and time is near an end allmost all men seem highly to esteem of Time and promise to spend it better if God would but try them once again Do you therefore continually perceive that death is even at hand and time near an end and then it will make you continually more wise then death maketh the most and to redeem your Time as others purpose to Redeem it when it is too late § 48. Direct 9. Sanctifie all to God that you have and do And let Holiness to the Lord be written Direct 9. upon all whether you eat or drink let it be intended and ordered ultimately to his Glory Make all 1 Cor. 10. 31. Zeâh 14. 20 21. Rom 6. 19 22. Luk. 1. 75. 1 Tim. 5. 5. 1 Tim. 4 5. 2 Tim. 2. 21. your civil relations possessions and employments thus Holy designing them to the service and pleasing of God and to the everlasting good of your selves or others and mixing holy meditation and prayer with them all in season And thus we are bid to pray continually and in all things give thanks 1 Thes. 5. 17 18. And in all things to make known our requests to God in prayer supplication and giving of thanks Phil. 4. 6. And all things are sanctified by the word and prayer This sacred Alchymie that turneth all our conversation and possessions and actions into Holy is an excellent part of the art of Redeeming Time § 49. Direct 10. Lastly be acquainted with the great Thieves that rob men of their Time and with Direct 10. the Devils methods in entising them to lose it and live in continual watchfullness against them It is a more necessary thriftiness to be sparing and saving of your Time than of your money It more concerneth you to keep a continual watch against the things which would rob you of your Time than against those Thieves that would break your house and rob you by the high-way Those persons that would tempt you to the loss of Time are to be taken as your enemies and avoided I shall here recite the names of these Thieves and Time-wasters that you may detest them and save your Time and souls from their deceits Tit. 4. The Thieves or Time-wasters to be watchfully avoided § 50. Th. 1. ONe of the greatest Time-wasting sins is idleness or sloth The slothful see their Thief 1. Time pass away and their work undone and can hear of the necessity of Redeeming it and yet they have not hearts to stir When they are convinced that duty must be done they are still delaying and putting it off from day to day and saying still I will do it to morrow or hereafter To morrow is still the sluggards working day and to day is his idle day He spendeth his Time in fruitless wishes He lyeth in bed or sitteth idly and wisheth Would this were labouring He feasteth his flesh and wisheth that this were fasting He followeth his sports and pleasures and wisheth that this were prayer and a mortified life He lets his heart run after lust or pride or Covetousness and wisheth that this were heavenly mindedness and a laying up a treasure above Thus the soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat Prov. 13. 4. Prov. 21. 25. The desire of the slothful killeth him for his hands refuse to labour Every little opposition or difficulty will put him by a duty Prov. 20. 4. The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold therefore shall he beg in harvest and have nothing Prov. 22. 13. The slothful man saith There is a Lyon without I shall be slain in the streets Prov. 26. 14 15 16. As the door turneth upon his hindges so doth the slothful upon his bed The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth And at last his sloth depraves his Reason and bribeth it to plead the cause of his negligence The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason Time will slide on and duty will be undone and
avoided And usually narrow sighted persons are fearful only of one extream and see no danger but on one side and therefore are easily carried by avoiding that into the contrary § 38. I think it not unprofitable to instance in several particular Cautions that you imitate not them that put asunder what God hath conjoyned and cast not away truth as oft as you are puzzled in the right placing or methodizing it § 39. Inst. 1. The first and second Causes are conjoyned in their operations and therefore must not Instance 1. be put asunder If the way of influx concourse or co-operation be dark and unsearchable to you do not deny that it is because you see not how it is The honour of the first and second Cause also are conjunct according to their several interests in the effects Do not therefore imagine that all the honour ascribed to the second cause is denyed or taken away from the first For then you understand not their order Otherwise you would see that as the second causeth independance on the first and in subordination to it and hath no power but what is communicated by it so it hath no honour but what is received from it and that it is no less honour for the first cause to operate mediately by the second than immediately by it self And that there is no less of the Power Wisdom or Goodness of God in an effect produced by means and second causes than in that which he produceth of himself only without them And that it is his Goodness to communicate a power of doing good to his creatures and the honour of working and causing under him but he never loseth any thing by communicating nor hath the less himself by giving to his creatures For if all that honour that is given to the Creature were taken injuriously from God then God would never have made the world nor made a Saint and then the worst creatures would least dishonour God Then he would not shine by the Sun but by himself immediately and then he would never Glorifie either Saint or Angel But on the contrary it is Gods honour to work by adapted means And all their honour is truly his As all the commendation of a Clock or Watch is given to the Workman And though God do not all so immediately as to use no means or second causes yet is he never the further from the effect but immediatione virtutis suppositi is himself as near as if he used none § 40. Inst. 2. The special Providence of God and his being the first Universal cause are conjunct Instance 2. with the culpability of sinners and no man must put these asunder Those that cannot see just how they are conjoyned may be sure that they are conjoyned It is no dishonour to an Engineer that he can make a Watch which shall go longer than he is moving it with his finger Nor is it a dishonour to our Creator that he can make a Creature which can Morally determine it self to an action as commanded or forbidden without the predetermination of his Maker though not without his universal concourse necessary to action as action If Adam could not do this through the natural impossibility of it than the Law was that he should dye the death if he did not overcome God or do that which was naturally impossible and this was the nature of his sin Few dare say that God cannot make a free self-determining agent And if he can we shall easily prove that he hath and the force of their opposition then is vanished § 41. Inst. 3. The Omniscience of God and his Dominion Government and Decrees are conjunct with Instance 3. the liberty and sin of man yet these by many are put asunder As if God must either be Ignorant or be the author of sin As if he made one poor by Decreeing to make another Rich As if he cannot be a perfect Governour unless he procure all his subjects perfectly to keep his Laws As if all the fault of those that break the Law were to be laid upon the Maker of the Law As if all Gods will de debito were not effective of its proper work unless man fulfill it in the Event And as if it were possible for any Creature to comprehend the way of the Creators Knowledge § 42. Inst. 4. Many would separate Nature and Grace which God the author of both conjoyneth Instance 4. When Grace supposeth Nature and in her Garden soweth all her seed and exciteth and rectifieth all her powers yet these men talk as if Nature had been annihilated or Grace came to annihilate it and not to cure it As if the Leprosie and Disease of Nature were Nature it self And as if Natural Good had been lost as much as Moral Good As if man were not man till Grace make him a man § 43. Inst. 5. Many separate the Natural Power of a sinner from his Moral impotency and Instance 5. his Natural freedome of will from his Moral servitude as if they were inconsistent when they are conjunct As if the Natural faculty might not consist with an evil disposition or a Natural power with an habitual unwillingness to exercise it aright And as if a sinner were not still a man § 44. Inst. 6. Many separate General and special Grace and Redemption as inconsistent when they Instance 6. are conjunct When the General is the proper way and means of accomplishing the ends of the special Grace and is still supposed As if God could not give more to some if he give any thing to all Or as if he gave nothing to all if he give more to any As if he could not deal equally and without difference with all as a Legislator and righteously with all as a Iudge unless he deal equally and without difference with all as a Benefactor in the free distribution of his gifts As if he were obliged to make every Worm and Beast a man and every man a King and every King an Angel and every Clod a Star and every Star a Sun § 45. Inst. 7. Many separate the Glory of God and mans salvation God and man in assigning the Instance 7. ultimate End of man As if a Moral Intention might not take in both As if it were not finis amantis and the end of a Lover were not union in Mutual Love As if Love to God may not be for ever the final act and God himself the final object And as if in this magnetick closure though both may be called the End yet there might not in the closing parties be an infinite disproportion and one only be finis ultimate ultimus § 46. Inst. 8. Yea many would separate God from God while they would separate God from Heaven Instance 8. and say that we must be content to be shut out of Heaven for the Love of God! When our Heaven is the perfect Love of God And so they say in effect that for
for your Lord and King and Father and yielded up your selves as his own as his Subject and as his Child to be disposed of Ruled and provided for by him And this Covenant is essential not only to your Christianity but to your taking him for your God And do you repent of it or will you break it and forfeit all the benefits of the Covenant If you will needs have the disposal of your selves you discharge God of his Covenant and Fatherly care for you and then what will become of you if he so forsake you § 10. Direct 8. Bethink you how unmeet you are to be the choosers of your own condition You Direct 8. foresee not what that person or thing or place will prove to you which you so eagerly desire For ought you know it may be your undoing or the greatest misery that ever befell you Many a one hath cryed with Rachel Give me Children or else I dye that hath dyed by the wickedness and unkindness Gen. 30. 1. of their Children Many a one hath been violent in their desires of a Husband or a Wife that afterwards have broken their hearts or proved a greater affliction to them than any enemy they had in the world many a one hath been eager for riches and prosperity and preferment that hath been ensnared by them to the damnation of his soul. Many a one hath been earnest for some office dignity or place of trust which hath made it a great increaser of his sin and misery And it is flesh and self that is the eager desirer of things that are against the will of God and nothing is so blind and partial as self and flesh You think not your Child a competent judge of what is best for him and make not his desires but your own understanding the guide and rule of your dealings with him or disposals of him And are you fitter choosers for your selves in comparison of God than your Child is in comparison of you Either you take God for your Father or you do not If you do not call him not Father and hope not for Mercy and Salvation from him If you do is he not wise and good enough to dispose of you and to determine what is best for you and to choose for you § 11. Direct 9. Remember that it is one of the greatest plagues on this side Hell to be given up to Direct 9. our own Desires and that by your eagerness and discontents you provoke God thus to give you up Psal. 81. 12 so I gave them up to their own hearts lust and they walked in their own Counsels O that my people had hearkened to me c. Rom. 1. 24 26. wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts c. For this cause God gave them up to vile affections vers 28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient 2 Thes. 2. 10 11 12. God may give you that which you so eagerly desire as he gave Israel a King even in his anger Hos. 13. 10 11. or as he gave the Israelites their own desire even flesh which he rainâd upon them as dust and feathered fowles as the Sand of the Sea they were not ââââranged from their lust But while their meat was yet in their mouths the wâath of Gâd came upon them and slew the fattest of them Psal 78. 27 29 30 31. They lusted exceedingly in the Wilderness and tempted God in the desert and he gave them their request but sent leanness into their souls Pâal 1â6 14 15. God may say Follow your own lust and if you are so eager take that which you desire take that person that thing that dignity which you are so earnest for but take my curse and vengeance with it Never let it do you good but be a snare and torment to you Let a fire câme out of the bramble and devour you Judg. 9. 15. § 12. Direct 10. Take heed lest concupiscence and partiality entise you to justifie your sinful desires Direct 10. and ââââ them to bâ lâwful For if you do so you will not repent of them you will not confess them to God âor beg pardon of them nor beg help against them nor use the means to extinguish them but will cherish them and be angry with all that are against them and love those tempâers best that encourage them And how dangerous a case is this And yet nothing is more ordinary among sinners than to be blinded by their own affections and think that they have sufficient reason to desire that which they do desire And affection maketh them very witty and resolute to deceive themselves It setteth them on studying all that can be said to defend their enemy and put a deceitful gloss upon their cause Try your Desires well as I before directed you Q. 1. Is the thing that you desire a thing that God hath bid you desire or promised in his word to give you as grace Christ and Heaven If it be so then Desire it and spare not But if not so Q. 2. Why then are you so eager for it when you should at most have but a submissive conditional desire after it Q. 3. Nay is it not something which you are forbidden to desire If so dare you excuse it § 13. Direct 11. Remember that Concupiscence or sinful desire is the beginning of all sin of commission Direct 11. and leadeth directly to the act Theft Adultery Murder Fraud Contention and all such mischiefs begin in inordinate desires For every one is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and entiâed Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Jam. 1. 14 15. By lust is meant any fleshly desire or will Therefore when the Apostle forbiddeth gluttâny and drunkenness chambering and wantonness strife and envying he Rom. 13. 13 14 strikes at the root of all in this one word Make no privision for the flesh to satisfie its lusts or wills § 14. Direct 12. Pull off the deceiving vizor and see that which you so eagerly desire as it is Direct 12. What will it be to you at the last It is now in its Spring or Summer but see in it its fall and winter It is now in its youth but see it withered to skin and bone in its decrepit age It is now in its clean and curious ornaments but see it in its uncleanness and in its homely dress Cure your deceit and your Desire is cured § 15. Direct 13. Promise not your selves long life but live as dying men with your grave and Direct 13. winding sheet alwayes in your eye and it will cure your thiâst after the creature when you are sensible hâw short a time you must enjoy it and especially how near you are unto
pardonable and may consist with true grace so a Venial sin may be in an unsanctified person materially where it is not pardoned that is e. g. his wandering thought or passion is a sin of that sort that in the Godly is consistent with true grace But as Venial signifieth a sin that is pardoned or pardonable without a regeneration or conversion into astate of life from astate of death so Venial sin is in no unregenerate unjustified person but is only the Infirmities of the Saints and thus I here speak of it In a word that sin which actually consisteth with habitual repentance and with the hatred of it so far that you had rather he free from it than commit or keep it and which consisteth with an unfeigned consent to the Covenant that God be your Father Saviour and Sanctifier and with the Love of God above all is but an infirmity or venial sin But to know from the nature of the sin which those are requireth a Volume by it self to direct you only § 19. Direct 8. Understand how necessary a faithful Minister of Christ is in such cases of danger and Direct 8. difficulty to be a guide to your Consciences and open your case truly to them and place so much confidence in their judgement of your state as their office and abilities and faithfulness do require and set not up your timerous darkened perplexed judgements above theirs in cases where they are fitter to judge Such a Guide is necessary both as appointed by Christ who is the Author of his office and in regard of the greatness and danger and difficulty of your case Do you not feel that you are insufficient for your selves and that you have need of help sure a soul that 's tempted to Despair may easily feel it You are very proud or blindly self conceited if you do not And you may easily know that Christ that appointed them their office requireth that they be both used and trusted in their office as far as Reason will allow And where there is no office yet Ability and faithfulness deserve and require credit of themselves Why else do you trust Physicions and Lawyers and all artificers in their several professions and arts as far as they are reputed able and faithful I know no man is to be believed as infallible as God is but man is to be believed as man And if you will use and trust your spiritual guide but so far as you use and trust your Physicion or Lawyer you will find the great benefit if you choose aright § 20. Direct 9. Remember when you have sinned how sure and sufficient and ready a remedy you have Direct 9. before you in Iesus Christ and the Covenant of grace and that it is Gods design in the way of Redemption not to save any man as innocent that none may glory but to save men that were first in sin and misery and fetch them as from the gates of hell that Love and mercy may be magnified on every one that is saved and grace may abound more by the occasion of sins abounding Rom. 5. 15 20. Not that any should continue in sin because Grace hath abounded God forbid Rom. 6. 1. But that we may magnifie that grace and mercy which hath abounded above our sins and turn the remembrance of our greatest sins to the admiration of that great and wonderful mercy To magnifie mercy when we see the greatness of our sin and to Love much because much is forgiven this is to please God and answer the very design and end of our Redemption But to magnific sin and extenuate mercy and to say My sin is greater than can Luk. 7. 47. be forgiven this is to please the Dâvil and to cross Gods design in the work of our Redemption Is your disease so great that no other can cure it It is the fitter for Christ to honour his office upon and God to honour his Love and mercy on Do but come to him that you may have life and you shall find that no greatness of sin past will cause him to refuse you nor no infirmities which you are Joh. 5. 40. Luk. 15. 20 22 23. willing to be rid of shall cause him to disown you or cast you out The Prodigal is not so much as upbraided with his sins but finds himself before he is aware in his Fathers arms cloathed with the best Robes the Ring and Shooes and joyfully entertained with a Feast Remember that there is enough in Christ and the promise to pardon and heal all sins which thou art willing to forsake § 21. Direct 10. Take heed of being so blind or proud in thy humility as to think that thou Direct 10. canst be more willing to be a servant of Christ than he is to be thy Saviour or more willing to have grace than God is to give it thee or more willing to come home to Christ than he is to receive and wellcome thee Either thou art willing or unwilling to have Christ and grace to be sanctified and freed from sin If thou be willing Christ and his grace shall certainly be thine Indeed if thou wouldst have pardon without Holiness this cannot be nor is there any promise of it But if thou wouldst have Christ to be thy Saviour and King and his spirit to be thy sanctifier and hadst rather be perfect in Love and Holiness than to have all the Riches of the World then art thou in sincerity that which thou wouldst be in perfection Understand that God accounteth thee to be what thou truly desirest to be The great work of Grace lyeth in the renewing of the will If the will be sound the Man is sound I mean not the conquered uneffectual Velleity of the wicked that wish they could be free from Pride sensuality gluttony drunkenness lust and covetousness without losing any of their beloved honour wealth or pleasure that is when they think on it as the way to Hell they like not their sin but wish they were rid of it but when they think of it as pleasing their fleshly minds they love it more and will not leave it because this is the prevailing thought and will So Iudas was unwilling to sell his Lord as it was the betraying of the innocent and the way to Hell but he was more willing as it was the way to get his hire So Herod was unwilling to kill Iohn Baptist as it was the murder of a Prophet but his willingness was the greater as it was the pleasing of his Damosel and the freeing himself from a troublesome reprover But if thy willingness to have Christ and perfect Holiness be more than thy unwillingness and more than thy willingness to keep thy sin and enjoy the honour wealth and pleasures of the world than thou hast an undoubted sign of uprightness and that Love to Grace and desire after it which nothing but Grace it self doth give And if thou art thus willing it is
much to a common reformation III. The Greatness of the sin of Gluttony § 15. To know the Greatness of the sin is the chief part of the cure with those that do but believe Rom. 16. 17 18. They serve not the Lord Iesus but their own Bâllies that there is a God I shall therefore next tell you of its nature effects and accidents which make it great and therefore should make it odious to all § 16. 1. Luxury and Gluttony is a sin exceeding contrary to the Love of God It is Idolatry It hath the Heart which God should have And therefore Gluttons are commonly and well called Belly-Gods and God-bellys because that Love that âare that delight that service and diligence which God should have is given by the Glutton to his Belly and his throat He Loveth the pleasing of his Appetite better than the Pleasing of God His dishes are more delightful to him than any holy exercise is His thoughts are more frequent and more sweet of his belly than of God or Godliness His care and labour is more that he may be pleased in meats and drinks than that he may secure his salvation and be justified and sanctified And indeed the Scripture giveth them this name Phil. 3. 19. whose end is destruction whose God is their Belly who glory in their shame who mind earthly things being enemies to the Cross of Christ that is to bearing the Cross for Christ and to the Crucifying of the flesh and to the mortifying suffering parts of Religion Nay such a devouring Idol is the Belly that it swalloweth up more by Intemperance and excess than all other Idols in the world do And remember that the very life of the sin is in the Appetite and Heart when a mans Heart is set upon his Belly though he fare never so hardly through necessity he is a Glutton in Heart When you make a Great matter of it â what you shall eat and drink as to the delight and when you take it for a great loss or suffering if you fare hardly and are troubled at it and your thoughts and talk are of your belly and you have not that Indifferency whether your fare be course or pleasant so it be wholsom as all Temperate persons have this is the Heart of Gluttony and is the Hearts forsaking of God and making the Appetite its God § 17. 2. Gluttony is self-murder Though it kill not suddenly it killeth surely Like the dropsie It is a common saying that âula plures occidit quam gladius Quicquid avium volitat quicquid piscium natat quicquid ferarum discurrit nostris sâpelitur ventribus Quaeâe nunc âur subito moriamur Quia mortibus viviâus Senec. Hierome saith that he had read of some that had been sick of the Arthritis and Podagra that were cuââd by being brought to poverty by confiscation of their estates and so brought to a poor dyeâ which killeth as it filleth by degrees Very many of the wisest Physicions do believe that of those that over-live their Child-hood there is scarce one of twenty yea or of a hundred that dyeth but Gluttony or excess in eating or drinking is a principal cause of their death though not the most immediate cause It is thought to kill a hundred to one of all that dye at Age. And it will not let them dye easily and quickly but tormenteth them first with manifold diseases while they live You eat more than nature can perfectly concoct and because you feel it not trouble you or make you sick you think it hurts you not whereas it doth by degrees first alter and vitiate the temperament of the blood and humours making it a crude unconcocted unnatural thing unfit for the due nutrition of the parts turning the nourishing mass into a burdensom excrementitious mixture abounding with Saline or tartareous matter and consisting more of a pituitous slime or redundant serosity than of that sweet nutrimental milk of nature quickened with those spirits and well proportioned heat which should make it fit to be the Oyl of life And our Candle either sparkleth away with Salt or runs away because there is some Thief in it or goeth out because the Oyle is turned into Water or presently wasteth and runs about through the inconsistent softness of its Oyl Hence it is that one part is tainted wieh corruption and another consumeth as destitute of fit nutriment and the vessels secretly obstructed by the grossness or other unfitness of the blood to run its circle and perform its offices are the cause of a multitude of lamentable diseases The frigid distempers of the Brain the soporous and comatous effects the Lethargy Carus and Apoplexy the Palsie Convulsion Epilepsie Vertigo Catarhs the Head-ache and oft the Phrensie and Madness come all from these effects of gluttony and excess which are made upon the blood and humours The Asthma usually and the Phthisis or Consumption and the Pleurisie and Peripneumony and the Hemoptoick passion often come from hence Yea the very Syncopes or Swooning Palpitations of the heart and Faintings which men think rather come from weakness do usually come either from oppression of nature by these secret excrements or Putrilaginous Blood or else from a weakness contracted by the inaptitude of the blood to nourish us being vitiated by excess The loathing of meat and want of appetite is ordinarily from the crudities or distempers caused by this excess yea the very Canine appetite which would still have more is caused by a vitiousness in the humours thus contracted The Pains of the Stomach Vomitings the Cholera Hickocks Inflamations Thirsts are usually from this cause The Wind Colick the Iliack Passion Loosness and Fluxes the Tenesmus and Ulcers the Worms and other troubles in those parts are usually from hence The obstructions Châysostome saith the difference betwixt famine and excess is that famine kills men sooner out of their pain and excess doth putrifie and consume them by long and painful sicknesses in Hâbr Hom. 29. of the Liver the Jaundice Inflamations Abscessus and Ulcers Schirrhus and Dropsie are commonly from hence Hence also usually are Inflammations Pains Obstructions and Schirrhus of the Spleen Hence commonly is the Stone Nephritick torments and Stoppages of Urine and Ulcers of the Reins and Bladder Hence commonly is the Scorbute and most of the Feavers which are found in the World and bring such multitudes to the grave Even those that immediately are caused by Colds distempers of the Aire or Infections are oft caused principally by long excess which vitiateth the humours and prepareth them for the disease Hence also are Gouts and Hysterical affects and diseases of the eyes and other exteriour parts So that we may well say that Gluttony enricheth Landlords filleth the Churchyards and hasteneth multitudes untimely to their ends Perhaps you 'll say that the most temperate have diseases To which experience teacheth me to answer that usually Children are permitted to be Voracious and
a costly sin and consumeth more than would serve to many better purposes How great a part of the riches of most Kingdoms are spent in Luxury and Excess § 28. 13. It is a sin that is a great enemy to the common good Princes and Common-wealths have reason to hate it and restrain it as the enemy of their safety Men have not money to defray the publick charges necessary to the safety of the Land because they consume it on their Guts Armies and Navies must be unpaid and Fortifications neglected and all that tendeth to the glory of a people must be opposed as against their personal interest because all is too little for the throat No great works can be done to the honour of the Nation or the publick good no Schools or Almshouses built and endowed no Colledges erected no Hospitals nor any excellent work because the Guts devour it all If it were known how much of the Treasure of the Land is thrown down the Sink by Epicures of all degrees this sin would be frowned into more disgrace § 29. 14. Gluttony and Excess is a sin greatly aggravated by the Necessities of the poor Whââ an incongruity is it that one member of Christ as he would be thought should be feeding himself deliciously every day and abounding with abused superfluities whilst another is starving and pining in a Cottage or begging at the door and that some families should do worse than cast their delicates and abundance to the Dogs whilst thousands at that time are ready to famish and are fain to feed on such unwholsome food as killeth them as soon as Luxury kills the Epicure Do these men believe that they shall be judged according to their feeding of the poor Or do they take themselves Matth â5 â to be members of the same body with those whose sufferings they so little feel 1 Cor. 12 26. It may be you 'll say I do relieve many of the poor But are there not more yet to be relieved As long as there are any in distress it is the greater sin for you to be luxurious Deut. 15. 7. If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren in thy land thou shalt not harden thy heart nor shut thy hand against thy poor brother but thou shalt open thy hand wide unto him c. Nay how often are the poor oppressed to satisfie luxuâiâus appetites Abundance must have hard bargains and hard usage and toil like Horses and scarce be able to get bread for their families that they may bring in all to belly-god Landlords who consume the fruit of other mens labours upon their devouring flesh § 30. 15. And it is the heinouser sin because of the common calamities of the Church and Servants of Christ throughout the world One part of the Church is oppressed by the Turk and another by the Pope and many Countreys wasted by the cruelties of Armies and persecuted by proud impious enemies and is it fit then for others to be wallowing in sensuality and gluttony Amos 6. 1 3 4 5 6. Wo to them that are at ease in Zion Ye that put far away the evil day and cause the seat of violence to come near That lye upon beds of Ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches and eat the Lambs out of the flock and the Calves out of the midst of the stall that châunt to the sound of the Viol That drink Wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the chief oyntments but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph It is a time of great humiliation and are you now given up to fleshly luxury Read Isa. 22. 12 13 14. And in that day did the Lord God of Hosts call to weeping and to mourning and to baldness and to girding with sackcloth and behold joy and gladness slaying Oxen and killing Sheep eating Flesh and drinking Wine let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall dye Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye dye saith the Lord of Hosts § 31. 16. Luxury is a sin most unseemly for men in so great misery and incongruous to the state of the Gluttonous themselves O man if thou hadst but a true sight of thy sin and misery of death and judgement and of the dreadful God whom thou dost offend thou wouldst percieve that fasting and prayer and tears become one in thy condition much better than glutting thy devouring flesh What a man unpardoned unsanctified in the power of Satan ready to be damned if thus thou dye for so I must suppose of a Glutton for such a man to be taking his fleshly pleasure For a Dives to be faring sumptuously every day that must shortly want a drop of water to cool his tongue is as foolish as for a Thief to feast before he goeth to hanging yea and much more For you might yet prevent your misery and another posture doth better beseem you to that end Fasting and crying mightily to God is fitter to your state See Ionah 3. 8. Ioel 1. 14. Ioel 2. 15. § 32. 17. Gluttony is a sin so much the greater by how much the more Will and Delight you have in the committing of it The sweetest most voluntary and beloved sin is caeteris paribus the greatest And few are more pleasant and beloved than this § 33. 18. Those are the worst sins that have least Repentance But Gluttony is so far from being truly Repented of by the luxurious Epicure that he loveth it and careth and contriveth how to commit it and buyeth it with the price of much of his estate § 34. 19. It is the greater sin because it is so frequently committed Men live in it as their daily practice and delight They live for it and make it the end of other sins It is not a sin that they seldom fall inââ âut it is almost as familiar with them as to eat and drink Being turned into Beasts they live like Beasts continually § 35. 20. Lastly It is a spreading sin and therefore is become common even the sin of Countreys of rich and poor For both sorts love their bâllies though both have not the like provision for them And they are so far from taking warning one of another that they are encouraged one by another and the sin is scarce noted in one of a hundred that daily liveth in it Nor is there almost any that reprove it or help one another against it unless by impoveââshing each other but most by perswasions and examples do encourage it though some much more than others So that by this time you may see that it is no rare noâ venial little sin § 36. And now you may see also that it is no wonder if no one of the Commandments expresly forbid this sin not only because it is a sin against our selves directly but also because it is against every one almost of the Commandments And think not that either Riches or Poverty will excuse it when even
terrible hand appeared writing upon the Wall to King Belshazzar in his carousing to signifie the loss of his Kingdoms and that very night he was also sâain Thou seest God spareth not Kings themselves that one would think might be allowed more pleasure and will he spare thee Prov. 31. 4 5. It is not for Kings to drink wine nor for Princes strong drink and is it then for thee mark the dreadful fruits of it even to the greatest Hos. 7. 3 4 5. They make the King glad with their wickedness and the Princes with their lyes They are all Adulterers as an Oven heated In the day of our King the Princes have made him sick with bottles of wine he stretched out his hand with sâârâârs Thou seest that be they great or small both soul and body is cast by tipling and drunkenness into greater danger than thou art in at Sea in a raging tempest Thou puttest thy self in the way of the vengeance of God and art not like to scape it long § 47. Quest. 6. Didst thou ever measure thy sin by that strange kind of punishment commanded by Quest. 6. God against iâââârrigible gluttons and drunkards Deut. 21. 18 19 20 21. If a man have a stuâââârn and rebellious Son which will not obey the voice of his Father or the voice of his mother and that when they have chastened him will not hearken to them Then shall his Father and his mother âây ââld on him and bring him out unto the Elders of his City and to the gate of his place And they shall sây unto the Elders of his City This our Sân is stubborn and rebellious he will not obey our voice he is a Glutton and a Drunkard And all the men of his City shall stone him with stones that he dye so shalt thâu put away evil from among you and all Israel shall hear and fear Surely Gluttony and Drunkenness are heynous crimes when a man 's own Father and Mother were bound to bring him to the Magistrate to be put to death if he will not be reformed by their own correction And you see here that youth is no excuse for it though now its thought excusable in them § 48. Quest. 7. Dost thou think thy drink is too good to leave at Gods command Or dost thou think Quest. 7. that God dâth grudge thee the sweetness of it or rather that he forbids it thee for thy good that thou maist sâape the hurt And tell me Dost thou love God better than thy drink and pleasure or dost thou not If not thy own Conscience must needs tell thee if thou have a Conscience not quite feared that there is no hope of thy salvation in that state But if thou say thou dost will God or any wise man believe thee that thou lovest him better and wilt not be so far ruled by him nor leave so small a matter for his sake 1 Joh. 5. 3. For this is the Love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous So 2 Ioh. 6. § 49. Quest. 8. Dost thou remember that thy Carkâss must lye rotting in the grave and how loathsome Quest. 8. a thing it must shortly be And canst thou make so great a matter of the present satisfying of so vile a body and dung the earth at so dear a rate § 50. Quest. 9. Wouldst thou have all thy friends and children do as thou dost If so what would Quest. 9. become of thy estate It would be a mad world if all were drunkards wouldst thou have thy Wife a Drunkard If she were thou wouldst scarce be confident of her Chastity Wouldst thou have thy Servants Drunkards If they were they might set thy house on fire and they would do thee little work or do it so as it were better be undone Thy house would be a Bedlam if all were Drunkards and much worse than Bedlam for there are some wise men to govern and correct the mad ones But if thou like it not in wife and Children and Servants why dost thou continue it thy self Art thou not neerest to thy self Dost thou love any others better than thy self Hâdst thou rather thy own soul were damned than theirs Or canst thou more easily endure it I have wondered sometimes to observe some Drunkards very severe against the same sin in their Children and very desirous to have them sober But the reason is because the sobriety of their Children is no trouble to them nor puts them not to deny the pleasure of their appetites as their own sobriety must do § 51. Quest. 10. Wouldst thou have thy Physicion drunk when he should cure thee of thy sickness Quest. 10. or thy Lawyer drunk when he should plead thy cause or the Iudge when he should judge it Iâ not why wilt thou be drunken when thou shouldst serve thy God and mind the business of thy soul If thou wouldst not have thy servant be potting in an Alehouse when he should be about thy work wilt thou sit potting and prating there when thou hast a thousand fold greater work to do for thy everlasting happiness § 52. Quest. 11. If one do but lame or spoile thy Beast and make him unfit for thy service wouldst Quest. 11. thou be pleased with it And wilt thou unfit thy self for the service of God as if thy work were of less concernment than thy Beasts § 53. Quest. 12. Would it please you if your servants poured all that drink in the Chanel If Quest. 12. not I have before proved to thee that it should displease thee more to pour it into thy belly for thou wilt find at last that it will hurt thee more § 54. Quest. 13. What relish hath thy pleasant liquor the next day will it then be any sweeter than Quest. 13. wholsome abstinence All the delight is suddenly gone there is nothing left but the slime in thy guts and the Ulcer in thy Conscience which cannot be cured by all thy Treasure nor palliated long by all thy pleasure And canst thou value much so short delights As all thy sweet and merry cups are now no sweeter than if they had been Wormwood so all the rest will quickly come to the same end and relish As Plato said of his slender supper compared to a Rich mans feast Yours seemeth better to night but mine will be better to morrow so thy Conscience telleth thee that Temperance and holy obedience will be better to morrow and better to Eternity though gluttony and drunkenness seem better Now. § 55 Quest. 14. Dost thou consider how dear thou payest for hell and buyest damnation aâ a Quest. 14. harder rate than salvation might be attained at What shame doth i ãâ¦ã thee what sickness is it like to cost thee what painful vomitings or worse dost thou undergoe How much dost thou suffer in thy estate And is Hell worth all this adoe § 56. Quest. 15. Dost thou not think in thy heart that
imployment for all thy time Direct 3. which Gods immediate service spareth Yea which somewhat urgeth thee to diligence Otherwise thou wilt lye in bed and say thou hast time to spare or nothing to do You can rise when you have a journey to be gone or a business of pressing necessity to be done Keep your selves under some constant necessity or urgency of business at the least § 14. Direct 4. Take pleasure in your Callings and in the service of God Sluggards themselves Direct 4. can rise to that which they take much pleasure in As to go to a Merriment or Feast or Play or Game or to a good bargain or any thing which they delight in If thou hadst a Delight in thy Calling and in reading the Scripture and praying and doing good thou couldst not lye contentedly in bed but wouldst long to be up and doing as Children to their play The wicked can rise early to do wickedness because their hearts are set upon it They can be drunk or steal or whâre or plot ârâv 4 16 1 Thess. 5. 6 7. their ambitious and covetous designs when they should sleep And if thy heart were set as much on good as theirs is on evil wouldst not thou be as wakeful and as readily up § 15. Direct 5. Remember the grand importance of the business of your souls which alwayes lyeth Direct 5. on your hands that the greatness of your work may rowze you up What lye slugging in bed when you are so far behind hand in knowledge and grace and assurance of salvation and have so much of the Scripture and other Books to read and understand Hast thou not grace to beg for a needy soul Is not Prayer better work than excess of sleeping Great business in the world can make you rise and why not Greater § 16. Direct 6. Remember that thou must answer in judgement for thy time And what comfort Direct 6. wilt thou have to say I slug'd away so many hours in a morning And what comfort at death when time is gone to review so much cast away in sleep § 17. Direct 7. Remember that God beholdeth thee and is calling thee up to work If thou understoodst Direct 7. his Word and Providence thou wouldst hear him as it were saying as the Marriners to Ionah What meanest thou O sleeper Arise call upon thy God Wilt thou lye sleeping inordinately when God Jonah 1. 6. stands over thee and calls thee up If the King or any great person or friend did but knock at thy door thou wouldst rise presently to wait upon them Why God would speak with thee by his Word or hear thee speak to him by prayer and wilt thou lye still and despise his Call § 18. Direct 8. Remember how many are attending thee while thou sleepest If it be Summer the Direct 8. Sun is up before thee that hath gone so many thousand miles while thou wast asleep It hath given a dayes light to the other half of the world since thou laist down and is come again to light thee to thy work and wilt thou let it shine in vain All the creatures are ready in their places to assist thee and art thou asleep § 19. Direct 9. Consider whether thou wilt allow thy servants to do the like They must be up Direct 9. and at work or you will be offended and tell them that they are no servants for you and that you hire them not to sleep And do you not owe God more service than they owe you Doth God hire you to sleep Is it any lawfuller for you than them to sleep one minute more than is needful to your health No not a minute If you are sicklier than they that 's another matter But see that fulness and idleness cause it not But otherwise your Riches are no excuse to you Will you loyter more than they because you receive more and do less service because you have more pay Or is it your priviledge to be so miserable as to lose that time which poor men save § 20. Direct 10. Remember that your morning hours are the choicest part of all the day for any holy Direct 10. exercise or special employment of the mind The mind is fresh and clear and there is less interruption by worldly business whereas when others are up and about their business you will have interpellations Those that have tryed it can say by experience that the morning hours are the flower of their time for prayer or studies and that early rising is a great part of the art of Redeeming Time § 21. Direct 11. Remember how many are condemning you by their diligence while you are slugging Direct 11. away your time How many holy persons are then at prayer in secret wrestling fervently with God for their salvation or reading and meditating in his word What do they get while you are sleeping The blessed man doth delight in the Law of the Lord and meditate in it day and night and you love your ease and are sleeping day and night Will not all these be witnesses against you So will the diligent in their Callings and so will the worldlings and wicked that rise early to their sin How many thousand are hard at work while you are sleeping Have you not work to do as well as they § 22. Direct 12. Remember that sensuality or flesh-pleasing is the great condemning sin that Direct 12. turns the heart from God And if it be odious in a drunkard or fornicator why is it not so in you Mortifie the flesh and learn to deny it its inordinate desires and your sin is almost cured § 23. Direct 13. For then the executive part is easie when you are willing It is but agreeing Direct 13. with some one to awaken you and a little cold water will wash away your drowsiness if you consent PART VII Directions against sinful Dreams § 1. DReams are neither good nor sinful simply in themselves because they are not rational and voluntary nor in our power But they are often made sinful by some other voluntary Act They may be sinful by participation and consequently And the acts that make them sinful are either such as go before or such as follow after § 2. 1. The antecedent causes are any sinful act which distempereth the body or any sin which inclineth the fantasie and mind thereto or the omission of what was necessary to prevent them 2. The causes which afterwards make them objectively sinful are the ill uses that men make of them As when they take their dreams to be Divine Revelations and trust to them or are affrighted by them as ominous or as prophetical and make them the ground of their actions and seduce themselves by the phantasms of their own brains § 3. Direct 1. Avoid those bodily distempers as much you can which cause sinful dreams especially Direct 1. fulness of dyet A full stomach causeth troublesome
it will do its duty well in nothing and zeal will quickly be extinct Diligence will die when Conscience is corrupted or fallen aslèep § 39. Direct 8. Live in a constant expectation of death Do not foolishly flatter your self with Direct 8. groundless conceits that you shall live long There is a great power in Death to rowze up a drowsie soul when it is taken to be near And a great force in the conceit of living long to make even good men grow more negligent and secure § 40. Direct 9. Live among warm and serious Christians especially as to your intimate familiarity Direct 9. There is a very great power in the zeal of one to kindle zeal in others as there is in fire to kindle fire Prov. 22. â4 â5 27. 17. Heb. 3 13. 10 24 25. Rom. 15. 14. Serious hearty diligent Christians are excellent helps to make us serious and diligent He that travelleth with speedy travellers will be willing to keep pace with them and tired sluggards are drawn on by others When he that travelleth with the slothful will go slowly as they do § 41. Direct 10. Lastly Be oft in the use of quickning means Live if you can attain it under a Direct 10. quickning zealous Minister There is life in the word of God which when it 's opened and applied lively will put life into the hearers Read the holy Scriptures and such lively writings as help you to understand and practise them As going to the fire is our way when we are cold to cure our benummedness so reading over some part of a warm and quickning book will do much to warm and quicken a benummed soul And it is not the smallest help to rowze us up to prayer or meditation and put life into us before we address our selves more nearly unto God I have found it my self a great help in my studies and to my preaching when studying my own heart would not serve the turn to awake me to serious servency but all hath been cold and dull that I have done because all was cold and dull within I have taken up a book that was much more warm and serious than I and the reading of it hath recovered my heat and my warmed heart hath been fitter for my work Christians take heed of a cold and dull and heartless kind of Religion and think no pains too much to cure it Death is cold and life is warm and labour it self doth best excite it PART II. Directions about Sports and Recreations and against excess and sin therein § 1. Direct 1. IF you would escape the sin and danger which men commonly run into by unlawful Direct 1. sporting under pretense of lawful recreations you must understand what lawful recreation is and what is its proper end and use No wonder else if you sin when you know not what you do § 2. No doubt but some sport and recreation is lawful yea needful and therefore a duty to some What lawful recreation is men Lawful sport or recreation is the use of some Natural thing or action not forbidden us for the exhilerating of the natural spirits by the fantasie and due exercise of the natural parts thereby to fit the body and mind for ordinary duty to God It is some delightful exercise § 3. 1. We do not call unpleasing Labour by the name of sport or recreation though it may be better and more necessary 2. We call not every Delight by the name of sport or recreation For eating and drinking may be delightful and holy things and duties may be delightful and yet not properly spââts or recreations But it is the fantasie that is chiefly delighted by sports § 4. Qual 1. All these things following are necessary to the Lawfulness of a sport or recreation and the want of any one of them will make and prove it to be unlawful 1. The end which you really intend in using it must be to fit you for your service to God that is either for your callings or for his worship or some work of obedience in which you may Please and Glorifie him 1 Cor. 10. 31. Whether ye eat or drink or whatever you do do all to the Glory of God It is just to your Duty as the Mowers whetting to his Sithe to make it for to do his work § 5. Qual 2. Therefore the person that useth it must be one that is heartily devoted to God and his Service and really liveth to do his work and please and glorifie him the world which none but the Godly truly do And therefore no carnal ungodly person that hath no such Holy end can use any recreation lawfully because he useth it not to a due end For the end is essential to the moral good of any action and an evil end must needs make it evil Tit. 1. 15. Unto the Pure all things are Pure that is all things not forbidden but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing Pure but even their mind and Conscience is defiled § 6. Quest. But must all wicked men therefore forbear recreation Answ. 1. Wicked men are such as Quest. will not obey Gods law if they know it and therefore they enquire not what they should do with any purpose sincerely to obey But if they would obey that which God commandeth them is immediately to forsake their wickedness and to become the servants of God and then there will be no room for the question 2. But if they will continue in a sinful ungodly state it is in vain to contrive how they may sport themselves without sin But yet we may tell them that if the sport be materially lawful it is not the matter that they are bound to forsake but it is the sinful end and manner And till this be reformed they cannot but sin § 7. Qual 3. A lawful recreation must be a means fitly chosen and used to this end If it have no aptitude to fit us for Gods service in our ordinary Callings and duty it can be to us no lawful recreation Though it be lawful to another that it is a real help to it is unlawful to us § 8. Qual 4. 4. Therefore all Recreations are unlawful which are themselves preferred before our Callings or which are used by a man that liveth idly or in no Calling and hath no ordinary work to make him need them For these are no fit means which exclude our end instead of furthering it § 9. Qual 5. 5. Therefore all those are unlawful sports which are used only to delight a carnal fantasie and have no higher end than to please the sickly mind that loveth them § 10. Qual 6. 6. And therefore all those are unlawful sports which really unfit us for the dutys of our Callings and the service of God which laying the benefit and hurt together do hinder us as much or more than they help us Which is the case of all voluptuous wantons § 11. Qual 7.
made them your equals Remember that they have immortal souls and are equally capable of salvation with your selves And therefore you have no power to do any thing which shall hinder their salvation No pretence of your business necessity commodity or power can warrant you to hold them so hard to work as not to allow them due time and seasons for that which God hath made their duty 2. Remember that God is their absolute Owner and that you have none but a derived and limited Propriety in them They can be no further yours than you have Gods consent who is the Lord of them and you And therefore Gods Interest in them and by them must be served first 3. Remember that they and you are equally under the Government and Laws of God And therefore all Gods Laws must be first obeyed by them and you have no power to command them to omit any duty which God commandeth them nor to commit any sin which God forbiddeth them Nor can you without Rebellion or Impiety expect that your work or commands should be preferred before Gods 4. Remember that God is their Reconciled tender Father and if they be as good doth Love them as well as you And therefore you must use the meanest of them no otherwise than beseemeth the Beloved of God to be used and no otherwise than may stand with the due signification of your Love to God by Loving those that are his 5. Remember that they are the Redeemed ones of Christ and that he hath not sold you his title to them As he bought their souls at a price unvaluable so he hath given the purchase of his blood to be absolutely at your disposal Therefore so use them as to preserve Christs right and interest in them Direct 2. Remember that you are Christs Trustees or the Guardians of their souls and that the Direct 2. greater your power is over them the greater your charge is of them and your duty for them As you owe more to a Child than to a Day Labourer or a hired Servant because being more your own he is more entrusted to your care so also by the same reason you owe more to a slave because he is more your own And power and obligation go together As Abraham was to Circumcise all his servants that were bought with money and the fourth Commandment requireth Masters to see that all within their gates observe the Sabbath day so must you exercise both your Power and Love to bring them to the Knowledge and faith of Christ and to the just obedience of Gods commands Those therefore that keep their Negro's and slaves from hearing Gods word and from becoming Christians because by the Law they shall then be either made free or they shall lose part of their service do openly profess Rebellion against God and contempt of Christ the Redeemer of souls and a contempt of the souls of men and indeed they declare that their worldly profit is their treasure and their God If this come to the hands of any of our Natives in Barbado's or other Islands or Plantations who are said to be commonly guilty of this most heinous sin yea and to live upon it I intreat them further to consider as followeth 1. How cursed a crime is it to equal Men and Beasts Is not this your practice Do you not buy them and use them meerly to the same end as you do your horses to labour for your commodity as if they were baser than you and made to serve you 2. Do you not see how you reproach and condemn your selves while you vilifie them as Savages and barbarous wretches Did they ever do any thing more savage than to use not only mens bodies as beasts but their souls as if they were made for nothing but to actuate their bodies in your worldly drudgery Did the veriest Cannibals ever do any thing more cruel or odious than to sell so many souls to the Devil for a little worldly gain Did ever the cursedst miscreants on earth do any thing more rebellious and contrary to the will of the most merciful God than to keep those souls from Christ and holiness and Heaven for a little money who were made and redeemed for the same ends and at the same pretious price as yours Did your poor slaves ever commit such villanies as these Is not he the basest wretch and the most barbarous savage who committeth the greatest and most inhumane wickedness And are theirs comparable to these of yours 3. Doth not the very example of such cruelty besides your keeping them from Christianity directly tend to reach them and all others to hate Christianity as if it taught men to be so much worse than Dâgs and Tygers 4. Do you not mark how God hath followed you with Plagues and may not Conscience tell you that it is for your inhumanity to the souls and bodies of so many Remember the late fire at the Bridge in Barbado's Remember the drowning of your Governour and Ships at Sea and the many judgements that have overtaken you and at the present the terrible mortality that is among you 5. Will not the example and warning of neigbour Countreys rise up in judgement against you and condemn you You cannot but hear how odious the Spanish name is made and thereby alas the Christian name also among the West Indians for their most inhumane Cruelties in Hispaniola Iamaica Cuba Peru Mexico and other places which is described by Iosep. a Costa a Jesuite of their own And though I know that their cruelty who murdered millions exceedeth yours who kill not mens bodies yet yours is of the same kind in the merchandize which you make with the Devil for their souls whilst you that should help them with all your power do hinder them from the means of their salvation And on the contrary what an honour is it to those of New England that they take not so much as the Natives Soyl from them but by purchase that they enslave none of them nor use them cruelly but shew them mercy and are at a great deal of care and cost and labour for their salvation O how much difference between holy Master Eliot's life and yours His who hath laboured so many years to save them and hath translated the whole Bible into their language with other Books and those good mens in London who are a Corporation for the furtherance of his work and theirs that have contributed so largely towards it And yours that sell mens souls for your commodity 6. And what comfort are you like to have at last in that money that is purchased at such a price Will not your money and you perish together will you not have worse than Gebezi's Leprofie with it yea worse than Achan's death by Stoning and as bad as Iudas his hanging himself unless repentance shall prevent it Do you not remember the terrible words in Jude 11. Woe unto them for they have gone in the way of Cain
more to hinder them from the same priviledge than what is of Necessity § 14. Direct 14. At Supper spend the time as is aforesaid at Dinner Alwayes remembring Direct 14. that though it be a day of Thansgiving it is not a day of gluttony and that you must not use too full a dyet lest it make you heavy and drowsie and unfit for holy duty § 15. Direct 15. After Supper examine your Children and Servants what they have learnt all Direct 15. day and sing a Psalm of praise and conclude with prayer and thanksgiving § 16. Direct 16. If there be time after both you and they may in secret review the duties Direct 16. and mercies and failings of the day and recommend your selves by Prayer into the bands of God for the night following and to betake your selves to your rest § 17. Direct 17. And to shut up all let your last thoughts be holy in the thankful sense of Direct 17. the mercy you have received and the goodness of God revealed by our Mediator and comfortably trusting your souls and bodies into his hands and longing for your nearer approach unto his Glory and the beholding and full enjoying of him for ever § 18. I have briefly named this order of duties for the memory of those that have opportunity to observe it But if any mans place and condition deny him opportunity for some of these he must do what he can but see that carnal negligence cause not his omission And now I appeal to Reason Conscience and Experience whether this employment be not more suitable to the principles ends and hopes of a Christian than idleness or vain talk or Cards or Dice or Dancing or Ale-house haunting or worldly business or discourse And whether this would not exceedingly conduce to the increase of Knowledge Holiness and Honesty And whether there be ever a worldling or voluptuous sensualist of them all that had not rather be found thus at death or look back when Time is past and gone upon the Lords days thus spent than as the idle fleshly and ungodly spend them CHAP. XIX Directions for profitable Hearing the Word Preached OMitting those Directions which concern the external modes of Worship for the Reasons mentioned Tom. 2. and known to all that know me and the time and place I live in I shall give you such Directions about the personal internal management of your duty as I think most necessary to your Edification And seeing that your Duty and benefit lyeth in these four General points 1. That you hear with understanding 2. That you Remember what you hear 3. That you be duly affected with it 4. And that you sincerely practise it I shall more particularly Direct you in order to all these ends and duties Tit. 1. Directions for the Understanding the Word which you hear § 1. Direct 1. REad and meditate on the holy Scriptures much in private and then you will be Direct 1. the better able to understand what is Preached on it in publick and to try the doctrine whether it be of God Whereas if you are unacquainted with the Scriptures all that is treated of or alledged from it will be so strange to you that you will be but little edified by it Psal. 1. 2. Psal. 119. Deut. 6. 11 12. § 2. Direct 2. Live under the clearest distinct convincing teaching that possibly you can procure Direct 2. There is an unspeakable difference as to the edification of the hearers between a judicious clear distinct and skilful Preacher and one that is ignorant confused general dry and only scrapeth together a Cento or mingle-mangle of some undigested sayings to fill up the hour with If in Philosophy Physicks Grammar Law and every Art and Science there be so great a difference between one Teacher and another it must needs be so in Divinity also Ignorant Teachers that understand not what they say themselves are unlike to make you men of understanding as Erroneous Teachers are unlike to make you Orthodox and Sound § 3. Direct 3. Come not to hear with a careless heart as if you were to hear a matter that little Direct 3. concerned you but come with a sense of the unspeakable weight necessity and consequence of the holy word which you are to bear and when you understand how much you are concerned in it and truly Love it as the word of Life it will greatly help your Understanding of every particular truth That which a man Loveth not and perceiveth no necessity of he will hear with so little regard and heed that it will make no considerable impression on his mind But a good understanding of the Excellency and Necessity exciting Love and âârioâs attention would make the particulars easie to be understood when else you will be like ââ stopt oâ narrow mouthed bottle that keepeth out that which you desire to put in I know that understanding must go before affections But yet the understanding of the concernments and worth of your own souls must first procure such a serious care of your salvation and a general regard to the word of God as is needful to your further understanding of the particular instructions which you shall after hear § 4. Direct 4. Suffer not vain thoughts or drowsie negligence to hinder your attention If you mark Direct 4. not what is taught you how should you understand and learn set your selves to it as for your Prââ 4. 1 20 â ãâ¦ã 7. 24. lives Be as earnest and diligent in attending and learning as you would have the Preacher be in Teaching If a drowsie careless Preacher be bad a drowsie careless hearer is not good Saith Mâses Dâut 32. 46. Set your hearts to all the words which I testifie among you this day Neâ 1 6. 1â Psal. 130. 2. Prov. 28. 9. 47. For it is not a vain thing for you because it is your life You would have God attentive to your pâayers in your distresses and why will you not then be attentive to his words when the prayers of him are abominable to God that turneth away his ear from hearing the Law ââik 19. 48. All the people were very attentive to hear Christ. Neh. 8. 3. when Ezra read the Law from morning till mid day the ears of all the people were attentive to it when Paul continued his Lords day exercise Act 16. 14. Act. 10. 9. and speech untill midnight one young man that full asleep did fall down dead as a warning to them that will sleep when they should hear the message of Christ. Therefore you are excused that day from worldly business that you may attend oâ the Lord with out distraction 1 Cor. 7. 35. Lydia's attending to the words of Paul accompanied the opening of her heart and her Conversion Act. 16. 14. § 5. Direct 5. Mark specially the design and drift and principal doctrine of the Sermon Both because Direct 5. that is the chief thing
and Sanctifier of souls and in what order he doth all this by the Ministry of the Word 12. In the next open to them the office and use and duty of the ordinary Ministry and their duty toward them especially as Hearers and the nature and use of publick Worship and the nature and Communion of Saints and Churches 13. In the next open to them the Nature and use of Bâpâism and the Lords Supper 14. In the next open to them the shortness of life and the state of souls at death and after death and the day of Judgement and the Justification of the Righteous and the Condemnation of the wicked at that day 15. In the next open to them the Joyes of Hâaven and the miseries of the damned 16. In the next open to them the vanity of all the pleasure and profits and honour of this World and the method of Temptations and how to overcome them 17. In the next open to them the reason and use of suffering for Christ and of self denyal and how to prepare for sickness and death And after this go over also the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments § 13. Direct 13. After all your instructions make them briefly give you an account in their own Direct 13. words of what they understand and remember of all or else the next time to give account of the fârmer And encourage them for all that is well done in their endeavours § 14. Direct 14. Labour in all to keep up a âakened serious attention and still to print upon their Direct 14. hearts the greatest things And to that end For the Matter of your teaching and discourse let nothing be so much in your mouths as 1. The Nature and Relations of God 2. A Crucified and a Glorified Christ with all his grace and priviledges 3. The operations of the spirit on the soul. 4. The madness of sinners and the vanity of the world 5. And endless Glory and Joy of Saints and misery of the ungodly after death Let these five points be frequently urged and be the life of all the rest of your discourse And then for the Manner of your speaking to them let it be alwayes with such a mixture of familiarity and seriousness that may carry along their serious attentions whether they will or no Speak to them as if they or you were dying and as if you saw God and Heaven and Hell § 15. Direct 15. Take each of them sometime by themselves and there describe to them the work Direct 15. of Renovation and ask them whether ever such a work was wrought upon them Shew them the true Marks of Grace and help them to try themselves Urge them to tell you truly whether their Love to God or the Creature to Heaven or Earth to Holiness or Flesh-pleasing be more and what it is that hath their hearts and care and chief endeavour And if you find them regenerate help to strengthen them If you find them too much dejected help to Comfort them And if you find them unregenerate help to convince them and then to humble them and then to shew them the remedy in Christ and then shew them their duty that they may have part in Christ and drive all home to the end that you desire to see But do all this with Love and gentleness and privacy § 16. Direct 16. Some pertinent Questions which by the answer will engage them to teach themselves Direct 16. or to judge themselves will be sometimes of very great use As such as these Do you not know that you must shortly dye Do you not believe that immediately your souls must enter upon an endless life of joy or misery Will worldly wealth and honours or fleshly pleasures be pleasant to you then Had you then rather be a Saint or an ungodly sinner Had you not then rather be one of the holiest that the World despised and abused than one of the greatest and richest of the wicked When Time is past and you must give account of it had you not then rather it had been spent in holiness and obedience and diligent preparation for the life to come than in pride and pleasure and pampering the flesh How could you make shift to forget your endless life so long Or to sleep quietly in an unregenerate state What if you had died before conversion what think you had become of you and where had you now been Do you think that any of those in Hell are glad that they were ungodly or have now any pleasure in their former merriments and sin What think you would they do if it were all to do again Do you think if an Angel or Saint from Heaven should come to decide the Controversie between the Godly and the Wicked that he would speak against a Holy and Heavenly life or plead for a loose and fleshly life or which side think you he would take Did not God know what he did when he made the Scriptures Is he or an ungodly scorner to be more regarded Do you think every man in the World will not wish at last that he had been a Saint what ever it had cost him Such kind of Questions urge the Conscience and much convince § 17. Direct 17. Cause them to learn some one most plain and pertinent text for every great Direct 17. and necessary duty and against every great and dangerous sin and often to repeat them to you As Luk. 13. 3 5. Except ye Repent ye shall all perish Joh. 3. 5. Except a man be born again of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven So Mat. 18. 3. Rom. 8. 9. Heb. 18. 14. Ioh. 3. 16 Luk. 18. 1 c. So against lying swearing taking Gods name in vain flesh-pleasing Gluttony pride and the rest § 18. Direct 18. Drive all your Convictions to a Resolution of Endeavour and amendment and Direct 18. make them sometime promise you to do that which you have convinced them of And sometimes before witnesses But let it be done with these necessary Cautions 1. That you urge not a promise in any doubtful point or such as you have not first convinced them of 2. That you urge not a promise in things beyond their present strength As you must not bid them promise you to Believe or to Love God or to be tender-hearted or heavenly-minded but to do those duties which tend to these as to hear the Word or read or pray or meditate or keep good company or avoid temptations c. 3. That you be not too often upon this or upon one and the same strain in the other methods lest they take them but for words of course and custome teach them to contemn them But seasonably and prudently done their promises will lay a great engagement on them § 19. Direct 19. Teach them how to pray by formes or without as is most suitable to their âase and Direct 19. parts And either your self or
consenteth to the Covenant may boldly come and signifie his Consent and receive the sealed Covenant of God For Consent is your preparation or the necessary condition of your Right If you Consent not you refuse all the mercy of the Covenant And dare you live in such a state Suppose a Pardon be offered to a condemned Thief but so that if he after cast it in the dirt or turn Traytor he shall dye a sorer death will he rather choose to dye than take it and say I am afraid I shall abuse it To refuse Gods Covenant is certain death but to Consent is your preparation and your life § 25. Quest. 7. But what if Superiours compell such a Christian to communicate or else they will excommunicate Quest. 7. and imprison him What then should he choose Answ. If he could do it without his own souls hurt he should obey them supposing that it is nothing but that which in it self is good that they command him But they have their power to 2 Cor. 13. 10. Matth. 10. 28. edification and not to destruction and he must value his soul above his body and therefore it is past question that it is a smaller hurt to be excommunicated and lye and dye in Prison than to cast his soul into despair by doing that which he thinketh is a grievous sin and would be his damnation But all means must be used to cure the mistake of his own understanding § 26. Quest. 8. Is not the case of an Hypocrite that knoweth not himself to be an hypocrite and of Quest. 8. a sincere Christian that knoweth not himself to be sincere all one as to communicating when both are equally in doubt Answ. No For Being and Seeing are things that must be distinguished The one hath grace in Being though he see it not and therefore hath a Right to the blessings of the Covenant and therefore at once remaineth obliged both to Discern his Title and to Come and take it And therefore if he come doubtingly his sin is not that he Receiveth but in the Manner of receiving that he doth it doubtingly And therefore it will be a greater sin not to receive at all unless in the last mentioned case wherein the consequents are like to be worse to him But the other hath no true Repentance or Faith or Love in Being and therefore hath no Right to the blessings of the Covenant and therefore at present is obliged to discern that he is graceless and to Repent of it and it is not his sin that he doubteth of his title but that he demandeth and taketh what he hath no title to And therefore it is a greater sin in him to Take it than to delay in order to his recovery and preparation Yea even in point of Comfort there is some disparity For though the true Christian hath far greater terrors than hypocrites when he taketh himself to be an unworthy Receiver as being more sensible and regardful of the weight of the matter yet usually in the midst of all his fears there are some secret testimonies in his heart of the Love of God which are a Cordial of hope that keep him from sinking into despair and have more life and power in them than all the hypocrites false perswasions of his own sincerity § 27. Quest. 9. Wherein lyeth the sin of an hypocrite and ungodly person if he do receive Quest. 9. Answ. His sin is 1. In lying and hypocrisie in that he professeth to Repent unfeignedly of his sin and to be resolved for a holy life and to Believe in Christ and to Accept him on his Covenant-terms and to give up himself to God as his Father his Saviour and his Sanctifier and to forsake the flesh the world and the Devil when indeed he never did any of this but secretly abhorreth it at his heart and will not be perswaded to it And so all this profession and his very Covenanting it self and his Receiving as it is a professing-Covenanting-sign is nothing but a very lye And what it is to lye to the Holy Chost the case of Ananias and Sapphira telleth us 2. It is usurpation to come and lay claim to those Benefits which he hath no title to 3. It is a prophanation of these holy mysteries to be thus Commandment 2. 3. Lev. 10. 2 3. used and it is a taking of Gods Name in vain who is a jealous God and will be sanctified of all that draw near unto him 4. And it is a wrong to the Church of God and the Communion of Saints and the honour of the Christian Religion that such ungodly hypocrites intrude as members As it is to the Kings Army when the enemies spies creep in amongst them or to his Marriage-feast to have a guest in rags Matth. 22. 11 12. Object But it is no Lye because they think they say true in their profession Answ. That is through their sinful negligence and self-deceit And he is a lyar that speaks a falshood which he may and ought to know to be a falshood though he do not know it There is a Lyar in Rashness and Negligence as well as of set purpose § 28. Quest. 10. Doth all unworthy receiving make a man lyable to damnation Or what unworthiness Quest. 10. is it that is so threatned 1 Cor. 11. 28 29. Answ. There are three sorts of unworthiness or unfitness and three sorts of judgement answerably to be feared 1. There is the utter unworthiness of an Infidel or Impenitent ungodly hypocrite And damnation to Hell fire is the punishment that such must expect if conversion prevent it not 2. There is an unworthiness through some great and scandalous crime which a regenerate person falleth into and this should stop him from the Sacrament for a time till he have repented and cast away his sin And if he come before he rise from his fall by a particular Repentance as the Corinthians that sinned in the very use of the Sacrament it self they may expect some notable Vid. Synod Doââdraâ suffrag Theol. Brittan in Artic 5. temporal judgement at the present and if Repentance did not prevent it they might fear eternal punishment 3. There is that measure of unworthiness which consisteth in the ordinary infirmities of a Saint and this should not at all deterr them from the Sacrament because it is accompanied with a greater worthiness yea though their weakness appear in the time and manner of their Receiving But yet ordinary corrections may follow these ordinary infirmities The grosser abuse of the Sacrament it self I joyn under the second rank Quest. 11. What is the particular preparation needful to a fit Communicant Quest. 11. Answ. This bringeth me up to the next Direction § 29. Direct 5. Let your Preparation to this Sacrament consist of these particulars following Direct 5. 1. In your duty with your own consciences and hearts 2. In your duty towards God 3. And in your duty towards your neighbour
sects and parties and what divisions and contentions tend to as you have done And therefore it belongeth to your gravity and experience to call them unto Unity Charity and Peace and to keep them from proving fire-brands in the Church and rashly over-running their understandings and the truth § 8. Direct 8. Of all men you must live in the greatest contempt of earthly things and least entangle Direct 8. your selves in the Love or needless troubles of the world You are like to need it and use it but a little while A little may serve one that is so neer his journeys end You have had the greatest experience of its vanity You are so near the great things of another World that methinks you should have no leisure to remember this or room for any unnecessary thoughts or speeches of it As your bodies are less able for worldly employment than others so accordingly you are allowed to retire from it more than others for your more serious thoughts of the life to come It is a sign of the bewitching power of the world and of the folly and unreasonableness of sin to see the Aged usually as Covetous as the young and men that are going out of the world to love it as fondly and scrape for it as eagerly as if they never lookt to leave it You should rather give warning to the younger sort to take heed of Covetousness and of being ensnared by the world and while they labour in it faithfully with their hands to keep their hearts entirely for God § 9. Direct 9. You should highly esteem every minute of your time and lose none in idleness or unnecessary Direct 9. things but be alwayes doing or getting some good and do what you do with all your might For you are sure now that your time will not be long How little have you left to make all the rest of your preparation in for eternity The young may die quickly but the old know that their time will be but short Though Nature decay yet grace can grow in life and strength and when your outward man perisheth the inner man may be renewed day by day 2 Cor. 4. 16. Time is a most pretious commodity to all but especially to them that have but a little more to determine the question in Whether they must live in Heaven or Hell for ever Though you cannot do your worldly businesses as heretofore yet you have variety of holy exercises to be imployed in Bodily ease may beseem you but Idleness is worse in you than in any § 10. Direct 10. When the decay of your strength or memory or parts doth make you unable to read Direct 10. or pray or meditate by your selves so much or so well as heretofore make the more use of the more lively gifts and help of others Be the more in hearing others and in joyning with them in prayer that their memory and zeal and utterance may help to lift you up and carry you on § 11. Direct 11. Take not a decay of nature and of those gifts and works which depend thereon Direct 11. for a decay of grace Though your memory and utterance and fervour of affection abate as your Natural heat abateth yet be not discouraged but remember that you may for all this grow in grace if you do but grow in holy wisdom and judgement and a higher esteem of God and holiness and a greater disesteem of all the vanities of the world and a firmer resolution to cleave to God and trust on Christ and never to turn to the world and sin This is your growth in grace § 12. Direct 12. Be patient under all the infirmities and inconveniences of old age Be not discontented Direct 12. at them nor repine not nor grow pievish and froward to those about you This is a common temptation which the Aged should carefully resist You knew at first that you had a body that must decay If you would not have had it till a decaying age why were you so unwilling to dye If you would why do you repine Bless God for the dayes of youth and strength and health and ease which you have had already and grudge not that corruptible flesh decayeth § 13. Direct 13. Understand well that passive obedience is that which God calleth you to in your Direct 13. age and weakness and in which you must serve and honour him in the conclusion of your labour When you are unfit for any great or publick works and active obedience hath not opportunity to exercise it self as heretofore it is then as acceptable to God that you honour him by patient suffering And therefore it is a great errour of them that wish for the death of all that are impotent decrepit and bed-rid as if they were utterly unserviceable to God I tell you it is no small service that they may do not only by their prayers and their secret Love to God but by being examples of faith and patience and heavenly-mindedness and confidence and joy in God to all about them Grudge not then if God will thus imploy you § 14. Direct 14. Let your thoughts of death and preparations for it be as serious as if death were Direct 14. just at hand Though all your life be little enough to prepare for death and it be a work that should be done as soon as you have the use of Reason yet age and weakness call lowder to you presently to prepare without delay Do therefore all that you would fain find done when your last sickness cometh that unreadiness to die may not make death terrible nor your age uncomfortable § 15. Direct 15. Live in the joyful expectations of your change as becometh one that is so near to Direct 15. Heaven and looketh to live with Christ for ever Let all the high and glorious things which faith apprehendeth now shew their power in the Love and joy and longings of your soul. There is nothing in which the weak and aged can more honour Christ and do good to others than in joyful expectation of their change and an earnest desire to be with Christ. This will do much to convince unbelievers that the promises are true and that Heaven is real and that a holy life is indeed the best which hath so happy an end When they see you highest in your joyes at the time when others are deepest in distress and when you rejoyce as one that is entring upon his happiness when all the happiness of the ungodly is at an end this will do more than many Sermons to perswade a sinner to a holy life I know that this is not easily attained But a thing so sweet and profitable to your selves and so useful to the good of others and so much tending to the honour of God should be laboured after with all your diligence and then you may expect Gods blessing on your labours Read to this use the fourth part of my Saints Rest. CHAP.
XXX Directions for the Sick THough the chief part of our preparation for Death be in the time of Health and it is a work for which the longest life is not too long yet because the folly of unconverted sinners is so great as to forget what they were born for till they see Death at hand and because there is a special preparation necessary for the best I shall here lay down some Directions for the sick And I shall reduce them to these four heads 1. What must be done to make Death safe to us that it may be our passage to Heaven and not to Hell 2. What must be done to make sickness profitable to us 3. What must be done to make Death comfortable to us that we may Dye in Peace and Ioy 4. What must be done to make our Sickness Profitable to others about us Tit. 1. Directions for a safe Death to secure our Salvation THe Directions of this sort are especially necessary to the unconverted impenitent sinner yet needful also to the Godly themselves and therefore I shall distinctly speak to both 1. Directions for an uncoverted sinner in his sickness It is a very dreadful case to be found by sickness in an unconverted state There is so Great a work to be done and so little time to do it in and soul and body so unfit and undisposed for it and the misery so great even everlasting torment that will follow so certainly and so quickly if it be undone that one would think it should overwhelm the understanding and heart of any man with astonishment and horrour to foresee such a condition in the time of his health much more to find himself in it in his sickness And though one would think that the near approach of Death and the nearness of another world should be unresistibly powerful to convert a sinner so that few or none shold Die unconverted however they lived yet Scripture and sad experience declare the contrary that most men Die as well as live in an unsanctified and miserable state For 1. A life of sin doth usually settle a man in Ignorance or Unbelief or both so that sickness findeth him in such a dungeon of Darkness that he is but lost and confounded in his fears and knoweth not whither he is going nor what he hath to do 2. And also sin wofully Hardeneth the Heart and the long resisted spirit of God forsaketh them and giveth them over to themselves in sickness who would not be ruled and sanctified by him in their health And such remain like blocks or beasts even to the last 3. And the Nature of sickness and approaching death doth tend more to affright than to renew the soul and rather to breed fear and trouble than Love And though Grief and fear be good preparatives and helps yet it is the Love of God and Holiness in which the souls Regeneration and Renovation doth consist and there is no more Holiness than there is Love and Willingness And many a one that is affrighted into strong Repentings and cryes and prayers and promises and seem to themselves and others to be Converted do yet either Die in their sins and misery or return to their unholy lives when they recover being utter strangers to that true Repentance which reneweth the heart as sad experience doth too often testifie 4. And many poor sinners finding that they have so short a time do end it in meer amazement and terrour not knowing how to compose their thoughts to examine their hearts and lives nor to exercise faith in Christ nor to follow any Directions that are given them but lye in trembling and astonishment wholly taken up with the fears of Death much worse than a beast that is going to be butchered 5. And the very pains of the body do so divert or hinder the thoughts of many that they can scarce mind any spiritual things with such a composedness as is necessary to so great a work 6. And the greatest number being partly confounded in ignorance and partly withheld by backwardness and undisposedness and partly disheartned by thinking it impossible to become new-creatures and get a regenerate heavenly heart on such a sudden do force themselves to hope that they shall be saved without it and that though they are sinners yet that kind of Repentance which they have will serve the turn and be accepted and God will be more merciful than to damn them And this false Hope they think they are necessitated to take up For there is but two other wayes to be taken The one is utterly to Despair and both Scripture and Reason and Nature it self are against that The other way is to be truly converted and won to the Love of God and Heaven by a lively faith in Iesus Christ And they have no such faith and to this they are strange and undisposed and think it impossible to be done And if they must have no Hopes but upon such terms as these they think they shall have none at all Or else if they hear that there is no other Hope and that none but the holy can be saved they will force themselves to hope that they have all this and that they are truly converted and become new creatures and do Love God and holiness above all not because indeed it is so but because they would have it so for fear of being damned And instead of finding that they they are void of faith and Love and Holiness and labouring to get a renewed soul they think it a nearer way to make themselves believe that it is so already And thus in their presumption self-deceiving and false hopes they linger out that little time that is left them to be converted in till death open their eyes and hell do undeceive them 7. And the same Devil and wicked men his instruments that kept them in health from true Repentance will be as diligent to keep them from it in their sickness and will be loth to lose all at the last cast which they had been winning all the time before And if the Devil can but keep them in his power till sickness come and take them up with pain and fear he will hope to keep them a few dayes longer till he have finished that which he had begun and carryed on so far And if there be here and there one that will be held no longer by false hopes and presumption he will at last think to take them off by desperation and make them believe that there is no remedy § 4. And indeed it is a thing so difficult and unlikely to convert a sinner in all his pain and weakness at the last that even the Godly friends of such do many times even let them alone as thinking that there is little or no hope But this is a very sinful course As long as there is life there is some hope And as long as there is hope we must use the means A Physicion will try the best Remedies
and ye fed me c. Heb. 5. 9. He is the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him Matth. 7. 24 25. whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them I will liken him to a wise man that built his house upon a rock Rev. 22. Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in by the gate into the City for without are dogs c. Thus must you rejoyce in the Cross of our Lord Iesus Christ not only as he was Crucified on it for you but also as you are crucified by it to the world and the world to you Gal. 6. 14. He that as a Benefactor will give you that Glory which you could never deserve of him on terms of commutative Justice for so no Creature and deserve any thing of God will yet as a Righteous Governour and Judge deliver it you only on the terms of his Paternal governing-distributive justice and all shall receive according to what they have done in the body And therefore you may take comfort in that Evangelical Righteousness which consisteth in your fulfilling the conditions of the new Covenant though you have no Legal-Righteousness which consisteth in innocency or freedom from the Curse of the Law but only in the Merits and Sacrifice of Christ. If you are accused as being Impenitent Unbelievers or Hypocrites Christs Righteousness will not Justifie you from that accusation but only your Repentance faith and sincerity wrought in you by the spirit of Christ But if you can but shew the evidence of this Evangelical Righteousness Christ then will justifie you against all the other accusations of guilt that can be charged on you Of which more anon Seeing therefore the spirit hath given you these Evidences to difference you from the wretched world and prove your title to eternal life if you over look these you resist your Comforter and can see no other ground of Comfort than every graceless hypocrite may see Imitate holy Paul 2 Cor. 1. 12. For our rejoycing is this the testimony of our Conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not in fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God we have had our conversation in the world 2 Tim. 4. 7 8. I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but to all them also that love his appearing To look back and see that in sincerity you have gone the way to heaven is a just and necessary ground of assurance that you shall attain it If you say But I have been a grievous sinner I answer so was Paul that yet rejoyced after in this evidence Are not those sins repented of and pardoned If you say But I cannot look back upon a holy life with comfort it hath been so blotted and uneven I answer Hath it not been sincere though it was imperfect Did you not first seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness Matth. 6. 33. If you say My whole life hath been ungodly till now at last that God hath humbled me I answer It is not the Length of time but the sincerity of your hearts and service that is your evidence If you came in at the last hour if now you are faithfully devoted to God you may look with comfort on this change at last though you must look with Repentance on your sinful lives § 10. Direct 10. When you see any of this evidence of your interest in Christ appeal to him to Direct 10. acquit you from all the sin that can be charged on you For all that believe in him are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus that walk not after the flesh but after the spirit Rom. 8. 1. Whatever sin a penitent believer hath committed he is not chargeable with it Christ hath undertaken to answer for it and justifie him from it and therefore look not on it with terrour but with penitent shame Isa. 53. 10 11 12 c. and believing-thankfulness as that which shall tend to the honour of the Redeemer and not to the condemation of the sinner He hath born our transgressions and we are healed by his stripes § 11. Direct 11. Look back upon all the Mercies of your lives and think whence they came and Direct 11. what they signifie Love tokens are to draw your hearts to him that sent them These are dropt from Heaven to entice you thither If God have been so good to you on earth what will he be in Glory If he so blessed you in this Wilderness what will he do in the land of promise It greatly emboldeneth my soul to go to that God that hath so tenderly loved me and so graciously preserved me and so much abounded in all sorts of mercies to me through all my life Surely he is Good that so delighteth to do good And his presence must be sweet when his distant mercies have been so sweet What Love shall I enjoy when perfection hath fitted me for his Love who have tasted of so much in this state of sin and imperfection The sense of mercy will banish the fears and mis-givings of the heart § 12. Direct 12. Remember if you have attained to a declining age what a competent time Direct 12. you have had already in the world If you are grieved that you are mortal you might on that account have grieved all your dayes But if it be only that you die so soon if you have lived well you have lived long When I think how many years of mercy I have had since I was near to death and since many younger than I are gone and when I think what abundance of mercy I have had in all that time ingenuity forbiddeth me to grudge at the season of my death and maketh me almost ashamed to ask for longer life How long would you stay before you would be willing to come to God If he desired our company no more than we do his and desired our happiness in Heaven no more than we desire it our selves we should linger here as Lot in Sodom Must we be snatcht away against our wills and carryed by force to our Fathers presence § 13. Direct 13. Remember that all mankind is mortal and you are to go no other way than all that Direct 13. ever came into the world have gone before you except Henoch and Elias Yea the poor bruit creatures must die at your pleasure to satisfie your hunger or delight Beasts and birds and fishes even many to make one meel must die for you And why then should you shrink at the entrance of such a trodden path which leadeth you not to hell as it doth the wicked nor meerly
grace and hopes which he hath given you through Christ I know that a pained languishing body is undisposed to express the comforts of the soul But yet as long as the soul is the Commander they may be expressed in some good measure though not with such vivacity and alacrity as in health Behave your selves before all as those that are going to dwell with Christ If you shew them that you take Heaven for a real felicity it will do much to draw them to do so too Shew them the difference between the death of the righteous and of the wicked and that may so draw them to desire to dye the death of the Righteous that it may draw them also to resolve to live their lives How many souls might it win to God if they saw in his dying servants such confidence and joy as beseemeth men that are entering into a world of joy and peace and blessedness If we went out of the body as from a Prison into liberty and from a tedious journey to our desired home it would invite sinners to seek after the same felicity and be a powerful Sermon to convert the inconsiderate § 4. Direct 3. Now tell poor sinners of the vanity of the world and of all its glory wealth and pleasure Direct 3. and of the mischief and deceitfulness of sin Say to them O Sirs you may see in me what the world is worth If you had all the wealth and pleasure that you desire thus it would turn you off and forsake you in the end It will ease no pain It will bring no peace to a troubled soul It will not lengthen your lives an hour It will not save you from the wrath of God It maketh your death the sadder because you must be taken from it Your account will be the more dreadfull O Love not such a vain deceitful world Sell not your souls for so poor a price Forsake it before you are forsaken by it O make not light of any sin Though the wanton flesh would have you take it for a harmless thing you cannot imagine when the pleasure is gone how sharp a sting is left behind Sin will be then no jeasting matter when your souls are going hence into the dreadful presence of the Most Holy God § 5. Direct 4. Now tell those about you of the Excellency and Necessity of the Love of God of Heaven Direct 4. of Christ and of a holy life Though these may be made light of at a distance yet a soul that is drawing near them will be more awakened to understand their worth say to them O friends I find now more than ever I did before that it is only God that is the end and happiness of souls Nothing but his favour through Iesus Christ can comfort and content a dying man And none but Christ can reconcile us to God and answer for our sins and make us acceptable And no way but that of faith and holiness will end in happiness Opinions and customary forms in Religion will not serve the turn To be of this or that Party or Church or Communion will not save you It is only the soul that is justified by Christ and sanctified by his Spirit and brought up to the Love of God and holiness that shall be saved What ever Opinion or Church you are of without Holiness you shall never see God to your comfort as without faith it is impossible to please him Heb. 12. 14. 11. 6. Rom. 8. 6 7 8 9. O now what a miserable case were I in if I had all the wealth and honour in the world and had not the favour of God and a Christ to purchase it and his Spirit to witness it and prepare me for a better life Now I see the difference between spending time in Holiness and in sin between a godly and a worldly fleshly careless life Now I would not for a thousand worlds that I had spent my life in sensuality and ungodliness and continued a stranger to the life of faith Now if I had a world I would give it to be more holy O Sirs believe it when you come to dye sin will be then sin indeed and Christ and Grace will be better than riches and to dye in an unregenerate unsanctified state will be a greater misery than any heart can now conceive § 6. Direct 5. Endeavour also to make men know the difference between the godly and the wicked Direct 5. Tell them I nâw see who maketh the wisest choice O happy men that choose the joyes which have no end and lay up their treasure in Heaven where rust and moths do not corrupt and thieves do not break through and steal and labour for the food that never perisheth Matth. 6. 19 20. John 6. 27. O foolish sinners that for an inch of fleshly filthy pleasure do lose everlasting Rest and joy What shall it profit them that win all the world and lose their souls § 7. Direct 6. Labour also to convince men of the pretiousness of Time and the folly of putting off Direct 6. Repentance and a holy life till the last Say to them O friends it is hard for you in the time of health and prosperity to judge of Time according to its worth But when Time is gone or near an end how pretious doth it then appear Now if I had all the Time again which ever I spent in unnecessary sleep or sports or curiosities or idleness or any needless thing how highly should I value it and spend it in another manner than I have done Of all my life that is past and gone I have no comfort now in the remembrance of one hour but what was spent in obedience to God O take Time to make sure of your salvation before it s gone and you are left under the tormenting feeling of your loss § 8. Direct 7. Labour also to make them understand the sinfulness of sloth and of loytering in the Direct 7. matters of God and their salvation and stir them up to do it with all their might Say to them I have often heard ungodly people deride or blame the diligence and zeal and strictness of the godly But if they saw and felt what I see and feel they could not do it Can a man that is going into another world imagine that any thing is so worthy of his greatest zeal and labour as his God and his salvation Or blame men for being loth to burn in Hell Or for taking more pains for their souls than for their bodies O friends let fools talk what they will in their sleep and frenzy as you love your souls do not think any care or cost or pains too great for your salvation If they think not their labour too good for this world do not you think yours too good for a better world Let them now say what they will when they come to dye there is none of them all that is not quite forsaken of
been tempted to But you are sure that Heaven is better than Earth and that it is far better for them to be with Christ. 6. You allwayes knew that your friends must die To grieve that they were mortal is but to grieve that they were but men 7. If their mortality or death be grievous to you you should rejoice that they are arrived at the state of Immortality where they must Live indeed and die no more 8. Remember how quickly you must be with them again The expectation of living long your selves is the cause of your excessive grief for the death of friends If you lookt your selves to die to morrow or within a few weeks you would lâss grieve that your friends are gone before you 9. Remember that the world is not for one Generation only Others must have our places when we are gone God will be served by successive Generations and not only by one 10. If you are Christians indeed it is the highest of all your Desires and Hopes to be in Heaven And will you so grieve that your friends are gone thither where you most Desire and Hope to be § 19. Obj. All this is reason if my friend were gone to Heaven But he dyed impenitently and Object how should I be comforted for a soul that I have cause to think is damned Answ. Their misery must be your grief But not such a grief as shall deprive you of your greater Answ. Joyes or disable you for your greater duties 1. God is fitter than you to judge of the measures Helps to moderate our sorrow for the dâmned of his mercy and his judgements and you must neither pretend to be more merciful than he nor to reprehend his Justice 2. All the works of God are Good and all that is Good is amiable Though the misery of the creature be Bad to it yet the works of Justice declare the Wisdom and Holiness of God and the perfecter we are the more they will be amiable to us For 3 God himself and Christ who is the merciful Saviour of the World approve of the damnation of the finally ungodly 4. And the Saints and Angels in Heaven do know more of the misery of the souls in Hell than we do And yet it abateth not their Joyes And the perfecter any is the more he is like-minded unto God 5. How glad and thankful should you be to think that God hath delivered your selves from those eternal flâmes The misery of others should excite your Thankfulness 6. And should not the Joyes of all the Saints and Angels be your Ioy as well as the sufferings of the wicked be your sorrows But above all the thoughts of the Blessedness and Glory of God himself should over-top all the concernments of the creature with you If you will mourn more for the Thieves and Murderers that are hanged than you will rejoice in the Justice prosperity and honour of the King and the wellfare of all his faithful subjects you behave not your selves as faithful subjects 7. Shortly you hope to come to Heaven Mourn now for the damned as you shall do then or at least let not the difference be too great when that and not this is your perfect state A Form of Exhortation to the Ungodly in their Sickness or those that we fear are such DEar Friend The God that must dispose of us and all things doth threaten by this sickness to call away your soul and put an end to the time of your pilgrimage and therefore your friends that Love and pity you must not now be silent if they can speak any thing for your preparation and salvation because it must be Now or Never When a few days are past they must never have any such opportunity more If now we prevail not with you you are likely to be quickly out of hearing and past our advice and help for ever And because I know your weakness bids me be but short and your memory is not to be burdened with too much and yet your Necessity must not be neglected I shall reduce all that I have to say to you to these four heads 1. Of the change which you seem near to and the world which you are going to 2. Of the Preparation that must be made by all that will be saved and who they be that the Gospel doth Iustifie or Condemn 3. I would fain help you to understand which of these conditions you are in and what will become of your soul if it thus goeth hence And 4. If your case be bad I would direct you how you may come out of it and what is yet to be done while there remaineth any time and hope And I pray you set your heart to what I say for I will speak nothing but the certain truth of God revealed to the world by his son and spirit expressed in the Scripture and believed by all the Church of Christ. I. God knoweth the change is great which you are near You are leaving this world where you have spent the dayes of your preparation for eternity and leaving this flesh to corrupt and turn to common earth and must here converse with man no more You are going now to see that world which the Gospel told you of and you have often heard of but neither you nor we did ever see Before your friends have laid your body in the grave your soul must enter into its endless state and at the Resurrection your Body be joyned with it Either Heaven or Hell must be your lot for ever If it be Heaven you will there find a world of Light and Love and Peace A world of Angels and glorified souls who are all made perfect in Knowledge and Holiness living in the perfect flames of Love to their Glorious Creator Redeemer and Regenerater And with them you will be thus perfected your self your soul will see the Glory of God and be rapt up in his Love and filled with his Joyes and employed triumphantly in his Maâ 13. 2 Thes 1. 6 7 8 9 10 11. praises and this for ever If Hell should be your portion you will there be thrust away as a hated thing from the face of God and there you will find a world of Devils and unholy damned miserable souls among whom you must dwell in the flames of the wrath of God and the horrours of your own Conscience remembring with anguish the mercy which you once rejected and the warnings and time which once you lost and at the Resurrection your Soul and Body must be reunited and live there in torment and despair for ever I know these things are but half believed by the ângodly world while they profess to believe them And therefore they must feel that which they refuseâ to believe But God hath revealed it to us and we will believe our Maker You are now going to see the great difference between the end of Holiness and of sin between the Godly and the ungodly and to
know by your own experience thâse Joyes or Torments which the wicked will not know by faith And O what a preparation doth such a change require II. You are next to know what persons they are and how they differ who must abide for ever in these different states As we are the Children of Adam we are all corrupted our minds are carnal and set upon this world and savour nothing but the things of the flesh And the further we go in sin the worse we are being strangers to the Life of faith and to the Love of God and the Life to come taking the prosperity and pleasure of the flesh for the felicity which we most desire and seek The name of this state in Scripture is Carnal and ungodly and unholy because such men live in a meer flâshly nature or disposition for fleshly ends in a fleshly manner and are not at all Devoted to God and carryed up to Heavenly Desires and Delights but live chiefly for this life and not for the life to come And though they may take up some kind of Religion in a second place and upon the by for fear of being damned when they can keep the world no longer yet is it this world which they principally value love and seek and their Religion is subject to their worldly and fleshly interest and delights And though God hath provided and offered them a Saviour to teach them better and reclaim and sanctifie them by his word and spirit and forgive them if they will believe in him and return yet do they sottishly neglect this mercy or obstinately refuse it and continue their worldly fleshly lives till time be past and mercy hath done and there is no remedy These are the men that God will condemn and this is the true description of them And it will not stand with the Governing-Justice and Holiness and truth of God to save them But on the other side all those that God will save do heartily believe in Iesus Christ who is sent of God to be the Saviour of souls and he maketh them know by his word and spirit their grievous sin and misery in their state of corrupted nature and he humbleth them for it and bringeth them to true Repentance and maketh them loath themselves for their iniquities and seeing how they have cast away and undone themselves and are no better than the slaves of Satan and the heirs of hell they joyfully accept of the remedy that is offered them in Christ They heartily take him for their Saviour and King and give up themselves in Covenant to him to be justified and sanctified by him whereupon he pardoneth all their sin and further enlighteneth and sanctifieth them by his spirit He sheweth them by faith the infinite Love of God and the sure everlasting Holy Ioyes which they may have in Heaven with him and how blessed a life they may there obtain through his purchase and gift with all the blessed Saints and Angels He maketh them deliberately to compare this offer of Eternal Happiness with all the pleasures and seeming commodities of sin and all that this deceitful world can do for them And having considered of both they see that there is no comparison to be made and are ashamed that ever they were so mad as to prefer Earth before Heaven and an inch of Time before Eternity and a dream of pleasure before the Everlasting Ioyes and to love the pleasures of a transitory world above the presence and favour and Glory of God! And for the time to come they are firmly Resolved what to do Even to take Heaven for their only Happiness and there to lay up their Hopes and Treasure and to live to God as they have done to the flesh and to make sure of their salvation whatever become of their worldly interest And thus the spirit doth dwell and work in them and renew their Hearts and give them a hatred to every sin and a Love to every holy thing even to the holy word and worship and wayes and servants of the Lord and in a word he maketh them New Creatures and though they have still their sinful imperfections yet the bent of their Hearts and Lives is Holy and Heavenly and they long to be perfect and are labouring after it and seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and live above the world and flesh And shortly Christ will make them perfect and Iustifie them in the day of their judgement and give them the Glorious end of all their faith obedience and patience These are the persons and none but these among us that have the use of Reason that shall live with God III. Now this being the infallible truth of the Gospel and this being the true difference between the Righteous and the wicked the Iustified and Condemned souls O how neerly doth it now concern you to try which of these is your own condition Certainly it may be known For God will judge the world in righteousness by the same Law or Covenant by which he Governeth them Know but whom the Law of Christ condemneth or justifieth and you may soon know whom the Judge will condemn and justifie For he will proceed according to this Law If you should die in an unrenewed state in your sins your Hopes of Heaven would all die with you And if you should think never so well of your self till death and pretend never so confidently to trust on Christ and the Mercy of God one hour will convince Mat. 18. 3. Heb. 12. 14. Joh. 3. 3 5 6. you to your everlasting woe that Gods mercy and Christs merits did never bring to Heaven an unsanctified soul. Self flattery is good for nothing but to keep you from Repenting till time be past and to quiet you in Satans snares till there be no remedy Therefore presently as you love your soul examine your self and try which of these is the condition that you are in and accordingly judge you self before God judge you May you not know if you will whether you have most minded Earth or Heaven and which you have preferred and sought with the highest esteem and Resolution and whether your Worldly or Heavenly interest have born sway and which of them it is that gave place unto the other Cannot a man tell if he will what it is which his very soul hath practically taken for his chief concernment and what it is that haââ had most of his Love and Care and what hath been next his heart and which he hath preferred wheââhey came to the parting and one was set against the other Cannot you tell whether you have lived principally to the flesh for the prosperity of this world and the pleasures of sin or whether the spirit of Christ by his word hath enlightned you and shewed you your âin and misery and humbled you for it and shewed you the Glory of the life to come and the happiness of living in the Love of God and hereupon hath
Jer. 31. 34. Eph. 1. 7. Act. 5. 31. Eph. 5. 26. Rev. 1. 5. 2 Cor. 6. 16. Mal. 3. 17. Joh. 1. 12. 3. 16. Eph. 2. 14. Rom. 8. 1 17. Luk. 4. 18. Rom. 5. 1 5. Luk. 1. 74. Joh. 10. 28. Luk. 23. 43. 1 Cor. 15. 8. Tit. 3. 3 4. Act. 4. 4 5 6. 1 Tim. 1. 13 14 15 16. A Form of Exhortation to the Godly in their Sickness DEar Friend Though Nature teacheth us to have compassion on your flesh which lyeth in pain yet Faith teacheth us to see the nearness of your Happiness and to Rejoyce with you in hope of your endless Joyes which seem to be at hand We must Rejoyce with you as your friends that Love you and therefore are partakers of your welfare And we must Rejoyce with you as your fellow-travellers and fellow-souldiers that are going along with you to the same felicity and if we are left behind for a little while yet hope ere long to overtake you and never to be separated from you more This is the day for which Christ hath been so long preparing you And which you have so long foreseen and have been so long preparing for your self This is the day which you thought on in all your prayers and patience in all your labours and sufferings your self-denyal and mortification since God did bring you to your self and him Now you are going to see the things which you have believed and to possess the things which you have sought and hoped for To see the final difference between the Righteous and the wicked between a Holy and a worldly life between the vessels of mercy and of wrath Your Time is hasting to an end and Endless Blessedness must succeed it O now what a mercy is it to have a Christ That you are not to encounter an unconquered Death nor to go to God without a Mediator But that Death is by Christ disarmed of its sting and that you may boldly resign your soul into the hands of your Redeemer and commend it to him as a member of himself Now what a case had your soul been in if you had no Intercessor If you had been to answer for your sins your self only and had not a Saviour to be your Advocate and answer for you Now you may better perceive than ever you have done what God did for you when he opened your eyes and humbled and changed and renewed your heart and how great a mercy it is to be a penitent Believer You may now see more fully than ever heretofore what God intended for you when he converted you When he forgave all your sins and justified you by his Grace and adopted you for his child and an heir of life and sealed you with his Spirit and sanctified and separated you to himself Now what a case were you in if you were yet in your sins and in the bondage of Satan and had not this evidence of your title to eternal life If you had your heart now to soften and to humble and to convert and your faith and justification all to seek and all your preparations for Heaven to make If you had all this to do with a pained body and a distracted mind in so short a time with God and Eternity and Death before you ready with terror to overwhelm your souls If now you were to seek for an interest in Christ and for the pardon of all your sins and your peace with God were yet to make If you had all your life past to look back upon as consumed in sin and when Time is at an end must cry out of all that is past as lost This is the case that God in justice might have left you to But what an unspeakable mercy is it that you have already been Reconciled to that God that you are going to and that the sins which now would have been your terror are all forgiven through the blood of Christ That you can look back upon your Time since the day of your Conversion as spent in faithful Devotedness to God and in a believing preparation for your endless life and in godly sincerity notwithstanding your manifold sinful imperfections which Christ hath undertaken to answer for himself Though you have nothing of your own to boast of and no works that will justifie you according to the Law at the Barr of God but you need a Saviour and a Pardon for the failings even of the best that ever you did Yet must you with thankfulness remember that Grace which hath begun eternal life within you and prepared and sealed you to the full possession of it For all the mercy that is in God and for all the Glory that is in Heaven and for all the Merits and satisfaction of Christ and for all the fulness and freeness of the Gal. 4. 4 6. Rom. 8. 16 17. Rom. 8. 9. 1 Pet. 3. 7. Promise if God had not given you a believing penitent heart and sanctified and sealed you by the Spirit of his Son all this could have afforded you little comfort but would have aggravated your misery as it did your sin Seeing then that many of the wicked would be glad to dye the death of the Righteous and when it is too late they would all be glad if their latter end might be like his how glad should you be that God by such a life hath prepared you for such an end And though a humble soul hath still an eye upon its own unworthiness and Satan is ready to aggravate our Rom. 5. 2. 17. Rom. 5. 20 21. sins in order to our discouragement and fear yet must you remember what an honourable victory grace hath had over them And look on them as Christ did as the advantage of his grace that where sin abounded there grace hath superabounded You have had something to humble you and to Rom. 8. 35 36. Ephes. 1. 6 7. 2. 5 7 8 Tit. 3. 3 5 6 7. Rom. 3. 24. 2 Cor. 12. 9. Luke 15. 4 6 24. Matth. 18. 11. 2 Pet. 3. 9. shew you that you were a child of Adam And you have had something for grace to contend with and to conquer and for Christ to pardon Bless him through whom you have had the victory Had you not deserved Hell Christ could not have saved you from a deserved Hell and the Song of the Lamb would not have been so sweet to you in the everlasting remembrance and experience of his grace You have sinned as a Man and he hath pardoned as God You have been weak and nothing but his grace hath been sufficient for you and by his strength you can do all things He hath as dear a Love to you now in his exaltation as he had upon the Cross when he was bleeding for your sins And will he suffer a chosen soul to perish for whom he hath paid so dear a price A Christ in Heaven John 3. 15 16. Matth. 18. 14. Luke 21. 18. John 18. 9.
sacrilegum est quodcunque humano furore instituitur ut dispositio Divina violetuâ Cyprian Eccles. 5. 1 2. âev 10. 1 2 3. Rom. 10. 2 3. § 21. Direct 10. See that you perform every part of Worship to the proper end to which it is appointed Direct 10. both as to the ultimate remote and nearest end The End is essential to these Relative duties If you intend not the right end you make another thing of it As the Preaching of a Sermon to edifie 1 Thes. 2. 4. Col. 1 10. Joh. 8. 29. 1 Cor. 7. 32. Heb. 11. 6. 1 Joh. 3. 22. the Church or putting up a prayer to procure Gods blessings is not the same thing as a Stage-players prophane repeating the same words in scorn of Godliness or an Hypocrites using them for commodity or applause The Ultimate end of all worship and all moral actions is the same even the Pleasing and Glorifying God 1 Cor. 10. 31. 2 Tim. 2. 4. Besides which every part of Worship hath its proper nearest end These must not only be distinctly known but actually intended It is God in Christ that a holy worshipper thirsteth after and seeketh for in every part of worship either to know more of God and of his will and blessings or to have some more Communion with him or some further grace communicated from him to receive his pardoning or cleansing or quickening or confirming Psal. 42. Psal. 84. or comforting or exalting grace to be honoured or delighted in his holy service or to make known his grace and Glory for the good of others and the honour of his name Here it is that God proclaimeth his name as Exod. 34. 6. The ordinances of Gods Worship are like the Tree in which Zacheus climbed up being of himself too low to have a sight of Christ. Here we come to learn the will of God for our salvation and must enter the Assembly with such resolutions as Cornelius and his Company met Act. 10. 33. We are all here met to hear all things commanded thee of God and as Act. 2. 37. and Act. 16. 30. to learn what we must do to be saved Hither we come for that holy light which may shew us our sin and shew us the grace which we have received and shew us the unspeakable love of God till we are humbled for sin and lifted up by faith in Christ and can with Thomas as it were put our fingers into his wounds and say in assurance My Lord and my God and as Psal. 48. 14. This God is our God for ever and ever he will be our guide even unto death Here we do as it were with Mary sit at the feet of Jesus to hear his word Luk. 10. 39. that fire from Heaven may come down upon our hearts and we may say Did not our hearts burn within us while he spake to us and while he opened to us the Scriptures Luk. 24. 32. Here we cry to him as the blind man Lord that I may Mark 10 51. receive my sight We cry here to the Watchmen Cant. 3. 3. saw ye him whom my soul loveth Here we are in his banqueting house under the banner of his Love Cant. 2. 4. We have here the sealing and quickenings of his spirit the mortification of our sin the increase of grace and a prospect into life eternal and a foresight of the endless happiness there See then that you come to the Worship of God with these intentions and expectations that if God or Conscience call to you as God did sometime to Elias what dost thou here you may truly answer I came to seek the Lord my God and to learn his will that I might do it And that your sweet delights may make you say Psal. 84. 4. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house they will be still praising thee If thou come to the Worship of God in meer custome or to make thy carnal heart believe that God will forgive thee because thou so far servest him or to quiet thy Conscience with the doing of a formal task of duty or to be seen of men or that thou maist not be thought ungodly if these be thy ends thou wilâ speed accordingly A Holy soul cannot live upon the air of mans applause nor upon the shell of Ordinances without God who is the kernel and the life of all It is the Love of God that brings them thither and it is Love that they are exercising there and the end of Love even the nearer approach of the soul to God which they desire and intend Be sure then that these be the true and real intentions of thy heart § 22. Quest. But how shall I know whether indeed it be God himself that I am seeking and that I How to know that we have right ends in Worship perform his worship to the appointed ends Answ. In so great a business it is a shame to be unacquainted with your own Intentions If you take heed what you do and look after your hearts you may know what you come for and what is your business there But more particularly you may discern it by these marks 1. He that hath right ends and seeketh God will labour to suit all his duties to those ends and will like that best which is best suited to them He will strive so to preach and hear and pray not as tends most to preferment or applause but as âendeth most to please and honour God and to attain his grace And he will love that Sermon or that prayer best that is best fitted to bring up his soul to God and not that which tickleth a carnal ear Mark what you fit the means to and you may perceive what is your end 2. If it be God himself that you seek after in his Worship you will not be satisfied without God It is not the doing of the task that will satisfie you nor yet the greatest praise of men no not of the most Godly men But so far as you have attained your end in the cleansing or quickening or strengthening of the soul or getting somewhat nearer God or pleasing or honouring him so far only you will be contented 3. If God be your end you will be faithful in the use of that more private and spiritual worship where God is to be found though no humane applause be there to be attained 4. And you will love still the same substantial necessary truth and duty which is to your souls as bread and drink is to your bodies when those that have carnal ends will be looking after variety and change and will be weary of the necessary bread of life By observing these things you may discern what are your ends in Worship § 23. And here I must not let go this necessary Direction till I have driven on the Reader with some more importunity to the serious practice of it It is lamentable to see how many turn the Worship of God into vile hypocrisie
many Christian Nations that it is lawful to break their Oathes and promises to their lawful Lords and Rulers or their Vows to God and to undertake by defending or owning this to justifie all those Nations that shall be guilty of this Perjury and perfidiousness O what a horrid crime is this what a shame even unto humane nature and how great a wrong to the Christian name § 10. Direct 9. Understand and remember these following Rules to acquaint you how fâr a vow is Direct 9. obligatory which I shall give you for the most part out of Dr. Sanderson because his decisions of these cases are now of best esteem § 11. Rule 1. The General Rule laid down Numb 30. 2 3. doth make a Vow as such to be obligatory Rule 1. though the party should have a secret equivocation or intent that though he speak the words to deceive another yet he will not oblige himself Such a reserve not to oblige himself hindereth not the obligation but proveth him a perfidious hypocrite D. Sanders pag. 23. Iuramentum omne ex suâ naturâ est obligatorium Ita ut si quis juret non intendens se obligare nihilominus tamen suscipiendo juramentum ipso facto obligetur that is If he so far understand what he doth as that his words may bear the definition of an oath or Vow Otherwise if he speak the words of an Oath in a strange language thinking they signifie something else or if he spake in his sleep or deliration or distraction it is no Oath and so not obligatory § 12. Rule 2. Those conditions are to be taken as intended in all Oathes whether exprest or no Ride 2. which the very nature of the thing doth necessarily imply unless any be so bruitish as to express the See Dr. Sanders p. 47. 197. contrary And these are all reducible to two heads 1. A natural and 2. A moral Impossibility 1. Whoever sweareth to do any thing or give any thing is supposed to mean If I live and if I be not disabled in my body faculties estate If God make it not impossible to be c. For no man can be supposed to mean I will do it whether God will or not and whether I live or not and whether I be able or not 2. Whoever Voweth or sweareth to do any thing must be understood to mean it If no change of Providence make it a sin or if I find not contrary to my present supposition that God forbiddeth it For no man that is a Christian is to be supposed to mean when he Voweth I will do this though God forbid it or though it prove to be a sin especially when men therefore Vow it because they take it to be a duty Now as that which is sinful is morally Impossible so there are divers ways by which a thing may appear or become sinful to us 1. When we find it forbidden directly in the Word of God which at first we understood not 2. When the change of things doth make that a sin which before was a duty of which may be given an hundred instances As when the change of a mans estate of his opportunities of his Liberty of his parts and abilities of objects of customes of the Laws of Civil Governours doth change the very matter of his duty Quest. § 13. Quest. But will every change disoblige us If not what change must it be seeing Casuists Answ. use to put it as a condition in general Rebus sic stantibus Answ. No it is not every change of Cicero dâ Iâg lib. 1. Proveth that Right is founded in the Laâ of Nature mâre than in mans Laws else saith âe men may make evil good and good evil and make Adâlââry Perjurâ â just b ãâ¦ã g a Law for them things that disobligeth us from the bonds of a Vow For then Vows were of no considerable signification But 1. If the very Matter that was Vowed or about which the Vow was do cease Cessante materiâ cessat obligatio As if I promise to teach a pupil I am disobliged when he is dead If I promise to pay so much money in Gold and the King should âorbid Gold and change his coyne I am not obliged to it 2. Cessante termino vel correlato cessat obligatio If the party dye to whom I am bound my personal obligation ceaseth And so the conjugal bond ceaseth at death and civil bonds by civil death 3. Cessante fine cessat obligatio If the use and end wholly cease my obligation which was only to that use and end ceaseth As if a Physicion promise to give Physick for nothing for the cure of the Plague to all the poor of the City when the Plague ceaseth his end and so his obligation ceaseth 4. Cessante personâ naturali relaââ cessat obligatio personalis When the natural person dyeth the obligation ceaseth I cannot be âbliged to do that when I am dead which is proper to the living The subject of the obligation ceasing the Accidents must cease 5. Cessante relatione vel personâ civili cessat obligatio talis quâ tâlis The obligation which lay on a person in any Relation meerly as such doth cease when that Relation ceaseth A King is not bound to Govern or protect his subjects if they trayterously depose him or if he cast them off and take anothor Kingdom as when H. 3. of France left the Kingdom of Pâland nor are subjects bound to Allegiance and obedience to him that is not indeed their King A Judge or Justice or Constable or Tutor is no longer bound by his oath to do the offices of these Relations than he continueth in the Relation A divorced Wife is not bound by her conjugal vow to her Husband as before nor masters and servants when their relations cease nor a Souldier to his General by his military Sacrament when the Army is disbanded or he is cashiered or dismist Rule 3. § 14. Rule 3. No Vows or promises of our own can dissolve the obligation laid upon us by the Law of God For we have no co-ordinate much less superiour authority over our selves Our self-obligations are but for the furthering of our obedience Rule 4. § 15. Rule 4. Therefore no Vows can disoblige a man from any present duty nor justifie him in the committing of any sin Vows are to engage us to God and not against him If the matter which we vow be evil it is a sin to Vow it and a sin to do it upon pretence of a Vow Sin is no acceptable sacrifice to God § 16. Rule 5. If I vow that I will do some duty better I am not thereby disobliged from doing it at Rule 5. all when I am disabled from doing it better Suppose a Magistrate seeing much amiss in Church How often perjury hath ruined Christian Princes and States all History doth testifie The ruine of the Roman Empire by the Goths was
under pretence of Government Discipline and Zeal denyeth that Liberty and forbearance even to Hereticks and Offenders much more when to the faithful Ministers of Christ which humane frailty hath made necessary and Christ hath commanded his servants to grant Concluding Ubi solitudinem fecerant pacem appellabant as Tertull. Et his omnibus obtendi solet studium Divini nominis sed plerumque obtendi tantum Nam Deus dedignatur coacta servitia nec placere illi potest quod vi humana exprimitur Reipsa solent qui id faciunt non nomini divino sed suis honoribus suis commodis tranquillitati consulere quod scit ille qui mentes intrâspicit Atque ita sit ut lolium evellatur cum tritico innocemes cum nocentibus immo ut triticum saepe sumatur pro lâliâ Non enim tam bene agitur cum rebus humanis ut semper meliora pluribus aut validioribus placeant sed ut in grege taurus ita inter homines qui viribus est editior imbecilliorem coedit iidem saepe quae pati se querebantur mox in alios audent Lege caetera Again I intreat those that would escape the sin of Schism to read seriously the foresaid Treatises of Peacemakers especially Bishop Halls Peacemaker Bishop Ushers Sermon on Eph. 4. 3. and Mr. Ieremy Burroughs Irenicum to which I may add Mr. Stillin fleets Irenicum for the hot contenders about Church-Government though I believe all the substance of Church Order to be of Divine institution and Iac. Acontii Stratag Satanae And it must be carefully noted that one way by which Satan tempteth men into Church-Divisions is by an over-vehement zeal against Dividers and so he would draw the Rulers of the world under pretence of a zeal for Unity and Peace to raise persecutions against all that are guilty of any excess of scrupulosity about Church-communion or of any principles or practices which a little swerve from true Catholicism And so by the cruelty of their penalties silencing Ministers and vexing the people they much increase the divisions which they would heal For when Satan cannot do his work bare-faced and directly he useth to be the forwardest in seeming to do good and to take part with Christ and Truth and Godliness And then his way is to over-do He will be over-orthodox and over-gââdly and over-peaceable that hâ hug the truth and Church to death by his too hard embracements As in families and neighbourhoods some cross words must be passed over if we would have peace And he that for every provoking unpeaceable word of another will raise a storm shall be himself the most unpeaceable so is it in the Church He that cannot bear with the weaknesses of the younger sort of Christians who are too much inclined by their zeal against sin to dividing wayes but will presently let fly at them as Schismaticks and make them odious and excommunicate or punish them according to his wrath shall increase the zeal and the number of dividers and prove himself the greatest divider And by this violence and destroying zeal of Orthodox Rulers against the real faults and infirmities of some separating well meaning men a far greater number of Heterodox Rulers are encouraged to persecute the most learned sober and peaceable Ministers and the most godly and faithful of their Subjects who dare not conform to all their unrighteous Edicts and Ecclesiastical Laws in things forbidden by the Law of Christ And all this is done upon pretence of promoting Unity and Peace and suppressing Heresie and Schism And so persecution becometh the Devils Engine to keep out the Gospel and Godliness from the Infidel world and to keep them under in the Christian world Sed tamen sive illud Origânis de Redemptione futura diabolorum Error est ut ego sentio sive Haerâsâs ut putatur non solum reprimi non potuit multis animadversionibus Sacerdotum sed nequaquam tam late se pââuissât offundere nisi contentione crevisset inquit Posthumianus in Sulp. Severi Dialog 1. Sed non fuit animus ibi consiââere ubi recens fraternae cladis fervebat invidia Nam etsi fortasse vidâântur parere Epise pis debuisse non ob hanc tamen causam multitudinem tantam sub Christi confessione viventem praesertim ab Episcopis oportuisset affligi Id. ibid. Speaking of the Bishops provoking the Secular Power to afflict the Monks of Alexandria for defending Origene When the Emperour Constantius would by violence force the Orthodox to hold Communion with the Arrians he did but make the breach the wider Read Lucifer Calaritanus de non conveniendo cum Haereticis in Biblioth Patr. Tom. 9. p. 1045 c. The Emperour saith that the Orthodox were enemies to peace and unity and brotherly Love and that he was resolved to have unity and peace in his Dominions Therefore he imprisoned the Orthodox and banished them Propterea odis nos quia concilium vestrum malignantium execremur propterea in exilio sumus propterea in carcere necamur propterea nobis solis prohibetur conspectus idâirco reclusi in tenebras custodimur ingenti custodia hujus rei causa nullus ad nos visendos admittitur hominum quia videlicet noluerimus vobiscum impiis sacrilegis ullam scelerum vestrorum habere societatem Ibid. pag. 1050. which stirred up this Bishop in particular to go too far from free communion even with the penitent Arrians and heap up more Scriptures against that communion which the Emperour commanded than any had done before Nobis dicebas Pacem volo fieri in corde tuo manens adversarius religionis nostrae cogitabat per te facere nos idololatras c. p. 1051. Consilia vestra contra suam prolata Ecclesiam reprobat Deus Nec enim potest odire populum suum haereditatem suam amare vos filios pestilentiae vos persecutores servorum suorum Dixisti Facite pacem cum Episcopis sectae meae Arrianis estote in unum dicit Dei Spiritus Vias impiorum noli exequi neque aemuleris viam iniquorum c. Dulce quibusdam videtur quo tibi Regi in amicitias jungantur suscipiendo haeresin tuam sed amarius felle sensuri cum tecum torqueri in perpetuum caeperint in perpetua gehenna sentire qui tecum esse deligerunt tunc dicturi Vae nobis qui Constantium Imperatorem Deo praeposuerimus Abundance more he writeth to prove that the Emperour being a Heretick they must have no communion with him or his Bishops And when the Emperour complained hereupon that they wronged and dishonoured him whom they should honour the said Lucifer wrote his next book de non parcendo in Deum delinquentibus which beginneth Superatum te Imperator a Dei servis ex omni cum conspexisses parte dixisti pâssum te ac pâti a nobis contra monita sacrarum Scripturarum contumeliam dicis nos insolentes extitisse circa te quem honorari decuerit
Covenant of Grace When a man Receiveth the Lords Supper unworthily in scorn in drunkenness or impenitency much more without any right as Infidels he doth eat and drink damnation or judgement to himself and maketh his sin greater Therefore he that gets a Child Baptized unworthily and without right doth not therefore infallibly procure his salvation 7. Because the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 7. 14. Else were your Children unclean but now are they holy and the Scripture giveth this priviledge to the Children of the faithful above others whereas the contrary opinion levelleth them with the seed of Infidels and Heathens as if these had right to salvation by meer Baptism as well as the others 8. Because else it would be the greatest act of Charity in the world to send Souldiers to catch up all Heathens and Infidels Children and Baptize them which no Christians ever yet thought their duty Yea it would be too strong a temptation to them to kill them when they had done that they might be all undoubtedly saved Obj. But that were to do evil that good might come by it Answ. But God is not to be so dishonoured as to be supposed to make such Laws as shall forbid men the greatest good in the World and then to tempt them by the greatness of the benefit to take it to be no evil As if he said If Souldiers would go take up a million of Heathens Children and Baptize them it will put them into an undoubted state of salvation But yet I forbid them doing it And if they presently kill them lest they sin after they shall undoubtedly be saved but yet I forbid them doing it I need not aggravate this temptation to them that know the power of the Law of nature which is the Law of Love and good works and how God that is most Good is pleased in our doing good Though he tryed Abraham's obedience once as if he should have killed his Son yet he stopt him before the execution And doth he ordinarily exercise mens obedience by forbidding them to save the souls of others when it is easily in their power Especially when with the adult the greatest labour and powerfullest Preaching is frequently so frustrate that not one of many is converted by it 9. Because else God should deal with unaccountable disparity with Infants and the Adult in the same ordinance of Baptism It is certain that all Adult persons Baptised if they dyed immediately should not be saved Even none that had no right to the Covenant and to Baptism such as Infidels Heathens Impenitent persons Hypocrites that have not true Repentance and faith And why should Baptism save an Infant without title any more than the Adult without title I still suppose that some Infants have no title and that now I speak of them alone Obj. But the Church giveth them all right by Receiving them Answ. This is to be farther examined anon If you mean a particular Church perhaps they are Baptized into none such Baptism as such is a Reception only into the Universal Church as in Eunuchs case Act. 8. appeareth If you mean the Universal Church it may be but one single ignorant man in an Infidel Countrey that Baptizeth And he is not the Universal Church Yea perhaps is not a lawfully called Minister of that Church However this is but to say that Baptism giveth Right to Baptism For this Receiving is nothing but Baptizing But there must be a Right to this Reception if baptism be a distinguishing Ordinance and all the world have not right to it Christ saith Matth. 28. 19. Disciple me all Nations baptizing them They must be initially made Disciples first by Consent and then be Invested in the visible state of Christianity by Baptism 10. If the Children of Heathens have right to baptism and salvation thereby it is either 1. As they are men and all have right or 2. Because the parents give them right 3. Or because remote ancestors give them right 4. Or because the universal Church gives them right 5. Or because a particular Church giveth them right 6. Or because the Sponsors give them right 7. Or the Magistrate 8. Or the Baptizer But it is none of all these as shall anon be proved II. But as to the second question I answer 1. It will help us to understand the case the better if we prepare the way by opening the case of the Adult because in Scripture times they were the most famous subjects of Baptism And it is certain of such 1. That every one outwardly Baptized is not in a state of salvation That no hypocrite that is not a true penitent believer is in such a state 2. That every true penitent believer is before God in a state of salvation as soon as he is such And before the Church as soon as he is baptized 3. That we are not to use the word Baptism as a Physical term only but as a moral Theological term Because words as in Law physick c. are to be understood according to the art or science in which they are treated of And Baptism taken Theologically doth as Essentially include the Wills consent or Heart-Covenanting with God as Matrimony includeth marriage consent and as a man containeth the soul as well as the body And thus it is certain that all truly Baptized persons are in a state of salvation that is All that sincerely consent to the Baptismal Covenant when they profess consent by Baptism but not hypocrites 4. And in this sense all the Ancient Pastors of the Churches did concur that Baptism did wash away all sin and put the baptized into a present right to life eternal as he that examineth their Writings will perceive not the outward washing and words alone but when the inward and outward parts concur or when by true faith and repentance the Receiver hath right to the Covenant of God 5. In this sense it is no unfit language to imitate the Fathers and to say that the truly baptized are in a state of Justification adoption and salvation unless when mens misunderstanding maketh it unsaâe 6. The sober Papists themselves say the same thing and when they have said that even ex opere operato Baptism saveth they add that it is only the meet Receiver that is the penitent believer and no other of the adult So that hitherto there is no difference 2. Now let us by this try the case of Infants concerning which there are all these several opinions among Divines 1. Some think that all Infants baptized or not are saved from Hell and positive punishment but are not brought to Heaven as being not capable of such joyes 2. Some think that all Infants dying such are saved as others are by actual felicity in Heaven though in a lower degree Both these sorts suppose that Christs death saveth all that reject ãâ¦ã not and that Infants reject it not 3. Some think that all unbaptized Infants do suffer the poenam damni and are shut out
Deut. 29. 22. Eââd 12. 26. Jos. 4. 6. 22. 22. 24 25. and not only to the Countrey where he liveth Many things seem necessary for some present strait or work that we would do which in the next age may be of mischievous effects Especially in Ecclesiastical and Political professions Covenants and impositions we must look further than our present needs And many things seem necessary for a local narrow interest which those at a distance will otherwise esteem 17. He that will walk uprightly must be able to bear the displeasure of all the world when the interest of truth requireth it yea to be rejected of learned and good men themselves and account 1 Cor. 4. 3 4. John 5. 44. Luke 14. 26. Gal. 2. 13. 14. Acts 11. 2 3. mans favour no better than it is Not to despise it as it is a means to any good but to be quite above it as to his own interest Not that uprightness doth use to make a man despised by the upright but that it may bring him under their censure in some particulars which are not commonly received or understood to be of God 18. He must make it a great part of the work of his life to kill all those carnal desires which the Col. 3. 4 5. Rom. 6 1 c. 13. 12 13. 8. 13. sensual make it their work and felicity to please That Appetite sense and lust and self-will may not be the constant pervertârs of his life As a fool in a Dropsie studyeth to please his Thirst and a wise man to cure it 19. He must live a life of constant and skilful watchfulness apprehending himself in continual Matth. 24. 42. â5 1â Mat. 13. 37. 1 Tâess 5. 6. 1 Pet. 4. 7. 1 Cor. 1â 13. Matth. 6. 13. 26. 41. danger and knowing his particular Corruptions Temptations and Remedies He must have a tender conscience and keep as far as possible from temptation and take heed of unnecessary approaches or delightful thoughts of sin O what strong Resolutions what sound knowledge have the near-baits of seâsuality meat drink lust and pleasures overcome Never think your selves safe among neartemptations and opportunities of sinning 20. Live as those that are going to the grave Dye daily and look on this world as if you did look on it out of the world to which you go Let Faith as constantly behold the world unseen as Eccles. 7. 2 3 4 5 6. 2 Cor. 4. 16. 5. 1 7 8. Luke 12. 17 18 19 20. 16. 20 c. Matth. 25. 3 4 5 6 7 8. Acts 7. 56 60. your eye seeth this Death and Eternity make men wise We easily Confess and Repent of many things when we come to dye which no Counsels or Sermons could make us penitently confess before Death will answer a thousand objections and temptations and prove many vanities to be sin which you thought the Preacher did not prove Dying men are not drawn to drunkenness filthiness or time-wasting sports nor flattered into folly by sensual baits Nor do they then fear the face or threats of persecuters As it is from another world that we must fetch the Motives so also the Defânsative of an Upright life And O happy are they that faithfully practise these Rules of Uprightness THough it be my judgement that much more of the Doctrine of Politicks or Civil Government Among the Jews it was all one to be a Lawyer and a Divine but not to be a Lawyer and a Pâiest belongeth to Theology than those men understand who make Kings and Laws to be meer humane Creatures yet to deliver my Reader from the fear lest I should meddle with matters that belong not to my Calling and my Book from that reproach I shall over-pass all these points which else I should have treated of as useful to Practice in Governing and Obeying 1. Of Man as sociable and of Communities and Societies and the Reason of them of their Original and the Obligation on the members 2. Of a City and of Civility 3. Of a Republick in general 1. Of its Institution 2. Of its Constitution and of its parts 3. Of its Species 4. Of the difference between it 1. And a Community in general 2. A Family 3. A Village 4. A City 5. A Church 6. An accidental Meeting 5. Of its Administration 6. Of the Relation between Gods Government and Mans and Gods Laws and Mans and of their difference and between Mans Judging and Gods Judging Nay I will not only gratifie you by passing over this and much more in the Theory but also as to the Practical part I shall pass over 1. The Directions for Supream Governours 2. And for inferiour Magistrates towards God and their Superiours and the people 3. And the Determination of the Question How far Magistrates have to do in matters of Religion Whether they be Christian or Heathen 4. How far they should grant or not grant Liberty of Conscience as it is called viz. of Judging Professing and Practising in matters of Religion with other such matters belonging to Government And all the Controversies about Titles and Supremacy Conservations Forfeitures Decayes Dangers Remedies and Restorations which belong either to Politicians Lawyers or Divines All these I pretermit save only that I shall venture to leave a few brief Memorandums with Civil Governours instead of Directions for securing the Interest of Christ and the Church and mens salvation Yet assuring the Reader that I omit none of this out of any contempt of the matter or of Magistracy or as if I thought them not worthy of all our Prayers and Assistance or thought their office of small concernment to the welfare of the world and of the Church but for those Reasons which all may know that know me and the Government under which we live and which I must not tell to others CHAP. II. Memorandum's to Civil Rulers for the interest of Christ the Church and mens Salvation § 1. Memor 1. REmember that your power is from God and therefore for God and not against Memor 1. God Rom. 13. 2 3 4. You are his Ministers and can have no power except it be Finis ad quem Rex principaliter intendere debet in sâipso in subditis est aeâerna beatitudo quae in visione Dei consistit Et quia ista visio est perfectissimum bonum maxime movere debet Regem quemcunque Dominum ut hunc finem subditi consequantur Lib. de Regim Principum Thomae adscript Grot. de Imper. sum Pot. p. 9. Even Aristotle could say Polit. 7. c. 1 2. Eudem fine that each mans active and contemplative life is the end of Government and not only the publick peace and that that is the best life which conduceth most to our consideration of God and that is the worst which calleth us off from considering and worshiping him Vide Grot. de Imper. sum Pot. p. 10. Quam multa injuste fieri possunt
sin to disobey it while the thing is lawful Else servants and children must prove all to be needful as well as lawful which is commanded them before they must obey Or the command may at the same time be evil by accident and the obedience good by accident and per se very good accidents consequence or effects may belong to our Obedience when the accidents of the command it self are evil I could give you abundance of instances of these things § 68. Direct 36. Yet is not all to be obeyed that is evil but by accident nor all to be disobeyed Direct 36. that is so but the accidents must be compared and if the obedience will do more good than harm we must obey if it will evidently do more harm than good we must not do it Most of the sins in the world are evil by accident only and not in the simple act denuded of its accidents circumstances or It was one of the Roman Laws of the twelve Tables Justa imperia sunto iisque cives modesâe ac sine recusatione parento consequents You may not sell poyson to him that you know would poyson himself with it though to sâll poyson of it self be lawful Though it be lawful simply to lend a Sword yet not to a Traytor that you know would kill the King with it no nor to one that would kill his Father his neighbour or himself A command would not excuse such an act from sin He wââ slain by David that killed Saul at his own command and if he had but lent him his Sword to do it it had been his sin Yet some evil accidents may be weighed down by greater evils which would evidently follow upon the not doing of the thing commanded § 69. Direct 37. In the question whether Humane Laws bind Conscience the doubt is not of that nature Direct 37. as to have necessary influence upon your practice For all agree that they bind the subject to obedience and that Gods Law bindeth us to obey them And if Gods Law bind us to obey mans Law and so to disobey them be materially a sin against Gods Law this is as much as is needful to resolve you in respect of practice No doubt mans Law hath no primitive obliging power at all but a Derivative from God and under him And what is it to bind the Conscience an improper Speech but to bind the person to judge it his duty conscire and so to do it And no doubt but he is bound to judge it his duty that is immediately by Humane Law and remotely by Divine Law and so the contrary to be a sin prâximatâly against man and ultimately against God This is plain and the rest is but logomachy § 70. Direct 38. The question is much harder whether the violation of every Humane Penal Law be Direct 38. a sin against God though a man submit to the penalty And the desert of every sin is death Mr. Rich. Hoâkers last Book unhappily ended before he gave us the full reason of his judgement in Eccl. Pol. l. 8. p. 2â4 this case these being his last words Howbeit too rigorous it were that the breach of every Humane Law should be a deadly sin A mean there is between those extremities if so be we can find it out Amesius hath diligently discust it and many others The reason for the affirmative is because God bindeth us to obey all the lawful commands of our Governours And suffering the penalty is not obeying the penalty being not the primary intention of the Law-giver but the Duty and the penalây only to enforce the duty And though the suffering of it satisfie man it satisfieth not God whose Law we break by disobeying Those that are for the Negative say that God binding us but to obey the Magistrate and his Law binding but aut ad obedientiam an t ad poenam I fulfill his will if I either do or suffer If I obey not I please him by satisfying for my disobedience And it is none of his will that my choosing the penalty should be my sin or damnation To this it is replyed that the Law bindeth ad poenam but on supposition of disobedience And that disobedience is forbidden of God And the penalty satisfieth not God though it satisfie man The other rejoyn that it satisfieth God in that it satisfieth man because Gods Law is but to give force to mans according to the nature of it If this hold then no disobedience at all is a sin in him that suffereth the penalty In so hard a case because more distinction is necessary to the explication than most Readers are willing to be troubled with I shall now give you but this brief decision On second thoughts this case is fullier opened afterward There are some penalties which fulfil the Magistrates own will as much as obedience which indeed have more of the nature of a Commutation than of Penalty As he that watcheth not or mendeth not the High-wayes shall pay so much to hire another to do it He that shooteth not so oft in a year shall pay so much He that eateth flesh in Lent shall pay so much to the poor He that repaireth not his Hedges shall pay so much and so in most amercements and divers Penal Laws in which we have reason to judge that the penalty satisfieth the Law-giver fully and that he leaveth it to our choice In these cases I think we need not afflict our selves with the conscience or fear of sinning against God But there are other Penal Laws in which the penalty is not desired for it self and is supposed to be but an imperfect satisfaction to the Law-givers will and that he doth not freely leave us to our choice but had rather we obeyed than suffered only he imposeth no greater a penalty either because there is no greater in his power or some inconvenience prohibiteth In this case I should fear my disobedience were a sin though I suffered the penalty Still supposing it an act that he had Power to command me § 71. Direct 39. Take heed of the perâicious design of those Atheistical Politicians that would make Direct 39. the world believe that all that is excellent among men is at enmity with Monarchy yea and Government it self And take heed on the other side that the most excellent things be not turned against it by abuse Here I have two dangers to advertise you to beware The first is of some Machiavellian pernicious principles and the second of some erroneous unchristian practices § 72. I. For the first there are two sorts of Atheistical Politicians guilty of them The first sort are some Atheistical flatterers that to engage Monarchs against all that is good would make them believe that all that is good is against them and their interest By which means while their design is to steal the help of Princes to cast out all that is good from the world they are most
fruits without partiality and hypocrisie and to speak evil of no man And where this is obeyed how quietly and easily may Princes govern § 97. 14. Christianity setteth before us the perfectest pattern of all this humility meekness contempt of worldly wealth and greatness self-denyal and obedience that ever was given in the world The Eternal Son of God incarnate would condescend to earth and flesh and would obey his Superiours after the flesh in the repute of the world and would pay tribute and never be drawn to any contempt of the Governours of the world though he suffered death under the false accusation of it He that is a Christian endeavoureth to imitate his Lord And can the imitation of Christ or of Luke 20 18. Matth. 21. 42 44. Acts 4 11. 1 Pet. 2. 7. 8. Zâch 1â 3. his peaceable Apostles be injurious to Governours Could the world but lay by their Serpentine enmity against the holy doctrine and practice of Christianity and not take themselves engaged to persecute it nor dash themselves in pieces on the stone which they should build upon nor by striving against it provoke it to fall on them and grind them to powder they never need to complain of disturbances by Christianity or Godliness § 98. 15. Christianity and true Godliness containeth not only all these Precepts that tend to peace and order in the world but also strength and willingness and holy dispositions for the practising of such precepts Other Teachers can speak but to the ears but Christ doth write his Laws upon the heart so that he maketh them such as he commandeth them to be Only this is the remnant of our unhappiness that while he is performing the Cure on us we retain a remnant of our old diseases and so his work is yet imperfect And as sin in strength is it that setteth on fire the course of nature so the relicts of it will make some disturbance in the world according to its degree But nothing is more sure than that the Godliest Christian is the most orderly and loyal subject and the best member according to his parts and power in the Common-wealth and that sin is the cause and holiness the cure of all the disorders and calamities of the world § 99. 16. Lastly Consult with experience it self and you will find that all this which I have spoken hath been ordinarily verified What Heathenism tendeth to you may see even in the Roman Government for there you will confess it was at the best To read of the tumults the cruelties Read the lives of all the Philosophers Orators and famous men of Greece or Rome and try whether the Christians or they were more for Monarchy Arcesilaus Regum neminem magnopere coluit Quamobâem legatione ad Antigonum fungens pro patria nihil obtinuit Hesich in Arces It s one of Thales sayings in Laert. Quid difficile Regum vidisse tyrannum senem Chrysippus videtur aspârnator Regum modice fuisse Quod cum tam multa scripserit libros 705. nulli unquam regi quicquam adscripserit Senâca faith Traged de Herc. fur perillously Victima haud ulla amplior Potest magisque opima mactari Jovi Quam Rex iniquus Cicero pro Milon Non se obstrinxit scelere siquis Tyrannum occidat quamvis familiarem Et 5. Tusc. Nulla nobis cum Tyrannis societas est neque est contra naturam spoliare eum quem honestum est necare Plura habet similia the popular unconstancy faction and injustice How rudely the Souldiers made their Emperours and how easily and barbarously they murdered them and how few of them from the dayes of Christ till Constantine did dye the common death of all men and scape the hands of those that were their subjects I think this will satisfie you whither mens enmity to Christianity tendeth And then to observe how suddenly the case was altered as soon as the Emperours and Subjects became Christian till in the declining of the Greek Empire some Officers and Courtiers who aspired to the Crown did murder the Emperours And further to observe that the rebellious doctrines and practices against Governours have been all introduced by factions and heresies which forsook Christianity so far before they incurred such guilt and that it is either the Papal Usurpation which is in its nature an enemy to Princes that hath deposed and trampled upon Emperours and Kings or else some mad Enthusiasticks that over-run Religion and their wits that at Munster and in England some lately by the advantage of their prosperity have dared to do violence against Soveraignty but the more any men were Christians and truly Godly the more they detested all such things All this will tell you that the most serious and Religious Christians are the best members of the Civil Societies upon Earth § 100. II. Having done with the first part of my last Direction I shall say but this little of the second Let Christians see that they be Christians indeed and abuse not that which is most excellent to be a cloak to that which is most vile 1. In reading Politicks swallow not all that every Author writeth in conformity to the Polity that he liveth under What perverse things shall you read in the Popish Politicks Contzen and abundance such What usurpation on Principalities and cruelties to Christians under the pretence of defending the Church and suppressing Heresies 2. Take heed in reading History that you suffer not the Spirit of your Author to infect you with any of that partiality which he expresseth to the cause which he espouseth Consider in what times and places all your Authors lived and read them accordingly with the just allowance The name of Liberty was so pretious and the name of a King so odious to the Romans Athenians c. that it is no wonder if their Historians be unfriendly unto Kings 3. Abuse not Learning it self to lift you up with self-conceitedness against Governours Learned men may be ignorant of Polity or at least unexperienced and almost as unfit to judge as of matters of Warr or Navigation 4. Take heed of giving the Magistrates power to the Clergy and setting up Secular Coercive power See Bilson of Subject p. 525 526. proving from Châysost Hilary Oââgen that Pastors may use no force oâ terror but only perswasion to recover their wandering sheep Bilson ibid. p. 541. Parliamenâs have been kept by the King and his Barons the Clergy wholly excluded and yet their Acts and Statutes good And when the Bishops were present their voices from the Conquest to this day were never Negative By Gods Law you have nothing to do with making Laws for Kingdoms and Common-wealths You may teach you may not command Perswasion is your part Compulsion is the Princes c. Thus Bishop Bilson So p. 358. under the name of the power of the Keys And it had been happy for the Church if God had perswaded Magistrates in all ages to have kept the
Sword in their own hands and not have put it into the Clergies hands to fulfill their wills by For 1. By this means the Clergy had escaped the odium of usurpation and domineering by which atheistical Politicians would make Religion odious to Magistrates for their sakes 2. And by this means greater unity had been preserved in the Church while one faction is not armed with the Sword to tread down the rest For if Divines contend only by dint of Argument when they have talkt themselves and others aweary they will have done But when they go to it with dint of Sword it so ill becometh them that it seldom doth good but the party often that trusteth least to their Reason must destroy the other and make their cause good by Iron arguments 3. And then the Romish Clergy had not been armed against Princes to the terrible concussions of the Christian world which Histories at large relate if Princes had not first lent them the Sword which they turned against them 4. And then Church Discipline would have been better understood and have been more effectual which is corrupted and turned to another thing and so cast out when the Sword is used instead of the Keys under pretence of making it effectual None but Consenters are capable of Church-communion No man can be a Christian nor Godly nor saved against his will And therefore Consenters and Volunteers only are capable of Church-discipline As a Sword will not make a Sermon effectual no more will it make Discipline effectual which is but the management of Gods Word to work upon the conscience So far as men are to be driven by the Sword to the use of means or restrained from offering injury to Religion the Magistrate himself is fittest to do it It is noted by Historians as the dishonour of Cyrill of Alexandria though a famous Bishop that he was the first Bishop that like a Magistrate used the Sword there and used violence against Hereticks and dissenters 5. Above all abuse not the name of Religion for the resistance of your lawful Governours Religion must be defended and propagated by no irreligious means It is easie before you are aware to catch the feavor of such a passionate zeal as Iames and Iohn had when they would have had fire from Heaven to consume the refusers and resisters of the Gospel And then you will think that any thing almost is lawful which doth but seem necessary to the prosperity of Religion But no means but those of Gods allowance do use to prosper or bring home that which men expect They may seem to do wonders for a while but they come to nothing in the latter end and spoil the work and leave all worse than it was before § 101. Direct 40. Take heed of mistaking the nature of that Liberty of the people which is truly Direct 40. valuable and desirable and of contending for an undesirable Liberty in its stead It is desirable to have 1 Pet. 2. 16. Gal. 5. 13. 2 Pet. 2. 19. Gal. 4. 26. 2 Cor. 3. 17. Liberty to do good and to possess our own and enjoy Gods mercies and live in peace But it is not desirable to have Liberty to sin and abuse one another and hinder the Gospel and contemn our Governours Some mistake Liberty for Government it self and think it is the peoples Liberty to be Governours And some mistake Liberty for an exemption from Government and think they are most free when they are most ungoverned and may do what their list But this is a misery and not a mercy and therefore was never purchased for us by Christ. Many desire servitude and calamity under the name of liberty Optima est Reipublicae forma saith Seneca ubi nulla Libertas deest nisi licentia pereundi As Mr. R. Hooker saith Lib. 8. p. 195. I am not of opinion that simply in Kings the Most but the Best limited power is best both for them and the people The Most limited is that which may deal in fewest things the best that which in dealing is tyed to the soundest perfectest and most indifferent Rule which Rule is the Law I mean not only the Law of Nature and of God but the National Law consonant thereunto Happier that people whose Law is their King in the greatest things than that whose King is himself their Law Yet no doubt but the Law-givers are as such above the Law as an Authoritative instrument of Government but under it as a man is under the obligation of his own Consent and Word It ruleth subjects in the former sense It bindeth the summam Potestatem in the later § 102. Direct 41. When you have done all that you can in just obedience look for your reward Direct 41. from God alone Let it satisfie you that he knoweth and approveth your sincerity You make it a holy work if you do it to please God and you will be fixed and constant if you take Heaven for your Reward which is enough and will not fail you But you make it but a selfish carnal work if you do it only to please your Governours or get preferment or escape some hurt which they may do you and are subject only in flattery or for fear of wrath and not for conscience sake And such obedience is uncertain and unconstant For when you fail of your hopes or think Rulers deal unjustly or unthankfully with you your subjection will be turned into passionate desires of revenge Remember still the example of your Saviour who suffered death as an enemy to Caesar when he had never failed of his duty so much as in one thought or word And are you better than your Lord and Master If God be All to you and you have laid up all your hopes in Heaven it is then but little of your concernment further than God is concerned in it whether Rulers do use you well or ill and whether they interpret your actions rightly or what they take you for or how they call you But it is your concernment that God account you Loyal and will judge you so and justifie you from mens accusations of disloyalty and reward you with more than man can give you Nothing is well done especially of so high a nature as this which is not done for God and Heaven and which the Crown of Glory is not the motive to I have purposely been the larger on this subject because the times in which we live require it both for the setling of some and for the confuting the false accusations of others who would perswade the world that our doctrine is not what it is when through the sinful practices of some the way of truth is evil spoken of 2 Pet. 2. 2. Tit. 2. A fuller resolution of the Cases 1. Whether the Laws of men do bind the Conscience 2. Especially smaller and Penal Laws THe word Conscience signifieth either 1. In general according to the notation of the word The knowledge of our own
your labour is in vain How easie is it for you to overlook some one thing among a multitude that must be seen about the Causes and Cure of diseases unless God shall open it to you and give you a clear discerning and an universal observation And when twenty considerable things are noted a mans life may be lost for want of your discerning one point more What need have you of the help of God to bring the fittest remedies to your memory And much more to bless them when they are administred as the experience of your daily practice may inform you where Atheism hath not made men fools § 5 Direct 5. Let your continual observation of the fragility of the flesh and of mans mortality Direct 5. make you more spiritual than other men and more industrious in preparing for the life to come and greater contemners of the vanities of this world He that is so frequently among the sick and a spectator of the dead and dying is utterly unexcusable if he be himself unprepared for his sickness or for death If the heart be not made better when you almost dwell in the house of mourning it is a bad and deplorate heart indeed It is strange that Physicions should be so much suspected of Atheism as commonly they are and Religio medici should be a word that signifieth irreligiousness Sure this conceit was taken up in some more irreligious Age or Countrey For I have oft been very thankful to God in observing the contrary even how many excellent pious Physicions there have been in most Countreys where the purity of Religion hath appeared and how much they promoted the work of Reformation such as Crato Platerus Erastus and abundance more that I might name And in this Land and Age I must needs bear witness that I have known as many Physicions Religious proportionably as of any one profession except the Preachers of the Gospel But as no men are more desperately wicked than those that are wicked after pious education and under the most powerful means of their reformation so it is very like that those Physicions that are not truly good are very bad because they are bad against so much light and so many warnings And from some of these it 's like this censorious Proverb came And indeed mans nature is so apt to be affected with things that are unusual and to lose all sense of things that are grown common that no men have more need to watch their hearts and be afraid of being hardened than those that are continually under the most quickening helps and warnings For it is very easie to grow customary and sensless under them and then the danger is that there are no better means remaining to quicken such a stupid hardened heart Whereas those that enjoy such helps but seldom are not so apt to lose the sense and benefit of them The sight of a sick or dying man doth usually much awaken those that have such sights but seldom But who are more hardened than Souldiers and Sea men that live continually as among the dead when they have twice or thrice seen the fields covered with mens Carkasses they usually grow more obdurate than any others And this is it that Physicions are in danger of and should most carefully avoid But certainly an Atheistical or ungodly Physicion is unexcusably blind To say as some do that they study nature so much that they are carryed away from God is as if you should say They study the work so much that they forget the workman or They look so much on the Book that they overlook the sense or that They study medicine so much that they forget both the patient and his health To look into Nature and not see God is as to see the creatures and not the light by which we see them or to see Trees and Houses and not to see the Earth that beareth them For God is the Creating Conserving Dirigent Final Cause of all Of him and Through him and To him are all things He is All in all And if they know not that they are the subjects of this God and have immortal souls they are ill proficients in the study of Nature that know no better the nature of man To boast of their acquisitions in other Sciences while they know not what a Man is nor what they are themselves is little to the honour of their understandings You that live still as in the fight of death should live as in the sight of another world and excell others in spiritual wisdom and holiness and sobriety as your advantages by these quickening helps excell § 6. Direct 6. Exercise your Compassion and Charity to mens souls as well as to their Bodies and Direct 6. speak to your patients such words as tend to prepare them for their change You have excellent opportunities if you have hearts to take them If ever men will hear it is when they are sick and if ever they will be humbled and serious it is when the approach of death constraineth them They will hear that counsel now with patience which they would have despised in their health A few serious words about the danger of an unregenerate state and the necessity of holiness and the use of a Saviour and the everlasting state of Souls for ought you know may be blest to their conversion and salvation And it is much more comfortable for you to save a soul than to cure the body Think not to excuse your selves by saying It is the Pastors duty For though it be theirs ex officio it is yours also ex charitate Charity bindeth every man as he hath opportunity to do good to all and especially the greatest good And God giveth you opportunity by casting them in your way The Priest and Levite that past by the wounded man were more to be blamed for not relieving him than those that never went that way and therefore saw him not Luk. 10. 32. And many a man will send for the Physicion that will not send for the Pastor And many a one will hear a Physicion that will despise the Pastor As they reverence their Landlords because they hold their estates from them so do they the Physicion because they think they can do much to save their lives And alas in too many places the Pastors either mind not such work or are insufficient for it or else stand at ods and distance from the people so that there is but too much need of your charitable help Remember therefore that he that converteth a sinner from the errour of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins Jam. 5. 20. Remember that you are to speak to one that is going into another world and that must be saved now or never And that all that ever must be done for his salvation must be presently done or it will be too late Pity humane nature and harden not your hearts against a man
serious Direct 5. words about their souls and the life to come in such a plain familiar manner as tendeth most to the awakening of their Consciences and making them perceive how greatly what you say concerneth them A little such familiar serious discourse in an interlocutory way may go to their hearts and never be forgotten when meer forms alone are lifeless and unprofitable Abundance of good might be done on Children if Parents and Schoolmasters did well perform their parts in this § 6. Direct 6. Take strict account of their spending the Lords day How they hear and what they Direct 6. remember and how they spend the rest of the day For the right spending of that day is of great importance to their souls And a custome of play and idleness on that day doth usually debauch them and prepare them for much worse Though they are from under your eye on the Lords day yet if on Munday they be called to account it will leave an awe upon them in your absence § 7. Direct 7. Pray with them and for them If God give not the increase by the dews of Heaven Direct 7. and shine not on your labours your planting and watering will be all in vain Therefore prayer is as suitable a means as Teaching to do them good and they must go together He that hath a heart to pray earnestly for his Scholars shall certainly have himself most comfort in his labours and it is likely that he shall do most good to them § 8. Direct 8. Watch over them by one another when they are behind your backs at their sports or Direct 8. converse with each other For it is abundance of wickedness that Children use to learn and practise which never cometh to their Masters ears especially in some great and publick Schools They that came thither to learn sobriety and piety of their Masters do oftentimes learn profaneness and ribaldry and cursing and swearing and scorning deriding and reviling one another of their ungracious School-fellows And those lessons are so easily learnt that there are few Children but are infected with some such debauchery though their Parents and Masters watch against it and perhaps it never cometh to their knowledge So also for gameing and robbing Orchards and fighting with one another and reading Play-books and Romances and lying and abundance other vices which must be carefully watcht against § 9. Direct 9. Correct them more sharply for sins against God than for their dulness and failing at their Direct 9. books Though negligence in their learning is not to be indulged yet smart should teach them especially to take heed of sinning that they may understand that sin is the greatest evil § 10. Direct 10. Especially curb or cashier the leaders of impiety and rebellion who corrupt the rest Direct 10. There are few great Schools but have some that are notoriously debauched that glory in their wickedness that in filthy talking and fighting and cursing and reviling words are the infecters of the rest And usually they are some of the bigger sort that are the greatest fighters and master the rest and by domineering over them and abusing them force them both to follow them in their sin and to conceal it The correcting of such or expelling them if incorrigible is of great necessity to preserve the rest For if they are suffered the rest will be secretly infected and undone before the Master is aware This causeth many that have a care of their Childrens souls to be very fearful of sending them to great and publick Schools and rather choose private Schools that are freer from that danger It being almost of as great concernment to Children what their companions be as what their Master is CHAP. VII Directions for Souldiers about their duty in point of Conscience THough it is likely that few Souldiers will read what I shall write for them yet for the sake of those few that will I will do as Iohn Baptist did and give them some few necessary Directions and not omit them as some do as if they were a hopeless sort of men § 1. Direct 1. Be careful to make your peace with God and live in a continual readiness to dye Direct 1. This being the great duty of every rational man you cannot deny it to be especially yours whose calling setteth you so frequently in the face of death Though some Garrison Souldiers are so seldom if ever put to fight that they live more securely than most other men yet a Souldier as such being by his place engaged to fight I must fit my Directions to the ordinary condition and expectation of men in that employment It is a most irrational and worse than beastly negligence for any man to live carelesly in an unpreparedness for death considering how certain it is and how uncertain the time and how unconceivably great is the change which it inferreth But for a Souldier to be unready to dye who hath such special reason to expect it and who listeth himself into a state which is so near it this is to live and fight like beasts and to be Souldiers before you understand what it is to be a Christian or a Man First therefore make sure that your souls are regenerate and reconciled unto God by Christ and that when you dye you have a part in Heaven and that you are not yet in the state of sin and nature An unrenewed unsanctified soul is sure to go to Hell by what death or in what cause soever he dyeth If such a man be a Souldier he must be a coward or a mad man If he will run upon death when he knoweth not whither it will send him yea when Hell is certainly the next step he is worse than mad But if he know and consider the terribleness of such a change it must needs make him tremble when he thinks of dying He can be no good Souldier that dare not dye And who can expect that he should dare to dye who must be damned when he dyeth Reason may command a man to venture upon death but no reason will allow him to venture upon Hell I never knew but two sorts of valiant Souldiers The one was Boyes and bruitish ignorant sots who had no sense of the concernments of their souls and the other who only were truly valiant were those that had made such preparations for Eternity as at least perswaded them that it should go well with them when they dyed And many a debauched Souldier I have known whose Conscience hath made them Cowards and shift or run away when they should venture upon death because they knew they were unready to dye and were more afraid of Hell than of the Enemy He that is fit to be a Martyr is the fittest man to be a Souldier He that is regenerate and hath laid up his treasure and his hopes in Heaven and so hath overcome the fears of death may be bold as a Lyon and ready for
upon an absolute obedience to your Commanders in all things consistent with Direct 6. your obedience to God and the Soveraign power Disobedience is no where more intolerable than in an Army Where it is often unfit for a Souldier to know the reason of his commands and where self-conceitedness and wilfulness is inconsistent with their common safety and the lives of many may pay for the disobedience of a few If you cannot obey undertake not to be Souldiers § 7. Direct 7. Especially detest all murmurings mutinies sidings and rebellions For these are to Direct 7. an Army like violent Feavors to the body or like a Fire in a City and would make an Army the greatest plague to their King and Countrey How many Emperours Kings and Commanders have lost their dignities and lives by the fury of mutinous enraged Souldiers And how many Kingdoms and other Common-wealths have been thus overthrown and betrayed into the enemies hands And how many thousands and millions of Souldiers have thereby lost their lives In your discontents and murmuring passions you may quickly set the house on fire over your heads and when you feel your misery repent too late Passion may begin that which fruitless penitence must end The leaders of mutinies may easily have many fair pretences to enflame an Army into discontents They may aggravate many seeming injuries they may represent their Commanders as odious and unworthy by putting an ill appearance on their actions But in the end it will appear that it was their own advancement which they secretly aimed at and the destruction of the present Government or the Souldiers ruine which is like to be the effect A mutinous Army is likest Hell of any thing I know among Gods creatures and next Hell there is scarce a worse place for their Commanders to be in § 8. Direct 8. Use not your power or liberty to the robbing or oppressing or injuring of any Though Direct 8. military Thieves and oppressors may scape the Gallows more than others they shall come as soon to Hell as any If you plunder and spoil and tyrannize over the poor people under pretence oâ supplying your own wants there is a God in Heaven that will hear their cryes and will avenge them speedily though you seem to go scot-free for a time You may take a pride in domineering over others and making your selves Lords by violence of other mens estates and when you see none that will question you for it you may take that which you have most mind of But the poor and oppressed have a just defender who hath a severer punishment for you than the Sword or Gallows And though he take you not in the very fact and his sentence is not presently executed yet be certain of it that your day is coming § 9. Direct 9. Take heed lest custome and the frequency of Gods judgements do harden your hearts Direct 9. into a reprobate stupidity Many a man that formerly by the sight of a Corpse or the groanings of the sick was awakened to serious thoughts of his latter end when he cometh into an Army and hath often seen the dead lye scattered on the earth and hath often scaped death himself groweth utterly senseless and taketh blockishness to be valour and custome maketh such warnings to be of no effect You can scarce name a more strange and lamentable proof of the madding and hardning nature of sin That men should be most senseless when they are in the greatest danger And least fear God when they are among his dreadfullest judgements And least hear his voice when his calls are lowdest And live as if they should not dye when they look death so often in the face and see so many dead before them That they should be most regardless of their endless life when they are nearest it and sense it self hath such notable advantage to tell them of all this What a monstrous kind of sottish stupidity is this Think whither the soul is gone when you see the carkass on the earth and think where your own must be for ever § 10. Direct 10. Take heed of falling into drunkenness and sensuality though Temptations and Liberty Direct 10. be never so great It is too common with Souldiers because they are oft put to thirst and wants to think they may lawfully powre it in when they come at it without moderation or restraint Even as many poor men take a gluttonous meal for no sin because they have so many dayes of hunger so is it with such Souldiers in their drink till drunkenness first have wounded their consciences and afterwards grow common till it have debauched and seared them and then they have drowned Religion and Reason and are turned sottish miserable bruites § 11. Direct 11. If necessity deprive you of the benefits of Gods publick or stated Worship see that Direct 11. you labour to repair that loss by double diligence in those spiritual duties which yet you have opportunity for If you must march or watch on the Lords Dayes redeem your other time the more If you cannot hear Sermons be not without some profitable Book and often read it And let your meditations be holy and your discourses edifying For these you have opportunities if you have hearts § 12. Direct 12. Take heed that Command or Successes do not puff you up and make you over-value Direct 12. your selves and ineline you to rebell against your Governours What lamentable effects hath England lately seen of this A silly half-witted Souldier if he be but made a Captain doth carry it as if he were wiser than the Preacher or the Judge As if his dignity had added to his wit When Victories have laid the power at mens feet and they think now that none is able to controll them how few are they that abuse not such success to their own undoing and are not conquered by the pride of their own hearts when they have conquered others How ordinarily do they mis-expound the Providence of God and think he hath put the Government into their hands because they have the strength and from the Histories of former successful Rebels and the fairness of their opportunity encourage themselves to Rebell and think they do but what 's their duty How easily do they justifie themselves in those unlawful deeds which impartial by-standers see the evil of And how easily do they quiet their consciences when they have but power enough to raise up flatterers and to stop the mouth of wholsome reprehension How lamentably doth prosperity make them drunk and sudden advancement overturn their brains and their greatness together with ther pride and fury preserveth them from the accesses of wisdom and of sober men that so their malady may have no remedy And there like a drunken man they rave a while and speak big words and lay about them and glory in the honour of a pestilence that they can kill men and we must not speak to them
see a poor sinner have a little prosperity and ease who must lye in everlasting flames But the truth is malitious men are ordinarily Atheists and never think of another world and therefore desire to be the avengers of themselves because they believe not that there is any God to do it or any future Judgement and execution to be expected § 19. Consid. 13. And remember how near both he and you are to death and judgement when God Consid 13. will judge righteously betwixt you both There are few so cruelly malitious but if they both lay dying they would abate their malice and be easily reconciled as remembring that their dust and bones will lye in quietness together and malice is a miserable case to appear in before the Lord Why then do you cherish your vice by putting away the day of death from your remembrance Do you not know that you are dying Is a few more dayes so great a matter with you that you will therefore do that because you have a few more dayes to live which else you durst not do or think of O hearken to the dreadful trumpet of God which is summoning you all to come away and methinks this should sound a retreat to the malitious from persecuting those with whom they are going to be judged God will shortly make the third if you will needs be quarrelling Unless it be mastââââ Dogs or fighting Cocks there are scarce any creatures but will give over fighting if man or beast do come upon them that would destroy or hurt them both § 20. Consid. 14. Wrathful and hurtful creatures are commonly hated and pursued by all and loveing Consid. 14. gentle harmless profitable creatures are commonly beloved And will you make your selves like wild Beasts or Vermine that all men naturally hate and seek to destroy If a Wolf or a Fox or an Adder do but appear every man is ready to seek the death of him as a hurtful creature and an enemy to mankind But harmless creatures no one medleth with unless for their own benefit and use So if you will be malicious hurtful Serpents that hiss and sting and trouble others you will be the common hatred of the world and it will be thought a meritorious work to mischief you Whereas if you will be loving kind and profitable it will be taken to be mens interest to love you and desire your good § 21. Consid. 15. Observe how you unfit your selves for all holy duties and communion with God Consid. 15. while you cherish wrath and malice in your hearts Do you find your selves fit for Meditation Conference or Prayer while you are in wrath I know you cannot It both undisposeth you to the duty and the guilt affrighteth you and telleth you that you are unfit to come near to God As a Feavor taketh away a mans appetite to his meat and his disposition to labour so doth wrath and malice destroy both your disposition to holy duties and your pleasure in them And conscience will tell you that it is so terrible to draw near God in such a case that you will be readier were it possible to hide your selves as Adam and Eve or fly as Cain as not enduring the presence of God And therefore the Common-Prayer Book above all other sins enableth the Pastor to keep away the malicious from the Sacrament of Communion and conscience maketh many that have little conscience in any thing else that they dare not come to that Saârament while wrath and malice are in their breasts And Christ himself saith Matth. 5. 23 24 25. If thou bring thy gift unto the Altar and there remembrest that thy brother hath ought against thee Leave there thy gift before the Altar and go thy way first be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift Agree with thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way with him lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the Iudge and the Iudge deliver thee to the Officer and thou be cast into prison c. § 22. Consid. 16. And your sin is aggravated in that you hinder the good of those that you are Consid. 16. offended with and also provoke them to add sin to sin and to be as furious and uncharitable as your selves If your neighbour be not faulty why are you so displeased with him If he be Why will you make him worse Will you bring him to amendment by hatred or cruelty Do you think one vice will cure another Or is any man like to hearken to the counsel of an enemy Or to love the words of one that hateth him Is malice and fierceness an attractive thing Or rather is it not the way to drive men further from their duty and into sin by driving them from you who pretend to reform them by such unlikely contrary means as these And as you do your worst to harden them in their faults and to make them hate what ever you would perswade them to so at present you seek to kindle in their breasts the same fire of malice or passion which is kindled in your selves As Love is the most effectual way to cause Love so passion is the most effectual cause of passion and malice is the most effectual cause of malice and hurting another is the powerfullest means to provoke him to hurt you again if he be able And weak things are oft times able to do hurt when injuries boyle up their passions to the height or make them desperate If your sinful provocations fill him also with rage and make him curse or swear or rail or plot revenge or do you a mischief you are guilty of this sin and have a hand in the damnation of his soul as much as in you lyeth § 23. Consid. 17. Consider how much fitter means there are at hand to right your self and attain Consid. 17. any ends that are good than by passion malice or revenge If your end be nothing but to do mischief and make another miserable you are to the world as mad Dogs and Wolves and Serpents to the Countrey and they that know you will be as glad when the world is rid of you as when an Adder or a Toad is killed But if your end be only to right your selves and to reclaim your enemy or reform your brother fury and revenge is not the way God hath appointed Governours to do justice in Common-wealths and Families and to those you may repair and not take upon you to revenge your selves And God himself is the most righteous Governour of all the world and to him you may confidently referr the case when Magistrates and Rulers fail you and his judgement will be soon enough and severe enough And if you would rather have your neighbour reclaimed than destroyed it is Love and gentleness that are the way with peaceable convictions and such reasonings as shew that you desire his Good Overcome him with kindness if you would melt him into
5. The subtilty of Satan and his instruments in tempting 6. The weakness and unconstancy of man that hath need of constant solicitation 7. The want of holy faithful Pastors which maketh private mens diligence the more necessary And in such necessity to shut up our mouths is to shut up the bowels of our compassion when we see our brothers need And how then doth the Love of God dwell in us 1 Ioh. 3. 17. To withhold our exhortation is as the withholding of Corn from the poor in a time of famine which procureth a Curse Prov. 11. 26. And though in this case men are insensible of their want and take it not ill to be past by yet Christ that dyed for them will take it ill § 20. Mot. 20. Lastly consider how short a time you are like to speak and how long you must be silent Death will quickly stop your breath and lay you in the dark and tell you that all your opportunities are at an end Speak now for you have not long to speak Your Neighbours lives are hasting to an end and so are yours They are dying and must hear no more till they hear their doom and you are dying and must speak no more And they will be lost for ever if they have not help Pity them then and call on them to foresee the final day Warm them now for it must be now or never There is no instructing or admonishing in the grave Those sculls which you see cast up had once tongues which should have praised their Creator and Redeemer and have helpt to save each others souls but now they are tongueless It is a great grief to us that are now here silenced that we used not our Ministry more laboriously and zealously while we had time And will it not be so with you when death shall silence you that you spake not for God while you had a tongue to speak Let all these Considerations stir up all that God hath taught a holy language to use it for their Masters service while they may and to repent of sinful silence Tit. 2. Directions for Christian Conference and Edifying speech § 1. Direct 1. THE most necessary direction for a fruitful tongue is to get a well-furnished Direct 1. mind and a holy heart and to walk with God in holiness your selves For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak That which you are fullest of is readiest to come forth 1. Spare for no study or labour to get understanding in the things of God It is a weariness to hear men talk foolishly of any thing but no where so much as about Divine and Heavenly things A wise Christian instructed to the Kingdom of God hath a treasury in his mind out of which he can bring forth things new and old Mat. 13. 52. Prov. 14. 7. Go from the presence of a foolish man when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge 2. Get all that holiness in your selves to which you would perswade another There is a strange communicating power in the course of nature for every thing to produce its like Learning and good utterance is very helpful But it is holiness that is aptest to beget holiness in others Words which proceed from the Love of God and a truly Heavenly mind do most powerfully tend to breed in others that Love of God and Heavenly-mindedness 3. Live in the practice of that which you would draw your Neighbour to practice A man that cometh warm from holy meditation or fervent prayer doth bring upon his heart a fulness of matter and an earnest desire and a fitness to communicate that good to others which he himself hath felt § 2. Direct 2. Especially see that you soundly Believe your selves what you are to speak to others Direct 2. He that hath secret infidelity at his heart and is himself unsatisfied whether there be a Heaven and Hell and whether sin be so bad and holiness so necessary as the Scripture speaks will speak but heartlesly of them to another But if we believe these things as if we saw them with our eyes how heartily shall we discourse of them § 3. Direct 3. Keep a compassionate sense of the misery of ignorant ungodly impenitent souls Direct 3. Think what a miserable bondage of darkness and sensuality they are in and that it is light that must recover them Think oft how quickly they must dye and what an appearance they must make before the Lord and how miserable they must be for ever if now they be not convinced and sanctified And sure this will stir up your bowels to pity them and make you speak § 4. Direct 4. Subdue foolish shame or bashfulness and get a holy fortitude of mind Remember Direct 4. what a sin it is to be ashamed of such a master and such a cause and work which all would be glad to own at last And that when the wicked are not ashamed of the service of the Devil and the basest works And remember that threatning Mark 8. 38. Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the Glory of his Father with the holy Angels § 5. Direct 5. Be alwayes furnished with those particular truths which may be most useful in this Direct 5. service Study to do your work in your degree as Ministers study to do theirs Who are not contented with the habitual furniture of their minds but they also make particular prepartions for their particular work If you are to go into the field to your labour you will take those tools with you by which it must be done so do when you go abroad among any that you may do good to and be not unfurnished for edifying discourse § 6. Direct 6. Speak most of the greatest things the folly of sin the vanity of the World the Direct 6. certainty and neerness of death and judgement the overwhelming weight of Eternity the necessity of Holiness the work of Redemption c. and choose not the smaller matters of Religion to spend your time upon unless upon some special reason Among good men that will not lose their time on vanity the Devil too oft prevaileth to make them lose it by such religious conference as is little to edification that greater matters may be thereby thrust out such as Paul calleth vain janglings and doting about questions which engender strife and not Godly edifying As about their several opinions or parties or comparing one Preacher or person with another or such things as tend but little to make the hearers more wise or holy or Heavenly § 7. Direct 7. Suit all your discourse to the quality of your Auditors That which is best in it self Direct 7. may not be best for every hearer You must vary both your subject and manner of discourse 1. According to the variety of mens
Offices and Lands who must bear the loss Answ. The case is near the same with that in Quest. 17. It is supposed that the seller should have lost it himself if he had kept it but a little longer And that neither of them foresaw the change And therefore that the seller hath all his money rather for his good hap than for his Lands or Office which the buyer hath not Therefore except it be to a rich man that feeleth not the loss or one that expresly undertook to stand to all hazards foreseeing a possibility of them Charity and humanity will teach the seller to divide the loss § 22. The same is the case of London now consumed by fire where thousands of suits are like to rise between the Landlords and the Tenants Where the providence of God permitting the burning zeal of some Papists hath deprived men of the houses which they had hired or taken leases of humanity and charity requireth the Rich to bear most of the loss and not to exact their Rents or Re-building from the poor what ever the Law saith which could not be supposed to foresee such accidents Love your neighbours as your selves Do as you would be done by and Oppress not your poor brethren and then by these three Rules you will your selves decide a multitude of such doubts and difficulties which the uncharitable only cannot understand Tit. 4. Cases of Conscience about Lending and Borrowing § 1. Quest. 1. MAy a poor man borrow money who knoweth that he is unable to repay it and hath Quest. 1. no rational proof that he is very likely to be able hereafter Answ. No unless it be when he telleth the lender truly of his case and he is willing to run the hazard Else it is meer thievery covered with the cheat of borrowing For the borrower desireth that of another which he would not lend him if he expected it not again And to take a mans money or goods against his will is robbery Object But I am in great necessity Answ. Begging in necessity is lawful but stealing or cheating is not though you call it borrowing Object But it is a shame to beg Answ. The sin of thievish borrowing is worse than shame Object But none will give me if I beg Answ. If they will give but to save your life at the present you must take it though they give you not what you would have The poorest beggars life is better than the thiefs Object But I hope God may enable me to pay hereafter Answ. If you have no rational way to manifest the soundness of that hope to another it is but to pretend faith and hope for thievery and deceit Object God hath promised that those that fear him shall want no good thing and therefore I hope I may be able to repay it Answ. If you want not Why do you borrow If you have enough to keep you alive by begging God maketh good all his promises to you Yea or if you dye by famine For he only promiseth you that which is best which for ought you know may be beggery or death God breaketh not promise with his servants who dye in common famine no more than with them that dye in Plagues or Wars Make not God the Patron of sin Yea and your faith a pretence for your distrust If you trust God use no sinful means If you trust him not this pleading of his promise is hypocrisie § 2. Quest. 2. May a Tradesman drive a Trade with borrowed money when his success and so his Quest. 2. repayment is utterly an uncertain thing Answ. There are some Trades where the gain is so exceeding probable next to certain as may warrant the borrowing of money to manage them when there is no rational probability of failing in the payment And there are some Tradesmen who have estates of their own sufficient to repay all the money which they borrow But otherwise when the money is rationally hazardous the borrower is bound in conscience to acquaint the lender fully with the hazard that he may not have it against his will Otherwise he liveth in constant deceit or thievery And if he do happen to repay it it excuseth not his sin § 3. Quest. 3. If a borrower be utterly unable to pay and so break while he hath something may be Quest. 3. not retain somewhat for his food or rayment Answ. No unless it be in order to set up again in hope to repay his debts For all that he hath being other mens he may not take so much as bread to his mouth out of that which is theirs without their consent § 4. Quest. 4 But if a man have bound himself to his Wives friends upon marriage to settle so much Quest. 4. upon her or her children and this obligation was antecedent to his debts may he not secure that to his Wife and Children without any injury to his Creditors Answ. The Law of the Land must much decide this controversie If the propriety be actually before transferred to Wife or Children it is theirs and cannot be taken from them But if it were done after by a deed of gift to defraud the Creditors than that deed of gift is invalid till debts be paid If it be but an Obligation and no collation of propriety the Law must determine who is to be first paid and whether the Wife be supposed to run the hazard of gaining or losing with the Husband And though the Laws of several Countreys herein differ and some give the Wife more propriety than others do yet must they in each place be conscientiously observed as being the Rule of such propriety But we must see that there be no fraudulent intent in the transaction § 5. Quest. 5. May not a broken Tradesman retain somewhat to set up again if his creditors be willing Quest. 5. to compound for a certain part of the debt Answ. If he truly acquaint them with his whole estate and they voluntarily allow him part to himself either in charity or in hope hereafter to be satisfied this is no unlawful course But if he hide part from them and make them believe that the rest is all this is but a thievish procurement of their composition or consent § 6. Quest. 6. May a borrower lawfully break his day of promised payment in case of necessity Quest. 6. Answ. True necessity hath no Law that is a man is not bound to do things naturally impossible But if he might have foreseen that necessity or the doubtfulness of his payment at the day it was his sin to promise it unless he put in some limitation If I be able and acquainted the lender with the uncertainty However it be when the time is come he ought to go to his Creditor and tell him of his necessity and desire further time and endeavour to pay it as soon as he is able and if he be not able to make him what satisfaction he can by his labour
judging And if you knew how bad you are you would not be so forward to condemn your neighbours So that here is together the effect of much self-estrangedness hypocrisie and pride Did you ever well consider of the mind of Christ when he bid them that accused the adulterous woman John 8. 7. He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her Certainly adultery was a heinous crime and to be punished with death and Christ was no Patron of uncleanness But he knew that it was an hypocritical sort of persons whom he spake to who were busie in judging others rather than themselves Have you studied his words against rash censurers Matth. 7. 3 4. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brothers eye but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye Or how wilt thou say to thy brother Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye and behold a beam is in thine own eye Thou hypocrite first cast out the beam out of thine own eye and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote which is in thy brothers eye I know well that impenitent sinners do use to pervert all these words of Christ against any that would bring them to repentance for their sin and account all men rash censurers who would make them acquainted with their unsanctified hearts and lives But it is not their abuse of Scripture which will justifie our overpassing it with neglect Christ spake it not for nothing and it must be studied by his Disciples § 5. 5. Censoriousness is injustice in that the censurers would not be so censured themselves You will say Yes if we were as bad and did deserve it But though you have not that same fault have you no other And are you willing to have it aggravated and be thus rashly judged You do not as you would be done by yea commonly censurers are guilty of false judging and whilest they take things hastily upon trust and stay not to hear men speak for themselves or to enquire throughly into the cause they commonly condemn the innocent and call good evil and put light for Isa. 5. 20. darkness and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him when God hath cursed such with a woe § 6. 6. And false censuring is the proper work of the Devil the accuser of the brethren Rev. 12. 10. Who accuseth them before God day and night And Christians should not bear his Image nor do his work § 7. 7. Censoriousness is contrary to the Nature and Office of Jesus Christ He came to pardon sin and cover the infirmities of his servants and to cast them behind his back and into the depth of the Sea and to bury them in his grave And it is the censurers work to rake them up and to make them seem more and greater than they are and to bring them into the open light § 8. 8. Censoriousness causeth uncharitableness and sinful separations in the censurers when they have conceited their brethren to be worse than they are they must then reproach them or have no communion with them and avoid them as too bad for the company of such as they Or when they have usurped the Pastors work in judging they begin the execution by sinful separation § 9. 9. Censoriousness is an infectious sin which easily taketh with the younger and prouder sort of Christians and so setteth them on vilifying others And at this little gap there entereth all uncharitableness backbitings revilings Church-divisions and Sects yea and too often rebellious and bloody Wars at last § 10. 10. Censoriousness is a sore temptation to them that are censured either to contemn such as censure them and go on the other hand too far from them or else to comply with the errors and sinful humours of the censurers and to strain their consciences to keep pace with the censorious And here I must leave it on record to posterity for their warning that the great and lamentable actions changes and calamities of this age have arisen next to gross impiety from this sin of â censoriousness producing these two contrary effects and thereby dividing men into two contrary parties The younger sort of Religious people and the more ignorant and many women having more zeal than judgement placed too much of their Religion in a sharp opposition to all Ceremonies Formalities and Opinions which they thought unlawful and were much inclined to Schism and unjust separations upon that account and therefore censured such things as Antichristian and those that used them as superstitious or temporizers And no mans learning piety wisdome or laboriousness in the Ministry could save him from these sharp reproachful censures Hereupon one party had not Humility and Patience enough to endure to be so judged of nor love and tenderness enough for such pievish Christians to bear with them in pity as Parents do with froward Infants but because these professed holiness and zeal even holiness and zeal were brought under suspicion for their sakes and they were taken to be persons intolerable as unfit to lye in any building and unmeet to submit to Christian Government and therefore meet to be used accordingly Another sort were so wearied with the prophaneness and ungodliness of the vulgar rabble and saw so few that were judiciously religious that they thought it their duty to love and cherish the zeal and piety of their censorious weak ones and to bear patiently with their frowardness till ripeness and experience cured them And so far they were right And because they thought that they could do them no good if they once lost their interest in them and were also themselves too impatient of their censure some of them seemed to please them to be more of their opinion than they were and more of them forbore to reprove their petulancy but silently suffered them to go on especially when they fell into the Sects of Antinomians Anabaptists and Separatists they durst not reprove them as they deserved lest they should drive them all out of the Hive to some of these late swarms And thus censoriousness in the ignorant and self-conceited drove away one part to take them as their enemies and silenced or drew on another party to follow them that led the Vann in some irregular violent actions and the wise and sober moderators were disregarded and in the noise of these tumults and contentions could not be heard till the smart of either party in their suffering forced them to honour such whom in their exaltation again they despised or abused This is the true summ of all the Tragoedies in Britain of this Age. Tit. 4. Directions for those that are rashly censured Direct 1. REmember when you are injured by Censures that God is now trying your Humility Direct 1. Charity and Patience And therefore be most studious to exercise and preserve these three 1. Take heed lest Pride make you disdainful to the censurers A humble
Honour for uncharitableness And the voice of Pride is the voice of the Devil contrary to him who made himself of no reputation Phil. 2. 7 8. and submitted to be arrayed in a garb of mockery and led out with scorn like a fool and bowed to and buffetted and spit upon and crucified who calleth to us to learn of him to be meek and lowly and to deny our selves and take up the Cross which is shameful suffering if we will be his disciples Matth. 11. 28 29. Luke 14. 30 32 33. To every Christian it is the greatest honour to be like Jesus Christ and to excell in Charity It is a greater dishonour to want Love to an enemy than to fly from him or not resist him He that teacheth otherwise and maketh sin honourable and the imitation and obedience of Christ to be more dishonourable doth preach up Pride and preach down Charity and doth preach for the Devil against Jesus Christ and therefore should neither call himself a Jesuite nor a Christian. Yea more if the person that would hurt or kill you be one that is of more worth and usefulness as to the publick good you should rather suffer by him or be slain by him than you should equally hurt him or kill him in your own defence As if the King of another Kingdom that hath no authority over you for of your own there is no question should assault you Or any one whose death would be a greater loss than yours For the publick good is better than your own And it will not alwayes hold that you may wish another as much hurt as you may do him For in defending your self you may sometime blamelesly do more hurt than you were willing to do And you must never wish your enemies hurt as such but only as a necessary means of good as of preservation of himself or you or others Quest. 7. Must Kings and States Love their enemies How then can War be lawful Quest. 7. Answ. Kings and States are bound to it as much as private men And therefore must observe the foresaid Laws of Love as well as others Therefore they must raise no War unnecessarily nor for any cause be it never so just in it self when the benefits of the War are not like to be a greater good than the War will bring hurt both to friends and foes set together A lawful offensive War is almost like a true General Council On certain suppositions such a thing may be But whether ever the world saw such a thing or whether ever such suppositions will come to existence is the question Tit. 2. Motives to Love and do good to Enemies Motive 1. GOd loveth his enemies and doth them good and he is our best exemplar Mot. 1. Matth. 5. 45 46 But I say unto you Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you that ye may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven For he maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust Mot. 2. Jesus Christ was incarnate to set us a pattern especially of this vertue He sought the Mot. 2. salvation of his enemies he went up and down doing good among them He dyed for his enemies He prayeth for them even in his sufferings on the Cross He wept over them when he foresaw their ruine When he was reviled he reviled not again This is the pattern which we must imitate Mot. 3. God loved even us our selves when we were his enemies Or else what had become of Mot. 3. us And Christ dyed even for us as enemies to reconcile us by his death to God Rom. 5. 9 10. Therefore we are specially obliged to this duty Mot. 4. To be Gods Enemies is to be wicked and unlovely so that in such God could see nothing Mot. 4. amiable but our Nature and those poor remainders of virtue in it and our capacity of being made better by his grace and yet he then loved us But to be an enemy to you or me is not to be ungodly or wicked as such It is an enmity but against a vile unworthy Worm and therefore is a smaller fault Mot. 5. We do more against our selves than any Enemy or Devils and yet we love our selves why Motive 5. then should we not love another who doth less against us Mot. 6. All that is of God and is good must be loved But there may be much of God and much Motive 6. natural and moral good in some enemies of ours Mot. 7. To Love an enemy signifieth a mind that is impartial and loveth purely on Gods account Motive 7. and for Goodness sake But the contrary sheweth a selfish mind that loveth only on his own account Mot. 8. If you love only those that love you you do no more than the worst man in the world may Motive 8. do But Christians must do more than others Mat. 5. 47. or else they must expect no more than others Mot. 9. Loving and doing good to enemies is the way to win them and to save them If there be any Motive 9. spark of true humanity left in them they will love you when they perceive indeed that you love them A man can hardly continue long to hate him whom he perceiveth unfeignedly to love him And this will draw him to love Religion for your sake when he discerneth the fruits of it Mot. If he be implacable it will put you into a condition fit for God to own you in and to judge Mot. 10. you accordingly to your innocency These two together contain the sense of heaping coals of fire on his head that is q. d. If he be not implacable you will melt and win him and if he be implacable you will engage God in your cause who best knoweth when and how to revenge Tit. 3. Directions for Loving and doing good to Enemies Direct 1. MAke no man your enemy so far as you can avoid it For though you may pretend to Love Direct 1. him when he is your enemy you have done contrary to Love in making him your enemy For thereby he is deprived of his own Love to you And if his Charity be his best commodity then he that robbeth him though he be never so culpable himself hath done that which belongeth to the worst of enemies It is a thousand times greater hurt and loss to him to lose his own Love to others than to lose anothers love to him And therefore to make him hate you is more injurious or hurtful to him than to hate him Direct 2. Take not those for your enemies that are not and believe not any one to be your enemy Direct 2. till cogent evidence constrain you Take heed therefore of ill suspicious and ungrounded censures except defensively so far only as to secure your selves
do They cause them to Blaspheme and reproach the godly for their sakes and say These are your Religious men You see now what their strictness is And they hinder the conversion and salvation of others They grieve the godly and wrong the Church and Cause of God much more than the sins of others do 20. Lastly They please the Devil more than the sins of other men How busie is he to have drawn a Iob to sin and how would he have boasted against God and his grace and his servants if he had prevailed when he boasted so much before in the false presumption of his success As if he could make the godly forsake God and be as bad as others if he have leave to tempt them § 19. II. I shall next give you some particular Directions besides those fore-going to help you to think of sin as it is that you may hate it For your cleansing and cure consisteth in this so far as you hate sin it is mortified and you are cured of it And therefore as I have anatomized it that you may see the hatefulness of it I shall direct you to improve this for your cure § 20. Direct 1. Labour to know God and to be affected with his Attributes and alwayes to live as Direct 1. How to hate sin in his sight No man can know sin perfectly because no man can know God perfectly You can no further know what sin is than you know what God is whom you sin against For the formal malignity of sin is Relative as it is against the Will and Attributes of God The godly have some knowledge of the malignity of sin because they have some knowledge of God that is wronged by it The wicked have no practical prevalent knowledge of the malignity of sin because they have no such knowledge of God They that fear God will fear sinning They that in their hearts are bold unreverently with God will in heart and life be bold with sin The Atheist that thinketh there is no God thinks there is no sin against him Nothing in the world will tell us so plainly and powerfully of the evil of sin as the knowledge of the Greatness Wisdom Goodness Holiness Authority Justice Truth c. of God The sense of his presence therefore will revive our sense of sins malignity § 21. Direct 2. Consider well of the office the bloodshed and the holy life of Christ His office is Direct 2. to expiate sin and to destroy it His blood was shed for it His Life condemned it Love Christ and thou wilt hate that which caused his death Love him and thou wilt love to be made like him and hate that which is so contrary to Christ. These two great Lights will shew the odiousness of darkness § 22. Direct 3. Think well both how Holy the office and work of the Holy Ghost is and how great Direct 3. a mercy it is to us Shall God himself the Heavenly light come down into a sinful heart to illuminate and ãâã it and yet shall I keep my darkness and defilement in opposition to such wonderful mercy Though all sin against the Holy Ghost be not the unpardonable blasphemy yet all is aggravated hereby § 23. Direct 4. Know and consider the wonderful Love and Mercy of God and think what he hath Direct 4. dâne for you and you will hate sin and be ashamed of it It is an aggravation which makes sin odious even to common reason and ingenuity that we should offend a God of infinite Goodness who hath filled up our lives with Mercy It will grieve you if you have wronged an extraordinary friend His Love and kindness will come into your thoughts and make you angry with your own unkindness Here look over the Catalogue of Gods mercies to you for soul and body And here observe that Satan in hiding the Love of God from you and tempting you under pretence of humility to deny his greatest special mercy doth seek to destroy your repentance and humiliation also by hiding the greatest aggravation of your sin § 24. Direct 5. Think what the soul of man is made for and should be used to even to Love obey Direct 5. and glorifie our Maker and then you will see what sin is which disableth and perverteth it How excellent and high and holy a work are we created for and called to and should we defile the Temple ââ God and serve the Devil in filthiness and folly where we should entertain and serve and magnifie our Creator § 25. Direct 6. Think well what pure and sweet delights a holy soul may enjoy from God in his Direct 6. holy service and then you will see what sin is which robbeth him of these delights and preferreth fleshly lusts before them O how happily might we perform every duty and how fruitfully might we serve our Lord and what delights should we find in his Love and acceptation and the foresight of everlasting blessedness if it were not for sin which bringeth down the soul from the doors of Heaven to wallow with Swine in a beloved Dunghill § 26. Direct 7. Bethink you what a life it is which you must live for ever if you live in Heaven Direct 7. and what a life the Holy ones there now live and then think whether sin which is so contrary to it be not a vile and hateful thing Either you would live in Heaven or not If not you are not those I speak to If you would you know that there 's no sinning No worldly mind no pride no passion no fleshly lust or pleasures there O did you but see and hear one hour how those blessed Spirits are taken up in loving and magnifying the glorious God in purity and holiness and how far they are from sin it would make you lothe sin ever after and look on sinners as on men in Bedlam wallowing naked in their dung Especially to think that you hope your selves to live for ever like those holy Spirits and therefore sin doth ill beseem you § 27. Direct 8. Look but to the state and torment of the damned and think well of the difference Direct 8. betwixt Angels and Devils and you may know what sin is Angels are pure Devils are polluted Holiness and sin do make the difference Sin dwells in Hell and holiness in Heaven Remember that every temptation is from the Devil to make you like himself as every holy motion is from Christ to make you like himself Remember when you sin that you are learning and imitating of the Devil and are so far like him John 8. 44. And the end of all is that you may feel his pains If Hell fire be not good then sin is not good § 28. Direct 9. Look alwayes on sin as one that is ready to dye and consider how all men judge of Direct 9. it at the last What do men in Heaven say of it And what do men in Hell say of
it And what do men at death say of it And what do converted souls or awakened consciences say of it Is it then followed with delight and fearlesness as it is now Is it then applauded Will any of them speak well of it Nay all the world speaks evil of sin in the general now even when they love and commit the several acts Will you sin when you are dying § 29. Direct 10. Look alwayes on sin and judgement together Remember that you must answer for Direct 10. it before God and Angels and all the world and you will the better know it § 30. Direct 11. Look now but upon sickness poverty shame despair death and rottenness in the Direct 11. grave and it may a little help you to know what sin is These are things within your sight or feeling You need not saith to tell you of them And by such effects you might have some little knowledge of the cause § 31. Direct 12. Look but upon some eminent holy persons upon earth and upon the mad prophane Direct 12. malignant world and the difference may tell you in part what sin is Is there not an amiableness in a holy blameless person that liveth in love to God and man and in the joyful hopes of life eternal Is not a beastly Drunkard or Whoremonger and a raging Swearer and a malicious persecutor a very deformed loathsome creature Is not the mad confused ignorant ungodly state of the world a very pittiful sight What then is the sin that all this doth consist in Though the principal part of the Cure is in turning the Will to the haired of sin and is done by this discovery of its malignity yet I shall add a few more Directions for the executive part supposing that what is said already have had its effect § 32. Direct 1. When you have found out your disease and danger give up your selves to Christ as Direct 1. the Saviour and Physicion of souls and to the Holy Ghost as your Sanctifier remembring that he is sufficient and willing to do the work which he hath undertaken It is not you that are to be Saviours and Sanctifiers of your selves unless as you work under Christ But he that hath undertaken it doth take it for his glory to perform it § 33. Direct 2. Yet must you be willing and obedient in applying the Remedies prescribed you by Christ and observing his Directions in order to your Cure And you must not be tender and coy and fineish and say This is too bitter and that is too sharp but trust his Love and skill and care and take it as he prescribeth it or giveth it you without any more ado Say not It is grievous and I cannot take it For he commands you nothing but what is safe and wholesome and necessary and if you cannot take it you must try whether you can bear your sickness and death and the fire of Hell Is humiliation confession restitution mortification and holy diligence worse than Hell § 34. Direct 3. See that you take not part with sin and wrangle not or strive not against your Direct 3. Physicion or any that would do you good Excusing sin and pleading for it and extenuating it and striving against the Spirit and Conscience and wrangling against Ministers and godly friends and hateing reproof are not the means to be cured and sanctified § 35. Direct 4. See that malignity in every one of your particular sins which you can see and say Direct 4. is in sin in general It 's a gross deceit of your selves if you will speak a great deal of the evil of sin and see none of this malignity in your Pride and your worldliness and your passion and pievishness and your malice and uncharitableness and your lying backbiting slandering or sinning against conscience for worldly commodity or safety What self-contradiction is it for a man in prayer to aggravate sin and when he is reproved for it to justifie or excuse it For a Popish Priest to enter sinfully upon his place by subscribing or swearing the Trent Confession and then to preach zealously against sin in the general as if he had never committed so horrid a crime This is like him that will speak against Treason and the Enemies of the King but because the Traytors are his friends and kindred will protect or hide them and take their parts § 36. Direct 5. Keep as far as you can from those temptations which feed and strengthen the sins which Direct 5. you would overcome Lay siege to your sins and starve them out by keeping away the food and fewel which is their maintenance and life § 37. Direct 6. Live in the exercise of those graces and duties which are contrary to the sins which Direct 6. you are most in danger of For grace and duty is contrary to sin and killeth it and cureth us of it as the fire cureth us of cold or health of sickness § 38. Direct 7. Hearken not to weakning unbelief and distrust and cast not away the comforts of God Direct 7. which are your cordials and strength It is not a frightful dejected despairing frame of mind that is fittest to resist sin but it is the encouraging sense of the love of God and thankful sense of grace received with a cautelous fear § 39. Direct 8. Be alwayes suspicious of carnal self-love and watch against it For that is the Direct 8. burrow or fortress of sin and the common Patron of it ready to draw you to it and ready to justifie it We are very prone to be partial in our own cause as the case of Iudah with Thamar and David when Nathan reproved him in a Parable shew Our own passions our own pride our own censures or back-bitings or injurious dealings our own neglects of duty seem small excusable if not justifyable things to us whereas we could easily see the faultiness of all these in another especially in an enemy when yet we should be best acquainted with our selves and we should most love our selves and therefore hate our own sins most § 40. Direct 9. Bestow your first and chiefest labour to kill sin at the Root To cleanse the Heart Direct 9. which is the fountain For out of the heart cometh the evils of the life Know which are the Master-Roots and bend your greatest care and industry to mortifie those And that is especially these that follow 1. Ignorance 2. Unbelief 3. Inconsiderateness 4. Selfishness and Pride 5. Fleshliness in pleasing a bruitish appetite lust or fantasie 6. Senseless hard-heartedness and sleepiness in sin § 41. Direct 10. Account the world and all its pleasures wealth and honours no better than indeed Direct 10. they are and then Satan will find no bait to catch you Esteem all as dung with Paul Phil. 3. 8. And no man will sin and sell his soul for that which he accounteth but as dung § 42. Direct 11. Keep up