very timerous or at least inconstant when it comes We have a sad example of this in no less a Person than St. Peter How confident was he in protesting and promising and resolving that he would stick to Christ even to the death A threefold rashness some have observed in his behaviour in that business he opposed himself to our Saviors forewarning him of his fall He prefer'd himself indiscreetly before the rest of his fellow Disciples and he took the matter wholly upon himself as that which he thought himself upon his own strength to be well enough able to account for Though all should be offended because of thee yet would not I. I will never deny thee though I dye for it I will lay down my life for thy sake I am ready to go with thee unto prison and unto death Matt. 26.21 Jo. 13.38 And what more pregnant testimony than this of his love to Christ and resolution to adhere to him Greater love than this in the Apostles Judgment no man hath than to lay down his life for his friend And this St. Peter had if we may believe himself yea he began to express some acts of it when with his usual boldness and fervency of Spirit he manfully drew his sword in his masters quarrel And yet all this proved nothing but a piece of gallantry an heat and bravery in our Apostle he had never forcasted with himself what might ensue and his vain glorious resolution included a thousand particulars which he was not aware off For see how soon the Scene is changed This great Champion of our Saviour is of a sudden daunted and stricken out of countenance he that had his name from a rock is immediatly shaken like a reed and after so solemn an engagement and protestation not to forsake Christ tho every one else should he is driven from this steadfastness by the voice of a silly Damsel and was the first of all that not only disown'd but even with oaths and imprecations deny'd and forswore his master Surely this was written for our admonition and left upon record for a standing example of the deceitfulness of our own hearts the frailty of the greatest passions the folly of presuming upon our own strength that every man at his best estate is altogether vanity and that the deepest thoughts and most advised consultations are all little enough to support and strengthen our resolutions But secondly and more particularly it is required for the forming a fixt and steady resolution that the mind be prepar'd for all events and arm'd and fortify'd against the worst of evils that can befal us To which purpose it will highly contribute if we make these things as much as we can actuall and present to our thoughts and suppose our selves at our first setting out already incompast with all those difficulties and distresses which we may reasonably expect will afterwards assault and set upon us in our Journey Under these apprehensions it was that the prophet David here made and continued and renued his resolutions of stedfast adherence to his God The wicked says he have laid a snare for me yet I erred not from thy precepts v. 110 and 109. My soul is continually in my hands i.e. every moment ready to be snatcht out of them yet do I not forget thy law Thus v. 87. they had almost consumed me upon earth but I forsook not thy Commandments and v. 157. Many are now my persecutors and enemies yet do I not decline from thy testimonies And surely he that deliberately and entirely devotes himself to the service of religion has forcast with himself the worst that can happen and so is by that means ready and prepared with an undaunted resolution to encounter it He has considered what it is and so is well enough contented to deny himself to renounce the friendship of the world to smile upon the face of danger to hate Father and mother brother and sister lands and possessions and even life it self rather than part with that without which even life it self is not worthy the enjoying Through honour and dishonour through evil report and good report through a red sea and a wilderness through watchings and fastings through afflictions and distresses through dangers and discouragements he will press forward towards the prize of his high calling and will neither be byast from his mark by the flattering considerations of the world nor forc't from it by any terrors or sufferings whatsoever He that frames his resolution with this prospect will not so easily fail in the execution of it he foresees what he must trust to he knows the worst of it he will not have his arms to seek when the enemy is upon him and so is not likely to be surprized with sudden assaults or to be beaten off and worsted in the conflict And this is the method which our Saviour took with his Disciples and also with others who offer'd themselves to be his proselites He acquaints them before hand what they must look for in divers places plainly teling them that they must expect in this world the worst of temporal evils that so they might be enabled to meet them with courage and resolution and habituate their minds to entertain them We read Mat. 8.19 that a certain Scribe struck with admiration of our Saviours miracles was very earnest to become one of his Disciples He comes to him with a very forward profession of his Zeal to serve him Master I will follow thee wheresoever thou goest Our Saviour to try what grounds he had for such a confident resolution informs him how mean and contemptible his worldly condition was the Foxes have holes and the Birds of the Air have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head He bad him think of this and then resolve what to doe We do not indeed read what became of him afterwards but from the silence of the Evangelists it is very probable that he slunk away in the Croud as frustrated and disappointed in his mighty hopes and expectations And thus our Saviour frequently deals with those whom he had chosen for his Disciples In the world ye shall have tribulation Joh. 16.33 Ye shall be hated of all men for my name sake Mark 13.13 And if this should not alwaies happen to be their lot yet the constant resolution to undergoe this heavy task was absolutly necessary For Matt. 10.24 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. And if they have called the master of the house Belzebub how much more shall they call them of his houshold and v. 36. He that taketh not up his Cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me And least we should think these to be only Counsels of perfection or particular injunctions as some doe and not necessary precepts to which all Christians are obliged our Saviour
things that it attempts how it goes through against greater difficulties than the ways of vertue are encumbred with And we may be sure in the present Case that it will prosper in the thing it undertakes and unless men have a mind to be conquered and basely desert their resolutions they cannot miscarry This will prove an effectual remedy against the main mistakes errors and imperfections of our lives secure us from unsettledness and flitting from one thing to another and keep us stedfast in our duty fix and fasten us to our business It will confirm settle and stablish the fickleness and slipperiness of our hearts which without this are very various and changeable and like a ship without ballast ready to be overturned with every wind that blows against it It will preserve us from being faint and weary when we meet with any unexpected obstacles in runing the race that is set before us It will make our conversation all of apiece breed a constancy and unswaydness in our lives and actions make us firm and immoveable in the practise of religion to continue and persevere in our Course to add to our faith vertue and so onward to go from strength to strength until we appear before God in glory 2d A firm and well settled resolution will prove a powerful preservative against Satans temptations It will either discourage and dishearten them or else enable us to repel them The Devil hath but small hope to seduce and mislead a resolved Christian when he discerns men in earnest to stand upon their guard watch to avoid all opportunities and occasions to prepare and fortify against him there he will not stay to receive a baffle and disapointment he will leave off soliciting when he sees 't is to no purpose And surely if we survey and sum up all the forces which the Devil the world and the most dangerous enemy our own flesh are able to raise against us all means and devices stratagems and policies whereby they continually attempt to abuse and ruine us there is force enough in a holy resolution to frustrate and defeat them all For it is not here as in other wars where the bravest gallantry and resolution may be sometimes overpowred and vanquished But in our conflict with our Spiritual enemies we can never be conquered as long as we hold our resolutions unless we make a cowardly and dishonourable retreat or shamefully consent to our own overthrow For let the Devil do his worst let him discourage or allure assault and storm us we can never be vanquished if we will not yield Temptation puts on its strength according to the frame and temper of our wills and as long as we are unwilling all the Divels in hell cannot force us upon a sin Temptations may knock at our hearts but they cannot enter unless we open the doors and let them in When ever therefore thou findest thy self tempted to the commission of a sin especially thy bosom thy beloved sin the sin that does so easily beset thee which thy Soul delights in be assured that it comes upon Satans errand do not treat with it but call up all thy former Vows Oaths Covenants and resolutions say I have sworn and am stedfastly purposed to live in obedience to my maker How shall I do this great wickedness and sin against God Away from me ye wicked for I will keep the commandments of my God I am engaged by a solemn vow the strongest bond I can think of and have taken a Sacrament upon it never to admit that into my heart whereby I have been formerly betray'd If the devil further endeavor to fright thee with the Crosses and reproaches that thou art hereby exposed to that thou wilt probably suffer many things not very grateful and pleasing to flesh and blood say 't is no more then I look't for the Cross is no scandal to me I have sworn to fight manfully under Christs banner and to continue his faithful souldier and servant to my lives end I know well enough upon what terms I listed my self in his Service and I 'le not desert it whatsoever shall befal me These considerations with the assistance of Gods Grace will by degrees work thee up into St. Pauls resolution that neither life nor death things present nor things to come shall be able to separate thee from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Collect for the 2d Sunday after Epiphany And thou O God that knowest us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot alwaies stand upright Grant to us such strength and protection as may support us in all dangers and carry us thro all temptations thro Jesus Christ our Lord to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all Honour and Glory World without end Amen FINIS
Idols before the living God they might the more easily and of their own accord yield an explicit consent to his proposal totally renounce and detest all false worship and adhere to the true Religion with their utmost vigor and resolution And this effect it had upon them v. 15. God forbid say they that we should forsake the Lord to serve other Gods and v. 21. Nay but we will serve the Lord. Whereupon for the greater solemnity of the whole transaction Joshua sets up a stone as a memorial to them of the obligations they lay under and also a testimony against them if ever they fell off from such a deliberate resolution And surely whoever undertakes the business of religion will be sensible in a little time that it required and needed the most solemn and serious deliberation He will soon find it to be an enterprize that will engage his whole strength and all his powers for the atchievement of it that it is a work of difficulty as well as importance and accordingly represented in Scripture under the harsh names of Mortification and Crucifixion that it is a striveing to enter into the straight Gate and walking in the narrow way the subduing our most forcible inclinations the cutting off a right hand and the plucking out a right eye an utter detesting of the dearest closest and most affectionate lusts and the denying our selves some of the most pleasant gratifications of flesh and blood He will quickly experience the frailty fickleness and inconstancy of his will the subtilty of Satan the deceitfulness of sin and the treachery and falshood of his own heart the snares that are laid for him the dangers that surround him the enemies that lye in wait for him the temptations from within and from without that are by one means or other alwaies thrusting him upon his ruin And when he has but slightly considered this he will need no argument to convince him that all his most specious and glittering resolutions will quickly vanish and come to nothing unless they are founded in a deep sense of the importance of the duty of the motives and arguments to embrace it together with the labour he must undergoe the delays he must sustain and the discouragements he must meet with in the discharge of it The want hereof is the true and immediate Cause of most of those shameful Apostacys which have caused the enemies of God to blaspheme and made the way of truth to be evil spoken of when men beginning in the spirit have ended in the flesh and after they have known the way of righteousness turn'd from the Holy Commandment delivered unto them Many there are that are sometimes in a good mood in a fit of devotion when their hearts are warm'd with some affectionate discourse when they are surprized with some sad accident or disaster which disappoints them of the pleasure that they expected from iniquity or when God lays siege to them by Sickness or some other pinching affliction so that the provisions of lust have lost their relish with them for the present and the calamity has embitter'd the pleasantness of the temptation In this case it is very usual with men to be very liberal in their promises Covenants and resolutions But when the fit is over when Gods hand is taken off and the allurements of sin grow strong enough to present themselves again they unravel all their former vows the heart returns to its old byas and upon the approach of the next temptation their goodness vanishes like a morning Cloud and like the early Dew it passeth away When Nebuchadnezar laid Siege against Jerusalem Jer. 34. the Jews made a solemn Covenant with the Lord to set free their servants but no sooner had the King removed his siege but they retracted and repealed their vows and brought their servants back again into their former bondage And the reason hereof is plain For in such a Case the motive of their resolution is not adequate to the matter they resolve upon the foundation is too narrow for the superstructure and where the principle is particular and temporary it can never be a sufficient ground of a general and constant resolution A resolution that arises from the sense of a present evil or the fear of an approaching danger will ordinarily last no longer than the calamity that occasioned it And so as mens fears abate their virtuous resolutions fall off together with them since that short and transient principle which first gave them life is no longer able to support them For there can be no more strength in the conclusion than in the premises and as their motives change their resolutions must change too No wonder therefore if the temtations return as strong as ever and prevail as much against the resolution as ever the resolution prevailed against the sin And this is usually the fatal issue of all those other hasty light vain and unsettled purposes of men which arise from heat or passion or a sudden transport of zeal or any the like principle which is not commensurate to the whole compass and extent of their duty The principles are weak and wavering and so can beget no other than faint and floating resolutions The Jews Jo. 6.15 upon the sight of our Saviors miracles were of a sudden so highly transported with love to him that they resolv'd nothing should hinder them but they would e'en take him by force and make him a King And yet at another time when the Pharisees who knew well enough how to doe it had slily insinuated into their pliable and unresolv'd affections they cryed out against him as against a slave Crucify him Crucify him we have no King but Caesar This then is the difference between reason and passion in forming a good purpose and resolution The former does not prevent or anticipate but slowly follows and attends the mature Counsels of the mind it first brings the matter to a grave and calm deliberation and thence wisely and sedately proceeds to action and execution But the other is impatient of serious thinking as being a tedious and irksome task and so setting forward too speedily without Counsel usually comes off too cowardly without Courage This is that temper which old Jacob reproves in Reuben his first-born Gen. 49.4 Unstable as water which some render rash and hasty others light and inconstant and the one is ordinarily a consequent of the other and therefore he could not excell not only in the number of his tribe Deut. 33.6 but neither in valour courage or any excellent atchievement The same is taxt by Solomon Pro. 14.29 he that is hasty of Spirit exalteth folly i.e. he makes his folly manifest to the world by rashly adventuring upon that which when it comes to tryal he is not able to go through with They that are the most forward and bold in an undertaking are often found to fall off most shamefully in the encounter and the greatest boasters before a danger are commonly